4 ms·

Doctors are service providers with lots of expertise on the empirical/technical side of the question, and no relevant expertise whatsoever on the normative side

by Gormo 3y ago

Doctors are service providers with lots of expertise on the empirical/technical side of the question, and no relevant expertise whatsoever on the normative side of the question. Doctors are a great resource to consult if you want to understand the expected probability distribution of any particular course of treatment [1], but whether that treatment is worth the costs/risks is a value judgment, subjective to each individual, for which the technical expert's opinion has no special weight. Doctors -- and regulatory agencies -- are doing their jobs when they do their best to provide enough information for patients to make an informed decision. They are doing something profoundly immoral and unconscionable when they attempt to usurp their patients' decision-making agency by confusing their technical expertise with normative authority. ---- [1]: And it's worth noting that expertise consists entirely of having valid knowledge of the relevant science. Properly understood, they are aggregators of scientific data, not sources of validity or authority in their own right. Any attempt to substitute their own opinions or value judgements for valid science is a breach of fiduciary duty. And if there are valid, replicable studies that are relevant to a patient's decision, but which they are unfamiliar with, then their expertise is incomplete, and their conclusions are insufficient to rely on.

jokoon 3y ago
1. The article doesn't say the sample are diagnosed with depression, that rings an alarm, that should be an important parameter. 2. The article says SEVERAL times that the results should be taken with caution and a grain of salt, for several reasons explained. 3. psilo, AS IS, doesn't have good pharmacodynamics, meaning it doesn't stay very long in the bloodstream, which doesn't make it suitable as a REAL TREATMENT like prescribed AD, that mean you would have a spike of an effect and a fast come-down. That's bad. Of course it works in a controlled environment, but it's not an everyday treatment, that leads to point 5. 4. So as always, this shows a road for synthetic "copies" of that substance that would imitate the active effect, but psilo cannot compete with classic AD. This is still good, but to me, it's not worthy news about AD, I would still hold my breath. 5. I am bothered because those headlines can be read by people with depression who might seek psilo as a medicine if AD aren't enough. People with depression are already quite vulnerable, and there are many stories of people having permanent side effects.
- Gormo 2y ago
  The fact that you think people are vulnerable does not give you the right to usurp their decision-making agency from them, nor to argue that valid information should be hidden from them. If it bothers you that they might misinterpret information or make questionable decisions, feel free to take the initiative on your own to provide them with reliable information and offer guidance in helping them make good decisions, within a context of mutual trust and accountability. If you're not willing to do that, then the best option is to keep out of it entirely. But arguing for third parties with their own agenda to forcefully usurp their right to make their own decisions and censor information from them, just to satisfy your own feelings of concern -- derived from speculation about the situation of strangers you have no relationship with or accountability to -- is profoundly immoral.

by Gormo 3y ago

jokoon 3y ago

1. The article doesn't say the sample are diagnosed with depression, that rings an alarm, that should be an important parameter. 2. The article says SEVERAL times that the results should be taken with caution and a grain of salt, for several reasons explained. 3. psilo, AS IS, doesn't have good pharmacodynamics, meaning it doesn't stay very long in the bloodstream, which doesn't make it suitable as a REAL TREATMENT like prescribed AD, that mean you would have a spike of an effect and a fast come-down. That's bad. Of course it works in a controlled environment, but it's not an everyday treatment, that leads to point 5. 4. So as always, this shows a road for synthetic "copies" of that substance that would imitate the active effect, but psilo cannot compete with classic AD. This is still good, but to me, it's not worthy news about AD, I would still hold my breath. 5. I am bothered because those headlines can be read by people with depression who might seek psilo as a medicine if AD aren't enough. People with depression are already quite vulnerable, and there are many stories of people having permanent side effects.

Gormo 2y ago
The fact that you think people are vulnerable does not give you the right to usurp their decision-making agency from them, nor to argue that valid information should be hidden from them. If it bothers you that they might misinterpret information or make questionable decisions, feel free to take the initiative on your own to provide them with reliable information and offer guidance in helping them make good decisions, within a context of mutual trust and accountability. If you're not willing to do that, then the best option is to keep out of it entirely. But arguing for third parties with their own agenda to forcefully usurp their right to make their own decisions and censor information from them, just to satisfy your own feelings of concern -- derived from speculation about the situation of strangers you have no relationship with or accountability to -- is profoundly immoral.