Tech Bros are afraid of the Red Pill
The scene from the Matrix is actually perfect to describe how "intellectuals" are reacting to psychedelics
I need to first say that, yes, psychedelics are NO JOKE and should not be taken lightly. In point of fact, if you have this kind of attitude exemplified by Yudkowsky above, you probably should never take psychedelics. You aren’t ready for it. Psychedelics (or entheogens as some people prefer to call them) should be approached with at least a modicum of respect, if not reverence.
You might be familiar with the “red pill movement” on the internet which is mostly about sexual politics. As part of my ongoing research into epistemic tribes, here are the core referents of “red pill theory”
“Male and female nature is biologically determined and fundamentally different” This is perhaps the most central referent - the belief that men and women have inherent, immutable psychological and behavioral traits shaped by evolution. This grounds their other beliefs about social dynamics.
“Modern society/culture obscures and denies these fundamental truths about gender” The notion that there is a hidden reality about gender relations that is actively suppressed or denied by mainstream culture. This creates the framework of “taking the red pill” as seeing through deception.
“Sexual selection follows predictable market dynamics” The view that mate selection operates like a marketplace with clear rules, value propositions, and strategies. This referent leads to their focus on sexual market value, competition, and optimization.
“Authentic masculinity has been systematically weakened” The belief that traditional masculine traits and roles have been undermined by cultural forces, leading to both individual and societal problems.
These core referents then spawn numerous subsidiary beliefs about specific dating strategies, social structures, and prescribed behaviors. Conversely, the Blue Pill Theory rejects these notions.
“Gender is primarily socially constructed” The foundational belief that most observed gender differences arise from culture, socialization and systemic forces rather than biology. This directly opposes the red pill's biological determinism.
“Individual authenticity transcends traditional gender roles” The belief that personal identity and fulfillment comes from breaking free of rigid gender expectations. This contrasts with red pill’s emphasis on embracing “natural” gender roles.
“Relationships should be based on mutual emotional growth and partnership” The view that healthy relationships are built on equality, communication, and shared development - rejecting the red pill's market/transaction frame.
“Power structures shape intimate relationships” The belief that dating/relationships can’t be understood separately from broader social power dynamics and systemic inequalities. This opposes the red pill’s focus on individual sexual strategy.
“Traditional masculinity is often toxic and harmful” The view that many classical masculine traits perpetuate harm to both men and women and should be critically examined rather than celebrated.
The tension between these two epistemic tribes is amazing and should be studied more. Maybe I’ll write a book about epistemic tribes one day.
The Symbolism of the Red Pill
The “red pill” that Morpheus offers Neo symbolizes “the Truth” and “waking up” no matter how horrible or inconvenient that happens to be. During my interviews for my upcoming Welcome to the Psychedelic Renaissance, one interviewee said “A lot of people are afraid of exiting the Matrix” and he was referring to this scene and basically saying that psychedelics are the red pill.
I couldn’t agree more.
You might hear some horror stories about people doing Ayahuasca and then leaving their families, quitting their jobs, or in my case, quitting AI. Though, to be clear, I haven’t done Ayahuasca yet. Just plain old psilocybin in my case, but the good news I’m about to go fix that. Stay tuned for my post-retreat reports.
In storytelling, we often talk about “the Lie” versus “the Truth” in that there’s often some tension that your protagonist has, there is something darkly True about themselves or the world that they refuse to believe or face up to. For Neo, it was first waking up to the reality that the real world was a post-apocalyptic hell. We lost the final war. The second truth was that he was the One. Poor Neo, he had to face two mythic Truths in one movie. Maybe that’s why the first movie was much better. Far more mythic.
Cypher, on the other hand, cannot accept reality as it is. He hates it, and just wants to dream away his life. He’s a Blue Pill Man (and yes, I realize this is a double entendre to the trope in porn about men who can’t perform without Viagra… early 2000’s internet politics). But that sort of is actually on point? Cypher can’t perform in the real world, so he’d rather take a gender-affirming medicine and go back to sleep. This is another reason that The Matrix works better than all its sequels. It has a shadow of Neo, a true foil who literally just makes the opposite choice.
In the case of Red Pill Theory vs Blue Pill Theory, the idea is that the former group has “woken up” to the biological truth of humanity; that men have more testosterone and women have more estrogen and, by and large, this has large, predictable impacts on their romantic and sexual preferences. If you were studying any other animal, this would pretty much just be called “science.” At the same time, humans are complex and we have huge amounts of social and sexual flexibility. We can live under feudalism, monarchy, democracy, and fascism, so clearly there’s not one “True” way to govern. Men and women can both be sexually dominant or submissive, straight, gay, bi, or asexual. So clearly there’s no one “True” sexuality.
As an aside, here’s my take: so long as you ARE sexually active there’s a good chance that you might still procreate. Many gay dudes I know have had more sex with women than men. Not sure why, could be social pressure before coming out, lack of options. Who knows. There are also plenty of lesbians that have sex with men because, well men see booba and men want booba, and lesbians are famously shy, so it’s just easier for a woman to get sex from a man, generally speaking. The only category that I’d say is “unnatural” or, more kindly, an evolutionary dead end is asexuality i.e. people who are categorically disinterested in sex or revolted by it. In some cases I suspect trauma plays a role, but I don’t know if there is such a thing as primary asexuality (i.e. people who are born disinterested in sex). In other words, so long as your sexual equipment works and you use it, that’s probably “good enough” from an evolutionary perspective.
We can get lost going down a rabbit hole about emergence and narratives, but a simpler way of capping off this section is to say that the Red Pill People hold physical biology as their main set of referents. They say, all else being equal, the human animal should be the source of Truth, since society is clearly too flexible and chaotic and can convince itself of lies. Conversely, the Blue Pill People (not Viagra addicts) say that no, actually society is their main set of referents, that culture and the social flexibility of humans is clearly the more important emergent quality of humanity.
Why can’t they all just get up to speed on metamodernism and realize that they are operating at different levels of ontological strata? Come on guys, this is just basic contemporary philosophy for which there is almost no accessible media!
Tech Bros and Ayahuasca
What a heading to start with, huh?
Here’s the thing, psychedelics literally mean “mind-manifesting” which, in other words, means that it just brings whatever’s in you to light.
So why would nootropic-obsessed tech bros be afraid of seeing more and knowing more? Well, that’s because they, like Cypher, don’t really want to see the whole truth. They are afraid that the social narratives they’ve been fed might be lies, or more gently, might not be their truth. They’re afraid that everything they’ve built their identity on might be fabrications, self-delusions, or misinformation.
In Yudkowsky’s case, this is absolutely the case as he has demonstrated that he’s very comfortable in his self-made delusions. After all, it got him onto the TED Stage and in TIME Magazine. Any potential threat to the epistemic house of cards he’s built for himself is anathema to the strongest human drive: for social status. Yudkowsky cannot tolerate the truth—that he might be wrong—therefore he doubles down lest he lose his status. The deepest irony is that his internet forum is called Less Wrong.
So what does “waking up” with psychedelics mean? Why do I say that psychedelics are the “red pill”? Going back to the definition: mind-manifesting. When something isn’t working for you, or when you see it for what it is, you generally can no longer ignore it. And so you might have constructed elaborate sets of self-delusions, narratives, and justifications for why things are the way they are in your life, but psychedelics tear all that down.
Your mind, subconsciously or unconsciously, knows the truth. But particularly for intellectuals, who are often more gullible due to being able to rationalize and justify things that other people can’t. This actually has a term, dysrationalia. Thus, in this case, I suspect that Yudkowsky is afraid of “waking up” to his dysrationalia. That would be social suicide for a “rationalist.” Which is why he must make increasingly indefensible assertions such as “psychedelics are heartbreakingly bad”
Study after study have shown overwhelmingly positive long-term outcomes from using psychedelics. So why would Yudkowsky and other tech bros (though he’s not really a tech bro as he’s never touched a line of code) be doubling down on things that are just not rational?
Narrative preservation, and epistemic tribal coherence. As the leader of epistemic tribes, people like Yudkowsky, Karpathy, and Verdon (all of whom have publicly criticized or mocked psychedelics) have to maintain the dog and pony show. They are afraid that if they take psychedelics, they might realize that AI is not the be-all end-all of everything, and that their social status is predicated on something unimportant.
As an aside, many people double down or lean into whatever they are doing after psychedelics. Many CEOs and founders who do psychedelics do even better in business afterwards, because they are more clear-headed and have a better understanding of themselves, the value they add, and a better relationship with money, people, and their own mind. But it’s just a much less sensational story to hear “CEO did Ayahuasca and… continued being a CEO!”
People will continue doubling down on increasingly boneheaded assertions to defend their social status. Many people will take it to the grave with them. Losing social status is physically painful (when examined via fMRI) and also harms your health. Yudkowsky has picked the perfect dragon for himself—AI isn’t going anywhere ever so he can keep saying for decades to come, maybe even centuries, that it’s just about to wake up and murder everyone. God forbid we get to LEV and we have listen to his ramblings forever. To be fair, the rise of the Internet itself created some doomsday cults, and we don’t really hear from them anymore.
Rationalist Referents
These are the core referents of the modern “Rationalist” community (scare quotes because they are increasingly irrational, actually). Specifically, these are the core referents that Yudkowsky seems to operate by.
“Rationality is fundamentally about overcoming cognitive biases through explicit reasoning.” This positions their form of rationality as superior to both intuitive thinking and traditional scientific methods. The origination of this idea? Their debate medium: internet forums. In the absence of scientific rigor, laboratories, and really any other trappings, they just agreed “a good internet debate counts!”
“Existential risks from artificial intelligence are inevitable due to fundamental properties of intelligence.” This serves as an unfalsifiable axiom that grounds much of their other thinking. They say stuff like “even a 5% chance that AI will kill everyone is unacceptable!” (without actually providing any theoretical grounding or mathematical frameworks, by the way).
“Complex philosophical arguments can reveal more reliable truths than empirical evidence.” This justifies privileging thought experiments and theoretical frameworks over data. Again, in the early days of Less Wrong, they didn’t actually have any real AI to work with or experiment on, so they had to satisfice with speculation and hand-waving about technology that didn’t exist.
“The rationalist community has unique access to important truths through superior reasoning methods.” This creates in-group/out-group dynamics and justifies dismissing outside criticism. It is also the core delusion that leads to Doomerism. It amounts to “trust me bro, I used my imagination and made a good forum post about it.”
“Status within the community is earned through novel philosophical arguments rather than empirical contributions.” This creates selection pressure for interesting-but-wrong ideas. This comes from their contrarian origins. Yudkowsky is not scientifically literate and, for his tribe to have any clout, must in fact reject scientific consensus and scientific processes (because the scientific consensus is that he’s an idiot).
“Alignment with superhuman AI is the most important problem humanity faces.” This belief justifies extreme positions and dismissal of other concerns. “If you disagree with us, you’re just wrong or stupid or don’t understand it. Now prepare to bomb all data centers!”
Psychedelics would nuke this house of cards from orbit, hence we see Yudkowsky using his platform to urge his followers never to do psychedelics.
This biggest take away here, is that there is no direct relationship between 'intelligence', 'self awareness' and 'critical thinking'.
In other words, it's perhaps even more likely that a highly intelligent person lacks self awareness and doesn't think criticalally.
Even though, they can be great at solving problems and learning, simultaneously they can more easy be fooled by their own cognitive biases because they will have far better reasons and justifications.
Ultimately, they are like a great story teller that gets lost in their own dream. At most they go from one dream to another but to wake up, something else is needed.
I am very bullish on psychedelics. As far as I know, the outspoken tech bros that have come out against them are mostly reacting negatively to the overwhelming amount of people (including a lot of OpenAI and Anthropic and EA people) that openly speak about being pro-psychedelics and macrodosing in private and microdosing at work.