There’s some reckless recommendations to try psychedelics in here; be cautious with things classified under that name, because there are some VERY nasty chemicals getting pumped out by mafia chemists (some of whom work for large pharma corporations) and pushed under the name of relatively benign substances.

So first off, be sure you know what chemical is actually in the specific pill/blotter/tab you are considering eating.

Second, once you know what you’re dealing with, understand the cautions and protocols involved in using that particular one. I won’t start rattling them off, the information is out there.

That being said, a gram of mushrooms is safe for nearly everyone of normal adult physiology, and it’s pretty easy to tell if you’re looking at and gagging on mushrooms.

I was severely depressed at one point a couple decades ago and a chocolate containing a couple grams of mushrooms at a Folk Festival pulled me out of it for a good while and filled my head with thoughts of what was possible rather than what was not.

If you don’t smoke weed, try smoking some weed, if it’s safe to do where you are. It’s more of a momentary thing and if you don’t like it, most folks can handle waiting it out. This video is perfect for that situation, IMO. It can definitely be a heavy thing if you go too far too soon, but you’ll come back fine with a story to tell, or to never tell.

The more general proposition, which is that these chemicals can kinda shake you loose mentally, is true, but whether that is a good or a bad thing depends on who you are, how in control and confident you feel about life and the world, your immediate environment when you are on them (many end up taking these drugs at noisy parties full of drunkards, which are not the best places to be tripping balls), and many other factors.

For instance, your talk of the adult mask vs the child you cannot find might be exactly what’s happening, or it might be words you’ve put on some other mental block or bit of cognitive dissonance which you do not yourself understand yet. If that were the case, it would be quite possible for a dose of psychedelics to cause your mind to completely drop the veil of delusion, and cause you to look at that reality in the flash of a moment, with no time to mentally prepare for it, and that can be a terrifying experience for some, when reality intrudes on something that they didn’t realize was foundational to their understand of the world, and vulnerable in that way.

The long term effects of such an experience can likewise be very good, very bad, or completely neutral. We all have these masses of jelly inside our skulls and actually we are those masses of jelly.

Freudian leak?

As Hedberg said, say what you will about Hitler, he did kill Hitler.

Dude, from a much more privileged place, please, enjoy your movies and bring yourself all the happy moments you can get.

51, I can drive a semi, but before I took some training for that I learned on a standard from my grandma.

People can help you, but there is a way to ask, and learning how to ask is part of learning the OS. We are fascinated by problems actually.

The problem is that people come and say things like “I tried to setup a fleegbat server and it doesn’t work!” and so for the helper it becomes a process of pulling the information out of the asker in a long and painful process of interaction and we just move on. Users who say things like “here is the error message I’m getting when I try to start up my fleegbo server, anyone understand this?” get way better help.

Those who really want to learn it come to understand these things, those who just want to do something neat and not work their ass off will complain that it’s too hard.

Those who do the work are rewarded in many ways. I drove a dump truck ten years ago, now I make twice what I used to, working with people who aren’t racist sacks of shit. They were my motivator to learn, I was tired of being among pigs every day.

I will be one of many saying this: if you want to self-host you need to learn Linux. It can be done, but this is not like taking a pottery class and you don’t really get to show anyone, the only people who will understand are people who are also able to do what you do. It’s rewarding on many levels, but pleasure and sociality are not among those rewards. :>

I am Canadian, which means American Lite, and I currently work for a global company based in France, so lots of French people. The casual racism is often astounding and at levels that would get you seriously hurt in certain places on this continent. It’s not hate-based at all that I can see, just ignorance of what exactly is going on on the other side of the world is my assumption.

Lol I’m more into personal autonomy, myself.

Now, up here in Canada, we have some very gory pictures of cancer happening that take up like 80% of the face of the cigarette pack. I don’t see why we can’t have something a bit like that required in front of churches. Perhaps something from the surgeon general about what happens when you huff too much Jesus.

See, to me that sounds like “all drugs need to go,” and as it happens I use drugs. Religion is also a drug that people use to cope. You can’t ban drugs, it doesn’t work, you just need to help people consume it at non -toxic levels.

I’m mostly here to advocate for his cause rather than him, but I also won’t go along with narratives that serve interests that are clearly at odds with mine and his and yours alike; I made that mistake in the aughts when I was a New Atheist and thought that it was my solemn duty as a defender of truth and child brides to fight Islam with everything I had.

Islam’s fine, I was wrong. RMS was wrong, on this and on other things too. I know because he’s a man.

TLDR: I would friggin’ love to be back in the office for a couple days a week. Would probably never do onsite every day for any boss but myself again.

I’ve experienced both pure remote and hybrid remote, as well as existing for about 45 years in a world where remote work was a mythical thing you heard about but only saw on television. Even at the time that my office was 1.5 hours drive each way, I absolutely loved when I was a Sysadmin and spent three days a week at home and two at the office.

Covid came and I got full time remote for close to two years and I really did hate it, especially since when it started I was in the first couple months of a new role I had been promoted to with no experience - had I not built up a lot of love from my employer in the previous role (the promotion happened for reasons, basically I had scripted my job down to nothing at all so it was kind of a freebie for them) I would have busted out but they basically let me coast and learn whatever I could for the duration, before going under.

Had I been able to be in the office and work alongside my new teammates in that role, I would today be much further along in my career arc. I’m still doing okay, but it would have been so much better to have been in the same room with them. And as it happens, my current job is also fully remote and my employer is great but based in a different city, so at the moment unless I move halfway across the continent I’m stuck fully remote. And I like my employer, have no interest in leaving, and I think they like me, even in my current state, so probably I’m stuck there for good. Boohoo lol.

I do realize that my problems are non-problems, in actuality; I’m doing fine. But if I had my druthers I’d be going into an office and standing around the coffee machine for small chats and eating the free croissants they give out on Wednesdays. I’m not very social and those little interactions, from which one had a constant “gotta get to work” excuse to dip out at will, were just the perfect level of socialization for me, really. Going to the office is not remotely all bad, really.

But I also remember being power tripped on and micromanaged by various scumbags, so when I see these corporate fuckwits demanding everyone just make things like they used to be, I know what they’re trying to do, so in the end I think if the job is doable remotely, it’s up to the individual whether they want to go in, and in the long term employers are just gonna have to figure out how to handle that equitably. One instant thought I had was, pay a premium for onsite roles, or for hours done onsite. If it’s really that crucial to operations that will be a sound strategy, just the cost of doing business.

Your bedsheets thank you, if you believe the stories.

I don’t think it’s a case that requires special pleading, unless you exist in a mindset where some words constitute “mortal sins” that cannot be washed from the soul. I don’t believe in any such stuff, myself, and as I said earlier, there are very few men who would make it into the heaven I also don’t believe in, if that were the case.

You might wanna look into who he is. You use his work all the time. You’re using it now. He has a very large body of statements besides this offhand remark from a discussion list, many of which make rich techbros very uncomfortable.

You also might want to educate yourself on autism. He’s not public about it but it’s one of those very obvious cases. It’s all of a package, and a very unique one.

Kudos for providing full context. Respect.

That said, skeptical as to what? That his mind changed? Have you got any quotes after his public change of mind which contradict or “sorry not sorry” it? Stories from people who have had bad encounters with him of a pederastic or pederasty-apologetic nature?

Anything, basically, besides some old, excessively candid thoughts that have been directly addressed from a guy who once ate his own toe cheese onstage in front of an audience? I’ve heard stories about bedsheets from people who hosted him, but that’s about the worst I’ve heard as to his personal comportment, which is undoubtedly weird in a way that people with a certain type of neurodivergent mind find very familiar.

I know a lot of men who needed to have daughters before they evolved in how they looked at sexual assault; you can very legitimately point out that it’s quite shitty that a lot of dudes need to have some xx skin in the game before they give a shit, and I will heartily agree with you. I have no daughter, and indeed, I know some… males with daughters who have yet to do that self-examination. We’re pretty appalling on the whole.

Likewise, someone might need to have some uncomfortable and educational conversations with kind and patient people who have actually come up against a thing they have not experienced before their position evolves, and that, likewise, is far from optimal, and indeed, there are many dudes out there who would not evolve on the matter after that conversation either. Like I said, pretty appalling bunch on the whole.

And I’m not here to play male apologist, but basically, what you’ve got on RMS, you’ve got on all of us, me included. I’ve been on the internet since the 90s and you could find me doing all kinds of juvenile asshole opinionating on various platforms going back to the usenet archives. Not defending the concept that children can give informed consent by any stretch, but boy was I an insufferable New Atheist. We grow and we learn, and some of us have been doing so for over thirty years on the internet and there’s a long record.

So, I think that the ongoing campaign of character assassination against RMS is fueled by different, well-moneyed interests that would just as soon not have him saying a lot of other things that he does continue to say and loudly stand by, rather than those of abuse victims. He is not a crypto-nambla that I have ever seen or heard. Again, enlighten me if you have more than what is widely known already. I’m pretty sure that there are lots of better pickings out there for the folks who make fighting this particular social sickness their vocation, though - there is really nothing here for you at all, just a guy who is a bit too out there with his viewpoints and other things that come from his body.

Quote his actual words in context.

Hi there hate campaign, I see you’re keeping at it. Here’s a song I wrote, third verse is about you.

https://fair.tube/w/7Qkx9RW7ZikNATcqkHWbpm

Edit - while we’re at it, for those who want to read up on this matter:

https://stallmansupport.org/

I thought I was cool because I recorded the ring from my flip phone and used it on every subsequent phone until I somehow lost the recording around the late aughts, but that beats me by miles.

I interacted with one of RMS’s public emails last week (not sure if I talked to RMS directly or not) and it came from protonmail. That’s about as good an endorsement as one can hope for, so that’s where I plan to migrate to.

Good gravy!