Why is Elon Musk taking so much #ketamine these days?
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@malte to deal with treatment-resistant depression. Musks behavior these days reminds me of a passage in Bifos After the Future where he (quoting Lenin biographer Hélène Carrère D’Encausse) writes about Lenin's inability to deal with depression and how periods with acute personal crises and deep depression coincided with important political shifts in the revolutionary movement. He point to a connection between the inability to deal with male depression and an urge to burn down everything.
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@malte to deal with treatment-resistant depression. Musks behavior these days reminds me of a passage in Bifos After the Future where he (quoting Lenin biographer Hélène Carrère D’Encausse) writes about Lenin's inability to deal with depression and how periods with acute personal crises and deep depression coincided with important political shifts in the revolutionary movement. He point to a connection between the inability to deal with male depression and an urge to burn down everything.
@askkatzeff That sounds pretty likely to me. The reason I ask is also that I don't have that much experience with ketamine (and none taking it). It's an anxiolytic though, i.e. it reduces anxiety. Anxiety is extremely common in depression, so it supports your thought. It raises other questions: What is Musk anxious about? We might never know. And is the ketamine paradoxically provoking him to be even more anxious? (Strong anxiolytic drugs like benzos have that withdrawal effect).
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@askkatzeff That sounds pretty likely to me. The reason I ask is also that I don't have that much experience with ketamine (and none taking it). It's an anxiolytic though, i.e. it reduces anxiety. Anxiety is extremely common in depression, so it supports your thought. It raises other questions: What is Musk anxious about? We might never know. And is the ketamine paradoxically provoking him to be even more anxious? (Strong anxiolytic drugs like benzos have that withdrawal effect).
I realize that part of this exercise is futile because it is based on mind-reading someone I don't have direct communication with and never will (even if he were to quote tweet a screenshot of this to mock some kind of ghost of his, that wouldn't be direct communication, just talking with yourself and your peers).
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M malte@radikal.social shared this topic
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@askkatzeff That sounds pretty likely to me. The reason I ask is also that I don't have that much experience with ketamine (and none taking it). It's an anxiolytic though, i.e. it reduces anxiety. Anxiety is extremely common in depression, so it supports your thought. It raises other questions: What is Musk anxious about? We might never know. And is the ketamine paradoxically provoking him to be even more anxious? (Strong anxiolytic drugs like benzos have that withdrawal effect).
@malte me neither, just read that it has been shown to be effective in treating depression, but not without side effects, as you also point out. musk has been pretty open about his struggles with depression.
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The first thing that popped into my mind, and perhaps the reason I asked, I'll share that with you. You remember the fascist mass murderer Anders Breivik who killed a lot of young social democrats on an island in Norway in 2011? As he did that he was "lightly to moderately drugged" according to the court. He specifically took the so called ECA stack (ephedrine, caffeine, aspirine).
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The first thing that popped into my mind, and perhaps the reason I asked, I'll share that with you. You remember the fascist mass murderer Anders Breivik who killed a lot of young social democrats on an island in Norway in 2011? As he did that he was "lightly to moderately drugged" according to the court. He specifically took the so called ECA stack (ephedrine, caffeine, aspirine).
But I remember at the time, reading through documents that he had experimented with many other drugs, among them anxiolytic drugs, with the purpose of even being able to carry out the massacre. My thinking was that even a fascist mass murderer like Breivik might have psychological blocks to doing the killing, that he intuitively knew he would have to forcibly overcome by drugging himself. This got me interested in the connection between anxiety, drugs and fascist violence.
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But I remember at the time, reading through documents that he had experimented with many other drugs, among them anxiolytic drugs, with the purpose of even being able to carry out the massacre. My thinking was that even a fascist mass murderer like Breivik might have psychological blocks to doing the killing, that he intuitively knew he would have to forcibly overcome by drugging himself. This got me interested in the connection between anxiety, drugs and fascist violence.
So with Musk, it makes me wonder if he's taking the ketamine partly because he knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that what he's doing is abusive and monstrous. If human suffering is something that affects you, that kind of thought is anxiety-provoking. But another part of him just want to get the job done. So the anxiety, which reminds you of your own compassion, gets in the way. Drugs are a way to pick sides and silence one side of yourself.
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So with Musk, it makes me wonder if he's taking the ketamine partly because he knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that what he's doing is abusive and monstrous. If human suffering is something that affects you, that kind of thought is anxiety-provoking. But another part of him just want to get the job done. So the anxiety, which reminds you of your own compassion, gets in the way. Drugs are a way to pick sides and silence one side of yourself.
@malte That would be the explanation for those who do have conscience, but let's not forget that a certain percentage of humans don't.
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@malte me neither, just read that it has been shown to be effective in treating depression, but not without side effects, as you also point out. musk has been pretty open about his struggles with depression.
@askkatzeff @malte A couple of years ago, Musk no doubt used a lot of ketamine, according to himself as well as other sources. But is it certain that he is still on it? He could also have found some other drug of choice. And if he'd been on ketamine constantly for years, at this point he would likely have developed serious urination problems.
People also say that he is on anabolic steroids. Musk's increasingly bizarre body shape is said to be characteristic of somebody taking hormones without really exercising.
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@malte That would be the explanation for those who do have conscience, but let's not forget that a certain percentage of humans don't.
@rhelune Yes, thank you for bringing that point to the table. I was considering to go into that territory too. It is a possibility that Musk are among those rare people who have zero compassion, that is, doesn't care about human suffering. The way Julie Gray describes his visit to Auschwitz certainly made me believe so. If that is the case, then that speaks against the argument here. https://www.unilad.com/news/us-news/elon-musk-tour-auschwitz-unmoved-alleged-nazi-salute-996538-20250125
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@askkatzeff @malte A couple of years ago, Musk no doubt used a lot of ketamine, according to himself as well as other sources. But is it certain that he is still on it? He could also have found some other drug of choice. And if he'd been on ketamine constantly for years, at this point he would likely have developed serious urination problems.
People also say that he is on anabolic steroids. Musk's increasingly bizarre body shape is said to be characteristic of somebody taking hormones without really exercising.
@rasmusfleischer I'm not sure. As late as March 2024, he said he was taking it in an interview. The steroids I didn't know. But it fits the community he wants to be part of. Maybe he was influenced by his friend Joe Rogan? He's an ambassador for testosterone use and probably takes steroids too. @askkatzeff
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So with Musk, it makes me wonder if he's taking the ketamine partly because he knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that what he's doing is abusive and monstrous. If human suffering is something that affects you, that kind of thought is anxiety-provoking. But another part of him just want to get the job done. So the anxiety, which reminds you of your own compassion, gets in the way. Drugs are a way to pick sides and silence one side of yourself.
@malte you know that's an interesting question and angle I hadn't thought about before. But your thread reminded me of a fascinating article about drug use during WW2 (genuinely not trying to Godwin's law this thread! )
Drug abuse seems rife among people asked to do horrific things that would otherwise be against their moral code.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/25/blitzed-norman-ohler-adolf-hitler-nazi-drug-abuse-interview -
@malte you know that's an interesting question and angle I hadn't thought about before. But your thread reminded me of a fascinating article about drug use during WW2 (genuinely not trying to Godwin's law this thread! )
Drug abuse seems rife among people asked to do horrific things that would otherwise be against their moral code.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/25/blitzed-norman-ohler-adolf-hitler-nazi-drug-abuse-interview@Ruth_Mottram @malte that Godwin comment made me laugh. Thanks
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@malte you know that's an interesting question and angle I hadn't thought about before. But your thread reminded me of a fascinating article about drug use during WW2 (genuinely not trying to Godwin's law this thread! )
Drug abuse seems rife among people asked to do horrific things that would otherwise be against their moral code.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/25/blitzed-norman-ohler-adolf-hitler-nazi-drug-abuse-interview@Ruth_Mottram Absolutely, this was the territory I was fishing for. I didn't know about this story. One of the topics I was considering for my masters in psychology was actually the different methods people who do horrendous things do to themselves to keep doing those things. Military psychology has a whole field specialized to overcome the impulse to not kill, for example. Ways of bypassing our natural tendency for compassion and seeing the common humanity in others.
