I saw a fascinating tweet by BloomTech CEO Austen Allred the other day that stirred up a lot of thoughts here.

“Of the Silicon Valley founders I know who went on some of the psychedelic self-discovery trips, almost 100% quit their jobs as CEO within a year,” Allred said, adding, “Could be random anecdotes, but be careful with that stuff.”

Allred tweeted this in response to writer Ashlee Vance sharing that he’d been told by a venture capitalist, “We’ve lost several really good founders to ayahuasca. They came back and just didn’t care about much anymore.”

There’s some very useful information in those words. They reveal a lot about the insane mess our species finds itself in in today’s world, and provide insight into how we might find our way out.

  • I understand where this is coming from but is there a better term to refer to this?

    Psychological trait that can emerge in any humans but is perceived (culturally understood) to be harmful by humanity at large and is solvable with therapy, medication and general education.

    Both greed and hate follow this pattern. I do not believe in inherent evil, showing compassion as they are sick just makes nonjudgmental sense to me.

    I am autistic myself have experience plenty of ableist rhetoric, but an example would be people assuming i can conform to their speech, avoiding their list of banned words while still expect me to communicatie coherently.

    • If you are asking what I think you are asking then “harmful adaptation” might be a good way of putting it.

      Yes, you humans are like that sometimes and I have seen how what you are suggesting can help humans.

      Indeed I agree that they can, I do not believe in inherent evil either, in you humans or other species.

      Autism is so cool, I too am autistic, in my species it is considered pretty normal to think and behave in such a way though. Yes, indeed, it is difficult sometimes, but it is helpful to learn what words harm and what do not so we do not do harm with them, I have found thinking of them like that rather than evocative words like ‘banned’ is more useful.