Tripping Californians who paved the way to our touchscreen world (2017)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
That being said, there is an actual causal relationship between LSD and HyperCard: "Inspired by a mind-expanding LSD journey in 1985, I designed the HyperCard authoring system that enabled non-programmers to make their own interactive media."¹ — Bill Atkinson
For more, see the Mondo 2000 article, "The Psychedelic Inspiration For Hypercard".²
¹ https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
² http://www.mondo2000.com/2018/06/18/the-inspiration-for-hype...
It's the transition or inflection point that was inspiring, like movie goers in the 1930's who were only used to black and white movies going to see Wizard of Oz and being amazed that it turned into color, something they had never seen. But it was much more profound than that because it felt possible to rewrite the world to be a better place if enough people took LSD. Nobody feels that way today.
We brush over how remarkable it was that they even recognised that and tried to do something different. Even those who didn’t take part got at least some sense of it through the music and art of the time.
My dad is less like my mom, but he'll give me hell about this shit and call me lazy. My parents don't recognize the free time they have and fill it with obligations. I'd rather spend 1 day doing all the chores than filling my 3-day Christmas weekend with them and never relaxing.
They look down at the few possessions and responsibilities I keep. I'm happier and I can't share that. They'll never see it.
Sure a little mind altering experience can be an inspiration to some, but it’s not at all unique or required for young people to want change.
Religion, the authority of parents/elders, finding a mate and building and supporting a family; these were powerful forces for hundreds of years and people snapped to them pretty reliably. Until the 60's.
I'm not a historian so it's very likely there are counterexamples I'm not thinking of.
Yup you’re not a historian and missing very much of the social development that happened for example, between 1850 and 1930. A lot of basic freedoms people don’t even think about when developed in these times.
An example of things not being the same is Christmas which was a drunken party in the Middle Ages through until mid 19th century and the modern family centered Christmas was basically created by Charles dickens with a Christmas Carol and still it wasn’ta widespread generally celebrated holiday until the post-WWII prosperity and class equality in the 1950s.
A lot of what you might think of as “things which were always like this” from the 50s was actually people seeking normalcy post war adopting conservative “traditional” lifestyles which were actually quite different than the past.
Not sure why you are being downvoted, there are still plenty of places in rural Europe where, after a family dinner, the burning of a Yule in the village centre is pretty much an excuse for the whole village to get drunk together.
Your example is orthogonal to the GP's question of every generation always rebelling against the previous generation.
Christmas is just one holiday, specific to Christianity, and not really representative of religion broadly in terms of daily rituals, beliefs, and practices.
I get the impression that a customer-facing employee might not get the same level of impact other than, maybe, in an aspect of personal life.
during the late 70s he would often play guitar on acid. He felt great and that his music was among the best he ever played. He then asked to be recorded in one of those sessions/concerts where he gave his very best.
Few days later he went to the studio, excited to hear what he produced in that session and..he just couldn't listen to it. It was awful, the worst of his recorded performances ever by far. Missing notes and beats out of time, pointless arpeggios, just terrible.
He then decided that he was never ever going to do anything related to his profession on drugs.
I too tried to code and do professional stuff on drugs in the past. It just doesn't work. You may enable a part of your brain that gets less used when you're normal, but you entirely lose the relevant one evolution gave you to process information and distinguish between good and bad idea. You also get super lazy.
Thus I second your thinking: they probably thought of touch or other devices when high not because of it.
Also, I'd like to add that I think those stories are only good when not fact checked. Didn't 2001: Space Odissey feature advanced touch devices that streamed video, had video calls, productivity and much more? That's a 1968 movie and I'm quite confident it was probably not the first thing those devices where imagined.
I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for the moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience, and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling characters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): “A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.”
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/03/31/turpentine-prevails...
The main difference compared to alcohol, weed, and a lot of other drugs is that it leaves a fairly long-lasting change. And not in a way that's like "oh, I am still feeling it", but more like how I imagine ketamine is supposed to work (never took it, so cannot validate personally) - while the drug is acting, you process and realize certain things that you had been unknowingly suppressing in your daily life, all while feeling funky. Once the drug wears off, you don't feel funky anymore, but you remember the parts you had been suppressing until that point, and now you can think through and process them normally and fully sober. So it isn't the drug itself still acting, you just ended up realizing certain things, and that realization let you consciously think about them later.
Of course, it is also possible to have an acid trip where you don't realize anything and just waste your time on it. But imo that's a fool's errand, because acid doesn't feel that enjoyable just or "fun" on its own. At least it never did to me. But I am immensely glad the few times in my life I gave it a try. I would not call those experiences fun at all, but certain realizations about the direction of my life and my place in lives of others stuck with me (after i processed them sober later). And imo I, and people around me, are better off due to that.
P.S. I am one of those people who cannot write any good code or be productive when drinking alcohol at all, not even the smallest amount that will make me feel it. Same with weed. And I am acutely aware of it.
I think it reduces inhibitions, which has tradeoffs. There's a lot of crap, but there's also a lot more than I'd usually write, and sometimes it's stuff I'd never have written out sober (for good or bad reasons).
I'd say it's a worthwhile endeavor on occasion for recreation, and unlikely to help professionally, at least for me.
That's a super dystopian end-game. :(
— Anonymous
“The tripping Californians”
(I think the “the” makes it clearer)
Talks about Google's "material design" as recent. Did anything ever use that much?
He led the design group. I have no idea if he dropped acid during his time working there but I sure hope so!