I will start a bit meta: It is important to keep in mind that LessWrong is one of those places where being a contrarian is rewarded in a debate. This creates a certain preference falsification—people with “edgy” opinions and lifestyles talk about them freely, and people with “vanilla” opinions and lifestyles are often quiet, because they fear they would lose status points every time they open their mouth. The impressions about the community you get from reading may be very misleading.
This is a tradeoff. The human nature is such that people often have strong opinions about what other people are doing. Many places have a strong preference for “normality”, and any deviation from what is perceived as a norm are punished. This is obviously not such place. Intentionally so, because the pressure for “normality” is a known strong force against truth. (If people are weird, I desire to know that people are weird. So I don’t want a community where admitting weirdness is punished.)
The natural way to create a place that is not like that is to tolerate weird opinions and have a soft taboo against promoting norms. Which sometimes results in hearing a lot of weirdness. This is probably epistemically better, because… hey, I already know that the norms exist, and the rest of the world keeps reminding me of them anyway… at least I can learn something new and interesting here. But it screws your heuristic “things are as frequent, as frequently I hear about them” if you spend lot of your free time on LessWrong. Most people here are not polyamorous; most people here are not signed up for cryonics; most people here do not study artificial intelligence; most people here don’t do polyphasic sleep; and probably most people here don’t do drugs. (Certainly I am not in any of these groups.) We just don’t talk about that often, because it might seem like an attempt to enforce a norm; like an argument by majority.
Back to your text:
proceeds to compare to prescription drugs
The fact that they are prescription drugs means precisely that experts are quite aware that they have negative side effects. (So please let’s not act like finding out about the negative side effects is a mind-blowing discovery that would totally turn medicine on its head.) Doctors prescribe them when they believe that the benefits may outweigh the costs, in context of a specific health problem. People don’t take them recreationally just because some stranger online told them to.
Why the hell is LSD criminalized everywhere? There are NO negative side effects
The word “no” is a lie, and whoever claims that is not a credible source. That said, according to Wikipedia, the harm from LSD is smaller than e.g. harm from alcohol. (Which again, might be interpreted either as an argument in favor of LSD, or as an argument against alcohol.) Smaller is not zero, for example an overdose can put you temporarily in coma. But should not kill you.
I agree that it is hypocritical of the society to make LSD illegal while alcoholism is legal. That said, people who avoid both are not hypocrites.
What’s the difference between you drinking alcohol or coffee and me taking amphetamines and doing LSD?
Naively, I would say, let’s find a sample of 20 people who have been doing alcohol and coffee for 10 years, and 20 people who have been doing amphetamines and LSD for 10 years, hang out a little with both, and compare our impressions of these groups. But in practice it might be difficult to find the latter. (Emphasis is on the “for 10 years” part. Some effects may require some time to develop.)
Drugs. are. drugs.
And a tautology is a tautology. But I was under impression that a moment ago the argument was that different drugs have different effects...
Alcohol isn’t synthetic?
How is this relevant? Both natural and synthetic things can kill you.
I’m getting frustrated of explaining how dangerous these ideations are and how a lot of these drugs can permanently damage him, through addiction or brain damage or other negative health effects.
I never felt the temptation myself. Anecdotally, it seems that other people broke out of temptation after seeing bad things happening to someone in their peer group. (If it happens to strangers, that is not the same. “The strangers were certainly stupid and did something wrong; this would never happen to me or my friends because we are very smart and read internet.”)
Maybe the underlying problem is boredom, and a desire for new and pleasant experiences. (Taking drugs is the loser’s way to achieve that; a consumer approach to life dialed up to eleven.) The traditional advice is “sport”, and the reason for that is that physical activity influences body chemistry in a way that is actually quite similar to using drugs, only it’s healthy. Problem is, for many people “sport” has an association of not being intellectual. Considering the time of the year, perhaps quickly buy two dance pads for Christmas (the software is free), or organize a family trip to mountains. Maybe tell your son to take dancing lessons, as a reliable way to impress girls. Getting the pleasure chemicals the natural way may reduce the temptation to get them artificially.
Why not try heroin if the purpose of life is to optimize happiness assuming heroin provides proportionally more even if for a shorter amount of time?
I am pretty sure this idea is not from LessWrong, as it would fall under the general category of wireheading (which is considered a bad thing).
Also, I notice a moving goalpost. Previously it was “drugs are actually not that harmful”, now it is “well, the shorter life is still totally worth it”. Here on LessWrong, people are more into extending life, maybe dramatically, maybe even forever.
our current settlement of the situation is that he’s going to wait until he’s age of majority then do whatever he wants.
Tell him to make a list of people who currently use drugs (of the kind he wants to try), the more the better, maybe encrypted (to prevent you from taking it to police, or something), and then review what happened to those people a few years later. Quite likely, at least one of them will be dead at that time, or crazy and homeless.
I’ve suggested visiting a drug rehab center, I think that’s analogous to your last point, and a good idea. I’ll work on making it happen. The rest of the criticism is valid, and I’ll pass it along.
This paragraph won’t go over well due to neglect of widespread anecdotal positive effects of taking relatively small doses of stimulants, I’ll look through the literature to counter that > The fact that they are prescription drugs means precisely that experts are quite aware that they have negative side effects. (So please let’s not act like finding out about the negative side effects is a mind-blowing discovery that would totally turn medicine on its head.) Doctors prescribe them when they believe that the benefits may outweigh the costs, in context of a specific health problem. People don’t take them recreationally just because some stranger online told them to.
I think that visiting a drug rehab center would be much less convincing (though much faster) than the above suggested method. This is because a drug rehab center will look bad whether or not the effects are very rare, since it’s selected for people who got bad enough effects to be in a rehab center.
(If his argument is that the bad effects don’t exist, a rehab center would be good evidence against that, but it sounds like he believes more that they’re rare and mild enough to be worth it.)
In general, if you want to convince someone who is taking ideas from this community seriously of something, you want to show them evidence that would only exist if the thing you want to convince them of is true, and possibly even explicitly lay out why you expect that.
I will start a bit meta: It is important to keep in mind that LessWrong is one of those places where being a contrarian is rewarded in a debate. This creates a certain preference falsification—people with “edgy” opinions and lifestyles talk about them freely, and people with “vanilla” opinions and lifestyles are often quiet, because they fear they would lose status points every time they open their mouth. The impressions about the community you get from reading may be very misleading.
This is a tradeoff. The human nature is such that people often have strong opinions about what other people are doing. Many places have a strong preference for “normality”, and any deviation from what is perceived as a norm are punished. This is obviously not such place. Intentionally so, because the pressure for “normality” is a known strong force against truth. (If people are weird, I desire to know that people are weird. So I don’t want a community where admitting weirdness is punished.)
The natural way to create a place that is not like that is to tolerate weird opinions and have a soft taboo against promoting norms. Which sometimes results in hearing a lot of weirdness. This is probably epistemically better, because… hey, I already know that the norms exist, and the rest of the world keeps reminding me of them anyway… at least I can learn something new and interesting here. But it screws your heuristic “things are as frequent, as frequently I hear about them” if you spend lot of your free time on LessWrong. Most people here are not polyamorous; most people here are not signed up for cryonics; most people here do not study artificial intelligence; most people here don’t do polyphasic sleep; and probably most people here don’t do drugs. (Certainly I am not in any of these groups.) We just don’t talk about that often, because it might seem like an attempt to enforce a norm; like an argument by majority.
Back to your text:
The fact that they are prescription drugs means precisely that experts are quite aware that they have negative side effects. (So please let’s not act like finding out about the negative side effects is a mind-blowing discovery that would totally turn medicine on its head.) Doctors prescribe them when they believe that the benefits may outweigh the costs, in context of a specific health problem. People don’t take them recreationally just because some stranger online told them to.
The word “no” is a lie, and whoever claims that is not a credible source. That said, according to Wikipedia, the harm from LSD is smaller than e.g. harm from alcohol. (Which again, might be interpreted either as an argument in favor of LSD, or as an argument against alcohol.) Smaller is not zero, for example an overdose can put you temporarily in coma. But should not kill you.
I agree that it is hypocritical of the society to make LSD illegal while alcoholism is legal. That said, people who avoid both are not hypocrites.
Naively, I would say, let’s find a sample of 20 people who have been doing alcohol and coffee for 10 years, and 20 people who have been doing amphetamines and LSD for 10 years, hang out a little with both, and compare our impressions of these groups. But in practice it might be difficult to find the latter. (Emphasis is on the “for 10 years” part. Some effects may require some time to develop.)
And a tautology is a tautology. But I was under impression that a moment ago the argument was that different drugs have different effects...
How is this relevant? Both natural and synthetic things can kill you.
I never felt the temptation myself. Anecdotally, it seems that other people broke out of temptation after seeing bad things happening to someone in their peer group. (If it happens to strangers, that is not the same. “The strangers were certainly stupid and did something wrong; this would never happen to me or my friends because we are very smart and read internet.”)
Maybe the underlying problem is boredom, and a desire for new and pleasant experiences. (Taking drugs is the loser’s way to achieve that; a consumer approach to life dialed up to eleven.) The traditional advice is “sport”, and the reason for that is that physical activity influences body chemistry in a way that is actually quite similar to using drugs, only it’s healthy. Problem is, for many people “sport” has an association of not being intellectual. Considering the time of the year, perhaps quickly buy two dance pads for Christmas (the software is free), or organize a family trip to mountains. Maybe tell your son to take dancing lessons, as a reliable way to impress girls. Getting the pleasure chemicals the natural way may reduce the temptation to get them artificially.
I am pretty sure this idea is not from LessWrong, as it would fall under the general category of wireheading (which is considered a bad thing).
Also, I notice a moving goalpost. Previously it was “drugs are actually not that harmful”, now it is “well, the shorter life is still totally worth it”. Here on LessWrong, people are more into extending life, maybe dramatically, maybe even forever.
Tell him to make a list of people who currently use drugs (of the kind he wants to try), the more the better, maybe encrypted (to prevent you from taking it to police, or something), and then review what happened to those people a few years later. Quite likely, at least one of them will be dead at that time, or crazy and homeless.
I’ve suggested visiting a drug rehab center, I think that’s analogous to your last point, and a good idea. I’ll work on making it happen. The rest of the criticism is valid, and I’ll pass it along.
This paragraph won’t go over well due to neglect of widespread anecdotal positive effects of taking relatively small doses of stimulants, I’ll look through the literature to counter that
> The fact that they are prescription drugs means precisely that experts are quite aware that they have negative side effects. (So please let’s not act like finding out about the negative side effects is a mind-blowing discovery that would totally turn medicine on its head.) Doctors prescribe them when they believe that the benefits may outweigh the costs, in context of a specific health problem. People don’t take them recreationally just because some stranger online told them to.
I think that visiting a drug rehab center would be much less convincing (though much faster) than the above suggested method. This is because a drug rehab center will look bad whether or not the effects are very rare, since it’s selected for people who got bad enough effects to be in a rehab center.
(If his argument is that the bad effects don’t exist, a rehab center would be good evidence against that, but it sounds like he believes more that they’re rare and mild enough to be worth it.)
In general, if you want to convince someone who is taking ideas from this community seriously of something, you want to show them evidence that would only exist if the thing you want to convince them of is true, and possibly even explicitly lay out why you expect that.