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Did you take it in a controlled environment like the study suggests? Every time serious conversation of medical progress comes up, it's polluted by naysayers wi

Did you take it in a controlled environment like the study suggests? Every time serious conversation of medical progress comes up, it's polluted by naysayers with anecdata about how they took it while raving beside a live volcano. We need to give psychedelics a fair chance, and sure after we can discount them. The article suggests at scale there is potential

phoronixrly 2y ago
In my experience (this thread, too), the conversation gets polluted by people that swear by their self-medication and call more cautious people naysayers.
- feoren 2y ago
  How come every time we try to have a conversion, it always ends up all "point counterpoint" and "personal experience with the topic" and "differing personal experience" and "discussion of how those experiences relate to the topic"!? EVERY TIME!
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    Its almost as if all experience is subjective…
  - phoronixrly 2y ago
    The only valuable conversation about such research is an objective discussion of the quality of the study at hand.
    - worik 2y ago
      > The only valuable conversation about such research is an objective discussion of the quality of the study at hand. No People's lived experience is very useful
      - ants_everywhere 2y ago
        Those are called anecdotes. Empirically, they're usually not nearly as useful as people think. People are on average unreliable observers of their own experiences. Much better than individual anecdotes are collections of anecdotes that are searchable and somewhat categorized. A lot of old school drug forums provide this. Much better still is systematically varying data and taking statistics to separate signal from noise.
        Shocka1 2y ago
        Yep. I think anecdotal evidence is actually ranked as one of the lowest forms of evidence if I recall correctly from graduate school.
DiscourseFan 2y ago
In the pre-modern world people had a very different relationship to death and there wasn’t anything like anxiety as its experienced today. Psychedelics are essentially an attempt to bring someone back to a more “authentic” experience of life before technological controls settled in. Perhaps its better to take the chance? I think so, but I want others to recognize it as a genuine risk that is truly unpredictable and not a personal failing on the part of the user.
- griffzhowl 2y ago
  I wonder what you mean by saying there wasn't anything like anxiety as it's experienced today in the premodern world. The term "anxiety" comes from Latin "anxietas", and Old English had "angsumnes", both with apparently similar meanings, so it seems the idea has been around for a while, and most likely because it's a basic human emotional condition that could occur in various circumstances throughout history and prehistory. As for a relationship to death, it's difficult to generalise over all people throughout history, but for example in medieval Europe where you had a seemingly quite vivid belief in the possibility of hell after life, that could result in some extreme anxiety of the most inescapable kind. Maybe that accounts for some of the more extreme behaviours of those times, who knows.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > and there wasn’t anything like anxiety as its experienced today You know that how exactly? We really do not have even remotely enough data to be able to make such boldly absurd claims.

phoronixrly 2y ago

In my experience (this thread, too), the conversation gets polluted by people that swear by their self-medication and call more cautious people naysayers.

feoren 2y ago
How come every time we try to have a conversion, it always ends up all "point counterpoint" and "personal experience with the topic" and "differing personal experience" and "discussion of how those experiences relate to the topic"!? EVERY TIME!
- DiscourseFan 2y ago
  Its almost as if all experience is subjective…
- phoronixrly 2y ago
  The only valuable conversation about such research is an objective discussion of the quality of the study at hand.
  - worik 2y ago
    > The only valuable conversation about such research is an objective discussion of the quality of the study at hand. No People's lived experience is very useful
    - ants_everywhere 2y ago
      Those are called anecdotes. Empirically, they're usually not nearly as useful as people think. People are on average unreliable observers of their own experiences. Much better than individual anecdotes are collections of anecdotes that are searchable and somewhat categorized. A lot of old school drug forums provide this. Much better still is systematically varying data and taking statistics to separate signal from noise.
      - Shocka1 2y ago
        Yep. I think anecdotal evidence is actually ranked as one of the lowest forms of evidence if I recall correctly from graduate school.

DiscourseFan 2y ago

In the pre-modern world people had a very different relationship to death and there wasn’t anything like anxiety as its experienced today. Psychedelics are essentially an attempt to bring someone back to a more “authentic” experience of life before technological controls settled in. Perhaps its better to take the chance? I think so, but I want others to recognize it as a genuine risk that is truly unpredictable and not a personal failing on the part of the user.

griffzhowl 2y ago
I wonder what you mean by saying there wasn't anything like anxiety as it's experienced today in the premodern world. The term "anxiety" comes from Latin "anxietas", and Old English had "angsumnes", both with apparently similar meanings, so it seems the idea has been around for a while, and most likely because it's a basic human emotional condition that could occur in various circumstances throughout history and prehistory. As for a relationship to death, it's difficult to generalise over all people throughout history, but for example in medieval Europe where you had a seemingly quite vivid belief in the possibility of hell after life, that could result in some extreme anxiety of the most inescapable kind. Maybe that accounts for some of the more extreme behaviours of those times, who knows.
Wytwwww 2y ago
> and there wasn’t anything like anxiety as its experienced today You know that how exactly? We really do not have even remotely enough data to be able to make such boldly absurd claims.