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DMT-nexus moderator accused by nytimes

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In an Article in the new york times, over 48 people accuse psymposia including a DMT-nexus moderator associated with psymposia, of highly unethical behaviour that destroyed their lives and careers.
Mostly through false accusations (of the most terrible things) on social media, but also by sending letters containing the most terrible false accusations to the employers of targeted people.

Sadistically, and quite telling as well, the DMT-nexus moderator and his spouse refer to these tactics as "an opportunity for learning and growth" for the people targeted.

Here are some juicy quotes:

"It's members have become feared for their ability to use social media to damage reputations and careers"
"Many asked not to be named for fear of retaliation"
"Their work is glaringly political and biased, and it relies too much on shock effect, bad-faith readings of others, and questionable assertions and assumptions"
"The group has become known for it's take-no-prisoners approach"
"They've hurt people like me ten times more than any of the good work they think they're doing"

The nexus moderator is specifically named repeatedly in this article. As someone also relying on these tactics.

There are other newspaper articles where he is also being accused of sometimes extreme physical violence, like placing potentially lethal boobytraps in squatted buildings, using hazardous chemicals and explosives.

On this site, he once claimed to have the right to destroy other peoples' personal belongings for the sake of activism because the whole concept of property is more violent to him than the destruction of property. When he was asked if this also applied to properties belonging to himself, he got extremely angry and called this question outragious and the person asking the question an agressor for threatening to destroy his property. This is putin-level hypocrisy, but seemingly, no one noticed. He also claimed that he would even be morally in the right if he would choose to murder babies, if this murdering of babies would result in something positive.

He also uses an alias that is nearly identical to that of another psychedelic researcher.

I am firmly convinced that this person is an evil, sadistic psychopath, and that he was tolerated as a moderator here, mostly out of fear. A sort of stockholm syndrome. Another nexus moderator for instance, once told me that this man always responded agressively when questioned and that it was therefore better never to question him.
He regularly preached violence here, that got seemingly unnoticed. I suspect that, as is often the case with stockholm syndrome, other moderators simply did not want to see any of this, to prevent the total shitstorm that would innevitably ensue when these posts wóuld have been questioned.

personally, i have also experienced his extreme agression. The most shocking part of this experience was that he could say the most terrible things, or could downright contradict himself every next sentence, and that no one else would ever call out his glaring hypocrisy or glaring violations of nexus guidelines. That is something that still shocks me to this day to be honest.

I love this site, but i feel i simply have to adress this, even if it would result in a suspension or ban. I won't hold any kind of grudge if i would be banned or suspended. I understand that a team of moderators cannot allow an attack on another moderator. But i just hád to adress this issue.
 
An issue I've noticed with this any other activism is how 'woke' everything needs to be. Why are these topics even being discussed? Zero professionalism from activists of something that has zero relation to these. Someone's personal opinions honestly don't matter in science all you need are repeatable and measurable results.

Oriana Mayorga, Psymposia’s former director of community engagement, was targeted by the group’s leaders after she criticized a post by Mr. Nickles that accused MAPS of perpetuating “white supremacy, capitalism and imperialism.”


What does psychedelics and usage have to do with any of this particularly when trying to establish it as a medical proceeding? Where does race and other issues come into play on the original idea of legalizing it? I've not too informed on this topic nor Psymposia and all the back story but this is all pointless really. Recently science has just political and not factual. The results of something doesn't care if you are right or wrong, left or right wing.

Information has been shared enough online that whomever wants can find the accurate information with minimal searching. The forum method has died but is now even more accessible via social media for good or bad.

In the end forums are dying and as long as you do everything small scale for personal consumption it is extremely rare to have any issues. Now if you are trying to monetize in some manner either in therapy or whatever you know the law and the restrictions of your practice.
 
I know of the mod that you are referring to. He is very political and sometimes i didn't agree with him but i never read any aggressivenes from him in reaction to other members on the forum. Can you post some links?
 
An issue I've noticed with this any other activism is how 'woke' everything needs to be.
What do you mean by woke? A pretty loose term nowadays. Often it's a weaponized term to bypass the inclusion of others for the sake of equitable being. "Activism" tends to be concerned with the rights and equities of others across the board. That's why it's activism.

What does psychedelics and usage have to do with any of this particularly when trying to establish it as a medical proceeding? Where does race and other issues come into play on the original idea of legalizing it?
There are certain aspects of western thought and modes that preclude other people. For example, a lot of information that is taken into consideration tends to make things very clinical, to the point that researchers are trying to isolate these compounds in such a way that their psychedelic effects may be removed and they can still be used for mental health. This is a one-sided view, as many other cultures that use or would use these substances would say that the visions add to the healing. All voices should be heard, no one should have priority because they appeal to the powers that be.

One love
 
Can't say I've ever seen calls for direct violence, destroying property, killing babies, or anything about booby traps, explosives and chemicals, I'd be particularly interested to read these other articles that mention the latter. I've just never seen the level of aggression reported in this post, seems hyperbolic to my experience. I definitely have never felt fear or aggression, even when I've disagreed on politics or rhetoric.

It does seem there is a lot of problematic behavior around Psymposia and their agendas and methods, but isn't this post exactly the same kind of smear campaign attempting to ruin someones reputation that Psymposia is accused of?
 
What do you mean by woke? A pretty loose term nowadays. Often it's a weaponized term to bypass the inclusion of others for the sake of equitable being. "Activism" tends to be concerned with the rights and equities of others across the board. That's why it's activism.


There are certain aspects of western thought and modes that preclude other people. For example, a lot of information that is taken into consideration tends to make things very clinical, to the point that researchers are trying to isolate these compounds in such a way that their psychedelic effects may be removed and they can still be used for mental health. This is a one-sided view, as many other cultures that use or would use these substances would say that the visions add to the healing. All voices should be heard, no one should have priority because they appeal to the powers that be.

One love
Where does "white supremacy, capitalism and imperialism" have a topic on medical usage?

Clinical doesn't need to be isolating the compounds for purity and can be used in a 'traditional' manner but rather repeatable results. If you cannot establish a generic baseline there will be zero medical use since it can work great in being therapeutic one time and cause issues the next.

I agree with all voices should be heard however when you attack the other for having opinions or stances you don't agree with doesn't work. Woke I used as political stances of the left completely disregarding opposing views despite how 'wrong' they may be... it goes both ways. This is not a fight for bonefide religious usage case or another matter where 'original/native' voices hold much value. A perceived healing if cannot be shown safe and effective doesn't hold much value for medicinal usage...

These are activists for psychedelic usage in medical setting not for equal rights of a certain peoples usage or overall legality. Having infighting because I support or don't support a topic is pretty counter productive for this specific goal.

In any case this isn't really something I should comment on since I don't have a view either way.
 
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In any case this isn't really something I should comment on since I don't have a view either way.
Research may help as well.

Where does "white supremacy, capitalism and imperialism" have a topic on medical usage?
"Medical usage" tends to appeal to those ideas and ideals by virtue of being implicitly connected the cultural origins of them. That said, voices that don't appeal to those ideas tend to be marginalized and unheard. As an example "there's no scientific evidence" for acupuncture, and so many in the West don't even consider it as a possible route for healing patients. The underpinnings of what is considered "scientific evidence" is derived from particular metaphysical assumptions and empiricist philosophies that arose out of western Europe, the origin of most imperialism around the world. Why should a way of thinking derived from an isolated part of the world get to augment and dictate others from other parts of the world? We're looking at the ripple effects of colonialism, which is built upon the ideas of white supremacy (which is inherent to imperilism since it's derived out of western europe), capitalism, and imperialism.

I agree with all voices should be heard however when you attack the other for having opinions or stances you don't agree with doesn't work. Woke I used as political stances of the left completely disregarding opposing views despite how 'wrong' they may be... it goes both ways. This is not a fight for bonefide religious usage case or another matter where 'original/native' voices hold much value. A perceived healing if cannot be shown safe and effective doesn't hold much value for medicinal usage...
The other side has done the same... that's why the term probably shouldn't be used. Just say what you mean, because otherwise we just get lost in the weeds of behavior we didn't like and conflate it with an idea that the behavior doesn't align with. Looking out for others through the lens of understanding, care and awareness, sounds like something the whole world can use. That's woke. Shoving it down people's throats is not. There should be divorcing of ideal from behavior, because humans aren't perfect.

These are activists for psychedelic usage in medical setting not for equal rights of a certain peoples usage or overall legality. Having infighting because I support or don't support a topic is pretty counter productive for this specific goal.
Everything is connected and they're likely trying to make more point than one as many activist groups do. However, having such infighting is kind of necessary. If someone promotes something that is felt to be damaging to a cause you likely wouldn't want them to be part of that cause. However, I think that it should be handled in an open-ended way and not in any way that is an abuse of power. And that's also not to say that these feelings are always valid (sometimes people need a little self-awareness to conduct themselves properly) These discussions should be had, but people shouldn't act like children. Unfortunately, we only get bits and pieces of the story, so we can't know what other factors may have connected those ideas in this context to make it important and what considerations some may feel are missing.

One love
 
Where does "white supremacy, capitalism and imperialism" have a topic on medical usage?

With only a moment's search here's one peer-reviewed article on this topic: The past, present and future of race and colonialism in medicine - PMC

Here's another: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0098858817723662

And here: Frontiers | Invisibility of Racism in the Global Neoliberal Era: Implications for Researching Racism in Healthcare

There's actually quite a bit of scholarly thought and discussion on the intersection of medicine and white supremacy, imperialism, and capitalism. It's interesting and kinda horrifying stuff.
 
Facts and how it is applied are different things. A black woman says she can't breath but the O2 levels based on current machines show all normal. Doctors use current equipment and understanding to say she is wrong or mental side effect. Late they find out that its due to her being black the readings are incorrect and later get her oxygen tanks and treatment.

Science is bad and racist because those O2 readings that are affected due to dark complexions? A similar argument was made that math is racist because white men made it and is wrong. Advances forward occur and only later are considered right or wrong as history is written.

Voidmatrix brought up past experiments done on black communities and there are many other examples in history that can be looked down upon.

Entire peoples have been eradicated or lost lands due to being less medically, technologically advanced that other peoples. There are better paths to advance even if they may bring forward other issues. Is this because white people are superior to these other peoples? No but they did have superior technology and understandings and well as immunities and such which later invented vaccines and so on.

Average life expectancy and other issues are resolved regardless of race and those that race do play an issue are specific to those locations for other issues. Acupuncture and homeopathy have their place just as religion and faith but you cannot ignore facts because 'everything is connected'


Trying to make a point and making everything the point doesn't get you anywhere. These topics always go in circles since we already have our stances but trying to make every topic 'meta' doesn't help convince anything since we are talking specifically about a 'micro' topic (just my take)
 
Science is bad and racist because those O2 readings that are affected due to dark complexions?
When they refuse to take such things into consideration yes. Lots of reports of black people in particular being mistreated and unheard, and under-medicated in the medical field in the US. Something else you can find info on.

A similar argument was made that math is racist because white men made it and is wrong. Advances forward occur and only later are considered right or wrong as history is written.
I feel like this one you can kind of ignore. Some arguments have merit, others not so much. Evaluate contextually.

Advances forward occur and only later are considered right or wrong as history is written.
Who says we have to advance? Why can't people just be? Why do some get to dictate that for others?

Entire peoples have been eradicated or lost lands due to being less medically, technologically advanced that other peoples. There are better paths to advance even if they may bring forward other issues. Is this because white people are superior to these other peoples? No but they did have superior technology and understandings and well as immunities and such which later invented vaccines and so on.
And as we reflect as a species, we see what was fucked up, despite advances and have a desire to not do it again to some extent...
It seems for you, the ends justify the means.

Average life expectancy and other issues are resolved regardless of race and those that race do play an issue are specific to those locations for other issues. Acupuncture and homeopathy have their place just as religion and faith but you cannot ignore facts because 'everything is connected'
This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the limits of "science" which connect to said "facts" because facts are only facts by virtue of a system that sustains them. A logical fact is not always a scientific fact or visa versa for example. That said, "science" in the west, in it's rigidity, may have too limited of a metaphysical scope to study the phenomena that in physically connected to acupuncture (which I chose specifically, I'm not talking about homepathy on the whole). I won't be surprised if the tide changes in the coming years as medical science is finally starting to take somatics more seriously, with doctors changing their practices based off of influences of books like "the body keeps the score." It could be one thing that doesn't fit into the methodological scaffolding (like repeatability, since what needs to be seen is gone because of the effects of the acupuncture, and it's also hard to create a test for this) and so "science" doesn't get the look it needs to at it.

There's a science for acupunture out East though. It has different metaphysical assumptions.

Trying to make a point and making everything the point doesn't get you anywhere. These topics always go in circles since we already have our stances but trying to make every topic 'meta' doesn't help convince anything since we are talking specifically about a 'micro' topic (just my take)
Yet, here we are.
And sure you can only lead a horse to water... :D

One love
 
No but they did have superior technology and understandings and well as immunities and such which later invented vaccines and so on.
But where did vaccines come from?

One example: The story of Henrietta Lacks and the uniqueness of HeLa cells

It's not as simple as "superior technology and understandings," there was profoundly unethical behavior involved, likely stemming from cultural constructs of race and class intersecting with medical practice. I say this as someone who knows polio survivors and can appreciate the benefits of the polio vaccine while decrying the theft of the biological material that led to its creation. Reality is complex, but that doesn't justify malfeasance.

We swim in our cultural realities, and, as Marshall McLuhan pointed out, “We don’t know who discovered water, but we know it wasn’t a fish.”

It's not really possible to parse these kinds of technological advancements from the unethical actions and horrific contexts that gave rise to them, imo. Trying to sidestep those realities, rather than grapple with them, hampers our ability to learn from history and safeguard against future malpractice.
 
It does seem there is a lot of problematic behavior around Psymposia and their agendas and methods, but isn't this post exactly the same kind of smear campaign attempting to ruin someones reputation that Psymposia is accused of?
The ends frame the means here. If there was a violent killer on the loose, would you call warnings on the local news a smear campaign against a neurodivergent individual enjoying a personal hobby, or would you call it a PSA?

If you want a good mathematical expression for many of the reactionary cultural responses advocating for the empowerment of the oppressed, look at a poorly controlled PID loop. for those that dont know, if you hold a PID loop back, it will infinitely amplify its signal until the outputs become equal. if your thing is 5, and you want 10, but something is in the way, normally its meant to inch closer then slow down as it reaches the goal, but an external factor can cause it to break through with such force that it overshoots. Most equality-oriented movements follow this pattern and immediately reach a point where they are regarded as supremacist, though its more nuanced since you have about 1000 different things, and the worst one is what is used to justify the need for gaining power, framing the attitude of the movement. This can be visualized by rather than shifting a dot that represents your group, grabbing 1 page of a book and judging your position from inside it as where the lowest page hangs, while from the outside, you get judged by where the page that has been held, is held, its almost impossible to get acknowledgement without bumping heads with the human ego or clashing with an intrinsic compulsive need to see justice and fairness that most people have to some degree.
This is exploited maliciously, by malicious subsets of humans (psychopaths and others who manipulate power), but in of itself its just an exploitable weakness in human nature that we tend to be blind to. you can gain so much power over others if you know the right things to exploit. most people can be indoctrinated into cults if exposed to the right suggestion under the right conditions.

IMO most of our societal problems are fake, everyone just is just held in a very poor frame of mind through media mind control. Using anxiety to keep you addicted to the terrible news, be it boogeymen that the woke crowd will protect, and feed you dopamine in the form of memes to break the dread and outrage to keep you doomscrolling and hitting those ads. Theres 8 billion people in this world and at any given time only 3 or 4 truly awful grand-scale things are happening. an optimist would tell you that out of nearly 200 countries in the world, 3 great disasters occuring simultaneously is not even 2% by geographical borders, let alone the actual number of people suffering because of it, or merely eligible to have potentially been impacted it by population-count (like how many people live within 300 miles of that tornados path, not 0.01% of the global population). the world is more peaceful and easy to live in than its ever been in history, debatably even recent history.
 
Sounds like some people were hoping on making big bucks from state-sanctioned monopoly on MDMA and, when it didn't pan out, they sent the NYT after those who they perceive to be to blame.

According to this article, writing critical articles from a small website like Psymposia is something evil that "generates fear". How would they describe to write a hit piece from a "serious" newspaper with millions of readers?

I don't agree with many aspects of Psymposia's political positions, but I don't see why it would be a problem that a group of people have a certain political outlook and write articles from that outlook. It tends to be precisely the people who like to cry about "free speech" the ones that get the angriest at speech they dislike.

Bonus point: the article presents "writing critical articles about the police" as something so obviously bad that it can be used to attempt to discredit someone without further comments. Users of the Nexus that love the police, raise your hand. And maybe send them some pictures of your extractions, they will be interested!
 
If there was a violent killer on the loose, would you call warnings on the local news a smear campaign against a neurodivergent individual enjoying a personal hobby, or would you call it a PSA?
If someone has defamed them, they can sue. We are talking about organizations with no lack of money and lawyers, the fact that they haven't done so speaks volumes on itself. But if their problem is that some people criticize them from a political standpoint, well... too bad. Most people wouldn't be able to do much about it, they should be happy that they are rich and well connected enough to get the NYT to defend them.
 
It does seem there is a lot of problematic behavior around Psymposia and their agendas and methods, but isn't this post exactly the same kind of smear campaign attempting to ruin someones reputation that Psymposia is accused of?
Let's suppose for the sake of argument that my post is indeed a smear.

So then it would be one single person smeared, weighed against his smear of at least forty eight people.
It would also be a case of one post on the DMT nexus weighed against, for each smeared person, a whole campaign that includes sending letters with false accusations to employers. I would say that his kind of smear would be at least twice as bad.

So then you would have to say that either, what i did was bad. But then everything he did would be at least ninetysix times as bad.
Or, in the case that you would be okay with his actions, then my action would be at most one ninetysitxth times as bad as his. So you couldn't realy complain about my smear either then.

Also, in that case, my smear would also be merely a response to his smears.

So even if we're realy steelmanning this argument, you'd either have to be totally okay with my smear, or, in the case you're not, you'd have to be almost a hundred times less okay with his.

The other news articles btw, where about an incident that occurred in the wake of the peacefull protests by the occupy movement. The person we're talking about was involved with an anarchist movement that was separate from the peacefull protests and that squatted a building at the chapel hill area in north carolina.
And i want to make it clear that i don't approve of how the police choose to handle the situation there. But from all the articles covering the events, it becomes quite clear that the anarchists where using all of the peacefull protestors there as a human shield against the police. Deliberately putting them in harms way and deliberately provoking the police to overreact.

As for statements he made here: you might remember the shitstorm with moderators fighting eachother on this site in 2019. Or actually it was a bunch of parralel shitstorms happening more or less at the same time. The traveller removed or deleted the threads alltogether, but maybe they can be dug up. They are long and winding, but if you go through them you will find that he realy said those things.

And got away with it. To this day i am still shocked by the fact that no one called out his glaring putin-level hypocrisy.

I like to believe that this was not because his behaviour then was totally accepted, but that the people here sort of looked away. After all, if you did not challenge him, you indeed would have had little to fear. If you did however, you invariably would have been labelled a white supremacist or other realy, realy terrible things. As you can read in the NYT article, he does this a lot and he definately did it here.
 
If someone has defamed them, they can sue. We are talking about organizations with no lack of money and lawyers, the fact that they haven't done so speaks volumes on itself. But if their problem is that some people criticize them from a political standpoint, well... too bad. Most people wouldn't be able to do much about it, they should be happy that they are rich and well connected enough to get the NYT to defend them.

I think that I would agree with you in part…but only in part because they also seem to go after super defenceless low hanging fruit and other people see it. It often seems presented with total abandon of any moral framework. It’s shameful.
 
Theres 8 billion people in this world and at any given time only 3 or 4 truly awful grand-scale things are happening.
That's a matter of opinion.... Israel/hamas, ukraine /russia,Syrina civil war,Sudan civil war, the Congo, ireversible cliamte change, rising inequality, mass homelessness and those are just off the top of my head.
the world is more peaceful and easy to live in than its ever been in history, debatably even recent history.
Playing devil's advocate the reason that the world "may" be easier to live in can ,in part, be put down to activists.
 
Anyway, in my view, labelling someone as a white-supremecist IS a form of extreme verbal agression. You must have seen him doing that at least once, because he consistently used to do that all the time.

Maybe you don't see that as extreme verbal agression, but i do. It is one of the most terrible things you can say about a person.
And even if you are 100% sure that you are not a white supremacist, the feeling of embarrasment sticks. In that sense it is almost like being accused of rape.
 
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