"The billionaires I know almost without exception use hallucinogens on a regular basis"

[swimwithlove]

SWIM would like to discuss this quote.

"The billionaires I know almost without exception use hallucinogens on a regular basis." -Tim Ferriss, Sex, Drugs and Silicon Valley, CNNMoney

SWIM would also like to discuss this fact:

(On the topic of LSD) "One study funded by the US government in the 60s took a group of scientists and set them out to solve 48 different physics, math, and architectural problems. Problems that the scientists themselves have been unable to solve. Each scientist was guided through a psychedelic trip, at the end of which, 44 of the 48 problems had found solutions." -Laurie Segall, senior technology correspondent, Sex, Drugs and Silicon Valley, CNNMoney

From:

Sex, Drugs & Silicon Valley - CNNMoney

From psychedelics and polyamory to swingers and smart drugs, we take a look at the experimentation happening in one of the most innovative places on earth: Silicon Valley.

money.cnn.com

 

[Koornut]

This makes me feel so lazy.

 

[endlessness]

Wouldnt it be nicer if it was the other way around...

"The hallucinogen users I know that take on a regular basis are almost without exception billionaires"

 

[Studio1one]

Wouldnt it be nicer if it was the other way around...

"The hallucinogen users I know that take on a regular basis are almost without exception billionaires"

Badabing!
Great lateral thought.good post.

 

[benzyme]

too bad said billionaires are so paranoid of a 99%er revolt that they have lavish compounds built in remote locations, rather than create opportunities for those less fortunate. I guess hallucinogens did nothing for the need for greed and self-preservation.

 

[Madrus]

Tim Ferris, huh?
He wrote this book called The 4 Hour Work Week. (easier said than done).

Yeah he probably trips.

 

[Ufostrahlen]

"The billionaires I know almost without exception use hallucinogens on a regular basis." -Tim Ferriss, Sex, Drugs and Silicon Valley, CNNMoney

Probably that's why Shenzhen is overpowering the Silicon valley as a hotspot for electronics and China is now sporting the largest supercomputer. Don't do drugs kids, instead learn some hanzis to welcome your new Chinese overlords.

 

[obliguhl]

too bad said billionaires are so paranoid of a 99%er revolt that they have lavish compounds built in remote locations, rather than create opportunities for those less fortunate. I guess hallucinogens did nothing for the need for greed and self-preservation.

I often wonder why no billionaires donate..say a billion to maps or something. Can't they do it once they retire at least?

To be fair, Tim Ferris openly advocates the use of mushrooms or at least talks about his yearly mushroom retreats. But then, he isn't a billionaire to my knowledge.

He wrote this book called The 4 Hour Work Week. (easier said than done).

The point of the 4 hour workweek is not to work 4 hours a week though

 

[upwaysidedown]

Yes it would appear that the cause and effect is not Drugs -> Billions, but more likely that when you have everything financially you often choose to seek out further experiences.

Also quite a few billionaires with their heads screwed on do turn to charity e.g. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg etc. I would like to hope that these are people who realise there is no point in acquiring so much wealth and power, except if you can wield it to make a difference.

But some can be those lost in the game, for whom acquiring wealth is all they can see (and some heavy use of entheogens could break them out of that perhaps)

The final group is sociopaths, who I am not sure are redeemable in this life, and I am sorely tempted to de-humanize. At the moment I will put them in a category of "requires more thought, but for now I would rather just avoid them"

 

[Nathanial.Dread]

This kind of pisses me off. I feel like it would be a terrible waste if the message that ended up bringing psychedelics into the main stream was that they make you great at capitalism.

Blessings
~ND

 

[Ufostrahlen]

This kind of pisses me off. I feel like it would be a terrible waste if the message that ended up bringing psychedelics into the main stream was that they make you great at capitalism.

Blessings
~ND

This will never happen, it's just the 'meditation is great for business bullshit' in a new flavor. Somebody wants to sell some books or get air time for money. How many psychedelic users are there on earth (30M? 50M?) and how many are millionaires? Is there a scientific investigation? This nonsense is only good for sensationalism.

I bet you find the same percentage of psy users in The World's Billionaires list as in the average population. Just because Steve Jobs used to drop acid or Ray Dalio meditates for 40 years now, doesn't mean you become a billionaire by dropping acid or meditation.

This is even evidential: how many monks or acid heads do you know and how many of them are great at business? Not many I guess.

Someone should ask this Ferris guy what the Chinese are dropping. Certainly not acid, alcohol more likely.

The country’s government-backed venture funds raised about 1.5 trillion yuan ($231 billion) in 2015, tripling the amount under management in a single year to 2.2 trillion yuan, according to data compiled by the consultancy Zero2IPO Group. That’s the biggest pot of money for startups in the world and almost five times the sum raised by other venture firms last year globally, according to London-based consultancy Preqin Ltd.

Inside China's Historic $338 Billion Tech Startup Experiment

China is getting into the venture capital business in a big way. A really, really big way.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[Ulim]

This kind of pisses me off. I feel like it would be a terrible waste if the message that ended up bringing psychedelics into the main stream was that they make you great at capitalism.

Blessings
~ND

More like heavy nootropic use makes you a superhuman, and makes more money.

This kind of pisses me off. I feel like it would be a terrible waste if the message that ended up bringing psychedelics into the main stream was that they make you great at capitalism.

Blessings
~ND

This will never happen, it's just the 'meditation is great for business bullshit' in a new flavor. Somebody wants to sell some books or get air time for money. How many psychedelic users are there on earth (30M? 50M?) and how many are millionaires? Is there a scientific investigation? This nonsense is only good for sensationalism.

I bet you find the same percentage of psy users in The World's Billionaires list as in the average population. Just because Steve Jobs used to drop acid or Ray Dalio meditates for 40 years now, doesn't mean you become a billionaire by dropping acid or meditation.

This is even evidential: how many monks or acid heads do you know and how many of them are great at business? Not many I guess.

Someone should ask this Ferris guy what the Chinese are dropping. Certainly not acid, alcohol more likely.

I think most psychedelic users live in tropical developing countries. So I guess they are actually "poorer" in a sense of money.

 

[Ufostrahlen]

More like heavy nootropic use makes you a superhuman, and makes more money.

Even that I doubt. It's not like you pop a pill and suddenly the money flows in. Nootropics I have taken so far: Galantamine, Huperzin A, DMAE, Alpha-GPC, Ritalin and Bupropion. The stimulants messed up my sleep cycle, made me jittery at high dosage and gave me a headache after frequent use, the cholinerg substances mostly did nothing, except some weird dreams here and there. Not worth the money unless you have Alzheimers or ADHD.

And why is this Ferris guy an expert on billionaires anyways? Why doesn't he apply his oh so secret knowledge and become a billionaire himself? What a load of BS.

If you ask billionaires like Warren Buffett, Peter Thiel or Steve Jobs they will tell you to do what you most like, because that's the only field you can excel at. Becoming an investment banker and hate the job and people at your work makes you jump a window, but not your money in your bank account.

“I was worth about over a million dollars when I was 23 and over ten million dollars when I was 24, and over a hundred million dollars when I was 25 and... it wasn't that important — because I never did it for the money.”

Steve Jobs - Wikiquote

en.wikiquote.org

He became a billionaire with the age of 30 I think.

 

[hug46]

I earned my first million after taking a tablespoon of syrup of figs each day for a year.

 

[DoingKermit]

I read a book earlier this year called "what the Door Mouse Said", which is about how acid and the 60's counterculture helped influence the invention of the personal computer. It touches on some of the work retreats the fat cats in the industry would go on in the californian woods (I think it was California at least). Out of the 12 people who went, one of the people had a bad trip, which ended the companies experimentation with LSD, but others still went on experimenting on their own.

I find it fascinating to think about how the personal computer may not be what it is today without psychedelics being involved.

 

[Global]

Wouldnt it be nicer if it was the other way around...

"The hallucinogen users I know that take on a regular basis are almost without exception billionaires"

Depending on how you look at it, with your sentence, virtually no one might be taking hallucinogens....

 

[benzyme]

the [not so] secret is:


































most rich people are already born into wealthy families.

 

[Hiyo Quicksilver]

/me's jaw drops...

Benz... You don't say!



Outside of monetary gain, however.. I find that psychedelics help me gain more value from my interactions, whether material or otherwise.

 

[Nathanial.Dread]

This kind of pisses me off. I feel like it would be a terrible waste if the message that ended up bringing psychedelics into the main stream was that they make you great at capitalism.

Blessings
~ND

This will never happen, it's just the 'meditation is great for business bullshit' in a new flavor. Somebody wants to sell some books or get air time for money. How many psychedelic users are there on earth (30M? 50M?) and how many are millionaires? Is there a scientific investigation? This nonsense is only good for sensationalism.

I bet you find the same percentage of psy users in The World's Billionaires list as in the average population. Just because Steve Jobs used to drop acid or Ray Dalio meditates for 40 years now, doesn't mean you become a billionaire by dropping acid or meditation.

That's not my concern. Taking psychedelics doesn't make you smart or entrepreneurial or whatever, and it doesn't have to. What bothers me is the idea that lots of people will *believe* it does, regardless of whether there's truth to the notion or not.

Psychedelics, meditation, etc, are all things that I would hope give people some sense of connectedness that manifests in fewer people being driven by desire for power, wealth, and other extrinsic variables. I'd argue that the reification of these desires is a big part of what is driving the more damaging elements of our economic and political systems. If we want to improve our trajectory, we need to decrease these traits.

I see all thise 'new age' stuff as having the potential (but not the guarantee) to help with that, but unfortunately, it's being coopted by people who have turned it into another market. It's kind of clever how people cal sell you the idea of nonattatchment. If psychedelics, meditation, all go the same way, I think we've missed out on a really wonderful opportunity.

Blessings
~ND

 

[entheogenic-gnosis]

I think psychedelics certainly do posses the abilities to better person, they induce a more open and empathetic view of the world, they diminish the ego and egotistical tendencies, and promote selflessness, they induce deep thought and are great agents for deprogramming bad cultural habits, I also feel psychedelics have nootropic and therapeutic value, a good deal of psychedelics produce neurogenesis and may increase neuronal functioning and mental abilities through neuroplasticity.

Psychedelic Neuroplasticity

A case for psychedelics as facilitators of long term identity modification and neuroplasticity.

psychedelic-information-theory.com

(Interesting link regarding neuroplasticity in regards to psychedelics)

Potential benefits of long term psychedelic use:

these data suggest that regular use of psychedelic drugs could potentially lead to structural changes in brain areas supporting attentional processes, self-referential thought, and internal mentation. These changes could underlie the previously reported personality changes in long-term users and highlight the involvement of the PCC in the effects of psychedelics.

Long-term use of psychedelic drugs is associated with differences in brain structure and personality in humans - PubMed

Psychedelic agents have a long history of use by humans for their capacity to induce profound modifications in perception, emotion and cognitive processes. Despite increasing knowledge of the neural mechanisms involved in the acute effects of these drugs, the impact of sustained psychedelic use...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Plus ego dissolving and boundary dissolving properties of psychedelics are benneficial psychologically in a number of ways...not only do they allow psychoanalysis and introspection they also erode selfish tendencies and promote a more empathetic outlook in the user.

Psychedelics can do all these amazing things, and more.

...but that's not to say that they will.

Some people will be dull-witted, selfish, egotistical, materialistic, greedy and indifferent their whole lives, no matter what external influences they encounter...

It's said that you must have quite a few sociopathic tendencies to make it as a billionaire, and that most billionaires fit the psychological profile of a sociopath, which does not surprise me, you have to constantly make heartless and cold, and extremely selfish decisions to maintain your billionaire status.

-eg