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> I think it's going to be a long time before humans can responsibly do mind-altering chemicals at scale. I'm in that age range and among those people, and my

> I think it's going to be a long time before humans can responsibly do mind-altering chemicals at scale. I'm in that age range and among those people, and my observation is that we already do (and have for a while) mind-altering chemicals at scale. Alcohol is ancient, mind-altering, and very widely used. Caffeine is ubiquitous. Something like 1 in 6 Americans is on an antidepressant. Birth control is popular and has mood-altering effects. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn't consume some form of mind/mood altering substance with regularity. I would personally put alcohol and psychedelics in roughly the same ballpark of altered mental state. The effects are different, but the degree of difference between one's "normal" self and the altered self are roughly equivalent. I don't think they're some panacea, but I would wager that if we replaced alcohol with psychedelics, we'd probably be in a better place. Not because psychedelics are some kind of fairy dust, but because alcohol is damaging in almost every sense you can imagine. It's hard on the body, it causes people to make poor decisions, and it leads to a lot of deaths due to the prior.

kwatsonafter 4y ago
I think that is an astute observation. Indeed if we look at the history of humans in general we have in some cases even mythological examples of, "substance use" (Kykeon, Soma). It may have been prudent to add, "at scale responsibly with an absolute minimum of human harm." I'd like to think that there's an arrangement of culture that isn't such a drag that the general mass of people need to get out of themselves regularly but perhaps that's a bit of a pipe dream. I've seen neoliberalism co-opt surfing, folk music, skateboarding, rock n' roll, sex, punk rock, tight jeans, baggy jeans, EDM, being gay, and being black in commercials and having recognized a pattern I really, really shudder to think what LSD culture will be like when it's sold alongside Baker skateboards and ripped mom jeans at Zumiez at the mall. I don't think it will be harmful at all but that's just the thing (...) all the, "revolutionary" potential will get sidelined and that's worse than a few dead Supermen or a few acid dropouts. Che Guevara t-shirts come to mind. You remember those robots things from X-Men: Days Of Future Past? How they could absorb the, "magic potential" of the mutant they targeted? What happens when the man, "absorbs" the chemical and spiritual potential of LSD, Mescaline, 5-MeO-DMT, or Psilocybin? What happens when we offend the gods by turning them into consumer products?

kwatsonafter 4y ago

I think that is an astute observation. Indeed if we look at the history of humans in general we have in some cases even mythological examples of, "substance use" (Kykeon, Soma). It may have been prudent to add, "at scale responsibly with an absolute minimum of human harm." I'd like to think that there's an arrangement of culture that isn't such a drag that the general mass of people need to get out of themselves regularly but perhaps that's a bit of a pipe dream. I've seen neoliberalism co-opt surfing, folk music, skateboarding, rock n' roll, sex, punk rock, tight jeans, baggy jeans, EDM, being gay, and being black in commercials and having recognized a pattern I really, really shudder to think what LSD culture will be like when it's sold alongside Baker skateboards and ripped mom jeans at Zumiez at the mall. I don't think it will be harmful at all but that's just the thing (...) all the, "revolutionary" potential will get sidelined and that's worse than a few dead Supermen or a few acid dropouts. Che Guevara t-shirts come to mind. You remember those robots things from X-Men: Days Of Future Past? How they could absorb the, "magic potential" of the mutant they targeted? What happens when the man, "absorbs" the chemical and spiritual potential of LSD, Mescaline, 5-MeO-DMT, or Psilocybin? What happens when we offend the gods by turning them into consumer products?