If people who use psychedelics should be considered not yet good enough for the community, and alcohol and tobacco are worse than psychedelics, does that mean people who use alcohol or tobacco should also be considered not yet good enough for the community?
Not necessarily since a willingness to violate drug laws is likely a negative signal about someone. If I were in charge of the rationalist world I would put anti-smoking and anti-drinking way ahead of eliminating biases, for working on self-improvement.
It is interesting to put this in contrast with Objectivists. As far as I know, smoking was considered rational and high-status among them.
That might suggest that even in organizations that try to be rational, the instinct to copy high-status people is too strong, and members rationalize copying the personal quirks of the leaders as “doing the rational thing”. We need a rationality movement started by a heavy drinker who also happens to be a furry, and see what their followers will consider the most rational way of life.
But maybe this is just about generations and geography. For our generation, especially in Bay Area, smoking is uncool, experimenting with drugs is cool. Occam’s razor. (“Hey, not all drugs! Only the safe ones that my friends approve of, not the really harmful ones...” Exactly.)
I feel much stronger about tobacco as it likely caused my father’s death, and I never met my dad’s dad who smoked and died of lung cancer before I was born.
I don’t know of any rationalist who is addicted to food. It’s not like eating more would make you healthier or increase your mental capacity even temporarily, maybe if they follow certain strict diet but I doubt that’s the case for them.
(User banned for a year. Am choosing to leave content up for transparency about mod action in this thread in particular, though have deleted some of the account’s low-quality comments on other posts.)
Not necessarily since a willingness to violate drug laws is likely a negative signal about someone.
I would think that this’d depend on what a reasonable person looking at the existing research about the drugs in question would conclude about their effect.
In the specific case of psychedelics, I think a reasonable conclusion based on the existing research would be that they do involve some risks, but can be positive value in expectation if used responsibly.
If that’s a reasonable conclusion to draw, then I wouldn’t think that a person drawing that conclusion and using psychedelics as a result would be a negative signal about the person.
(In another comment, you mention the destructive effect that drugs have had on Mexico as a reason to avoid them. I’m not very familiar with the situation there, but Wikipedia tells me that the drugs traded by the Mexican drug cartels include cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin. Notably missing from the list are psychedelics such as psilocybin or LSD.)
“If that’s a reasonable conclusion to draw, then I wouldn’t think that a person drawing that conclusion and using psychedelics as a result would be a negative signal about the person.” I agree if you know the person only used the drugs after doing a serous analysis.
I know very little about the sale of psychedelics but if it is being sold by criminal organization my guess (and it is just a guess) is that the gangs with the most firepower are getting a cut.
The illegal drug trade inflicts massive misery on the world, just look at what the drug gangs in Mexico do. A person’s willingness to add to this misery to increase his short-term pleasure in a manner that also likely harms his health is, for me a least, a huge negative signal about him.
This would seem to be a good argument for not paying taxes or helping the US government, or in particular an argument for excluding employees of the FBI, CIA, and DEA, since they are the institutions that have engaged in active violence to cause and perpetuate this situation. It doesn’t seem like a plausible argument that it’s wrong to take illegal drugs, except in the “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” sense.
I have to say, your extreme/rigid opposition to any form of whatever you’re currently defining as ‘illegal drugs’ reminds me of religious people who have similarly rigid and uncompromising views on things.
Ironically, this also seems to me to be antithetical to rationality...
If people who use psychedelics should be considered not yet good enough for the community, and alcohol and tobacco are worse than psychedelics, does that mean people who use alcohol or tobacco should also be considered not yet good enough for the community?
Not necessarily since a willingness to violate drug laws is likely a negative signal about someone. If I were in charge of the rationalist world I would put anti-smoking and anti-drinking way ahead of eliminating biases, for working on self-improvement.
Most of the wildly successful people that exist in the western world today display current, or displayed prior, ‘willingness to violate drug laws’.
I don’t know of any rationalists who smoke. On the other hand I do know of rationalists who drink while I personally never drank any alcohol.
If you feel strongly about the alcohol topic, it might be worth to write a top-level post for it to make the case to more people.
It is interesting to put this in contrast with Objectivists. As far as I know, smoking was considered rational and high-status among them.
That might suggest that even in organizations that try to be rational, the instinct to copy high-status people is too strong, and members rationalize copying the personal quirks of the leaders as “doing the rational thing”. We need a rationality movement started by a heavy drinker who also happens to be a furry, and see what their followers will consider the most rational way of life.
But maybe this is just about generations and geography. For our generation, especially in Bay Area, smoking is uncool, experimenting with drugs is cool. Occam’s razor. (“Hey, not all drugs! Only the safe ones that my friends approve of, not the really harmful ones...” Exactly.)
I feel much stronger about tobacco as it likely caused my father’s death, and I never met my dad’s dad who smoked and died of lung cancer before I was born.
I don’t know of any rationalist who is addicted to food. It’s not like eating more would make you healthier or increase your mental capacity even temporarily, maybe if they follow certain strict diet but I doubt that’s the case for them.
This must’ve hurt like a fucking bitch.
(User banned for a year. Am choosing to leave content up for transparency about mod action in this thread in particular, though have deleted some of the account’s low-quality comments on other posts.)
I would think that this’d depend on what a reasonable person looking at the existing research about the drugs in question would conclude about their effect.
In the specific case of psychedelics, I think a reasonable conclusion based on the existing research would be that they do involve some risks, but can be positive value in expectation if used responsibly.
If that’s a reasonable conclusion to draw, then I wouldn’t think that a person drawing that conclusion and using psychedelics as a result would be a negative signal about the person.
(In another comment, you mention the destructive effect that drugs have had on Mexico as a reason to avoid them. I’m not very familiar with the situation there, but Wikipedia tells me that the drugs traded by the Mexican drug cartels include cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin. Notably missing from the list are psychedelics such as psilocybin or LSD.)
“If that’s a reasonable conclusion to draw, then I wouldn’t think that a person drawing that conclusion and using psychedelics as a result would be a negative signal about the person.” I agree if you know the person only used the drugs after doing a serous analysis.
I know very little about the sale of psychedelics but if it is being sold by criminal organization my guess (and it is just a guess) is that the gangs with the most firepower are getting a cut.
I’m curious where you’re getting this from. What’s your evidence?
The illegal drug trade inflicts massive misery on the world, just look at what the drug gangs in Mexico do. A person’s willingness to add to this misery to increase his short-term pleasure in a manner that also likely harms his health is, for me a least, a huge negative signal about him.
This would seem to be a good argument for not paying taxes or helping the US government, or in particular an argument for excluding employees of the FBI, CIA, and DEA, since they are the institutions that have engaged in active violence to cause and perpetuate this situation. It doesn’t seem like a plausible argument that it’s wrong to take illegal drugs, except in the “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” sense.
I have to say, your extreme/rigid opposition to any form of whatever you’re currently defining as ‘illegal drugs’ reminds me of religious people who have similarly rigid and uncompromising views on things.
Ironically, this also seems to me to be antithetical to rationality...