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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄

@hilaryagro.com

12K followers 700 following 1.7K posts

You deserve a better world → linktr.ee/hilaryagro Anthropologist, speaker, educator. I think capitalism is bad and plant medicines are good. Land Back + organize for liberation. Is Gaeilgeoir mé 💚 she/her 📍 Tkaronto

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 23d

NEW: A Beginner's Guide to Psychedelics!

We all need healing, badly. And plant medicines are here for us! But they're powerful tools, so go in with cautious curiosity.

Here, I give some history and context around sacred plant medicines, and a primer on how to set up for success 🍄

A Beginner's Guide to Psychedelics

YouTube video by Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄

youtu.be

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 2h

I wrote about how 100% of the people we need to talk to in order to grow the anti-capitalist movement have some weird and harmful beliefs, but we still need to figure out a way to build with them:

Can people with bad political beliefs change?

100% of the people we need to talk to in order to grow the movement have some weird and harmful beliefs. We still need to build with them.

hilaryagro.com

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Reposted by Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄

JJ @jaynegallaghe20.bsky.social · 2h

Many great points in this thread, but this one sticks out.
Just re read an article by David Keen from Feb 2024 on political shaming. Much of the time it’s not a solution, but does distract from focusing on ourselves.

psyche.co/ideas/person...

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 2h

If you appreciate my work, here are three ways to support me doing more of it:

❤️ Patreon (plus you get access to bonus content): patreon.com/hilaryagro

💲 Tip: paypal.me/hilaryagro

👧 Buy my kids supplies like toothpaste and sunscreen! www.amazon.ca/baby-reg/hil...

Get more from Hilary Agro on Patreon

creating a path to ending the War on Drugs

patreon.com

Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 2h

I turned this into a blog post, expanded with a more thoughtful approach! Please read and share:

Can people with bad political beliefs change?

100% of the people we need to talk to in order to grow the movement have some weird and harmful beliefs. We still need to build with them.

hilaryagro.com

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 3h

I've had success as long as it's within the context of a relationship in which trust and mutual respect has been established. Whenever I try to do any convincing without that, it fails

Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

Many people exist in the spectrum between "normal person" and "Nazi," and if nobody tries to intervene with those people (which is the only way that "change" happens) then they're going to go in the direction that the people with all the money are funnelling their money towards making them go in

Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

I understand this impulse, but incarceration doesn't actually help anyone, & it always makes the problems worse through more trauma imposed on the imprisoned people and their families/communities. We can't just lock up millions of people for life. It's not feasible & it dehumanizes everyone involved

No, we shouldn’t put them in prison

Think more deeply about what that actually means, and what it would do.

hilaryagro.com

Reposted by Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄

Jax o'Lantern, Spooky Pumpkin Doll 🎃 @rufflejax.bsky.social · 5h

I actually wrote a resource for TTRPG designers that is essentially an explanation of the far right emotional landscape I grew up in -- it's meant for creative writers but I think it works as its own thing too!

rufflejax.itch.io/how-to-write...

How To Write A Fascist In 14 Easy Steps! by Jacqueline Bryk

A manifesto for #TTRPGManifestoJam

rufflejax.itch.io

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

Thanks for the rec!

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

Yes! When the focus is on labelling, people do anything to avoid it, and understandably so. But make it about the *behaviour* and emphasize that the person themselves is still a good person, and change can happen

Lauren Vogelbaum @vogelbomb.bsky.social · 4h

a thing i learned as a social media manager of a pop science channel and thus moderating a LOT of awkward discussions is that it's never helpful to say "you're [racist/sexist/etc.]". people get defensive and dig in. if you approach it as "hey this makes you sound [whatever]" people reconsider

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Reposted by Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄

Matthew Jee @freedomforall.net · 4h

Once I had lunch with a very learned Tibetan master. I asked him what he considered the most important teaching of Buddhism to be. He laughed at my question, "oh Matthew. You do pick the easy ones. The most important teaching is that you can change yourself". You can - and it's easier in community.

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

Yes, absolutely. Class solidarity is (relatively speaking) the easiest and most effective avenue. None of us have access to the ears of actual capitalists anyway lol

Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

Thank you, this is very useful! It's also my experience as well in organizing work. It's a delicate balance, pushing too hard always backfires. A relationship of trust is the most important foundation

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Reposted by Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄

Schrodinger’s Democracy @cascadia.bsky.social · 4h

Former door-knocking, 5th gen, evangelist [now atheist for decades] here: Causing people to reconsider is as much about the expectation about speed of change as it is about the actual evolutionary change. Selling beliefs is as important as setting them.

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

5) This one is a bit of a spicier rec, but if you're ready to go even deeper and see how spirituality is an essential component we need to integrate to combat Christian cults, then listen to The Emerald.

This is a relevant episode, but listen to any that pique your interest. My fav is "Snail Juice"

Oh Justice

open.spotify.com

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

4) Shaun (@shaunvids.bsky.social) does amazing work speaking to and about young white men from a critical but also humanizing perspective.

More positive masculinity: hilaryagro.com/resources/#p...

White Men/2018 Plans

YouTube video by Shaun

youtu.be

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

3) Let This Radicalize You by @mskellymhayes.bsky.social and @prisonculture.bsky.social: practical advice for organizing and activism, and how to make hope something that you build with others

Book called let this radicalize you: organizing and the revolution of reciprocal care. By Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba.

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

2) Maybe I'm cheating by calling this one a single resource, but it's just too good! Interrupting Criminalization has got so much! Use it all, share it all! They are amazing!

@interruptcrim.bsky.social

Resources — Interrupting Criminalization

www.interruptingcriminalization.com

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

The five resources I suggest first are below. None are perfect, all are just tools in a toolbox. Pick whichever interests you, leave anything you don't feel aligned with.

1) Nonviolent communication training: to learn how to talk to and connect with people with a non-authoritarian approach.

Introduction to Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg

open.spotify.com

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

If you do feel ready to do this deep, difficult, rewarding work, here are my suggestions.

First, I want to express my gratitude to you, because it's honestly REALLY fucking hard to push past the anger enough to do this. Most people are not resourced enough for it. I struggle with it all the time!

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

"They should know better"

Well, they don't. What now?

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

Most people are not hardcore white supremacists with a coherent worldview. They don't realize that their weird misgivings about trans people or their reflexive defenses of Taylor Swift are a result of a colonial/capitalist project designed to turn them against their own interests

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

Building a working-class movement requires us to engage with people who have all sorts of weird and incongruous beliefs. Any seasoned organizer can tell you this. 100% of the people we need to talk to in order to grow the movement *are not yet radicalized into liberationist politics*

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 4h

Also, as always, I am not saying you personally have to do anything. You don't have to fix your MAGA uncle. I am offering information and suggestions to better inform and hone our tactics. This is for people who are committed to movement-building praxis and are interested in challenging themselves

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Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 @hilaryagro.com · 5h

Btw, one of the problems is that we use terms like right-wingers or racists when people are more complex than that, and I'm doing it myself here bc of space constraints. But I do want to emphasize that this entire project becomes much easier if we see our fellow workers as people rather than labels

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