Given that your son reading this forum, let me make arguments to address your son directly.
Science isn’t attire. You don’t get any points for being scientific if you ignore the results. If you refer to gwern for LSD, there’s one post gwern wrote titled LSD microdosing RCT. It came to the conclusion: ‘No beneficial effects reached statistical-significance and there were worrisome negative trends. LSD microdosing did not help me.’
If you argue at the same time “There are NO negative side effects” (for LSD) and refer to gwern’s work here, you are confused and are not thinking clearly about the situation. As a rationalist, that should put you into a state of mind where you know that you are not thinking clearly enough about the issue to tear down Chesterton’s fences.
I’m about ready to propose a group norm against having any subgroups or leaders who tell other people they should take psychedelics. Maybe they have individually motivated uses—though I get the impression that this is, at best, a high-variance bet with significantly negative expectation. But the track record of “rationalist-adjacent” subgroups that push the practice internally and would-be leaders who suggest to other people that they do them seems just way too bad.
Please, get to the level where you can pass an ideological turing test for that before taking a decision to take drugs like LSD. There can be valid reasons to take drugs, but as long as you don’t pass an ideological turing test for that position advocated by Eliezer, you are not in a position where you think well enough about the issue to take action.
That said synthesizing LSD is no good idea. When doing chemistry it’s easy to do things wrong in a way that contaminates the substance that you are working with that makes it toxic. If you don’t have chemical lab expertise (high school courses aren’t enough for that), don’t synthesize drugs that consume.
When it comes to taking LSD, the context in which you take it matters a great deal. In case you do decide to take it (after passing the ideological turing test) please take it in the presence of other EA or rationalists who serve as trip sitters.
Given that your son reading this forum, let me make arguments to address your son directly.
Science isn’t attire. You don’t get any points for being scientific if you ignore the results. If you refer to gwern for LSD, there’s one post gwern wrote titled LSD microdosing RCT. It came to the conclusion: ‘No beneficial effects reached statistical-significance and there were worrisome negative trends. LSD microdosing did not help me.’
If you argue at the same time “There are NO negative side effects” (for LSD) and refer to gwern’s work here, you are confused and are not thinking clearly about the situation. As a rationalist, that should put you into a state of mind where you know that you are not thinking clearly enough about the issue to tear down Chesterton’s fences.
A year ago Eliezer wrote:
Please, get to the level where you can pass an ideological turing test for that before taking a decision to take drugs like LSD. There can be valid reasons to take drugs, but as long as you don’t pass an ideological turing test for that position advocated by Eliezer, you are not in a position where you think well enough about the issue to take action.
That said synthesizing LSD is no good idea. When doing chemistry it’s easy to do things wrong in a way that contaminates the substance that you are working with that makes it toxic. If you don’t have chemical lab expertise (high school courses aren’t enough for that), don’t synthesize drugs that consume.
When it comes to taking LSD, the context in which you take it matters a great deal. In case you do decide to take it (after passing the ideological turing test) please take it in the presence of other EA or rationalists who serve as trip sitters.