The Intersection of Psychedelics and Technology
- February 20 · 6:30 PM
The Psychedelic Society of San Francisco &
BASE (Bay Area Software Engineers) present
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The Intersection of Psychedelics and Technology
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As our counterculture icons like Steve Jobs leave us, it is important to look back and understand the culture in which they emerged so that we may continue the tradition and ensure the Bay Area continues to be the center of technology innovation and culture.
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Speakers
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John Markoff
Senior Science Writer for the NY Times and Author of "What the Doormouse Said"
John will detail the history of the personal computer, closely tying the ideologies of the collaboration-driven, World War II-era defense research community to the embryonic cooperatives and psychedelics use of the American counterculture of the 1960s.
About John: John is a journalist best known for his work at The New York Times, and a book and series of articles about the 1990s pursuit and capture of hacker Kevin Mitnick.
After Mitnick, Markoff continued to write about technology, focusing at times on wireless networking, writing early stories about non-line-of-sight broadband wireless, phased-array antennas, and multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) antenna systems to enhance Wi-Fi. He covered Jim Gillogly's 1999 break of the first three sections of the CIA's Kryptos cipher [1], and writes regularly about semiconductors and supercomputers as well. He wrote the first two articles describing Admiral John Poindexter's return to government and the creation of the Total Information Awareness project. In 2009 he moved from the Business/Tech section of the New York Times to the Science section.
About the Book: Most histories of the personal computer industry focus on technology or business. John Markoff’s landmark book is about the culture and consciousness behind the first PCs—the culture being counter– and the consciousness expanded, sometimes chemically. It’s a brilliant evocation of Stanford, California, in the 1960s and ’70s, where a group of visionaries set out to turn computers into a means for freeing minds and information. In these pages one encounters Ken Kesey and the phone hacker Cap’n Crunch, est and LSD, The Whole Earth Catalog and the Homebrew Computer Lab. What the Dormouse Said is a poignant, funny, and inspiring book by one of the smartest technology writers around.
Kevin Paul Herbert
Kevin Paul Herbert is a computer programmer and software designer. Entirely self-taught, Kevin skipped college while his technical peers have advanced degrees. As an early developer for Cisco Systems, he developed software that now runs on millions of Internet routers worldwide.
Kevin's work has been written about in Wired magazine, and he has been a major supporter of MAPS over the years. Kevin presently works at Meraki, a Cloud Networking startup recently acquired by Cisco for $1.25bn. In addition to computers, Kevin enjoys dancing to live music (psychedelic jam bands) and psychedelic DJ electronica. He also builds costumes containing wearable electronics for performance, and has performed as a dancer at concerts at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado and other venues. Kevin is a strong supporter of civil liberties and social responsibility. He strongly believes that individuals, not governments, are responsible for social and moral decisions.
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Co-Sponsors
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BASE is focused on emerging technologies and creating events around topics that have never been attempted. Events may be around such topics as Big Data, Machine Learning, Robotics, Nanotechnology, 3D Printing, Synthetic Biology, Artificial Intelligence, Computer History, Computer Vision, Augmented Reality (AR), and using software to create art.
BASE creates events only possible in San Francisco and the Bay area with experts from all walks of life as possible speakers in panels and even debates between different languages, IDE's, technologies, techniques, marketing strategies and more. We always try and have a speaker that speaks from a startup perspective.
http://www.meetup.com/software/
The Entheogenic Research, Integration, and Education group’s mission is to provide a forum for the furtherance of three areas in the entheogenic dialogue: 1) discussing contemporary research and scholarship involving sacred medicine and proposing new horizons and directions for it; 2) creating and holding a safe space in which to share and integrate transpersonal experiences; and 3) envisioning a new educational paradigm in which the ancient wisdom of plant teachers, long held by indigenous cultures, can be reframed to be relevant within a modern, Western context.
The Evolver Network uses on-line tools to build off-line communities. We connect the dots between visionary idealism and lived experience — from open-source software to complementary currencies, meditation to direct action, festival culture to community-supported agriculture. We bring people together to explore areas that the mainstream culture ignores or suppresses; to learn new skills; to collaborate, celebrate and create.
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Shane Hazleton
I thought the first speaker was great but the second speaker was terrible, name dropping people most of us don't know with bad setups and humor too. Normally when someone uses the phrase "by the name of" it's after telling us something about that person we wouldn't expect, like, "Then there was this fellow who enjoyed smoking ganja by the name of Albert Einstein.." This was like, "this guy made this esoteric algorithm for mouse firmeware, a little fellow by the name of John Doe lol "
The first speaker was exciting and really relating psychedelics into his talk wear as the second was dead pan dry, random, and psychedelics weren't integral at all. Overall I appreciated the event for sure, but how about have someone come in like Zoe 7 who wrote "Into the Void" documenting the use of technology like mind machines with altered states to stay Lucid and retain information from the journey, or perhaps an Artist using technology to create psychedelic experience..3 · February 21
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Daniel Jabbour
Appreciate the feedback Shane. John and Kevin definitely have vastly different experiences and points of view (from a techie and journalistic side), and I personally appreciated hearing both of them talk. I also really appreciated hearing about the stories and people John met throughout his career as a journalist (though I understand if you didn't know the people involved how it might seem arbitrary as you described). Overall I was so happy to have met John and hear both of them speak... it was pretty much a dream come true. Thank you to everyone else who helped make this possible!
1 · February 21
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Jonathan Hyslop
I agree with Daniel... I got a ton of enjoyment out of the second speaker. I knew something about almost all of the people he had mentioned but each instance provided new info I hadn't heard before...
1 · February 24
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Douglas Acres
Anyone want to go on a hike Sun. morning, identify whatever mushrooms we find & make it back to the city for a shaman circle by 6pm?
1 · February 23
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Michelle Krasowski
What a pleasure to hear both speakers! I was especially interested to hear John Markoff's assessment about the impact of psychedelics on the development of computer technology and how it was the same impression that I had gotten by reading "Dormouse" - that it is hard to establish a direct link to specific discoveries or innovations. I've been thinking more about the question that I asked about the difference between the culture of the tech scenes now and then and the attitude toward environmental stewardship, and am interested to find out what role psychedelics played in that in the 60s and 70s that might be missing from the community to some extent today. My experiences with psychedelics have been less focused on "breakthroughs" and more on seeing my place in the vast web of existence. Perhaps opening the mind to this awareness would lead to a more conscientious approach to the impact of technology on the environment in our world today?
1 · February 21
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Michelle Krasowski
Although to think about it, I feel that Apple is in large part responsible for the limited-shelf-life consumer electronics market and the consumption/waste that goes along with it, and Steve Jobs may have had this same experience of interconnectedness. On the other hand, there's input/output to be considered, so his insights probably had to do more with his background of technology, vs me and my background of nature and environmental issues. There are movements to require manufacturers to be responsible for the recycling and reuse of their products when they become broken or obsolete, which could lead to more long-term responsibility for lessening the environmental impact (because I understand the technology keeps getting better and better, hence the newer products.) It is also important to raise consumer awareness so they see beyond their screens to understand the role their purchase power plays in our reliance on raw materials, human labor, and energy consumption.
February 21
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Ethan Celery
I hoped for more information about current developments in the field of psychedelic technolgy..."trip toys" and such. The binaural sleep hypnosis mp3 tracks that I swear by feel like the tip of an iceberg. A quality gathering of like minded people as such gives me hope for a funner future!
1 · February 21
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Brian Castleman
Yeah me too. I agree those developments should be addressed more. As a modern psychedelic music maker (http://www.soundcloud...
) my band mate and I are interested in implementing those type of technologies. Loved the first speaker couldn't sit through the second not my thing.1 · February 21
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Jonathan Hyslop
Learned a number of things I've never heard of before but just had some prior knowledge of. Really enjoyed this! I'd like to attend more...
1 · February 21
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Jen Davidson
I enjoyed hearing how things went down from the perspectives of our two very different speakers, on a journalistic level and also the personal. Gives some context to both living in SF and contemporary times.
1 · February 20
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Oliver Starr
Please join me in curating information on the therapeutic use of various psychedelics in this free, collaborative library: http://pear.ly/kgYP
1 · February 20
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Twista Jaye
I went and found out that I was led ther under false pretenses. I am sorry. I thought the meetup I got was for Medical Cannabis. Shame on you Michael Latulippe
February 20
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Jason Asbahr
We build a psychedelic iOS electronica app intended to induce trace states, called "Entranced" -- https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/...
2 · February 8
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Jen Davidson
Hey Jason, I'm coming to this talk, thought you might like to know so we could chat again. Haven't seen you since Bob Jesse's talk this past summer. Be well!
February 19
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Brian Castleman
Hi we are looking forward to this event and seeing you all. We make psychedelic electronica dealing with themes of consciousness and altered states using custom software and the latest sound design tools, check out our music http://www.soundcloud.com/Forbi...
.1 · February 18
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Richard Enlow
Hello everyone. We had to switch event spaces due to the size of the event being too large for our previous sponsor. The new location is the San Francisco LGBT Community Center. 1800 Market Street (corner of Market and Octavia Streets), San Francisco, CA. See you there!
February 12
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A former member
When will a new location be announced?
February 11
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larry
aloha PSSF! is there a space for us to table at this event? I have class till 6pm that day but will be over soon after. It looks great!
February 5
213 attended
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Diana Lin +1
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tez +1
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Gregory Rice +1
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Jade McGough +1
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Becky Neil
Checked-in -
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David Kydd +1
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Oliver Starr
Checked-in -
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Jonathan Hyslop
Checked-in -
brittany +1
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