Отець Агапій Гончаренко народився Андрієм Онуфрієвичем Гумницьким 19 (31) серпня 1832 року. Його батько Онуфрій був православним пастором у їхньому селі Кривень, Київської області, Україна. Як і його батько, мати Андрія, Євдокія, була гордою нащадкою давнього українського козацького роду — Богунів. У 1651 році, під час українсько-польської боротьби, полковник Іван Богун прийняв командування козацьким військом у битві під Берестечком, Україна, коли гетьмана Богдана Хмельницького викрали татари.

Дитина середнього класу, Гончаренко восени 1840 року вступив до бурси (інтернату для хлопчиків), а пізніше до Київської духовної семінарії. На початку свого життя він мав змогу на власні очі бачити страждання простих українських селян. «Під час відпусток я мав змогу бачити, як польська аристократія ставилася до наших православних і як їхні слуги б'ють дівчат батогами», – писав Гончаренко у своїх «Спогадах» (опублікованих у 1894 році Михайлом Павликом у Коломиї, Західна Україна (Галичина)).

Молодий Андрій намагався уникнути цієї неприємної сцени в селі. У 1853 році він закінчив Київську духовну семінарію і, одягнувши чернечий одяг, переїхав до Печерської лаври в Києві, щоб стати послушником. Саме тут він прийняв чернече ім'я «Ахапій». Ахапій був вражений, побачивши мирськість ченців. Їхнє життя різко контрастувало з бідністю та стражданнями сільських людей, з якими юний послушник стикався, виконуючи свої обов'язки помічника митрополита Київського Філарета.

12 липня 1857 року Гончаренко мав насичену подіями зустріч у Києві з князем Сергієм Трубецьким, політичним вигнанцем, який повернувся з країни після невдалого повстання декабристів 1825 року. Ця група повстанців, яка мала значну кількість послідовників серед офіцерського корпусу, мала на меті ліквідувати два стовпи Російської імперії — самодержавство та кріпацтво. Таємні товариства були створені як у Росії, так і в Україні в 1818 році. Ці змовники так і не розібралися з політичною проблемою, яку ставила Україна, але багато їхніх письменників висловлювали співчуття до героїчних традицій України, особливо до саги про козаків. Декабристський рух став каталізатором розвитку української політичної та культурної свідомості 19 століття. Його зустріч із Трубецьким надихнула Гончаренка продовжити справу декабристів.

Восени 1857 року Гончаренко опинився в Афінах, Греція. Священний Синод (керівний орган царської Російської православної церкви) рекомендував призначити архідиякона (ієродиякона) до Російської консульської церкви в Афінах. Митрополит Київський Філарет обрав на цю посаду свого молодого помічника. Ахапій швидко занурився в грецьку культуру та почав вивчати мову філософів. Перебуваючи в Афінах, він зв'язався з Олександром Герценом та Миколою Огарьовим — двома відомими російськими політичними емігрантами, які публікували антицарські матеріали в Лондоні. Живо згадуючи страждання та жорстоке поводження з селянами поблизу Києва, аморальність та пияцтво в монастирі, Гончаренко почав писати статті для цих лондонських видань, для «Колокола» (Дзвін).

Ополудні 2 лютого 1860 року київського архідиякона запросили приєднатися до Олександра Петровича Озерова, російського посла в Афінах, на вечерю на борту корабля «Русалка». Після посадки на це судно Гончаренку вручили папірець, у якому повідомлялося, що він заарештований і буде депортований до Росії. «Русалка» перевезла київського ченця до Константинополя, де його кинули до в'язниці разом зі «злодіями та п'яницями російського походження». За дванадцять днів, які знадобилися російському військовому кораблю, щоб дістатися до цього міста, друзі Гончаренка в Афінах зв'язалися зі своїми контактами в османській столиці.

16 лютого молодому ченцю допомогли втекти з в'язниці, і він негайно вирушив до Лондона, куди прибув 4 березня. Він пробув там близько вісімнадцяти місяців. Перебуваючи там, він зустрівся з Герценом, Огарьовим та італійським політичним емігрантом Джузеппе Мацціні. Гончаренко працював у Британському музеї класифікатором та нумізматом. Він продовжував писати для Герцена та працював друкарем у крамниці Людвіга Чернецького. Агапій добре заробляв за свою роботу. Йому вдалося фінансово допомогти численним російським біженцям, які стікалися до Лондона в роки політичної невизначеності за царя Олександра II.

Агапій продовжував писати статті для видання «Колокол». На початку 1861 року він почав використовувати псевдонім «Гончаренко», а згодом обрав псевдонім як прізвище. Наприкінці 1861 року київський чернець повернувся до Греції через Туреччину. У січні 1862 року він відвідав свого дядька, Дмитра Богуна, на Афоні. Пізніше того ж місяця, після подання прохання про висвячення там, його було висвячено на священика. З Греції отець Гончаренко вирушив до Єрусалиму. Коли російський консул у Святому Місті дізнався про його присутність, Агапію погрожували арештом та депортацією. Молодий священик мав рекомендаційний лист, наданий йому князем Іваном Гагаріним, російським римо-католиком. Це забезпечило йому захист Єрусалимського патріарха. За пропозицією Гагаріна український вигнанець деякий час викладав у єзуїтській школі в Ліванських горах. Зрештою він переїхав до Александрії, Єгипет, де знайшов притулок у англійця сера Семюеля Бейкера.

Отець Гончаренко відкрив невеликий магазин поблизу залізничного вокзалу Каїра. Саме тут він зазнав першого нападу на своє життя. Його грецький нападник зізнався, що його найняв російський консул, щоб «вмовити» священика покинути Александрію. Еллінські друзі Ахапія закликали його повернутися до Греції та подати заяву на отримання громадянства. Він так і зробив і отримав громадянство 6 червня 1863 року. Наступного року український емігрант подорожував грецькими островами та східними містами як перекладач для двох російських вчених, Ямонського та Перцова, які шукали слов'янські реліквії.

Гончаренко поступово дійшов висновку, що його народ може повною мірою реалізувати свій інтелектуальний та культурний потенціал за кордоном. Розмови з впливовими російськими політичними емігрантами в Лондоні переконали його, що йому слід емігрувати до Сан-Франциско, щоб відкрити російське видавництво. Молодий священик сподівався об'єднати слов'янський народ Тихоокеанського узбережжя Сполучених Штатів у сильну організацію. Він попрощався з Афінами 18 жовтня 1864 року. Корабель «Ярінгтон» перевіз його з Ізміра, Туреччина, до Бостона, штат Массачусетс. У Новий рік 1865 року український православний священик прибув до Америки.

Перша неофіційна служба Грецької православної церкви, яку провів в Америці отець Гончаренко 6 січня 1865 року, викликала інтерес місцевих членів цієї віри. У лютому цей український емігрант був гостем на вечері, яку влаштував єпископ Поттер з Трійці-каплиці в Нью-Йорку. На цьому зібранні він дізнався від присутніх духовенства, що минулого року православних капеланів, які супроводжували російський флот (командувачем якого, до речі, був український адмірал С. Лессовський), запросили відслужити літургію в єпископальних церквах цього міста. Російські священики відмовили, мотивуючи це тим, що православ'я забороняє їм служити в протестантських церквах. Вони сказали: «Ми не будемо мати справ з єретиками». Єпископ Поттер запропонував отцю Ахапію можливість відслужити літургію в церкві Святої Трійці, розташованій на 26-й вулиці в Нью-Йорку. 2 березня 1865 року український священик відслужив першу публічну православну службу в Новому Світі.

Гончаренку було тридцять два роки, коли він вперше привернув увагу двох американських газет, The New York Evening Post та The New York Times. The New York Evening Post (2 березня 1865 року) надрукувала довгий звіт про православну службу, що відбулася в каплиці Святої Трійці, характеризуючи її заголовком «Значна та політична церемонія». Газета «Нью-Йорк Таймс» (3 березня 1865 року) також присвятила кілька колонок огляду цієї Літургії та її значення для російсько-американських відносин. В одному абзаці було наведено цікавий опис українського священика-вигнанця.

«Російсько-грецький священнослужитель, преподобний Агапій Гончаренко, — приємний і гідний на вигляд священнослужитель приблизно п'ятдесяти років. Він росіянин за походженням і випускник церковної академії Санкт-Петербурга. Корабель «Олександр Невський», який близько дванадцяти місяців тому вирушив з цього міста до Афін, приніс звістку до грецької столиці, що в цій країні багато представників Православної Церкви не мають пастора, і він прибув, запропонувавши свої послуги, акредитований митрополитом Афінським та Священним Синодом Королівства Греції».

Можливо, п'ять років постійних подорожей Гончаренка та його густа борода робили його набагато старшим (50), ніж він насправді мав (32). Швидше за все, сам священнослужитель дещо змінив ці друковані деталі свого життя, щоб замаскувати свою присутність у Нью-Йорку від пильних очей царського уряду.

Невдовзі з київським священнослужителем зв'язався російський консул у Нью-Йорку, барон Роберт Остен Сакен, щоб навчити цього чиновника грецької мови. Минуле Гончаренка, що був у втечі, поки що залишалося прихованим. Гострий погляд двоголового орла (символу царської влади) невдовзі простежив невловимі обриси попередньої «злочинної» діяльності отця Агапія. Барона попросили заарештувати українського вигнанця. Консул відмовився ініціювати цю дію.

Гончаренко знову потрапив у заголовки газет 15 квітня 1865 року, проводячи православну службу в церкві Святого Павла в Новому Орлеані, штат Луїзіана. Він провів освячення цієї першої грецької православної церкви в Сполучених Штатах. Імперський уряд вжив рішучих заходів, щоб ізолювати його від грецьких друзів. 13 травня 1865 року грецького консула в Нью-Йорку, Кира Ботассі, відвідав російський посол, барон Едвард де Штекль. Росіяни погодилися виділити кошти на будівництво нової православної церкви в місті з пастором, отцем Ніколасом Б'єррінгом. Грекам було наказано розірвати зв'язки з отцем Агапієм, «ворогом Росії». Гончаренко був змушений шукати нову роботу. Американське біблійне товариство найняло його для перекладу Біблії арабською та церковнослов'янською мовами.

Завдяки знайомству з італійським революціонером Мадзіні, українець потрапив до будинку Джона Сітті у Філадельфії, чий дім був місцем зустрічей іммігрантів-італійських патріотів. 28 вересня 1865 року в Нью-Йорку Гончаренко одружився з Альбіною, дочкою пана Сітті. Альбіна Сітті стала супутницею українського емігранта на все життя і зробила важливий внесок у його видавничу роботу на узбережжі Тихого океану.

Царські шпигуни уважно спостерігали за життям київського вигнанця в Нью-Йорку. Займаючись перекладами Біблії, він ніколи не забував про свій попередній план відкрити видавництво на Західному узбережжі. 1867 рік остаточно переконав його здійснити свою мрію. Переговори про продаж Російської Америки Сполученим Штатам відбувалися взимку та навесні того ж року. 18 жовтня 1867 року російський прапор було востаннє приспущено в Сітці, Аляска. Починаючи з 1808 року, Сітка стала столицею Російської Америки.

Точний характер участі Гончаренка в купівлі Аляски залишається прихованим. Цілком ймовірно, що він зв'язався з державним секретарем Сьюардом десь у 1867 році. Перші американські публікації православного священика (1868) були започатковані на прохання Сьюарда. За чотирнадцять днів до відправлення росіян з Аляски отець Агапій та його дружина-вчителька сіли на пароплав «Америка» в Нью-Йорку та відпливли до Панамського перешийка. Він та Альбіна накопичили значну суму грошей — 2500 доларів. Під час подорожі на захід серед їхніх речей був друкарський верстат з кирилицею вартістю 1600 доларів.

Потяг перевіз їх п'ятдесят сім миль через Центральну Америку, а потім інший корабель 6 листопада доставив їх до Сан-Франциско.

Український вигнанець розглядав можливість заснування свого видавництва на Алясці, але боявся цензури з боку американської військової влади, яка там контролювала. Сан-Франциско, головний порт судноплавства та сполучення з Російською Америкою та з неї, пропонував більш підходяще місце. Будинок за адресою Маркет-стріт, 536, став домівкою для першої російсько-англійської газети, що видавалася у Сполучених Штатах, «The Alaska Herald» («Свобода»). Протягом наступних п'яти років друкарня отця Гончарека також була місцем збору колишніх жителів Аляски, а також біженців з Росії та Сибіру.

Yesterday, over Silicon Valley, the world is getting its first look at Pathfinder 1, a prototype electric airship that its maker LTA Research hopes will kickstart a new era in climate-friendly air travel, and accelerate the humanitarian work of its funder, Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

The airship — its snow-white steampunk profile visible from the busy 101 highway — has taken drone technology such as fly-by-wire controls, electric motors and lidar sensing, and supersized them to something longer than three Boeing 737s, potentially able to carry tons of cargo over many hundreds of miles.

“It’s been 10 years of blood, sweat and tears,” LTA CEO Alan Weston told TechCrunch on the eve of the unveiling. “Now we must show that this can reliably fly in real-world conditions. And we’re going to do that.”

A series of increasingly ambitious flight tests lie ahead, before Pathfinder 1 is moved to Akron, Ohio, where LTA Research is planning an even larger airship, the Pathfinder 3. The company eventually hopes to produce a family of airships to provide disaster relief where roads and airports are damaged, as well as zero-carbon passenger transportation.

For the next year however, the gigantic airship looks set to become a Silicon Valley landmark as its novel materials and systems are methodically put through their paces within shouting distance of companies like Google, Meta and Amazon. “I’m excited about the potential of not building just one airship, but laying the foundation for many airships to be built,” said Weston. “The innovations and the technologies that we’re about to demonstrate have the potential to lay the foundation for a new industry.”

At 124.5 meters long, Pathfinder 1 dwarfs the current Goodyear airships and even the massive Stratolaunch plane designed to launch orbital rockets. It’s the largest aircraft to take to the skies since the gargantuan Hindenburg airship of the 1930s. Although similar in appearance to that ill-fated airship, and using a passenger gondola supplied by Zeppelin, the Pathfinder 1 was mostly built from the ground up using new materials and technologies.

LTA’s airship uses stable helium rather than flammable hydrogen as a lifting gas, held in 13 giant rip-stop nylon cells and monitored by lidar laser systems. A rigid framework of 10,000 carbon-fiber reinforced tubes and 3,000 titanium hubs form a protective skeleton around the gas cells, surrounded by a lightweight synthetic Tedlar skin.

Twelve electric motors powered by diesel generators and batteries enable vertical take-off and landing. They can propel the Pathfinder 1 at up to 65 knots (75 mph), although its initial flights will be at much lower speeds.

Yesterday morning, the airship floated silently from its WW2-era hangar at NASA’s Moffett Field at walking pace, steered by ropes held by dozens of the company’s engineers, technicians and ground crew.

The whole operation occurred under the cover of darkness, not because LTA has something to hide but because the airship’s flight test program begins with the first rays of the morning sun. The first lesson its engineers hope to learn is how Pathfinder 1’s approximately one million cubic feet of helium and weather resistant polymer skin will respond to the warming effect of Californian sunshine.

“We have sophisticated methodology that allows us to replicate real-world conditions using static test stands,” said Jillian Hilenski, senior mechanical engineer at LTA. “However, dynamic on-ship flight tests provide the best data on the health and efficiency of the airship.”

At the start of September, the FAA issued a special airworthiness certificate for the Pathfinder 1 allowing test flights in and around Moffett Field and the nearby Palo Alto airport, and over the southern part of the San Francisco Bay.

Those tests will initially happen just a few feet off the ground, with the airship tethered to a mobile tripod mast. These will be followed by simple maneuvers around Moffett Field, before a series of flights out and over the Bay.

“The advantages of going over the water are multiple,” said Weston. “First of all, when you come off Moffett Field, the air is smoother over the Bay than it is anywhere else. That’s very important. And there’s not much in the way of traffic on the surface, so that’s a big plus as well.”

Safety is top of Weston’s mind as he works to reintroduce rigid airships to the skies of North America — and ultimately the world. The first 50 flights of Pathfinder 1 covered by the FAA certificate will allow flights no higher than 1,500 feet, and will use two pilots rather than the single pilot the airship was designed to need.

“I can count the number of companies in the lighter-than-air space on my hands, and we all have a lot to lose if anybody has a serious problem,” he said. Weston says LTA is working closely with the FAA to ensure that anything the company builds has a safe and sensible path to full certification. “The last maiden flight of an airship like this was the Graf Zeppelin II in 1938,” he noted during the interview. “The FAA wasn’t even around then.”

In a world of eVTOL air-taxis, electric aviation startups and hydrogen planes, Weston acknowledges that airships are only ever likely to be a partial solution. “I can’t see airships replacing aircraft,” he said. “But I do see a niche for airships to be part of the transportation architecture that reduces the carbon footprint of air travel.”

Another important niche could be responding to natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes. Sergey Brin also funds a nonprofit called Global Support and Development that aims to deliver humanitarian aid within the first 24 to 96 hours of a disaster.

Brin founded GSD in 2018 after using his own superyacht to deploy medics to the scene of a cyclone in the South Pacific. The nonprofit has since partnered with the nonprofit YachtAid Global, and now also has its own purpose-built vessel, the MV Dawn, that can swiftly transport dozens of doctors and aid workers, alongside life-saving supplies.

While Pathfinder 1 can carry about four tons of cargo in addition to its crew, water ballast and fuel, future humanitarian airships will need much larger capacities. They will also likely use zero-carbon technologies like hydrogen fuel cells for power, said Hilenski. That will involve a long, slow slog to validate the new technologies and to demonstrate, to the FAA and paying customers, that a new generation of super-large airships can match the generally excellent safety and reliability record of today’s commercial jets.

“What excites me about what we’ve done so far is that we’ve shown to ourselves, and we hope to show to the rest of the world, that we can scale in size and productivity,” said Weston. “And I believe in our potential to scale up again in the future.”

The FAA’s experimental certificate for the Pathfinder 1 expires in September 2024.

Every three days Nathan, a 27-year-old venture capitalist in San Francisco, ingests 15 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide (commonly known as lsd or acid). The microdose of the psychedelic drug – which generally requires at least 100 micrograms to cause a high – gives him the gentlest of buzzes. It makes him feel far more productive, he says, but nobody else in the office knows that he is doing it. “I view it as my little treat. My secret vitamin,” he says. “It’s like taking spinach and you’re Popeye.”

Nathan first started microdosing in 2014, when he was working for a startup in Silicon Valley. He would cut up a tab of lsd into small slices and place one of these on his tongue each time he dropped. His job involved pitching to investors. “So much of fundraising is storytelling, being persuasive, having enough conviction. Microdosing is pretty fantastic for being a volume knob for that, for amplifying that.” He partly credits the angel investment he secured during this period to his successful experiment in self-medication.

Of all the drugs available, psychedelics have long been considered among the most powerful and dangerous. When Richard Nixon launched the “war on drugs” in the 1970s, the authorities claimed lsd caused people to jump out of windows and fried users’ brains. When Ronald Reagan was the governor of California, which in 1966 was one of the first states to criminalise the drug, he argued that “anyone that would engage or indulge in [lsd] is just a plain fool”.

Yet attitudes towards psychedelics appear to be changing. According to a 2013 paper from two Norwegian researchers that used data from 2010, Americans aged between 30 and 34 – not the original flower children but the next generation – were the most likely to have tried lsd. An ongoing survey of middle-school and high-school students shows that drug use has fallen across the board among the young (as in most of the rich world). Yet, lsd use has recently risen a little, and the perceived risks of the drug fallen, among 13- to 17-year-olds.

As with many social changes, from transportation to food delivery to dating, Silicon Valley has blazed a trail with microdosing. It may yet influence the way that America, and eventually the West, view psychedelic substances.

Lsd’s effects were discovered by accident. In April 1943 Albert Hoffmann, a Swiss scientist, mistakenly ingested a small amount of the chemical, which he had synthesised a few years earlier though never tested. Three days later he took 250 micrograms of the drug on purpose and had a thoroughly bad trip, but woke up the next day with a “sensation of well-being and renewed life”. Over the next decade, lsd was used recreationally by a select group of people, such as the writer Aldous Huxley. But not until it was mass produced in San Francisco in the 1960s did it fill the sails of the hippy movement and inspire the catchphrase “turn on, tune in and drop out”.

From the start, a small but significant crossover existed between those who were experimenting with drugs and the burgeoning tech community in San Francisco. “There were a group of engineers who believed there was a causal connection between creativity and lsd,” recalls John Markoff, whose 2005 book, “What the Dormouse Said”, traces the development of the personal-computer industry through 1960s counterculture. At one research centre in Menlo Park over 350 people – particularly scientists, engineers and architects – took part in experiments with psychedelics to see how the drugs affected their work. Tim Scully, a mathematician who, with the chemist Nick Sand, produced 3.6m tabs of lsd in the 1960s, worked at a computer company after being released from his ten-year prison sentence for supplying drugs. “Working in tech, it was more of a plus than a minus that I worked with lsd,” he says. No one would turn up to work stoned or high but “people in technology, a lot of them, understood that psychedelics are an extremely good way of teaching you how to think outside the box.”

San Francisco appears to be at the epicentre of the new trend, just as it was during the original craze five decades ago. Tim Ferriss, an angel investor and author, claimed in 2015 in an interview with cnn that “the billionaires I know, almost without exception, use hallucinogens on a regular basis.” Few billionaires are as open about their usage as Ferriss suggests. Steve Jobs was an exception: he spoke frequently about how “taking lsd was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life”. In Walter Isaacson’s 2011 biography, the Apple ceo is quoted as joking that Microsoft would be a more original company if Bill Gates, its founder, had experienced psychedelics.

As Silicon Valley is a place full of people whose most fervent desire is to be Steve Jobs, individuals are gradually opening up about their usage – or talking about trying lsd for the first time. According to Chris Kantrowitz, the ceo of Gobbler, a cloud-storage company, and the head of a new fund investing in psychedelic research, people were refusing to talk about psychedelics as recently as three years ago. “It was very hush hush, even if they did it.” Now, in some circles, it seems hard to find someone who has never tried it.

Lsd works by interacting with serotonin, the chemical in the brain that modulates mood, dreaming and consciousness. Once the drug enters the brain (no mean feat), it hijacks the serotonin 2a receptor, explains Robin Carhart-Harris, a scientist at Imperial College London who is among those mapping out the effects of psychedelics using brain-scanning technology. The 2a receptor is most heavily expressed in the cortex, the part of the brain in which consciousness could be said to reside. One of the first effects of psychedelics such as lsd is to “dissolve a sense of self,” says Carhart-Harris. This is why those who have taken the drug sometimes describe the experience as mystical or spiritual.

The drug also seems to connect previously isolated parts of the brain. Scans from Carhart-Harris’s research, conducted with the Beckley Foundation in Oxford, show a riot of colour in the volunteers’ brains, compared with those who have taken a placebo. The volunteers who had taken lsd did not just process those images they had actually seen in their visual cortexes; instead many other parts of the brain started processing visions, as though the subject was seeing things with their eyes shut. “The brain becomes more globally interconnected,” says Carhart-Harris. The drug, by acting on the serotonin receptor, seems to increase the excitability of the cortex; the result is that the brain becomes far “more open”.

In an intensely competitive culture such as Silicon Valley, where everyone is striving to be as creative as possible, the ability for lsd to open up minds is particularly attractive. People are looking to “body hack”, says Kantrowitz: “How do we become better humans, how do we change the world?” One ceo of a small startup describes how, on an away-day with his company, everyone took magic mushrooms. It allowed them to “drop the barriers that would typically exist in an office”, have “heart to hearts”, and helped build the “culture” of the company. (He denied himself the pleasure of partaking so that he could make sure everyone else had a good time.) Eric Weinstein, the managing director of Thiel Capital, told Rolling Stone magazine last year that he wants to try and get as many people to talk openly about how they “directed their own intellectual evolution with the use of psychedelics as self-hacking tools”.

Young developers and engineers, most of them male, seem to be particularly keen on his form of bio-hacking. Alex (also not his real name), a 27-year-old data scientist who takes acid four or five times a year, feels psychedelics give him a “wider perspective” on his life. Drugs are a way to take a break, he says, particularly in a culture where people are “super hyper focused” on their work. A typical pursuit among many millennial workers, along with going to drug-fuelled music festivals or the annual Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, is for a group of friends to rent a place in the countryside, take lsd or magic mushrooms and go for a hike (some call it a “hike-a-delic”). “I would be much more wary of telling co-workers I had done coke the night before than saying I had done acid on the weekend,” says Mike (yet another pseudonym), a 25-year-old researcher at the University of California in San Francisco, who also takes lsd regularly. It is seen as something “worthwhile, wholesome, like yoga or wholegrain”.

The quest for spiritual enlightenment – as with much else in San Francisco – is fuelled by the desire to increase productivity. Microdosing is one such product of this calculus. Interest in the topic first started to take off around 2011, when Jim Fadiman, a psychologist who took part in the experiments in Menlo Park in the 1960s, published a book on psychedelics and launched a website on the topic. “Microdosing is popular among the technologically aware, physically healthy set,” says Fadiman. “Because they are interested in science, nutrition and their own brain chemistry.” Microdoses, he claims, can also decrease social awkwardness. “I meet a lot of these people. They are not the most adept social class in the world.” Paul Austin has also written a book on microdosing and lectures on the subject across Europe and America. Many of the people he speaks to are engineers, business owners, writers and “digital nomads” looking for ways to outrun automation in the “new economy”. Drugs that “make you think differently” are one route to survival, he says.

Although data on the number of people microdosing are non-existent, since drug surveys do not ask about it, a group on Reddit now has 16,000 members, up from a couple of thousand a year ago. People post about their experiences, and most of them follow Fadiman’s suggestion of taking up to ten micrograms every three days or so. “My math is slightly better, I swear. Or maybe it’s just my confidence, either way, I am more aware, creative and have amazing ideas,” says one user, answering an inquiry about whether there is correlation between intelligence and microdosing. “I feel less adhd, greater focus,” says another user. He can identify “no bad habits [except] maybe I speak my mind more and offend people because I am very smart and often put people down with condescending remarks by accident.”

Microdosing is the logical conclusion of several trends, thinks Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a research and lobby group. For a start, many of those who took acid in the 1960s are still around, having turned into well-preserved baby-boomers. “Now, at the end of their lives, they can say that these drugs were valuable. They are not all on a commune, growing soybeans, dropping out,” he says.

Another reason for the trend is that, although there have been no scientific studies on microdosing, research on psychedelics has suggested that they may, in certain settings, have therapeutic uses. The increasing use of marijuana for medical use, and its legalisation in many states, has also led to people looking at drugs more favourably. “There’s no longer this intense fervour about drugs being dreadful,” says Doblin. Last year a study of 51 terminally ill cancer patients carried out by scientists at Johns Hopkins University appeared to suggest that a single, large dose of psilocybin – another psychedelic and the active ingredient in magic mushrooms – reduced anxiety and depression in most participants. This helps encourage those who may normally be wary of taking drugs to experiment with them, or to take them in lower, less terrifying doses. Ayelet Waldman, a writer who microdosed for a month on lsd and wrote a book documenting her experiences, makes much of the fact she is a mother, a professional and used to work with drug offenders. She is not your typical felon. (Indeed, she gave up the drug after that month, in order to stop breaking the law. But “there is no doubt in my mind that if it were legal I would be doing it,” she says.)

The availability of legal substitutes for lsd in certain parts of the world has also made microdosing far easier. Erica Avey, who works for Clue, a Berlin-based app which tracks women’s menstrual cycles, started microdosing in April with 1p-lsd, a related drug, which is still legal in Germany. Although she took it to balance her moods, she quickly found that it also helped her with her work. It made her “sharper, more aware of what my body needs and what I need,” she says. She now gets to work earlier in the morning, at 8am, when she is most productive, and leaves in the afternoon when she has a slump in energy. “At work I am more socially present. You are not really caught up in the past and the future. For meetings it’s great,” she enthuses.

Lsd is not thought to be addictive. Although people who use it regularly build up a tolerance, there is not the same “reward” that users of heroin and alcohol, two deeply addictive drugs, seek through increasing their dosages. “They are not moreish drugs,” says Carhart-Harris. The buzz of psychedelics is more abstract than other drugs, such as cocaine, which tend to make people feel good about themselves. Those who have good experiences with hallucinogens report an enhanced connection to the world (they take up veganism; they feel more warmly towards their families). Most people who microdose insist that, although they make a habit of taking it, they do not feel dependent. “With coffee you need a cup to feel normal,” says Avey. “I would never need lsd to feel normal.” She may quit later this year, having reaped enough beneficial effects. Many talk of a sense in which the dose, even though it is almost imperceptibly small, seems to stay with them. Often they feel best on the second or third day after ingestion. “I’ve definitely experienced the same levels of creativity without taking it...you retain it,” says Nathan.

The effects of microdosing depend on the environment and the work one is doing. It will not automatically improve matters. Since moving to an office with less natural light, Nathan has not found lsd as effective, although he still takes it every three days or so. Similarly, Avey doubts it would be as useful if she did not have a job she liked and a “cool work environment” (with an in-house therapist and yoga classes). Carhart-Harris raises the potential issue of “containment”. Whereas beneficial effects of psychedelics can be seen in thera­peutic environments, the spaces in which people microdose are much more diverse. A crowded subway car or an irritating meeting can become more unbearable; not every effect will be a positive one.

Currently the lack of medical research on microdosing means that it has been touted as a panacea for everything from depression and menstrual pain to migraines and impotence. The only problem that people do not try to solve through microdosing is anxiety. Since these drugs tend to heighten people’s perceptions, they are likely to exacerbate anxiety. Without more research, it is hard to know whether such a small amount of a psychedelic works merely as a placebo, and whether there are any long-term detrimental consequences, such as addiction.

There is still an understandable fear of lsd, and it is unlikely to migrate from Silicon Valley to America’s more conservative regions anytime soon. But in a country which is awash with drugs, microdosing with an illicit substance may not seem so outlandish, particularly among the middle-classes. Already many Americans are happy to medicalise productivity. In 2011 3.5m children were prescribed drugs to treat attention disorders, up from 2.5m in 2003, and these drugs are widely used off prescription to enhance performance at work. By one estimate, 12% of the population takes an antidepressant. Americans also try to eliminate pain, mental or otherwise, by other means; the opioid epidemic has partly been caused by massive over-prescription of painkillers. Compared with these, lsd – which is almost impossible to overdose on – may no longer seem so threatening. It may help people tune in, but it no longer has the reputation of making them drop out.

In November 1880, just three years before his death, Karl Marx wrote a letter to his friend Friedrich Adolph Sorge, a German émigré and labor organizer who had recently helped found the first socialist political party in the United States. After commenting at length on various developments in Russia, France and Germany, Marx added a postscript: “I should be very much pleased if you could find me something good (meaty) on economic conditions in California, of course at my expense. California is very important for me because nowhere else has the upheaval most shamelessly caused by capitalist centralization taken place with such speed.”

The aging Marx’s interest in California was certainly not incidental. As readers will discover in the opening chapters of Malcolm Harris’ newly published Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism and the World—which includes Marx’s letter as an epigraph—the region was a crucible of modern capitalism long before it became synonymous with the likes of semiconductors, microchips or artificial intelligence. In the popular imagination, Silicon Valley today is known as the global center of technological innovation — a feverish, futuristic El Dorado in which grit, intellect and risk commingle to produce disruptive new inventions and bountiful wealth along with them. It’s an alluring mythos and, by extension, a blinding one, too: The region’s foundational narrative of boundless progress and Promethean genius often more closely resembles fable than actual history.

For this reason and others, Harris’ book—written in engaging prose while filling more than 700 pages—represents both an overdue corrective and a compelling counternarrative. Offering nothing less than what its subtitle suggests—a comprehensive origin story of modern capitalism—Palo Alto puts forth a critical treatment of Silicon Valley that is particularly timely in the era of SpaceX and Bitcoin.

The book’s scope is magisterial: Beginning in the 19th century, it employs a granular focus in the service of a sweeping, macroscopic reinterpretation of modern history and America’s emergence as the preeminent global power of the early 21st century. Unifying this sprawling, sometimes digressive narrative is what the author calls the Palo Alto System: a distinctive economic formula premised, above all else, on the relentless pursuit of profit and squeezing of maximum value from human labor at the lowest possible cost. Harris traces this “regimen of capitalist rationality and the exclusive focus on potential and speculative value” to the ranch founded by industrialist and future California Governor Leland Stanford in the 1880s. In this system, “All a man needed to improve the world was an uncompromising dedication to profit and the capital to realize the necessary scale.” Well before the advent of electricity or vacuum tubes, let alone personal computers or Teslas, Harris finds the system’s essential dynamics in place virtually from the outset of the state’s colonization by white settlers—with racial and class stratification already baked into the program code.

Throughout much of the world, capitalist economic and social relations emerged gradually from their feudal roots. By contrast, Harris writes, capitalism “hit [California] like a meteor.” With some half of the broader Alta California region’s Indigenous people already dead from disease by the 1820s, settlers pouring in from the East with the approval, and sometimes funding, of the federal government undertook a campaign worthy of no description other than genocide. Amid the ensuing Gold Rush, which began in earnest in the 1850s, settlers devised newly efficient means of extracting value from the land, destroying aquifers with unsustainable cash crops while killing and subjugating Native people with ever-greater ruthlessness. Barely 20 years later, according to one estimate cited by the author, California’s Indigenous population had been reduced from 150,000 to just 30,000.

Emerging from this process was a new class of what the author calls frontier scientists—a distinctly Californian breed of cowboy entrepreneur, many trained in or adjacent to the increasingly influential Stanford University—whose expertise would soon lend itself to colonial enterprises around the globe. Dubbing these men the “the shock troops of global enclosure” and of “proletarianization around the world,” Harris sums up their creed as follows: “Anglos rule. … All land and water is just gold waiting to happen.”

From these foundations, the author sketches the history and implications of the Palo Alto System with impressive fluency, from its chief innovator—Stanford, magnate and California governor—through the 20th century and quite close to the present day. The book’s second section, of six total, details the founding of Stanford University and the Bay Area’s nascent emergence as a hub for technology and capital. Resistant to the reformist currents of the New Deal, though all too keen to partner with the state in pursuit of their own projects, successive generations of Palo Alto intelligentsia honed and perfected the system’s distinctive formula.

By the end of World War II, the region’s burgeoning aerospace, electronics and communications sectors had finally shifted Palo Alto from the periphery to the center, not only of the domestic economy but of the American global project itself. A surging defense industry tasked with providing the firepower for imperial engagements in Korea and Vietnam in turn yielded the jobs and capital that endowed various professorships and university initiatives—which, in Harris’ account, transformed many campuses into de facto extensions of the American state.

Throughout these eras and into the 21st century, Harris argues, the basic ingredients of the Palo Alto System have remained mostly unchanged. Its essence is an association of organized wealth committed to preserving hierarchy with the goal of extracting maximum value from a given enterprise—or workforce—before moving on to the next frontier of accumulation. The author’s historiographical approach often foregrounds specific personalities—among them Stanford himself and President Herbert Hoover (not incidentally an alumnus of the university the former founded). Though these characters offer a handy narrative spine for Palo Alto, Harris, pushing back against the Great Man theory of history, casts them primarily as puppets rather than agents. Which is to say: If generations of would-be great men in Palo Alto and Silicon Valley have tended to see themselves as Promethean movers of history, the author views them more as its appendages. (Of Stanford, he writes in an emblematic passage, “The new system coughed up another man to stand for the larger forces pulling his strings.”)

What all Harris’ characters tend to have in common—aside from wealth, geographic location and a talent for cosmic self-aggrandizement—is a political philosophy reflexively hostile to democratic equality of any kind, and particularly to what Harris calls “economic democracy,” or the exotic idea that wealth inequality is a moral and social problem to be solved. Across various gold rushes, literal and figurative, Harris catalogs a lineage of anti-egalitarian ideology running from Stanford founding president David Starr Jordan’s fascination with the racist pseudoscience of bionomics to the multipronged, Hooverite offensive against the New Deal consensus that would ultimately supercharge, among other things, the Reagan revolution.

Some readers may find the scope of Harris’ account excessively sweeping, and, in tracing so much about the modern world to an individual part of the American West Coast, his book inarguably gives itself a daunting task. Whether or not you ultimately accept his grand premise, though, Palo Alto is so accessible and filled with so much interesting history that readers will take something away regardless. Through a carefully maintained balance of storytelling and analysis, Harris offers a compelling and thorough deconstruction of Silicon Valley’s founding fables and persuasively demonstrates that the inequality produced by these innovators is a feature, rather than a bug. A whole companion volume, probably of similar length, might be written on the televisual culture that has run in tandem with the various industries and institutions at the center of Harris’s story; if California originated the economic model dominant in our world today, another city to Palo Alto’s south has played a significant role in propagating the fantasies and ideologies that have undergirded it.

Harris’ book, and the monumental research behind it, offer persuasive heft to his daring thesis: that the most significant innovation of America’s futurist cyber-factory is not apps or microchips or electric cars but rather a formula for producing inequality and securing monopoly. An 1882 cartoon by G. Frederick Keller titled “The Curse of California” depicted the Southern Pacific railroad empire as a massive octopus, its tentacles wrapped around the state’s major industries. Today, we might imagine an updated version with the likes of timber, fruit and wheat replaced by digital media platforms and cryptocurrency; the farmers and growers replaced by exhausted Lyft drivers and gig workers toiling for DoorDash and Instacart in the world Stanford left in his wake.