black pill

black pill

English

Noun

black pill (plural black pills)

1. Used other than with a figurative or idiomatic meaning: see black,‎ pill.
2. (slang) An opium pill.
   • 1904, The Reader: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine - Volume 4, page 369:

     Those funny pipes were used for opium-smoking — just a puff for each shining black pill, and then oblivion to all earthly cares — dreams and dreams of beautiful worlds.

   • 1972 Fall, Robert Schultheis, “The Fabulist: Gods of America”, in The North American Review, volume 257, number 3:

     I knew a girl-a black pill freak, strung out on the black pills, . . .

   • 2004, Peggy Rankine, Busha Benjie:

     Each person requested one of the following - black pill, calomel and soda, puick, jallop and antimony wine. Those were the names the people knew for drugs in those days.

   • 2005, Volney Steele, Bleed, Blister, and Purge:

     Desperately injured, sick, or miserable workers used the "black pill," an overdose of opium, to commit suicide.

   • 2009, Howard E. Adkins, The Dash of Dr. Todd, →ISBN, page 248:

     “My countrymen,” the oriental doctor said, “take the 'black pill' themselves when life loses its appeal or solicitously give it to a friend when hope no longer exists and nothing but suffering remains.”

3. A poison pill; a pill intended to kill the person who ingests it.
   • 1942, Fayette Legal Journal - Volume 5, page 252:

     He says conditions got worse as time went along and at different times she threatened to give him a black pill, that he asked her what this meant and she said "that was the way women had of getting rid of husbands when they didn't want them any more."

   • 2009, Bruce Wilson, “Doing death better”, in American Heart Hospital Journal:

     The day I got into med school my mother told me that if she were ever to find herself without her mental faculties that I should give her the "black pill."

   • 2010, Lawrence Block, Such Men Are Dangerous, →ISBN:

     "Take the black pill," I said. "You once told me I'd never do it. Neither will you. You've got a hollow tooth, I found it when I gagged you. Bite it, take the black pill. It's easier than drowning."

4. (philosophy) A philosophical dilemma in which one is offered a large sum of money in order to take a pill that has a specific probability of resulting in death.
   • 1979, ‎Ronald A. Howard, Life and death decision analysis, page 17:

     Now that we have both the black pill and white pill results before us, we are in a position to make a few general observations.

   • 1980, C. West Churchman, “Symposium Summary the Safety Profession's Image of Humanity”, in Societal Risk Assessment,, →ISBN:

     But to me both characters in the black pill example were immoral in Kant's sense: the person who made the offer and the person who accepted it (to accept the offer of deliberately running a risk of death for dollars gain is treating humanity in yourself as a means only, whether or not you agree, or perhaps especially if you agree)

   • 1986, “How much safety?”, in Interfaces, volume 16, number 6:

     Howard [1984] bases his analysis on a "black pill” and a "white pill."

   • 2013, Richard C. Schwing & ‎Walter A. Albers, Societal Risk Assessment: How Safe is Safe Enough?, →ISBN, page 92:

     As a useful thought experiment, we imagine an individual faced with what we call the black pill question. He is offered the chance to take a pill that will kill him instantly and painlessly with a probability he assigns as p. If he takes the pill, he will receive x dollars. Should he accept?

   • 2017, M. Granger Morgan, Theory and Practice in Policy Analysis, →ISBN, page 123:

     In contrast, the curve for the black pill takes off asymptotically to infinity once the risk reaches about 1/10.

5. A traditional Tibetan remedy.
   • 1995, James J Hughes & Damien Keown, “Buddhism and Medical Ethics: A Bibliographic Introduction”, in Journal of Buddhist ethics, volume 2:

     However, disquiet has been voiced recently about how "natural" certain forms of traditional Buddhist medicine are - notably the Tibetan "black pill" - some recipes for which specify rhinoceros horn and bear-bile among the ingredients (Leland, 1995).

   • 2001, Jürgen C. Aschoff & ‎Tashi Yangphel Tashigang, Tibetan "precious Pills", the Rinchen Medicine:

     This great precious Cold Compound Black Pill contains more than one hundred ingredients, including the metals, gold, silver, copper, and iron, the precious stones sapphire, emerald, turquiose, ruby, and all in detoxified from and a great number of herbal ingredient, including Crocus sativus L. Silkious concretion of bamboo.

   • 2003, Michele Martin, Music in the Sky: The Life, Art, and Teachings of the 17th Karmapa Ogyen109, →ISBN:

     It is said that taking a black pill will spare one the suffering of the lower realms. The black pills are made of special substances that come from previous incarnations of the Karmapas, as well as other precious, sometimes legendary substances, such as water that has turned into snow lion milk in the skull cup of the protectress Tseringma.

   • 2016, Les Sillars, Intended for Evil: A Survivor's Story of Love, Faith, and Courage in the Cambodian Killing Fields, →ISBN:

     His father went to the village leaders for some medicine but returned with only some black pills, a traditional remedy.

6. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (slang) Something that enables or compels a person to overcome illusion and perceive harsher reality. (referencing the term red pill/take the red pill) [from 2012][1]
   • 2016 September 26, Michael J. Knowles, “An Actual Conservative's Guide To The Alt-Right: 8 Things You Need To Know”, in The Daily Wire‎:

     Alt-Right thinkers write incessantly about the red pill and the blue pill--and also the black pill. Lots of pills. Red means reality, a rather dark place according to the Alt-Right; blue means delusion; and the black pill means “pure egoism, nihilism, and destruction...that leads to suicide, death, and decontextualized violence,” according to AlternativeRight.com.

   • 2017 December 8, Jack Smith IV, “The women of the “alt-right” are speaking out against misogyny. They’d prefer absolute patriarchy.”, in Mic‎:

     The Red Pill, or the Black Pill

   • 2018 April 26, Tim Squirrell, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking incels are men’s rights activists – they are so much more dangerous”, in The Independent‎:

     The black pill is the red pill’s nihilistic cousin. Rather than seeing their perception shift as an opportunity for personal growth, they say that there are no personal solutions to the systemic problem of female dominance. Instead they succumb to self-loathing and a violent hatred of women.

   • 2018 April 26, Paul Hosford, “What is the 'incel rebellion'? And who are those behind it?”, in TheJournal.ie‎:

     The forum promotes “blackpills”, which are generally memes: images that are designed to be shared with others which explain, promote or rationalise the mindset of its users. A blackpill, the forum says is: A subjective term used to describe the real or perceived socially unspoken realisations that come from being a longtime incel. Many “blackpills” will refer to women being selfish, cruel, shallow or all three.

   • 2018 May 1, Mike Wendling, “Alleged Toronto van attacker highlights toxic links between incels and the alt-right”, in Vice News‎:

     But in addition to those false dichotomies so beloved by alt-righters (“red pill”/”blue pill” “alpha/beta”), the Incels are particularly partial to the nihilistic “black pill” – the idea that the whole game of sex and attraction is rigged from birth. […] With no coherent goals, a toxic online “support system,” and a permanent sense of grievance, it’s no surprise blackpilled incels type out things like (as one deleted post read): “hopefully somebody finally uses a fucking truck to just ram down roasties during a school parade or something.”

   • 2018 July 27, Elle Beau, “The Real Reason That Blackpilled Men Hate Women”, in Medium Psychology‎:

     Ostensibly, the black pill rejects trying to even vie for position at all, but since hierarchies based in dominance have been the prevailing forms of both government and society for the past 5 thousand years, they are extremely difficult to escape.

   • 2018 August 6, Michael Andersson, “Alla pratar om ”incels” – men vilka är de?”, in Politism‎ (in Swedish):

     Tillfällen som dessa, där deras antaganden bekräftas, kallas ”blackpills”. Mansrättsrörelser och althögern använder begreppet ”redpill” för att beskriva ideologiska uppvaknanden, en referens till The Matrix. Incels kallar det alltså blackpills: för när du inser att de har rätt inser du också världens mörker. […] Nazistiska rörelser lyckas inte koppla grepp om de blackpillade för de blackpillade ”vet” att de tillhör det genetiska bottenskrap som nazister – övermänniskorna – vill göra sig av med.

   • 2018 December 31, “YEAR IN REVIEW: 2018 Top Ten Conspiracies”, in 21st Century Wire‎:

     If that’s not a true black pill moment, then nothing is.

References

1. Nikhil Sonnad, Tim Squirrell (2017-10-30), “The alt-right is creating its own dialect. Here’s the dictionary”, in Quartz‎