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Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

I'm not joking when I say I want to write software for this thing that can help you get the most out of a psychedelic experience. I think the combination could be powerfully positive (or negative, of course).

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If you're actually interested in working on combining psychedelics with VR, here's a lab doing exactly that, which is currently hiring: https://www.intangiblerealitieslab.org/join-us

It is academic work though, so the salary is not very competitive.

Indeed, it doesn't seem competitive even for academia. 36k euros is just above EU minimum wage, I think.

It's low for a tech job, but not even near minimum wage, and some countries doesn't even have minimum wage in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_member_...

It is onsite in Spain, where I believe the avg salary is about 10k below or so.

But yeah, it is low. In particular they seem to be looking for an ML researcher who is supposed to get even less.

This reminds me of the time me and some friends took LSD at a zoo.

We ended up realising we were way more fascinated by the signs than any of the animials.

Then ended up hysterically laughing when we realised that we were at a zoo mesmerised by everything but the things we planned to be mesmerised by

Signs are quite potent signals, static objects designed to inform and direct. It's only by long habituation that we ignore their power. I'm not at all surprised that they captured your attention!

Harry Nilson once took LCD and realized when looking at the trees that they all ended in points. They are points on points and that was the point.

This was the inspiration for his part story album "The Point".

I believe Brian Eno created a generative audio-based version of this. Each session is a unique composition.

EDIT: It was an app called Wavepaths, here is a link to the Rolling Stone article. (https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/hot-digita...)

EDIT pt.2: Here is the app itself. (https://wavepaths.com/)

Todd Rundgren wrote (or produced) an Mac app in 1990 called “Flowfazer” that was intended for meditative visuals. I remember lots of “is this what computers are supposed to be for” articles at the time.

Link anyone?

>I'm not joking when I say I want to write software for this thing that can help you get the most out of a psychedelic experience. I think the combination could be powerfully positive (or negative, of course).

On the negative side, I think it the Vision Pro just needs a HYPER DEMON port.

The reviews are a treat (seizure warning):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1743850/HYPER_DEMON/

it'd be interesting to shape the experience based off of biometrics from an apple watch as well as pupil dilation/eye movement if possible.

yes, ideally it would be generative and reactive. There was a throw-away idea at the end of Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" that altered the appearance of a woman based on your reaction, to make her more and more attractive to you...this idea generalizes in some interesting ways. Even better if there existed a small affordable fMRI machine or at least a way to measure alpha, delta, theta waves etc and maximize those.

At the same time terrifying, I’m happy that they mentioned they’re closing off that area from developer access. I don’t want the app to know where I’m looking, or how I’m looking

Yeah, they would get pretty bad press if people were to find out it's being used by the Saudi family for interrogations before bone sawing.

Why would you be joking, that's a great idea lol

I have no doubt that Jeff Minter will be right on that ...

https://www.polygon.com/23613576/jeff-minter-profile-akka-ar...

I simultaneously want Jeff Minter involved and not at the same time.

The experience would be wild but he has a habit of also releasing a lot of stuff on doomed systems. Atari Jaguar, PLaystation Vita, Nuon for example. That said when you have released like 100 games, eventually you will launch on platforms with no future.

But having Tempest come out of the walls... oh man!

Yikes. Imagine being so messed up that you forgot you had the headset on and became trapped in an altered world.

You’ll be back when the battery dies.

Or just accept that you have died, until the psychedelics wear off.

god forbid you are plugged into the wall - you'll be stuck until your power bill isn't paid

Getting interrupted mid-trip must be very annoying, or so I have heard.

So, a mundane episode of Black Mirror.

Do you know about this Psychedelic Cryptography Contest?

https://qri.org/blog/psycrypto-contest

The idea was to make visual content were the message can only be received while tripping.

That is fucked up. Priming people to receive hidden messages whilst tripping is a setup for a bad time

This reminds me of "Enter the Void" a movie shot in first person where in one of the scenes the hero is having an acid trip

Best of luck getting through app store approval.

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