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I can't help but wonder what kind of world we exist in, if people are driven to drugs (not specifically ayahuasca, but also prescribed ones) just to live. The

I can't help but wonder what kind of world we exist in, if people are driven to drugs (not specifically ayahuasca, but also prescribed ones) just to live. The spike in mental health diagnoses and drug use ... it feels like there's something seriously wrong with the world and environment in which these people exist. The system is broken, as it were.

sjwalter 5y ago
Many, if not most, of the pre-modern civilizations of the world were to some degree or another vision-seeking. Ayahuasca is a psychedelic. If people were never at all seeking altered states of consciousness, that would be surprising. Though I do agree. I read some study somewhere about the absurd proposition that the Nordic countries are the happiest on earth--when they also have the highest use of SSRIs in the world. What kind of world is it wherein people are driven to lame pharmaceuticals to maintain their lives?
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  A lot of human history was influenced by drugs, tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, even wheat fungus (ergot)... the list is very long. I'm almost willing to bet that that evolutionary crucial awakening of the "human" consciousness, that pivotal moment when our ancestors split from their apelike predecessors, was likely from the clash of normal consciousness and some drug or hallucinogen. I am not a drug enthusiast or user outside of caffeine really, but I can empathize with people that want to do more, to go farther, to make the next evolutionary step in their own lifetimes, you know? Why not let them see where they can reach?
silisili 5y ago
Caveat: I'm not a medical professional. But it's something I've spent tons of time wondering about myself. Personally, I think isolation is what kicked it off widespread. Humans are social creatures, always have been. And now we go to work, come home to our AC, watch TV alone or at best with a family member. And many of us don't even get the social interaction of work anymore. Add to that the stress of work. Then the stress of politics, then the stress of social media, and now, lockdowns and doom/gloom news. It's no wonder people are at wits end. Isolation is what media and tech companies want, as it means you'll spend more time 'engaging.' Keep checking your feed while watching the 24h news cycle. And in doing so further alienating people from one another. I have no idea how this is resolved, but it certainly doesn't seem sustainable.
PradeetPatel 5y ago
I think that's a key reason for the rise of the wellness industry, the commercialisation of mindfulness and stoicism, as they provide a less chemicall dependent means of dealing with stress.
jdavis703 5y ago
If I did not need to live in the modern world, I would not take drugs for my mental health. Unfortunately we’ve developed a world where at best nuerodivergent people face discrimination to at worst imprisonment in mental facilities and potentially even death (I have a family member who died from electro shock therapy in a mental hospital.)
rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
Well, yes! I feel you are an alternative-perception deprived individual. It is an essential component of the human experience that we must at least try to understand the nature of perception, and experiment with our consciousness. There is nothing seriously wrong with this, except societies (and the State) condemnation of human nature.
fragmede 5y ago
I can't help but wonder what kind of world we exist in, if people are driven to oversimplify situations, draw faulty conclusions due to the oversimplification on top of misunderstanding. It feels as if something is seriously wrong with education and society these days. People can no longer grasp involved, complex topics and engage with nuance and subtlety, as it were. Heroin's not the same thing as asprin, nor the same as caffeinated coffee, for that matter. Lumping them all together and trying to draw conclusions thats society is fucked from that, when there are much louder, specific signals that could be addressed (but are more difficult), is questionable. Approx what year would you characterize this "spike" as having started?
Borrible 5y ago
On the other hand, there are people who thrive in such a world. In a Gaussian world, where suffering and thriving are the result of more or less independent random factors, this is fine. As systemic interdependencies increase, the situation shifts to a Paretian world, a power law distribution that emerges from feedback loops. In the end, there are few who thrive and many who suffer. Often because of the thriving of the former. And just to depress the mood a bit and abandon all hope: The Paretian world may be even more stable, as long as sufficient resources are available.
Tenoke 5y ago
Or people have been taking these drugs (especially stuff like ayahuasca) for thousand of years anyway, and the rise in diagnoses is because we diagnose more now (and also have more people, live longer etc.). Most of humanity throughout history lived very stressful lives, and those with severe problems mostly just died or suffered undiagnosed rather than getting help.
GordonS 5y ago
People have sought to change alter their consciousness through psychoactive substances for millenia, so I don't think the world we currently live in has too much to do with it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jrockway 5y ago
I don't think much about the human condition has changed. Rather, people are becoming more open about mental health issues, and we are developing ways to treat them. In the past, you'd just suffer in silence by yourself, or hope it got better on its own. I remember as a kid I had strep throat a lot. If I were born 200 years earlier, it would be accepted that sometimes you go blind or die from that. Every episode would have been a nail-biter for my parents. But in the age of antibiotics and 5 minute rapid tests, you go to the doctor and they cure it. Are we overreliant on drugs? Nope, we're just dying less from childhood diseases. I look at mental health issues through the same lens -- we're better at recognizing them and treating them now, so what looks like more people with mental health issues is actually the medical system helping more people. (The same is true of pretty much anything. In the 1700s, there weren't a lot of people with Internet streams driving around looking for tornados. In the 2020s, there are, and as a result there are a lot more tornado reports. Does that mean the frequency of tornadoes is increasing? Nope. It just means the one that touches down in a field in the middle of nowhere is live-streamed from 20 separate angles, instead of going unnoticed by humanity as it would have many years ago.)

sjwalter 5y ago

Many, if not most, of the pre-modern civilizations of the world were to some degree or another vision-seeking. Ayahuasca is a psychedelic. If people were never at all seeking altered states of consciousness, that would be surprising. Though I do agree. I read some study somewhere about the absurd proposition that the Nordic countries are the happiest on earth--when they also have the highest use of SSRIs in the world. What kind of world is it wherein people are driven to lame pharmaceuticals to maintain their lives?

BizarroLand 5y ago
A lot of human history was influenced by drugs, tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, even wheat fungus (ergot)... the list is very long. I'm almost willing to bet that that evolutionary crucial awakening of the "human" consciousness, that pivotal moment when our ancestors split from their apelike predecessors, was likely from the clash of normal consciousness and some drug or hallucinogen. I am not a drug enthusiast or user outside of caffeine really, but I can empathize with people that want to do more, to go farther, to make the next evolutionary step in their own lifetimes, you know? Why not let them see where they can reach?

silisili 5y ago

Caveat: I'm not a medical professional. But it's something I've spent tons of time wondering about myself. Personally, I think isolation is what kicked it off widespread. Humans are social creatures, always have been. And now we go to work, come home to our AC, watch TV alone or at best with a family member. And many of us don't even get the social interaction of work anymore. Add to that the stress of work. Then the stress of politics, then the stress of social media, and now, lockdowns and doom/gloom news. It's no wonder people are at wits end. Isolation is what media and tech companies want, as it means you'll spend more time 'engaging.' Keep checking your feed while watching the 24h news cycle. And in doing so further alienating people from one another. I have no idea how this is resolved, but it certainly doesn't seem sustainable.

PradeetPatel 5y ago

I think that's a key reason for the rise of the wellness industry, the commercialisation of mindfulness and stoicism, as they provide a less chemicall dependent means of dealing with stress.

jdavis703 5y ago

If I did not need to live in the modern world, I would not take drugs for my mental health. Unfortunately we’ve developed a world where at best nuerodivergent people face discrimination to at worst imprisonment in mental facilities and potentially even death (I have a family member who died from electro shock therapy in a mental hospital.)

rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago

Well, yes! I feel you are an alternative-perception deprived individual. It is an essential component of the human experience that we must at least try to understand the nature of perception, and experiment with our consciousness. There is nothing seriously wrong with this, except societies (and the State) condemnation of human nature.

fragmede 5y ago

I can't help but wonder what kind of world we exist in, if people are driven to oversimplify situations, draw faulty conclusions due to the oversimplification on top of misunderstanding. It feels as if something is seriously wrong with education and society these days. People can no longer grasp involved, complex topics and engage with nuance and subtlety, as it were. Heroin's not the same thing as asprin, nor the same as caffeinated coffee, for that matter. Lumping them all together and trying to draw conclusions thats society is fucked from that, when there are much louder, specific signals that could be addressed (but are more difficult), is questionable. Approx what year would you characterize this "spike" as having started?

Borrible 5y ago

On the other hand, there are people who thrive in such a world. In a Gaussian world, where suffering and thriving are the result of more or less independent random factors, this is fine. As systemic interdependencies increase, the situation shifts to a Paretian world, a power law distribution that emerges from feedback loops. In the end, there are few who thrive and many who suffer. Often because of the thriving of the former. And just to depress the mood a bit and abandon all hope: The Paretian world may be even more stable, as long as sufficient resources are available.

Tenoke 5y ago

Or people have been taking these drugs (especially stuff like ayahuasca) for thousand of years anyway, and the rise in diagnoses is because we diagnose more now (and also have more people, live longer etc.). Most of humanity throughout history lived very stressful lives, and those with severe problems mostly just died or suffered undiagnosed rather than getting help.

GordonS 5y ago

People have sought to change alter their consciousness through psychoactive substances for millenia, so I don't think the world we currently live in has too much to do with it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jrockway 5y ago

I don't think much about the human condition has changed. Rather, people are becoming more open about mental health issues, and we are developing ways to treat them. In the past, you'd just suffer in silence by yourself, or hope it got better on its own. I remember as a kid I had strep throat a lot. If I were born 200 years earlier, it would be accepted that sometimes you go blind or die from that. Every episode would have been a nail-biter for my parents. But in the age of antibiotics and 5 minute rapid tests, you go to the doctor and they cure it. Are we overreliant on drugs? Nope, we're just dying less from childhood diseases. I look at mental health issues through the same lens -- we're better at recognizing them and treating them now, so what looks like more people with mental health issues is actually the medical system helping more people. (The same is true of pretty much anything. In the 1700s, there weren't a lot of people with Internet streams driving around looking for tornados. In the 2020s, there are, and as a result there are a lot more tornado reports. Does that mean the frequency of tornadoes is increasing? Nope. It just means the one that touches down in a field in the middle of nowhere is live-streamed from 20 separate angles, instead of going unnoticed by humanity as it would have many years ago.)