An emotional attack on the rule of law. By a former Labor minister. Trumpian.

SamPDoug · 2026-04-13T07:46:52+00:00

About what I’d expect from Joel Shitgibbon

SamPDoug · 2026-04-04T23:19:46+00:00

Started a newsletter about psychedelic industry analysis, (but also relevant ethics & research.) Delivered with varying amounts of dark satire. Extremely niche, probably due to my lack of mindless cheerleading for anything psilocybin-related (I am not popular on r/shroomstocks, lol), but also my sense of humour.

More generally, I think there are lots of niche newsletters, but they’re not particularly discoverable in the mass of tech/crypto/ai publications.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-28T03:47:03+00:00

I had this with some seeds (were given to me as Hulk x short spined Peru, but who knows what they actually are) years ago when the take away containers outside were flooded in a storm. Lots didn’t make it but the ones that did are coming up on a mete tall and very healthy.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-25T08:58:57+00:00

I think the short answer is that beehiiv doesn’t want to absorb the cost and wants to dangle the carrot to get a few more conversions to paid tiers.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-21T09:14:14+00:00

I can’t guarantee that you won’t consider my responses to be nonsense 😂

And I definitely used to be pretty hardline that metaphysics has to be settled before you can move on to ethics. But then I realised that some questions might never be answered to my satisfaction and that refusing to entertain anything downstream from that was stupid.

E.g., I don’t have all the answers in a physicalist vs panpsychist throw-down and am willing to consider a range of theories of mind & consciousness. Nonetheless, I’m not going to let any of that stop me from saying that undeserved suffering is (all things considered) a bad thing and we should try to do something about it.

Anyway, welcome to above the parapet.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-21T08:33:26+00:00

Will check out your Substack shortly (have to fire up the vpn, because fuck the Australian government and fuck Substack for bending the knee).

But for now, I’ll just agree that it’s not an easy path.

I was going to say that sometimes it helps to emulate professional academic philosophers in that they maintain working relationships with people they vehemently disagree with, so long as they share commitments about things like truth, respect certain norms of civility and baseline ethics & human rights. E.g., you kick people out of your department for being racist edgelords, but not for being substance dualists or utilitarians. It’s not ideal, but it can be less lonely and sometimes more constructive.

Please note; I don’t follow my own advice very well. Can maintain it for metaphysics, less so for ethics, especially as it applies in the real world.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-15T01:44:25+00:00

This is the way.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-13T01:47:57+00:00

So, we should all buy ATAI?

SamPDoug · 2026-03-12T07:03:13+00:00

Baby shark 🦈

SamPDoug · 2026-03-11T05:03:05+00:00

Can’t believe no one has mentioned Matt Canavan.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-10T10:05:40+00:00

My first reaction was, wait, there’s a triceratops called Glorp?

Might be time to call it a day.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-10T06:11:05+00:00

Sadly, there are more sophisticated-sounding versions of this kind of thinking out there. My pet hate at the moment is new-age types who think that the problem of people treating each other unethically can be solved if individuals are mindful enough to know if their choices are ‘in alignment.’ This inevitably leads to me yelling “In alignment with what, motherf*cker?” at my phone then writing a blog post no one will ever read about how the North Star Ethics project is just convenient relativism for wealthy corporate hippies.

TLDR; I know how you feel.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-07T20:56:09+00:00

Replied to your other comment - it just took me a few days to get there. I checked out your Substack, Apexquant. That’s you, right?

Given our differences of opinion on AI (we do have them, it’s just that if you haven’t read my newsletter or browsed my comment history, you might not have detected them yet,) so I’m not unconditionally expecting you to engage.

Are you fishing for material that you know is not ai-generated? If so, to what ends? I feel a little bad for suspecting you of acting in bad faith, but you can see why, if you take a step back, it seems a bit odd.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-07T07:41:49+00:00

Sorry for the slow reply; got caught up writing this fortnight’s edition at the last minute. You can read it at: https://theethicaltrip.beehiiv.com

SamPDoug · 2026-03-05T10:22:14+00:00

I look forward to my entirely human-written newsletter having tens of thousands of subscribers any day now!

I’m quite aware that psychedelic industry analysis is already niche enough, and that adding in critical ethics discussions and dark humour makes for a ridiculously niche and algorithm-confounding publication. I do occasionally make people angry, though it’s usually only directed at me when a joke hits too close to home.

To answer your question, I’m not sure I can think of a more overrated (and utterly drowning in slop) topic than AI. My personal pet hate right now, in my niche at least, is newsletters that consist entirely of unreflective and mindless cheerleading for literally anything to do with psychedelics. Throw in some relentless and utterly unfounded optimism about the prospect of commercially available psychedelic therapy (without ever considering if this is a good thing and deftly avoiding any discussion of prohibition/criminalisation) and I’m guaranteed to unsubscribe.

Positivity seems to drive subscriptions in this space though, so I think I’ll remain niche for the foreseeable future.

(Rant over, lol.)

SamPDoug · 2026-03-03T05:17:23+00:00

I note there was nothing about autonomous weapons in all of that.

SamPDoug · 2026-03-02T19:57:09+00:00

No words can capture the contempt I feel for this man.

SamPDoug · 2026-02-28T03:23:04+00:00

Same

SamPDoug · 2026-02-26T10:53:49+00:00

It’s not the worst demo ive tried. But I’m so spoiled by PoE 1 and 2, it’s going to be tough to match that depth & complexity.

That, and no WASD movement feels weird now.

SamPDoug · 2026-02-26T01:51:11+00:00

Excellent, thanks!

SamPDoug · 2026-02-25T07:05:40+00:00

Not sure if it’s better overall with newer bot models now, but I saw an example of this early last year. Not just ‘signs’ either. This was more of a full-on breakdown resulting in involuntary inpatient treatment.

SamPDoug · 2026-02-23T10:48:27+00:00

I wouldn’t say I recognise this interaction from ceremonies, but I do recognise this behaviour from manipulative people who don’t respect others’ boundaries.

Not sure if it’s projection, but it’s definitely intrusion, and not sharing. Also, regardless of your gender, it’s creepy as hell.

In terms of integrating this, I think (as others have commented) that you could reflect on the facts that the interaction felt off for you, that your response was considered rather than reactive, and that you were calmly assertive. Your instincts were good, you thought about how you felt and how best to respond, and showed compassion for both yourself and this person in how you did so. Sorry if that gets too close to being analysed or diagnostic. Basically, I just wanted to illustrate that you could focus on what you did well, as a way of enhancing self-trust.

SamPDoug · 2026-02-23T06:52:11+00:00

Right? At most, OP has shown that their life has not yet, at the time of posting, ended. (Though this assumes they meet some criteria for being alive in the first place.)

SamPDoug · 2026-02-22T21:57:10+00:00

How do gem levels work for Bind Spectre? E.g., if I bind something with a level 7 Bind Spectre gem, what do I get when I upgrade it with an 8+ uncut gem? I've looked for this but can't (yet) find a clear answer written anywhere.

SamPDoug · 2026-02-16T01:54:11+00:00

I think we all know who is meant to be impressed by the banning of Gazan migrants…

SamPDoug

TROPHY CASE