The more obvious negatives: legal concerns; purity—will you be consuming what you think; your reputation—what do your friends think of drug users; bad reactions—most react positively to psychedelics—but not everyone does—depending on how stable your personality and circumstances are, there may be risks; unknown factors—psycheldelic science is young—and on safety grounds, you may be better off with LSD rather than psilocybin—if you can get pure controlled doses.
How certain are you that the only effects the drug has (after it wears off) is reveal new information about the world?
Here is what I think is a possible (other) effect the drug can have:
Imagine that after taking the drug it made you more emotional towards others. This caused you to quit everything you’re doing currently and join some charitable organization. Why would you take the drug knowing there is a possibility your goals would completely change?
It could be that it would only happen as a result of revealing new information and therefore, be what you really always wanted to do. This is assuming that the drug only reveals new information. I am not convinced that all the drug might do is reveal new information after it wears off.
Suppose it made you less “emotional towards others”. Then you could ignore all those nagging feelings that you ought to be performing charitable works and become a perfect personal utility maximizer.
I’ve heard cocaine is a pretty good drug for producing this sort of effect, but obviously it has other less desired effects as well. Perhaps some rich Randroid could fund an effort to develop a better anti-altruism drug.
I don’t know that the only effects are as a result of obtaining new information. My own perception is that the drugs do provide a mountaian of information, that it is difficult to obtain that information in other ways, that the information is sometimes regarded as being useful by the individuals in question, and that the side effects on things like goals are sometimes so slight as to be undetectable by the individual. How frequent are such outcomes? Pretty often it seems to me—and you have a reasonable chance of avoiding negative outcomes if you use some common sense.
The more obvious negatives: legal concerns; purity—will you be consuming what you think; your reputation—what do your friends think of drug users; bad reactions—most react positively to psychedelics—but not everyone does—depending on how stable your personality and circumstances are, there may be risks; unknown factors—psycheldelic science is young—and on safety grounds, you may be better off with LSD rather than psilocybin—if you can get pure controlled doses.
How certain are you that the only effects the drug has (after it wears off) is reveal new information about the world?
Here is what I think is a possible (other) effect the drug can have:
Imagine that after taking the drug it made you more emotional towards others. This caused you to quit everything you’re doing currently and join some charitable organization. Why would you take the drug knowing there is a possibility your goals would completely change?
It could be that it would only happen as a result of revealing new information and therefore, be what you really always wanted to do. This is assuming that the drug only reveals new information. I am not convinced that all the drug might do is reveal new information after it wears off.
Suppose it made you less “emotional towards others”. Then you could ignore all those nagging feelings that you ought to be performing charitable works and become a perfect personal utility maximizer.
I’ve heard cocaine is a pretty good drug for producing this sort of effect, but obviously it has other less desired effects as well. Perhaps some rich Randroid could fund an effort to develop a better anti-altruism drug.
I don’t know that the only effects are as a result of obtaining new information. My own perception is that the drugs do provide a mountaian of information, that it is difficult to obtain that information in other ways, that the information is sometimes regarded as being useful by the individuals in question, and that the side effects on things like goals are sometimes so slight as to be undetectable by the individual. How frequent are such outcomes? Pretty often it seems to me—and you have a reasonable chance of avoiding negative outcomes if you use some common sense.