[speakeasy]

I'm sure we've all swallowed the red pill on women. Do you have other beliefs that contain uncomfortable truths contrary to the comfortable lies that are conventional wisdom for the mainstream public?

One of mine is education. I have much more respect for a someone who forgoes college to start a business than I do some PhD with a $100,000 diploma in humanities. Convention wisdom is that everyone should go to college, but for many young and naive students, they are just lambs being led to slaughter. Almost nobody I know is actually working in the field that they studied, yet owe all this debt. Of course there's nothing wrong with college if you are going into a field where you genuinely need it, like STEM fields, law, medicine, education. Instead of by default telling high school kids they MUST go to college, each kid should be evaluated on his ambitions and abilities. College at this point seems as exploitative a multi-billion dollar industry as tobacco.

I have some others that I'll post later.

[Hades]

I'm not a drug user or alcoholic, but for me it was that first time I got hammered at a party and found out that it was fun. All of a sudden, everything they taught me in DARE class about how smoking and drinking kills you instantly was complete bullshit.

[Giovonny]

Almost everything is not as it seems...

Healthcare
Food
Medicine
Exercise
Education
Owning a home
The stock market
Investing
The economy
Retirement
The news
War
Politics
History
Love
Dating
Race relations
Gender relations


These things are presented one way but the truth is often very different. It really is like The Matrix. We are taught to believe certain things but often these beliefs don't serve us, they serve our masters. We are pawns. Our hard work often ensures other people will profit, people who are already much wealthier then us.

[hypesession]

Nothing was ever the same after I did acid and mushrooms.

Also when I could handle smoking marijuana and started smoking regularly.

[Giovonny]

(08-16-2012 06:07 PM)hypesession Wrote:  

Nothing was ever the same after I did acid and mushrooms.

Can you explain?

What changed? How/why did it change?

[AntiTrace]

Politics are fucked and the majority of people that obsess about them have ulterior motives or simply nothing better to spend their time on. The extreme left or the extreme right are never good choices. I understand having personal views, but I will never trust a person that will forgo all statistical evidence and refuse to even consider a different course of action.

I lose all respect for any politician that launches a mud slinging campaign against a fellow opponent. Actions speak larger than words and I cant vote for anyone that chooses to spend time belittling their opposition instead of improving their positions. Its almost like they think everyone is retarded when they flip-flop their views depending on what voting demographic they are targeting.

Local politicians are the worse. Do I really need to see your name on 20+ signs pounded into the ground at every other highway off-ramp? Why would I trust that person, who is obviously squandering massive amounts of money in order to get elected, to be fit to be a part of our countries leadership? If they want the job so bad, are they willing to stand by their views when their job is in jeopardy or will the simply turn over a new leaf supporting the new popular opinion? When I see their 50+ fanboys marching in parades armed with massive signs and quirkly little chants all I envision is the rallies of Hitlers youth.

Its not that I have a strict no-voting policy. I just haven't found a single person that portrays an image that is worthy of my vote. I am sure they are out there, and I hope I find one some day.

Show me a candidate with humility. One that doesn't claim to have the answer to every singly fucking problem we are facing. One that doesn't sling mud at his opponent or try to belittle him/her simply because they are a challenge to their desired position. One that instead of trying to cover up the problems of his past, he is open about the situation and can explain the lessons learned in the process. One that can provide an unbiased intellectual analysis for multiple courses of action for a given problem. One that openly seeks help and advice from others.

Show me that guy, and he will have my vote.


edit - Ill stop the rant there but I will add reality tv shows. I rarely watch TV, but fuck me it is annoying when I do just want to sit back and watch the tube on occasion all I kind find are 30+ reality tv shows listed. Of which a good 4-5 are always in the same category. Its enough to make a man want to club a baby seal.

[hypesession]

(08-16-2012 06:10 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  

(08-16-2012 06:07 PM)hypesession Wrote:  

Nothing was ever the same after I did acid and mushrooms.

Can you explain?

What changed? How/why did it change?

Acid is a personal experience. Everything I thought was real on a day to day basis was insignificant and the things I had little grasp on in my conscious mind came to the forefront, like the universe, the unity of things, energy, the power of the mind. Like that. It's hard to explain with words.

With regard to weed, it's kind of another level of thinking. I would read and smoke and would understand what I was reading differently as if I had stepped into the author's body and wrote the words, as if the writer was talking to me and I could perceive their tone of voice.

It's sounds stupid but if you have not dropped acid it's difficult to explain effectively.

Joe Rogan talks a lot about psychedelics. Simple google search you'll find stuff.
There's also a book called Acid Dreams: A Complete Social History of LSD. I've read it and recommend it.

[polymath]

Not to be critical to hypesession...just a differing perspective spurred by the same topic:

I think most people who consider psychedelics to be a source of sacred realization in their lives, including Steve Jobs, are people who get lost in their own heads and lose touch with many aspects of their interaction with the world. As a result, they become more creative, but only because their focus shifts. This is why you won't see many successful engineers who talk about visiting the shroom kingdom, but tons of artists, poets, writers, and musicians make it a central aspect of their life.

Maybe what I'm getting at is, everything you do in life should be tailored to what you want. You know you're headed somewhere good when you feel two things:

1) a burning, consuming desire for something better
2) terror and fatigue on the path to achieving it

Nothing good comes easy. That's my red pill realization. All the people who talk about aspirations, let them talk. Shift their attitudes out of your vantage. Put your shoulder to your own self, and push.

[kolovrat]

I am a convinced HBD'er though I avoid discussing this in detail on here out of respect to Roosh who has a very negative opinion towards it.

I also consider AGW to be real and a serious threat. That would be considered a radical red pill belief in some quarters especially the nuttier parts of the conservative movement.

[Veloce]

Drugs-I've done everything under the sun except heroin-can be extremely beneficial.

When I took acid for the first time, I remember thinking, "I had a feeling this was out there, but I wanted to see with my own eyes." If you haven't taken hallucinogens, that sentence might not make much sense. I've had some real "What Dreams May Come" moments on hallucinogens, of seeing the most beautiful and awe-inspiring things. I've also been down the dark path and seen plenty of fucked up shit, got friends who've been locked up, attempted suicide, all kinds of shit. It all led to a very serious phase in my life when I was into meditation, mystics, mental and spiritual exploration, eastern religion. It's been years since I've come out of all of it, and the one very positive thing that it instilled in me was unattachment. People today get attached to everything that's tactile: sex, money, possessions, etc. Psychedelic and meditative exploration was so much more rewarding and exciting to me (actually to the point that you get attached to that too, so you have to realize that at some point), I realized that possessions meant very little. I met some crazy motherfuckers, homeless guys that were fucked up and diseased but absolutely ecstatic and high on life. It felt good to be part of a subculture for a while; I was genuinely happy. I was exposed to something that showed me I could be happy without the wife, house, kids, car, belongings. Those things never felt right to me on an instinctual level, I never craved them in a natural state.

When I started getting "worldly", concerned with making money, banging hot sluts, etc, I did it to experience that too, not to get attached to it. I like to think I still carry this mindset. I went into this worldly nonsense knowing it's all a game, and that at any moment, I can cop out and go back to the internal world and find peace.

It's a naive assumption, especially with those just getting into drugs/psychedelics/meditation, that everyone has a similar, usually positive reaction. They don't. I've seen some bad times. *I've* never had a bad trip (probably 60+ acid/mushroom trips) because of who I am. I'm not capable of having a bad trip. Bad trips happen when people resist the thing that is passing over them. People can have bad trips when they do a meditation they're not ready for. Despair and depression while under the influence of a drug or meditative state can really fuck you up.

I mention hallucinogens and meditation because I think they are the most potent red pills that exist; taken properly, they literally rearrange your hardwiring and can change you for life. This is one of the roles of the medicine man, to guide initiates and travellers around their internal world and guide them. These substances and practices are merely very strong tools, not to be taken lightly or just for recreation purposes (although it's fun as fuck)

I disagree that those of us who consider them sacred have lost touch with anything. It certainly happens to people who abuse the tools, and this is common in the states with such a high drug use problem, but taken under the right circumstances and the right amount of understanding, it's an experience that firmly solidifies one's place in the world.

I might've just outed myself as the forum loony toon with this post, but so be it.

[raliv]

Here is one you might not hear:

I think Secession is the only viable political option to save the people from the corruption of Washington DC.

[polymath]

(08-16-2012 09:44 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

I disagree that those of us who consider them sacred have lost touch with anything. It certainly happens to people who abuse the tools, and this is common in the states with such a high drug use problem, but taken under the right circumstances and the right amount of understanding, it's an experience that firmly solidifies one's place in the world.

I might've just outed myself as the forum loony toon with this post, but so be it.

hahaha @ the loony toon part.

I don't mean that people are losing their minds, just that drugs can make people release themselves from certain parts of life, and reach out for other parts of life. Lots of things in life are a tradeoff, and maybe mental awareness is one of those things. When you choose to turn your mental lens toward one subject, the others shift out of view. And when you focus on one thing, everything else becomes a fuzzy blur.

[hypesession]

(08-16-2012 10:14 PM)polymath Wrote:  

(08-16-2012 09:44 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

I disagree that those of us who consider them sacred have lost touch with anything. It certainly happens to people who abuse the tools, and this is common in the states with such a high drug use problem, but taken under the right circumstances and the right amount of understanding, it's an experience that firmly solidifies one's place in the world.

I might've just outed myself as the forum loony toon with this post, but so be it.

hahaha @ the loony toon part.

I don't mean that people are losing their minds, just that drugs can make people release themselves from certain parts of life, and reach out for other parts of life. Lots of things in life are a tradeoff, and maybe mental awareness is one of those things. When you choose to turn your mental lens toward one subject, the others shift out of view. And when you focus on one thing, everything else becomes a fuzzy blur.

For example?

[Gmac]

(08-16-2012 07:27 PM)hypesession Wrote:  

(08-16-2012 06:10 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  

(08-16-2012 06:07 PM)hypesession Wrote:  

Nothing was ever the same after I did acid and mushrooms.

Can you explain?

What changed? How/why did it change?

Acid is a personal experience. Everything I thought was real on a day to day basis was insignificant and the things I had little grasp on in my conscious mind came to the forefront, like the universe, the unity of things, energy, the power of the mind. Like that. It's hard to explain with words.

With regard to weed, it's kind of another level of thinking. I would read and smoke and would understand what I was reading differently as if I had stepped into the author's body and wrote the words, as if the writer was talking to me and I could perceive their tone of voice.

It's sounds stupid but if you have not dropped acid it's difficult to explain effectively.

Joe Rogan talks a lot about psychedelics. Simple google search you'll find stuff.
There's also a book called Acid Dreams: A Complete Social History of LSD. I've read it and recommend it.

Pretty much the same experience for me when I did shrooms. I "understood" the universe and felt connected, at least for a few hours. Mind-expanding stuff, but it's been about 5 years.

[Veloce]

(08-16-2012 10:14 PM)polymath Wrote:  

(08-16-2012 09:44 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

I disagree that those of us who consider them sacred have lost touch with anything. It certainly happens to people who abuse the tools, and this is common in the states with such a high drug use problem, but taken under the right circumstances and the right amount of understanding, it's an experience that firmly solidifies one's place in the world.

I might've just outed myself as the forum loony toon with this post, but so be it.

hahaha @ the loony toon part.

I don't mean that people are losing their minds, just that drugs can make people release themselves from certain parts of life, and reach out for other parts of life. Lots of things in life are a tradeoff, and maybe mental awareness is one of those things. When you choose to turn your mental lens toward one subject, the others shift out of view. And when you focus on one thing, everything else becomes a fuzzy blur.

I do agree with the tradeoff aspect. Hence "Turn on, tune in, drop out" aspect. Turn on to mind expansion, tune in to your inner world, drop out of the external, at least that was always my take on Tim Leary's wise words. You don't find a lot of people pursuing doctorates while taking hallucinogens regularly in their time off.

Once I got over the initial thrills of watching the walls melt and kaleidascope patterns emerging everywhere, I started putting myself through little mental tests, just thinking about commonplace things and whatnot, while high on acid. The result was interesting, it was a monologue in my head like, "What do I think about this or that?" and some answer would pop up, with a very different approach than my sober rational mind. It got to the point where I would take it casually and put myself through random scenarios like walking to the store to buy a gallon of milk, completely on acid. These sessions took some getting used to, and on more than one occasion I had to have a friend come pick me up and get me the fuck out of wherever I was, but it was insane, really fucking insane, to be interacting with sober everyday people while you're high on acid. People will never appear more sheeplike and robotic than during one of those interactions.

[polymath]

(08-16-2012 10:26 PM)hypesession Wrote:  

(08-16-2012 10:14 PM)polymath Wrote:  

(08-16-2012 09:44 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

I disagree that those of us who consider them sacred have lost touch with anything. It certainly happens to people who abuse the tools, and this is common in the states with such a high drug use problem, but taken under the right circumstances and the right amount of understanding, it's an experience that firmly solidifies one's place in the world.

I might've just outed myself as the forum loony toon with this post, but so be it.

hahaha @ the loony toon part.

I don't mean that people are losing their minds, just that drugs can make people release themselves from certain parts of life, and reach out for other parts of life. Lots of things in life are a tradeoff, and maybe mental awareness is one of those things. When you choose to turn your mental lens toward one subject, the others shift out of view. And when you focus on one thing, everything else becomes a fuzzy blur.

For example?

You know what opportunity cost is right? I have a certain amount of time, for example 24 hours in a day. I get to choose how I spend that 24 hours. I can read a book, learn how to cook a new dish, take a nap, read Gmac's post history.....anything. But of course, I only get 24 hours. That's 1440 minutes. Not much time, especially considering that every moment I spend on one thing, is lost to all the others.

I can't spend the same moment in two different ways. Same goes for money. I can buy you some fries with a dollar and some change, but once I hand over the money, I can't spend it again.

All of this is obvious, but the reason I express it is because I think focus is the same way. Every man sees a different picture of the world, and in that picture he finds his understanding of his environment, as well as some indication of meaning regarding the future.

But surely he can't see the whole picture clearly, for what it is. Even if he tries to see the big picture, he will miss some of the nuance.

I think psychedelics are like this. They amplify certain experiences, and can make a momentary thought cyclical. The experience they provide can be meaningless fun, or it can provide a feeling of profound introspection. They shift your focus.....it doesn't necessarily become better or worse....just different.

I've seen a lot of people who go through life using drugs, and plenty who don't touch them too. Generally there isn't much difference in their intellect or accomplishments, just a lot of difference in the way they choose to view the world.

Hope that answers your question.

[I'mWaitingForTheMan]

You all are a bunch of fucking wishy-washy hippie dope heads.

But seriously there's this quote that I think is very generally red pill and I try to apply it to my life each day:

"The universe is change. Our lives are what our thoughts make them."

[Excelsior]

(08-16-2012 05:40 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

One of mine is education. I have much more respect for a someone who forgoes college to start a business than I do some PhD with a $100,000 diploma in humanities. Convention wisdom is that everyone should go to college, but for many young and naive students, they are just lambs being led to slaughter. Almost nobody I know is actually working in the field that they studied, yet owe all this debt. Of course there's nothing wrong with college if you are going into a field where you genuinely need it, like STEM fields, law, medicine, education. Instead of by default telling high school kids they MUST go to college, each kid should be evaluated on his ambitions and abilities. College at this point seems as exploitative a multi-billion dollar industry as tobacco.

I have similar thoughts regarding education and debt.

With regards to schools, prestige is not always better. Most folks have a tendency to chase the "big name" and the "prestige" (ex: Ivy League, Stanford, etc) at the expense of opportunities elsewhere. Colleges exploit this, since these same folks will be willing to go into $200k worth of debt for the big name as opposed to heading to the state school for free.

The problem is that the big name is not always the best deal. The real key to getting the most out of your higher education is to minimize debt while still maintaining decent employment prospects, and expensive schools do not always allow you to do this.

Many kids end up going to the pricier school at sticker price with very little aid because they reason it will provide more employment opportunities. They are right, but the problem is that while the employment opportunities are better, not everyone gets the six-figure gig at Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan right out. If you fail to graduate magna cum laude (as 80-90% of kids do) and get that very elite gig, that $160-200k in private debt you racked up could really drag you down. With that amount of debt, you basically have to snag a near six figure job right out of college to minimize the impact, and that's not a given even at an Ivy.

As you can imagine, a mass of kids just get trapped. They've got massive, private debts of well over $100k and approaching $200k sometimes, but they can't get the jobs necessary to cover those payments without seriously impacting their standard of living. They're forced to delay homeownership, family formation and a host of other things that are important to them because of this.

Since so many of these kids are also gunning for grad school, this can often get worse. Quite a few will insist on paying sticker for a top law/med/business school, and get very little aid for it. Combine their grad and undergrad debt when all is said and done, and lots of people are easily looking at $200-250k in debt. Some are coming very near to $300,000.
They put themselves in a situation where they are forced to snag a $160-200k/year "biglaw"/banking/hedge fund job in NYC right out of school just to get by. Of course, even at top grad schools not everyone can do this (especially in a recession), so a lot of kids are forced to settle for lower pay and just struggle along on what would be a perfectly healthy salary for someone with less debt. Medicine is particularly rough since students must struggle mightily through residency, unable to come close to making enough to offset the loans they have.

Some of this hardship can be avoided if folks focused more on minimizing the debt load before they decided to attend a given institution. As it is, many still continue to focus on prestige and pedigree. As long as that goes on, the only ones laughing will be school administrators and banks.

Bottomline: Don't bother with pricy schools unless you are wealthy enough to pay it outright, poor enough to get a ton of financial aid, or otherwise able to minimize debt loads. Six figure debt loads are never worth it, regardless of prestige/pedigree. If said debt loads are all you can get, head to a public school and take the money. You may not have as good a shot at Goldman Sachs, but you'll probably be able to get strong grades and a reasonably well paying job without a non-dischargeable black cloud hanging over your head for most of your career.
Don't put yourself in the debt trap where failure to secure that elusive top job right out becomes a death sentence.

[Enfant_Terrible]

(08-16-2012 05:40 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

I'm sure we've all swallowed the red pill on women. Do you have other beliefs that contain uncomfortable truths contrary to the comfortable lies that are conventional wisdom for the mainstream public?

One of mine is education. I have much more respect for a someone who forgoes college to start a business than I do some PhD with a $100,000 diploma in humanities. Convention wisdom is that everyone should go to college, but for many young and naive students, they are just lambs being led to slaughter. Almost nobody I know is actually working in the field that they studied, yet owe all this debt. Of course there's nothing wrong with college if you are going into a field where you genuinely need it, like STEM fields, law, medicine, education. Instead of by default telling high school kids they MUST go to college, each kid should be evaluated on his ambitions and abilities. College at this point seems as exploitative a multi-billion dollar industry as tobacco.

I have some others that I'll post later.

speakeasy, I'm in education who taught underprivileged kids and I share a similar view. I think dismantling public education is a start to solving our (american) educational crisis. Many kids who are "underachievers, failures, and delinquents" at school have different reasons why they are so, but the most common thing that binds them is that they don't give a shit about schooling.

The government forces them to be schooled, and then their deadbeat parents (who themselves could give a shit about schooling) are forced to put them in a school, so education becomes a coerced endeavor instead of a being pleasurable, fulfilling, and enlightening. I think we should simply give society the freedom to raise the children however they want.

Ivan Illich is an Austrian philosopher and social critic who shares our views. He wrote a book in 1971 called Deschooling Society.

Read the book quotes in the link, he even foreshadows the peer-to-peer function of the internet.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Aaaaaanyway.... here are my other red pill views/lifestyle:

There should be more effort in recruiting male teachers. Too many female teachers inadvertently pussifying or punishing young men because they don't understand masculine nature.
How? Increase pay, remove draconian policies like NCLB and Race to the Top, peer-reviewed educational standards, peer-reviewed professional teacher evaluations and give society the freedom with educating kids. Read this for more.

You don't need a gym membership to get fit. I do Convict Conditioning. I won't get big sooner, but later.

You don't need tv or radio. Ads are fucking annoying. You have the internet.

Silence and serenity is under-appreciated.

Twitter and the rest of the internet is enough for your news.

Los Angeles is possible with only a bike. Just live within where you work and play. Know the bike and metro routes. I've gone to work in the morning biking along the beach or the bike trail, beats being in the 101.

Solo traveling is the red piller's friend.

Restaurants are very rare for me, home cooking gives me power, pride, and joy. I love food, but I ain't no foodie. Financially things are tough for me at the moment, but I see myself still cooking and grocery shopping on the regular.

I listen and observe more than I speak in social situations. That's always been my style and personality. If you ever meet me, I'll probably rarely speak. It used to be a "weak" aspect of mine, but now view it as a powerful tool in life.

Ask more questions, you're closer to the truth that way.

Let the corporations have their views that you don't like, leave them alone to do their business as long as they leave you alone. They'll probably fail and implode in the long run if they go with a hateful business model.

I think we should have freeways just dedicated to bicycles, motorcycles, or scooters.

Happiness is free and simple. Simplicity can be happiness.

People fear freedom. They don't know what to do with it. The ones who hate it either benefit from lack of it or got cradled too much.

No more excuses. "Am I being a pussy?"

[Thomas the Rhymer]

(08-16-2012 05:40 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  



I'm sure we've all swallowed the red pill on women. Do you have other beliefs that contain uncomfortable truths contrary to the comfortable lies that are conventional wisdom for the mainstream public?

Blue pill: Your resume is the best or only way to look for a job!
Red pill: Your resume is the worst way to go looking for a job

Blue pill: What you learn at academic institutions will let you do a job!
Red pill: Most jobs will have a steep learning curve, regardless of how much theory you digested in school. You learn more out of school than in it.

Blue pill: A degree will get you a job!
Red pill: A degree's main use is as leverage to get to know people. It's the people who then give you the job.

Blue pill: Save for retirement!
Red pill: The future cannot be predicted with adequate certainty to save for retirement. Focus on building durable income streams now.

[soup]

Education is one of the biggest rackets out there.

I always tell people: "You want to go to college? Get a hold of the syllabus and read all the books first. Then decide if you want to go."

[RawGod]

Blue pill: diet is easy, it's all about moderation! And remember, calorie intake is the most important thing. You should do lots of cardio to burn the excess calories. Result: stressed, skinny-fat body, lethargy.

Red pill: cut out processed carbs and junk, eat natural, and do intense bursts of exercise. Result: lose fat, build muscle, feel like a fuck machine.

Blue pill: the culture that surrounds us - the things we buy, our media, technology - is a given. It's just the way it is and we should adapt.

Red pill: each building block of our culture was put in place by hard-working individuals, often obsessed with making a buck. Ever eaten bacon for breakfast? Originally it was a marketing campaign.

[Sourcecode]

I'll revisit this later since I'm on my phone. But @polymath
You say engineers and such don't get into this.
i beg to differ on s certain level. a lot of people in stem areas are much more straight edge.

But i know lots of physicist, doctor's ect, even people i grew up with that did all kinds of drugs.
one of my friends parents is a boy scout leader and a chemist for the CDC. and I've seen this guy blazed out on many occasions.

ps didn't the guy that figured out the dna double helix write a long paper on how he was on lcd when he did it?

[OGNorCal707]

(08-16-2012 09:45 PM)raliv Wrote:  

Here is one you might not hear:

I think Secession is the only viable political option to save the people from the corruption of Washington DC.

How exactly is that going to work out?

[Parlay44]

(08-16-2012 09:05 PM)polymath Wrote:  

This is why you won't see many successful engineers who talk about visiting the shroom kingdom, but tons of artists, poets, writers, and musicians make it a central aspect of their life.

There's an art to everything in life ...even Engineering