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> EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they're always right about everything. And from

> EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they're always right about everything. And from there, you can justify all kinds of terrible things. I came to the same conclusion after a group of my friends got involved with the local rationalist and EA community, though for a different reason: Their drug habits. They believed themselves to have a better grasp on human nature and behavior than the average person, and therefore believed they were better at controlling themselves. They also had a deep contrarian bias, which turned into a belief that drugs weren’t actually as bad as the system wanted us to believe. Combine these two factors and they convinced themselves that they could harness recreational opioid use to improve their lives, but avoid the negative consequences that “normies” suffered by doing it wrong. I remember being at a party where several of them were explaining that they were on opioids right now and tried to use the fact that nothing terrible was happening as proof that they were performing rational drug use. Long story short, the realities of recreational opioid use caught up with them and they were blind to the warning signs due to their hubris. I intentionally drifted away from that group around that time, so I don’t know what happened to them. I will never forget how confident they were that addiction is something that only happens to other people, not rationalists like them.

DaveExeter 4y ago
>recreational opioid use Horse? Were they shooting horse?
telotortium 4y ago
No, they should have listened to their parents! Drug positivity is supposed to be reserved for cannabis and hallucinogens!
teraflop 4y ago
I'm reminded of a fascinating series of Reddit threads, starting back in 2009, from somebody who convinced himself he "could handle anything once" and decided to try heroin, only to rapidly spiral out of control: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wef6hn/the_saga_of_an_average_guy_who_spontaneously/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wef6...
- pavel_lishin 4y ago
  I'm only on the second update, and it seems like this guy speed-ran addiction: > I can't stop crying. Fuck heroin. Fuck my life. I guess I don't need to say that since heroin pretty much fucked my life for me in under two weeks, I just want to die.
- scarmig 4y ago
  The issue with Reddit is that the story is as likely as not to be fake. Particularly, here, I don't think people are at risk of serious withdrawal after only two weeks of heroin use. Though heroin use is obviously one of the dumbest things anyone can do.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - atdrummond 4y ago
    As someone who has used opiates for well over a decade (for medical reasons), heroin and stronger synthetic opioids can absolutely cause an opioid naive individual to have withdrawal symptoms after even a week. This is why codeine OTC recommends no more than three consecutive days of use.
    - mise_en_place 4y ago
      It depends on if you have a specific antibody that targets specific opiate compounds. For example, oxycodone was very dysphoric and caused me even more pain, whereas hydrocodone caused me the intended therapeutic effect of euphoria and analgesia
      - cellis 4y ago
        Hydrocodone has to be one of the best drugs known to man. I had a very small prescription for my wisdom teeth and I instantly understood the opioid dependency problem.
KingMachiavelli 4y ago
I'll say the EA and rationalist community varies a great deal from location to location. Where I am the vast majority use drugs at a lower rate than the general population. There's of course some outliers that are into psychedelics but it's still a very distinct subgroup. Where I am the majority of EA/rationalists are more public policy and human focused and less concerned about AI/x-risk and way more skeptical of cryptocurrency.
darth_avocado 4y ago
I was briefly pulled into EA through a friend. Unfortunately my experience as a man was also bad enough to turn me off. The TLDR version of this was: 1. Most people were full of themselves and full of s** 2. This was just like everything else, a business. Most people were in it for themselves, making a career out of EA, networking for professional growth, using ea in their own workplace to climb ranks and the worst ones were just people virtue signaling for Instagram. 3. Drug, sex and alcohol was heavily involved 4. At the end of the day, there was a lot of talking and less doing, which was the problem that it is supposed to solve in the first place
OkayPhysicist 4y ago
I can't imagine what benefits they were looking for in opioid use/abuse. Like, most drugs have a very distinct use, ranging from "directly beneficial" like using stimulants to increase productivity, to "socially useful" like using alcohol or MDMA as a social lubricant. Opiates don't really fall into any of those boxes. They're not mechanistically useful: If you want euphoria, there are better drugs like MDMA or ketamine. If you want to prematurely end your stimulant rush, booze, GHB, or ketamine will do that. Their primary use is as a coping mechanism, because they make you feel generically good regardless of your actual situation. And they're not really socially useful either, because unlike, say, cocaine, the overlap between "valuable people to have in my social network" and "people who shoot heroin" is practically non-existent. I say this as someone who is very drug positive: Stay away from opiates, except for treating extreme, acute, physical pain.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  I mean, just like with a lot of drug abuse, it’s a method of escape. An extremely good way to make you forget about your troubles. It wouldn’t have been anywhere near as big of a problem as it is if it wasn’t good at that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- skissane 4y ago
  > And they're not really socially useful either A relative of mine-who used to be a heavy marijuana user-told me how he once tried heroin-and he really didn’t like how it made him behave socially-he says it made him smug, arrogant, and an asshole who felt superior to everyone else. I don’t know if that’s some kind of idiosyncratic reaction to it or a common one, but he told me it was enough to convince him to not try it again, and just stick to marijuana and alcohol, which didn’t have the same effect on him
- theragra 4y ago
  There are obvious benefits for using opiates for your life. You will be less agitated, calmer, kinder and will be able to tolerate unpleasant stuff better. I'm speaking also from experience. Problem is, it always comes to not wanting normal undrugged life afterwards.
brnt 4y ago
This sounds very familiar. The Netherlands is the only country in the world where alcohol consumption correlates positively with education level, and thus alcoholism and associated ills. It's nearly impossible to find people in these circles that think of alcohol as something to be careful with. Alcoholism only happens to 'others'.
- freddie_mercury 4y ago
  > The Netherlands is the only country in the world where alcohol consumption correlates positively with education level I'm reasonably sure this isn't true. It is also the case in the UK and the US. It is presumably also the case for many other countries, since it is hard to imagine what would make the UK, the US, and the Netherlands somehow unique in the world. UK: "Higher educational attainment is associated with increased odds of daily alcohol consumption and problem drinking. The relationship is stronger for females than males. Individuals who achieved high test scores in childhood are at a significantly higher risk of abusing alcohol across all dimensions" https://rmitlibraryvn.rmit.edu.vn/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=84RVI_INST:84RVI&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&docid=alma991001213385106821&lang=en&context=L&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&query=creator,exact,Lissitz,%20Robert%20W.&facet=creator,exact,Lissitz,%20Robert%20W.&offset=0 https://rmitlibraryvn.rmit.edu.vn/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=... US: "Greater alcohol consumption is also associated with having a higher educational level and having a higher income [...] In the college sample, educational achievement is positively associated with drinking" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4838609/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4838609/
  - benj111 4y ago
    Middle class alcoholism is viewed very differently to lower class alcoholism. If you have X glasses of wine a night but otherwise have a functional life, that is 'ok'. Getting shitfaced on a Friday night isn't. Although it's the middle classes that write the rules so make of that what you will.
  - brnt 4y ago
    > UK, the US, and the Netherlands somehow unique in the world. O actually there's a ton. These are solidly protestant cultures, with a history of hypocrisy.
naasking 4y ago
> I intentionally drifted away from that group around that time, so I don’t know what happened to them This isn't a convincing story that they were wrong if you don't actually know what happened to them. It just looks like you're showing a bit of that hubris yourself, in assuming they went off a cliff.
- watwut 4y ago
  OP disassociate with them when issues caught up with them. Even if their fixed their lifes after, this point stands.
  - Kinrany 4y ago
    It does not, not if they succeeded and ended up better off than if they haven't started using in the first place.
    - watwut 4y ago
      You genuinely believe that this had potential to happen after the issues related to drugs started to show up? Cause it is very very unlikely.
      - Kinrany 4y ago
        However unlikely it is, naasking is right that OP's comment contains zero new information.
        watwut 4y ago
        It does not. They started having drug related issues despite thinking it won't happen. OP disassociating at that point is OP exercising good judgement. It does not cancel out his observation that issues started. The "maybe in next few months they gained something super special" is pure speculation - and it is not even that these people took drugs with that expectation. Instead they took drugs expecting no issues will happen to them.
heavyset_go 4y ago
You genuinely can't make this shit up. Normally, if someone told me that rationalists were Bayes-ing themselves into justifying their own opioid addictions, I'd say that attempt at satire's a little too on the nose. This is just absolutely incredible.
pk-protect-ai 4y ago
This in particular does not look clever: "They believed themselves to have a better grasp on human nature and behavior than the average person, and therefore believed they were better at controlling themselves."

DaveExeter 4y ago

>recreational opioid use Horse? Were they shooting horse?

telotortium 4y ago

No, they should have listened to their parents! Drug positivity is supposed to be reserved for cannabis and hallucinogens!

teraflop 4y ago

I'm reminded of a fascinating series of Reddit threads, starting back in 2009, from somebody who convinced himself he "could handle anything once" and decided to try heroin, only to rapidly spiral out of control: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wef6hn/the_saga_of_an_average_guy_who_spontaneously/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wef6...

pavel_lishin 4y ago
I'm only on the second update, and it seems like this guy speed-ran addiction: > I can't stop crying. Fuck heroin. Fuck my life. I guess I don't need to say that since heroin pretty much fucked my life for me in under two weeks, I just want to die.
scarmig 4y ago
The issue with Reddit is that the story is as likely as not to be fake. Particularly, here, I don't think people are at risk of serious withdrawal after only two weeks of heroin use. Though heroin use is obviously one of the dumbest things anyone can do.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- atdrummond 4y ago
  As someone who has used opiates for well over a decade (for medical reasons), heroin and stronger synthetic opioids can absolutely cause an opioid naive individual to have withdrawal symptoms after even a week. This is why codeine OTC recommends no more than three consecutive days of use.
  - mise_en_place 4y ago
    It depends on if you have a specific antibody that targets specific opiate compounds. For example, oxycodone was very dysphoric and caused me even more pain, whereas hydrocodone caused me the intended therapeutic effect of euphoria and analgesia
    - cellis 4y ago
      Hydrocodone has to be one of the best drugs known to man. I had a very small prescription for my wisdom teeth and I instantly understood the opioid dependency problem.

KingMachiavelli 4y ago

I'll say the EA and rationalist community varies a great deal from location to location. Where I am the vast majority use drugs at a lower rate than the general population. There's of course some outliers that are into psychedelics but it's still a very distinct subgroup. Where I am the majority of EA/rationalists are more public policy and human focused and less concerned about AI/x-risk and way more skeptical of cryptocurrency.

darth_avocado 4y ago

I was briefly pulled into EA through a friend. Unfortunately my experience as a man was also bad enough to turn me off. The TLDR version of this was: 1. Most people were full of themselves and full of s** 2. This was just like everything else, a business. Most people were in it for themselves, making a career out of EA, networking for professional growth, using ea in their own workplace to climb ranks and the worst ones were just people virtue signaling for Instagram. 3. Drug, sex and alcohol was heavily involved 4. At the end of the day, there was a lot of talking and less doing, which was the problem that it is supposed to solve in the first place

OkayPhysicist 4y ago

I can't imagine what benefits they were looking for in opioid use/abuse. Like, most drugs have a very distinct use, ranging from "directly beneficial" like using stimulants to increase productivity, to "socially useful" like using alcohol or MDMA as a social lubricant. Opiates don't really fall into any of those boxes. They're not mechanistically useful: If you want euphoria, there are better drugs like MDMA or ketamine. If you want to prematurely end your stimulant rush, booze, GHB, or ketamine will do that. Their primary use is as a coping mechanism, because they make you feel generically good regardless of your actual situation. And they're not really socially useful either, because unlike, say, cocaine, the overlap between "valuable people to have in my social network" and "people who shoot heroin" is practically non-existent. I say this as someone who is very drug positive: Stay away from opiates, except for treating extreme, acute, physical pain.

mynameisvlad 4y ago
I mean, just like with a lot of drug abuse, it’s a method of escape. An extremely good way to make you forget about your troubles. It wouldn’t have been anywhere near as big of a problem as it is if it wasn’t good at that.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
skissane 4y ago
> And they're not really socially useful either A relative of mine-who used to be a heavy marijuana user-told me how he once tried heroin-and he really didn’t like how it made him behave socially-he says it made him smug, arrogant, and an asshole who felt superior to everyone else. I don’t know if that’s some kind of idiosyncratic reaction to it or a common one, but he told me it was enough to convince him to not try it again, and just stick to marijuana and alcohol, which didn’t have the same effect on him
theragra 4y ago
There are obvious benefits for using opiates for your life. You will be less agitated, calmer, kinder and will be able to tolerate unpleasant stuff better. I'm speaking also from experience. Problem is, it always comes to not wanting normal undrugged life afterwards.

brnt 4y ago

This sounds very familiar. The Netherlands is the only country in the world where alcohol consumption correlates positively with education level, and thus alcoholism and associated ills. It's nearly impossible to find people in these circles that think of alcohol as something to be careful with. Alcoholism only happens to 'others'.

freddie_mercury 4y ago
> The Netherlands is the only country in the world where alcohol consumption correlates positively with education level I'm reasonably sure this isn't true. It is also the case in the UK and the US. It is presumably also the case for many other countries, since it is hard to imagine what would make the UK, the US, and the Netherlands somehow unique in the world. UK: "Higher educational attainment is associated with increased odds of daily alcohol consumption and problem drinking. The relationship is stronger for females than males. Individuals who achieved high test scores in childhood are at a significantly higher risk of abusing alcohol across all dimensions" https://rmitlibraryvn.rmit.edu.vn/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=84RVI_INST:84RVI&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&docid=alma991001213385106821&lang=en&context=L&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&query=creator,exact,Lissitz,%20Robert%20W.&facet=creator,exact,Lissitz,%20Robert%20W.&offset=0 https://rmitlibraryvn.rmit.edu.vn/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=... US: "Greater alcohol consumption is also associated with having a higher educational level and having a higher income [...] In the college sample, educational achievement is positively associated with drinking" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4838609/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4838609/
- benj111 4y ago
  Middle class alcoholism is viewed very differently to lower class alcoholism. If you have X glasses of wine a night but otherwise have a functional life, that is 'ok'. Getting shitfaced on a Friday night isn't. Although it's the middle classes that write the rules so make of that what you will.
- brnt 4y ago
  > UK, the US, and the Netherlands somehow unique in the world. O actually there's a ton. These are solidly protestant cultures, with a history of hypocrisy.

naasking 4y ago

> I intentionally drifted away from that group around that time, so I don’t know what happened to them This isn't a convincing story that they were wrong if you don't actually know what happened to them. It just looks like you're showing a bit of that hubris yourself, in assuming they went off a cliff.

watwut 4y ago
OP disassociate with them when issues caught up with them. Even if their fixed their lifes after, this point stands.
- Kinrany 4y ago
  It does not, not if they succeeded and ended up better off than if they haven't started using in the first place.
  - watwut 4y ago
    You genuinely believe that this had potential to happen after the issues related to drugs started to show up? Cause it is very very unlikely.
    - Kinrany 4y ago
      However unlikely it is, naasking is right that OP's comment contains zero new information.
      - watwut 4y ago
        It does not. They started having drug related issues despite thinking it won't happen. OP disassociating at that point is OP exercising good judgement. It does not cancel out his observation that issues started. The "maybe in next few months they gained something super special" is pure speculation - and it is not even that these people took drugs with that expectation. Instead they took drugs expecting no issues will happen to them.

heavyset_go 4y ago

You genuinely can't make this shit up. Normally, if someone told me that rationalists were Bayes-ing themselves into justifying their own opioid addictions, I'd say that attempt at satire's a little too on the nose. This is just absolutely incredible.

pk-protect-ai 4y ago

This in particular does not look clever: "They believed themselves to have a better grasp on human nature and behavior than the average person, and therefore believed they were better at controlling themselves."