It seems like some people are having a hard time understanding what this is about, so let me try giving some context:
This author is interested in the "space" of possible experiences, including emotions, and the potential to manipulate them through drugs and future technology, especially in a future where technology and our understanding of the brain and consciousness are greatly advanced.
There are various problems with "drugs" of various kinds, like how some of them could make you an addict, withdrawn from the world, like a zombie, etc. There are different ways that people worry about the effect of drugs on their users, and even some people like this author (who are trying to be very independent of social convention and social norms) show some respect to those concerns.
Then one way of phrasing the angle of this essay might be:
In a technological future where we could get and make even more powerful drugs, and had fewer practical responsibilities (like not having to work), what would we want to understand about our relationship with drugs so that using them literally all of the time would be a good thing rather than a bad thing, in terms of the rest of what we value? What are the good and the bad of drug experiences, and can we tease them apart conceptually?
I don't have enough of a position on this question (or enough understanding of some parts of the essay) to be clear on whether I agree or disagree, but I hope that helps in terms of what the essay is talking about. ("Wireheading" basically means using some kind of artificial means to feel super-good all of the time, and people worry about it because people and other animals who are given this opportunity seem to immediately lose all interest in everything else, which seems kind of bad from most conventional perspectives of what a person can or should be!)
Specifically the thesis seems to be the idea that one can avoid the negative effects of continuous euphoria (habituation, unhappiness associated with the come down) by setting up one's environment such that one can transition from one "class" of (not necessarily drug-induced) euphoria to another. I don't think it's too crazy; I can easily see the structures suggested in the article superimposed on top of a healthy, normal-looking, even drug-free, life.
…This made a lot of sense when I read it in between biphasic sleep phases at 3 AM last night. Not sure what that means.
This author is interested in the "space" of possible experiences, including emotions, and the potential to manipulate them through drugs and future technology, especially in a future where technology and our understanding of the brain and consciousness are greatly advanced.
There are various problems with "drugs" of various kinds, like how some of them could make you an addict, withdrawn from the world, like a zombie, etc. There are different ways that people worry about the effect of drugs on their users, and even some people like this author (who are trying to be very independent of social convention and social norms) show some respect to those concerns.
Then one way of phrasing the angle of this essay might be:
In a technological future where we could get and make even more powerful drugs, and had fewer practical responsibilities (like not having to work), what would we want to understand about our relationship with drugs so that using them literally all of the time would be a good thing rather than a bad thing, in terms of the rest of what we value? What are the good and the bad of drug experiences, and can we tease them apart conceptually?
I don't have enough of a position on this question (or enough understanding of some parts of the essay) to be clear on whether I agree or disagree, but I hope that helps in terms of what the essay is talking about. ("Wireheading" basically means using some kind of artificial means to feel super-good all of the time, and people worry about it because people and other animals who are given this opportunity seem to immediately lose all interest in everything else, which seems kind of bad from most conventional perspectives of what a person can or should be!)