LSD Father Hoffman Leaves Behind Inspirations for Technology
The illegitimate use of LSD is hopelessly intertwined with creativity and the invention. Where would music of the 1960s have been without it? Its inspiration has given us everything from lava lamps to multi-track audio recordings and countless developments in technology ever since.
Albert Hoffman, the father of LSD died Tuesday in Switzerland. He produced the substance as a medicine and probably didn’t intend to touch off the hippie revolution that followed Timothy Leary.
But the use of LSD as a hallucinogen by the Merry Pranksters in the 1960s is the basis for a wave of technological optimism that would follow for decades. It’s a cultural contribution that has so deeply permeated our lexicon that the self-actualization of LSD culture is taken for granted today, even in unexpected areas of society.
Corporate culture is great at tossing out meaningless vernacular when it doesn’t really know what to say. So, it borrows language from concepts like transcendence.
Terms like synergy and phrases like thinking out of the box are direct descendants of LSD (acid) culture. Try opening up that discussion at the board room over the next power point presentation!
Hoffman himself decided long ago that the self-realizing attributes of LSD can be achieved naturally so he did not condone using it as a recreational drug. Acid and other psychedelics are probably not as prevalent anymore, unfortunately having been replaced by the kinds of white powders often lamented by Ray Manzarek of the Doors.
Next time you’re looking at a psychedelic Winamp visualizer plug-in that dances to your music… thank Hoffman for his part in the development of new technologies.
What other LSD inspired technologies can you think of?
Some say LSD has beneficial effects on problem-solving. Mind you under the influence, communicating those ideas can be a challenge, but literature and music are full of great works which were conceived (if not executed) under the influence of hallucinogens.
And... I believe (without academic proof) that LSD inspired many of the glyphs which evolved into "smilies", aka emoticons.
I'm pretty sure you'd have to be on a trip to a)see an imaginary dancing baby at inaappropriate times and b)find it amusing.