I ask all Extropians who respond to this thread to 1) possibly reply to
Andrew per his questionnaire and 2) be sure to put his email address on
the CC: line for all postings on this topic to the Extropians list...
--- Hara Ra
>Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 19:37:19 -0700 (MST)
>From: "Andrew N. Edmond (Nero)" <edmond@shaman.lycaeum.org>
>Reply-To: j_d01@gnofn.org
>To: entheogen-news@lycaeum.org
>Subject: E-NEWS: drug survey
>Sender: owner-entheogen-news@shaman.lycaeum.org
>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>---------- From: Jesse Davis ----------
>---------- To: Lycaeumites ------------
>
>Dear Lycaeumites:
>
>In line with my current fascination with David Pearce's hypertextual work
>"The Hedonistic Imperative", I offer you this quiz. I know it's pretty
>long, but feel free to fill out only parts. Also, although I'd love for
>you to intersperse comments, feel free to just make little checkmarks.
>I've included several general questions at the end.
>
>Your feedback will remain entirely anonymous. I plan to have a version
>of the quiz on http://www.hedweb.com/ along with statistical results and
>selected anonymized quotations from respondents. This quiz is not for
>profit and I am not associated with any relevant corporation or
>institution. I created this for my own interest. Again, I cannot encourage
>you enough to take a look at http://www.hedweb.com (with which I am also
>not associated); it takes in in-depth look at the scientific,
>philosophical, and social issues that underline these questions.
>
>Prozac and the like seem to be the pharmacological equivalent of
>the stone axe. They're certainly more sophisticated than tricyclics
>and the like, but then I would compare tricylics to a rock :) It seems
>inevitable that the drug companies will very quickly begin to refine
>these tools. Some or all of the following seem quite plausible. So,
>assuming no untoward side effects, tolerance, or permanent alterations
>in neuro-chemistry or -physiology, and assuming no significant expense,
>and assuming that these are long-term drugs (like Prozac) rather than
>short-term drugs (like, say, Valium),
>
>Would you take on a regular basis...
>
> (check all of the following which you *would* take. Even if the
> existence of a particular drug seems impossible, please pretend
> for a moment. For those drugs that you would not take, I'm very
> interested in comments on why not. Do they seem like cheating, like
> shortcuts? Do they seem unethical?)
>
>(Mood-altering)
>
>___ a drug that largely eliminates the bottom of the mood cycle (ie
> no bad moods)?
>
>___ a drug that raises the top of the mood cycle (ie provides a
> tendency to euphoria)?
>
>___ a drug that significantly reduces anger (ie you can still get
> angry but it's never overwhelming)?
>
>___ a drug that provides a sense of being loved and supported?
>
>___ a drug that somehow eliminates only inappropriate negative emotion?
>
>___ a drug that significantly reduces fear (ie you can still be
> afraid but it's never overwhelming)?
>
>___ a drug that increases motivation?
>
>___ a drug that makes it easier to defer immediate reward in favor
> of long-term goals?
>
>___ a drug that eliminates any urge toward violence?
>
>___ a drug that provides a childlike sense of joie de vivre?
>
>___ a drug that provides a sense of contentment?
>
>(Empathogenic & Entactogenic)
>
>___ a drug that increases empathy toward others?
>
>___ a drug that increases empathy toward yourself (ie makes you less
> self-loathing or more self-loving)?
>
>___ a drug that facilitates psychological insight?
>
>___ a drug that decreases ego resistance, that decreases game-playing?
>
>___ a drug that makes you sexually irresistable to (wo)men?
>
>___ a drug that makes you emotionally irresistable to (wo)men?
>
>___ a drug that provides a sense of immanence, a sense of an underlying
> unity to the universe?
>
>___ a drug that increases awareness of the presence of God (ie provides
> what we call spiritual awareness)?
>
>___ a drug that provides true mystical experience (this one's short-
> term)?
>
>___ a drug that provides true enlightenment (whatever that is)?
>
>(Cognitive)
>
>___ a drug that increases intelligence (define it, for convenience,
> as capacity for rational thought)?
>
>___ a drug that increases short-term memory?
>
>___ a drug that increases access to long-term memory?
>
>___ a drug that increases capacity to form memories?
>
>___ a drug that provides eidetic ("photographic") memory (ie near-
> perfect visual memory for several minutes)?
>
>___ a drug that facilitates learning (ie cuts the length of time to
> commit information by, say, 50%)?
>
>___ a drug that increases significantly capacity for visualization?
>
>___ a drug that decreases unwanted chatter in the mind?
>
>___ a drug that allows increased and sustained focus?
>
>___ a drug that increases pattern-detection (ie the "grasping" of
> something, an ability to see a gestalt or an underlying pattern)?
>
>___ a drug that increases creativity?
>
>(Sensory)
>
>___ a drug that intensifies perception (ie makes things more vivid)?
>
>___ a drug that provides the ability to experience synaesthesia at
> will?
>
>(Energy Levels)
>
>___ a drug that provides increased energy?
>
>___ a drug that largely eliminates the sensation of fatigue?
>
>___ a drug that largely eliminates the sensation of hunger?
>
>___ a drug that cuts the need for sleep in half?
>
>(Somatic)
>
>___ a drug that provides a "volume control" for pain?
>
>___ a drug that provides a general sense of physical well-being?
>
>___ a drug that confers increased resistance to disease?
>
>___ a drug that confers increased agility and grace?
>
>___ a drug that provides a 20% increase in lifespan?
>
>___ a drug that provides a 200% increase in lifespan?
>
>___ a drug that provides a 2000% increase in lifespan?
>
>___ a drug that confers immortality (in the sense of immunity
> to aging and disease, but not susceptibility to accident and
> so on)?
>
>___ a drug that confers true immortality (you will not die until
> the universe does, and possibly not even then)?
>
>--------------------
>
>General Questions:
>
>- Do you think that most of these drugs will be developed? Which
>ones will arrive first? How soon? Which ones seem completely
>implausible?
>
>- Do you think that these drugs are going to change humanity? In
>what ways? Are we looking at possible utopia? Dystopia? How
>radical of an impact will these drugs have, if developed?
>
>- Are you in favor of the development of such drugs? As a lucrative
>market, will they be developed regardless? If in general the
>idea of these drugs disturbs you, why?
>
>------------------------------------
>
>Final comments:
>
>I welcome any suggestions for additions to this group of exotic
>possible drugs. I realize that the categories are pretty arbitrary
>and overlap, that many of these drugs already exist in one form or
>another, and that many of the questions are in many ways naive. I would
>also like to emphasize the bootstrap nature of neuropharmacology: as
>we alter our brains, possibilities of consciousness become apparent
>of which we can not now even conceive. We will then find ways of achieving
>those states, and become able to imagine still others, and so on and on.
>Until what? To my mind, until we become -- for all practical purposes --
>God.
>
>I encourage distribution of this quiz, as long as my return address
>(j_d01@gnofn.org) is included with it. Many thanks for your time and
>attention.
>
>----J----E----S----S----E---------------------D----A----V----I----S----
>All of human unhappiness comes from one : Teach us to care and not
>single thing, which is not knowing how : to care; teach us to sit
>to remain quietly in one room. -Pascal : still. -T.S. Eliot
>-"--D--o--n--'--t----g--e--t----e--v--e--n--,----g--e--t----o--d--d--"-
>
O--------------------------------O
| Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> |
| Box 8334 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 |
O--------------------------------O