Not Sid Meier, but another great quote was Will Wright (Sim City), when building a helicopter game 'Attack on Bungling Bay' had more fun making the map parts join together and roads line up - it changed his experience such that his next game was Sim City.
"Building is more fun than breaking" - (may be paraphrased).
B&W was weird. It took its key game mechanic (training up your creature) and denied it to you in one of the (only 5) levels making it just another RTS type thing. Wait, what?
Peter Molyneux did some amazing stuff but overpromised and underdelivered a lot. [1]
But some stuff was amazing, PowerMonger was pretty impressive too, but didn't have the succinctness Populous had.
Hence the wisdom of the 'already been there': (Mind)set and setting.
A 'clinical' environment, may not be the ideal setting for some patients.
I don't think psychedelics are going to be any different to any other officially approved psychiatric medicine - we don't know enough to know which subset of patients will respond well vs. poorly for psychedelics any more than already available FDA approved (or equivalent similar organisations for other nations) of psychiatric medicines, which in some cases fuck people over for life after a single dose. Large numbers of people have permanently suffered a massively reduced quality of life as a result of a single Invega injection, yet it's still administered regardless.
All I know, is that we don't know enough to know enough.
My personal empirical experience is that I'm wired backwards and have atypical responses to what is now available due to the clinical phase 3 trial majority response, and have personally suffered from supposed experts applying the 'approved' treatments. Even my current psychologist admits they're in foggy territory which makes her better than previous medical professionals I've dealt with.
Advances in physiological medicine changes before and during my lifetime have been incredible. Advances in psychiatric medicine during my lifetime have been a result of capitalist companies gaming systems to create revenue streams rather than improve the overall well-being of humans. The war on drugs just stifled understanding of what options are out there, and what cause-effect mechanisms exist.
It's nice to see independent studies above and beyond the other end of the extremists (e.g. MAPS) contributing to understanding, even though sample sizes are miniscule compared to what we need.
We're currently gambling/playing the probabilistic statistic odds on psychiatric medications without knowing the 'why/how' they work.
We still don't fully understand the mechanisms of action of Aspirin which was first synthesised well over a century ago, and been in widespread use for many decades.
I still remember thinking as a young person (now 50+) that it was stupid leaving all these lights on at night, particularly corporate logos on buildings.
I've moved out of the city and can see most of the stars still, although my eyesight is now failing and I can't see stars I used to...
We are becoming inwardly and selfishly focused as a species and disconnected to the world the alone the rest of the solar system/universe.
Or don't bother with the above - install Windows 10 without an online account and just unplug the network card. Download the Win11 upgrade binary. Run the upgrade and keep clicking no to the many (but not excessive) times it suggests to create a Microsoft Account.
Time intensive, but doesn't require much knowledge or pulling hardware.
Rockbox on a Sansa Clip+ (2009) was my personal peak for portable music - overtaking ye olde mini-disc player. The newer models all sucked usability-wise in comparison - screen-wise/button-wise etc. etc.
It was 2 colour, only had 6 or 7 buttons, I could completely operate it without looking at it, and Rockbox gave it the two main features I really wanted: flac support and gapless playback.
The main advantage I have now is I can have my entire (digitised) music collection on my phone - mostly ripped from CD's or purchased from Bandcamp, because it's > 400GB, and I think the Sansa Clip+ only supported 8GB maximum back in the day. Was considering digitising stuff we only have on vinyl as there is a USB output on our turntable, but decided to just leave it in its pure form. Plus recording at 1x speed is almost like going back to the dual cassette tape recorder era and high-speed dubbing was 'special'.
Hardware-wise the clip on the back always broke quickly and then the headphone socket went at some point. Went through about 5 of them before they were obsolete/or on eBay for $100s, but were good enough and cheap enough to keep replacing. One interesting upside of the space constraint was that it made you curate your own music collection, and then opt for a different set (particularly after a few new purchases).
Looks like Rockbox now does a heck of a lot more than it used to back in the day. It's great you've breathed additional life into it.
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