Well, it seems psychedelic drugs and the modern computer age have more in common than one might expect. Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said his experience taking LSD was "one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life."
According to New York Times technology reporter, John Markoff:
Psychedelic drugs pushed the computer and Internet revolutions forward by showing folks that reality can be profoundly altered through unconventional, highly intuitive thinking.
Douglas Engelbart, who invented the computer mouse, was someone who experimented and explored using psychedelic drugs. Kevin Herbert, who worked for Cisco systems in the early days, has stated:
"When I'm on LSD and hearing something that's pure rhythm, it takes me to another world and into anther brain state where I've stopped thinking and started knowing."
Herbert apparently claims to have "solved his toughest technical problems while tripping to drum solos by the Grateful Dead."
"It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain. Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used."
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, are longtime visitors and participants in Burning Man, an annual gathering in the Nevada desert devoted to communal enlightenment by creating an environment which invites its attendees to use different parts of their brains.
According to John Gilmore, the fifth employee at Sun Microsystems:
"What psychedelics taught me is that life is not rational. IBM was a very rational company."
To this end, Steve Jobs was once quoted as saying that Bill Gates would "be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once."
Chemist Kary Mullis once told Gilmore that acid helped him develop his 1993 Nobel prize-winning polymerase chain reaction, a significant and crucial breakthrough for biochemistry.
According to British wire service reporter Alun Reese, Francis Crick who, along with James Watson discovered DNA, had told friends that he first saw the double-helix structure while tripping on LSD.
So back to Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann who, for those who don't already know, was the inventor of LSD. Hofmann, at the ripe age of 101 (he died at 102), wrote to Steve Jobs asking for his financial support in the study and exploration of both the medical and psychiatric benefits of psychedelic drugs.
Here is that letter in its entirety:
Dear Mr. Steve Jobs,
Hello from Albert Hofmann. I understand from media accounts that you feel LSD helped you creatively in your development of Apple computers and your personal spiritual quest. I'm interested in learning more about how LSD was useful to you.
I'm writing now, shortly after my 101st birthday, to request that you support Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Peter Gasser's proposed study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with life-threatening illness. This will become the first LSD-assisted psychotherapy study in over 35 years.
I hope you will help in the transformation of my problem child into a wonder child.
Sincerely,
A. Hofmann
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Mr Hoffman neglected to mention that the CIA had a particular interest in his "miracle" drug because they thot it could be used to compromise people by convincing them they were going nuts. Early experiments with the drug were conducted on soldiers and others, some volunteers, and some "volunteered" like this infamous case :
FREDERICK, Md. — The body of a scientist who was given LSD in a CIA experiment was exhumed Thursday in an effort to find out whether his death 40 years ago really was a suicide.
Frank Olson, a 43-year-old civilian biochemist involved in biological warfare research at Ft. Detrick, fell 13 stories to his death from a New York hotel room on Nov. 28, 1953.
Although the death was classified as a suicide, relatives have suspected foul play since learning in 1975 about the experiments.
A government commission investigating the CIA indicated that year that the agency had experimented with LSD and other hallucinogens in the early 1950s and that a number of experiments were conducted on unwitting federal employees, including Olson.
Forensic scientists will examine Olson's body for the presence of drugs and for evidence of injuries that cannot be attributed to the fall, said James E. Starrs, professor of law and forensic sciences at George Washington University National Law Center.
Starrs, who has investigated such long-ago deaths as those of explorer Meriwether Lewis and assassinated Louisiana Sen. Huey Long, said Olson might have been killed because he knew about clandestine CIA activities and his reaction to the LSD made him a security risk.
A final report is expected in about a month.
Olson and four other scientists were given a drink laced with LSD at a cabin near Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland, reportedly on Nov. 19, 1953, according to CIA documents given to the family.
When he returned home to Frederick, he was upset and depressed, said Eric Olson, his son. He told his wife that he was going to quit his job, then came home from work a few days later and said he was being taken to New York to be seen by a mental health professional.
Robert V. Lashbrook, a CIA scientist who was in the hotel room with Olson, said Wednesday that he did not see Olson throw himself out the window, but believes he committed suicide.
Lashbrook, 75, reached at his home in Ojai, Calif., said he was awakened by a noise and saw the window shade flapping.
"This is a long time ago. I was certainly in shock at that time," Lashbrook said.
___
The CIA also conducted tests on prisoners in Louisiana, condemned and lifers who were promised sentence commutation if they survived the testing. Psychiatrists privy to this testing used it in their study of schizophrenia.
more : http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/news/lessons-learned.htm
The Kool-Aid Acid Test Redux
My bottom line? Whatever the benefits of LSD, they don't come without serious risks, and to suggest otherwise-- not that you did -- I think is irresponsible.