Anodyne

Damn dude, that sounds bad. Do you really not enjoy anything in your life? Cause if that's true, I've really gotta wonder how healthy this relationship of yours can actually be. But that aside, have you enjoyed life, or even certain activities, in the past? Are you still doing those things? I guess what I'm asking is: are you unhappy/unfulfilled because your circumstances have changed, or because you have changed? Because either way, those are both things that can be changed again, and again, until they start working for you. But I'm entirely unclear on whether your problem here is physiological or existential. I think you've already answered your own title question here, but I'll spell it out: I think that most people get through life by distracting themselves from it. Seems to work well enough for a lot of them. To me though, that's not living. If you have to spend every spare moment distracting yourself from the fact that you don't like your life, then maybe it's time to change your life. Work out what you actually want. Not just what's easy right now, or what makes you temporarily feel better, but what you can do that will be challenging and satisfying long-term. And maybe that won't be the same things that make sense to other people as "life goals", but fuck 'em, it's not their life. Get some crowdfunding to become the next Shulgin. Climb a mountain & join a monastery. Go look for a job you like better, working for a boss who isn't evil incarnate. Whatever you want. We're privileged to live in a country where we have safety nets for this kind of thing - we can risk our homes & savings & careers to make big life changes, without having to worry about starving to death or dying of treatable illnesses as well. Life isn't something you should have to distract yourself from. I don't normally proselytise about nihilism, because that's just... wrong... but since you're struggling with it and asked how others deal, I'll tell you how I reconcile my nihilism with optimism, and joy in life. I absolutely believe that there is no fundamental meaning in the universe. I think where my path veers away from the depressed-angsty-nihilists is what I do with that core belief. See to me, "no inherent meaning" isn't the same thing as "no meaning at all". I figure that our reality is so fucking subjective anyway, we have basically built up this model of reality in our heads that only roughly correlates to consensus reality. So with that in mind, the idea of assigning personal meaning & morals seems perfectly at home, it's almost minor. My ENTIRE REALITY only exists because I think it does, and once you've accepted that, it puts the concept of creating your own ethical code into perspective a bit. You can use that blank slate of existential nothingness to build a strong personal philosophy & ethics (yep, lots of moral relativism in this philosophy of mine). And for me, this is a great thing. It means that I spend a lot of time wrangling with my conscience, but it also means that I rarely have to worry that I might've done something bad by following some external code. I know that I sometimes come across as a pessimist, but I'm really not. I'm cynical - there's a big difference, like the saying "hope for the best, plan for the worst" (I know that this is probably meant for practical disaster preparation, but it works for philosophy too). I like being self-sufficient, I like knowing how to make my own things. Why on earth would I stop at bread & treehouses, when I can create THE MEANING OF LIFE?!

Um... ok? I'm going to guess you're talking to Andy though. I will add one thing to mu's post, which is that just because you induce an enzyme that is important in the metabolism of particular drug, does NOT mean that all of the effects from that drug will necessarily be weaker. Sometimes a drug's effect (or part of it) comes from the action of one of its metabolites, rather than the drug itself, and in those cases inducing the enzyme responsible for this conversion will actually increase the effect.

I dislike straightup water for long-term storage. Unless you've got some real clean preparation practices, it won't be sterile and so it'll get stuff growing in it eventually if stored at room temp or fridge temp. And yes, you can store it in the freezer, but then you have the issue of thawing. People can be lazy sometimes, or not understand that a half-thawed aqueous solution of something will be a different strength than the original solution (for the same reason that salty seawater freezes to become freshwater ice-caps). And if you're rushing to thaw something you need to use heat, which is bad news for less-stable compounds. I'm sure there are preservatives you can add, but I don't know anything about these, and they are possibly not the sort of thing that most people would have in their kitchens. For medium-term storage I favour ethanol solutions. But as dood said, there are so many goddamn caveats on that that it's almost useless as a recommendation. I don't know the solubility of indefinite strings.

If you've been hitting the booze (&/or anything else) hard enough to stress your liver, then milk thistle might help. I think there was some decent-ish scientific evidence backing this up, or if you prefer the anecdotal kind, then I was getting some nasty readings on my liver function tests at the start of the year after some bingeing late 2015 - latest tests show all back to normal. As with most things it's best to go with the whole herb if you can stomach it (in this case the seeds - they actually don't taste half bad, just kinda fibrous) or a standardised extract. As I recall there were a few mechanisms going on, but one of them was that it prevents (at least some) toxins from being taken up by liver cells - a milk thistle extract is one of the only useful treatments for death-cap poisonings!

What's the purpose of a 'shaman'?

They probably believe you. Most likely that isn't the issue. The issue is that opioids really are not a great long-term solution because of tolerance. Believe me, I've got chronic pain issues & am a big fan of opioids & absolutely wish that this were not the case, but unfortunately it is. In fact, if you're unlucky, you can even end up in more pain ("opioid-induced hyperalgesia") - it's as if your body decides "hey, I'm sending all these pain signals but the message isn't getting thru, guess I need to turn up the volume". Or something. I was lucky enough to be referred to a pain management clinic after a few years, and they have been suggesting some nifty breathing & meditation techniques. They're good at dealing with crotchetty people in lots of pain, and supportive without being indulgent. They're also big on "radical acceptance" and have been helping me make other mindset & lifestyle changes to adapt. Because they're right, if you're at the point where your pain is being labellled "chronic", then it's probably here to stay, and loading up on opioids is only a short-term solution. In the end you're either going to have to work out how to live with it, or break. In my case I did both, but the meltdown passed & the acceptance remained.

Nice pics mate! I'm no expert, so hopefully others will chime in, but I don't think your 4th & 5th pics look like T. versicolor, I'd have said that was a Ganoderma of some description? The Trametes do have rings of colour like that, but are smaller? (I'm just guessing scale here, if you have a lighter or some common object of a standard size you can put it in your photos for scale), much thinner (like ~1mm say), and tend to grow in clusters, also not-always but usually more colourful than that specimen.

Aura Medical Corporation: Clinics offering ketamine injections to treat depression blame negative publicity for closures PM By Elise Worthington Updated 15 Jul 2015, 11:37am A controversial commercial chain of depression clinics offering injections of the party drug ketamine claim they have been forced to close down due to negative publicity. Aura Medical Corporation is being investigated by the health watchdog after the ABC revealed patients were being given vials of the Schedule 8 drug to inject at home, and the company had links to notorious erectile dysfunction clinic Advanced Medical Institute (AMI Direct). Ketamine is available in Australia for use as a prescription anaesthetic under strict controls, but is not approved for depression treatment despite success in clinical trials. The closure of the clinics has left dozens of mentally ill patients without access to the drug that has been hailed as a "miracle cure". Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek. Audio: Listen to Elise Worthington's report (PM) Aura Medical had been offering injections of the drug for around $150 to $200 since last year, advertised on TV and radio as a "new alternative" for those with treatment-resistant depression. Patient Peter Riley, who has struggled with depression for years, said he was devastated to hear the drug would no longer be available. "Ketamine has changed my life out of all sight, I've tried to commit suicide three times, I've been on eight different types of antidepressant," he said. "When I went for the first appointment with Aura Medical and had my ketamine injection I felt better the next day, [and] after I had been going for six weeks I felt amazing. "My appointments have been cancelled ... they said that they do not have a doctor that is prepared to administer the preparations." Former Aura Medical Melbourne general practitioner Dr Graham Barrett was banned from prescribing ketamine last month by the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency (AHPRA) as part of an ongoing investigation. Aura's ketamine program 'highly inappropriate' The use of ketamine by commercial clinics in what is known as "off-label" prescribing has been condemned by psychiatrists and mental health advocates who say the long-term effects of regularly using the drug are unknown. University of New South Wales psychiatry school head Professor Philip Mitchell welcomed the news of the closure. "Certainly it's not at all appropriate for it to be offered through a group like Aura, so I'm pleased to hear that service has been withdrawn," he said. "There's been a very strong feeling that the ketamine program being offered by Aura is highly inappropriate. "In Australia and in every other country around the world, ketamine is not approved by regulatory bodies for use in depression." Professor Mitchell said medical professionals also have an obligation to ensure mentally ill patients are being supported. "If someone is being offered care and that's withdrawn, as in the example of the Aura situation, there's an obligation for the clinician to ensure the patient is under ongoing care and that should have been organised." Patients 'upset and crying' upon hearing treatment not available Aura Medical Sydney patient Sarah, who does not want to use her real name, said her ketamine treatment had been highly successful. "I think it's possible that it is a miracle treatment, my sense is that it is the most complete and least intrusive depression option that I have encountered," she said. "I had one appointment left and they rang me and said we can't help and we have to shut down because of the negative publicity. "I don't understand, they give people (prescription sedative) valium and the [ketamine] experience is no more powerful than a valium so I don't understand why there is such an outcry about this, it seems to me that it is misplaced and misinformed." Professor Mitchell said he was hoping tightly controlled clinical trials at research facilities like the Black Dog Institute would answer the questions still surrounding ketamine treatment for depression. "It's very exciting and promising research treatment and in a controlled research environment it's appropriate," he said. "I think there's the possibility that this controversy and debacle with ketamine through Aura may tarnish the reputation as a promising future treatment. "I think we've got to look beyond that unfortunate experience with Aura because this is really a treatment that may potentially revolutionise or at least enhance what we can offer patients with depression." Aura Medical's director Debbie Samuel refused to be interviewed but said patients at the clinic were "upset and crying" after being told the treatment was no longer available. Telephone counselling Lifeline on 13 11 14 Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800 MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978 Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36 Headspace on 1800 650 890

procrasturbation

No. I think you may have upshifted your vibrational energies too far to communicate effectively on this topic. Perhaps you can find someone who is only half-enlightened to translate for you? Also your FB link doesn't work.

Any of you lot going this year? I've never been, I'd always kind of thought that this was another commercial festival or disorganised doof, but they've got this whole no-commerce, gift-economy, crowd-participation thing going on that I'm a bit fascinated by & am interested to check out. Would be cool to meet some more of you people!

Ooh, I like this. Evolved simulation, eh? If we're thinking of evolution as a system for passing on information in the most energy-efficient way possible, then a system that reaches a stage where we are only information (rather than information-encoding proteins & such) is surely much more efficient than the meat-and-bone kind which requires so much more space & heat & glucose...

Yeah since it essentially seems to be self-organised by a collection of anarchist types, I can see sooooo many ways for that kind of thing to go wrong, but the thought that has piqued my curiosity is: what if it doesn't? And since it's been going for something like five (?) years now, something must be working.

Ah ok, so the basic idea is that if there is any chance *at all* of the tech getting developed & used, then the potential simulated reality/ies would *still* be more likely because of the huge potential numbers involved? Hmm. But how do we judge the probabilities of scenarios 1-3?

Going back to the OP, I feel like the argument he gives for the likelihood of simulation (i.e. that the people-hours which would be spent in simulated realities like our own would vastly outnumber the actual people-hours of realities like our own, so if we are a person living in a reality like this, odds are that it's simulation-reality...or at least that was my take-away, feel free to correct) has a couple of huge assumptions, which he may address further on, but I found him to be such a horrific speaker that I gave up listening after the third try to make it all the way through. Is there a transcript or article that covers the same content? Anyway, it seems to assume that: (1)some more-advanced-than-us society will be capable of simulating reality in a way that is totally believable to its inhabitants, and (2) that such a technologically-advanced-society would actually DO this (why?), and (3) that this simulation has no Neo-equivalent. Philip K. Dick also wrote a great short story called Faith of Our Fathers (I think?) on a similar topic. Anyway, I feel like there are a fuckload of really iffy "ifs" that need to be satisfied to fulfill the conditions which make his version of simulation-reality "more likely".

I place him & the Don Juan books in much the same mental category as Freud, Jung etc... that is to say, I think they talked a whole lotta shit, but much of it was good shit, shit that people wanted to hear, shit that it makes them happy to think is true. So fine, whatever. Anyone expecting strict reality in 70s hippy guru books about taking mind-bending doses of psychotropic drugs is probably going to be disappointed anyway, so the backstory never struck me as real important.

dood, I think it's Nutri Tech Solutions (?)

Someone finally did it! The Greens have created a Facebook page for reporting sniffer dog sightings I don't use the bookface, but I gather that you can follow them to receive status updates? Why am I only just learning about this now?

Ha!

I think mirrors are the ultimate tripping traps...

I'm pretty keen to get this off the ground. I've got no electrical know-how but I do have time, so if someone can handle the set-up I'm happy to devote my weekends to this project.

Cool, I'm claiming your spot by the fire then. I'm totally ok with being called a wuss so long as my feet are warm.

I seem to recall talk of having a Sydney-ish camp sometime before it got brutally cold... was that a real thing?

There's a whole thread for posting isolated Youtube links with no context or summaries. Without an explanation, I don't see why a video of this twat deserves its own thread. Was it intended to be ironic, or provoke a discussion about taxation or proselytism or socialism or correlation/causation or any topic except athiesm, which it isn't really about?