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Comment by gregschlom

2 days ago

It's a joke. People often have conspiracy theories about Big Pharma trying to prevent access to novel drugs that could disrupt their cash cows. The parent was jokingly talking about "Big Reality" as an imaginary group of people who hate to see "reality" disrupted by psychedelic experiences.

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gregschlom

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aeon_ai  2 days ago

When someone has a profound psychedelic experience that shows them the arbitrary nature of many social constructs, or reveals possibilities for consciousness that mainstream science doesn't acknowledge... that's genuinely disruptive to systems built on those constructs.

The resistance is real, systematic, and rational (from the perspective of maintaining current power arrangements). Not a joke.

  • jonathanlb  2 days ago

    I'm curious whether you think that resistance is genuinely adversarial or more based on ignorance and institutional inertia.

    For example, someone might have insights about the interconnectedness of all life and wants to transition to regenerative agriculture or communal land use, but face zoning laws that enforce individual property ownership. Or someone might experience ego dissolution and wants to create more egalitarian workplace structures, but runs into rigid corporate hierarchies.

    • aeon_ai  2 days ago

      Moloch devours breakthrough potential not through conspiracy but through everyone rationally optimizing for their individual/local situation while collectively producing suboptimal outcomes.

      Individual insight doesn't map to institutional action. Systems can't integrate experiences they can't measure or systematize.

      I do think that there are some truths to government desire for narrative management, too. It is unwise to be a hugger in a knife fight, and you don't want the populace to get high, see God, and deteriorate national security.

      All in all though, it all boils down to life being complicated. The resistance isn't adversarial - it's structural. Which makes it both less intentionally evil and harder to overcome.