He literally got blue-pilled… The greatest fear of these guys😂
But in the case of Brendan, he had recently been exposed as a white supremacist and lost his job when he was enrolled in the study. He was full of regret about getting caught out.
I imagine that this person was already contemplating personal growth, and the drugs just kicked his not-fully-conscious or not-fully=acknowledged feelings into conscious, actionable thought.
Nuwer pointed out that Brendan’s “seemingly spontaneous change” appears to be an exception to the norm. MDMA releases the chemical oxytocin, which our bodies naturally produce. The chemical causes animals to fiercely love their own, but also protect them from others — which can mean a disdain for outsiders may actually increase.
Maybe he felt a surge to protect humans in general, and that intense feeling changed his outlook. Yeah, definitely, we should treat this as an exception not the rule, but I find myself wondering if he was already open to change, even if he didn’t realize
I was wondering if he was already wanting to change and that’s why he signed up to the study.
Interesting. I took MDMA is in college once. It wasnt a game changer or anything.
Now LSD. The one time I did that, it definitely altered the “lens” i viewed the world in, for the better. I did this with some friends to make sure it wasnt a bad trip, but mostly in solitude. Im not sure that it really changes much of my political leanings, but i did have some deep introspective thought and it did affect how I viewed others and the world, and generally in a more empathetic way.
That said, after having some friends that arguably abused it, i avoided too many more further interactions with it which was good. Because around the 4th time I did it, i was in a bad way, and had an awful trip, which turned me off to most mind altering substances for a while.
I did xtc a few times and it profoundly changed the way I viewed myself and the world. I was very lonely and extremely depressed, and it helped me see that my intense self hate wasn’t based on anything and wasn’t justified. It also gave a huge boost to my empathy for other people, especially my cognitive empathy which I struggle with as an autistic person, and made it so I could actually open up to other people. The first time doing lsd it was like a nuclear bomb of empathy and understanding and perspective went off in my head. With both substances though, consequent trips were fun, but never as profound as the first (few) time(s), and I lost interest. I knew a bunch of people who did massive amounts of either or both every weekend. Can’t say I understand why, they must get something different out of it then me.
Then I discovered amphetamine and had a massive struggle with that for 8 years, lol. Different brains react very differently to the same substances.
One human does not make a trend, but it is interesting. They’d have to test many more white supremacists to see if the effect will be same for the majority of test subjects.
If it were a “cure” then the right-wingers would become very scared of getting drugged.
Edit:
MDMA has, for instance, been used by the Taliban to channel connection to the divine during prayer chants, according to Nuwer.
Nuwer pointed out that Brendan’s “seemingly spontaneous change” appears to be an exception to the norm.
Read the article guys. Won’t work for everyone and could maybe even be used by White Supremacists to be more like the taliban.
Kind of seems like we should dose the entire planet in MDMA for a day and just see what happens. Might be really good.
Or, huge amounts of people will kill themselves or die due to medical completications.
Mhhm, yup, people already on a myriad of medications definitely won’t have any adverse reaction to MDMA and there are no medications that have negative interactions with it at all. And people with incredibly fragile mental states, the already suicidal, and people of varying different psychoses also definitely aren’t already close to being a danger to themselves and others. Oh and how can we forget all the people who absolutely don’t have unknown medical conditions that could be exacerbated by getting dosed with MDMA
Totally safe, totally cool
