Suppose you start taking LSD. Not as a part of a scientific experiment where the dosage was reviewed and approved by a research ethics board, but based on a recommendation of your friend and an internet research you did yourself, using doses as big as your friend/research recommends, repeating as often as your friend/research considers safe.
(Maybe, let’s also include the risk of self-modification, e.g. the probability that once you overcome the taboo and find the results of the experiment appealing, you may be tempted to try a greater dose the next time, or increase the frequency. I am mentioning this, because—yes, anecdotally—people experimenting with psychoactive substances sometimes do exactly this.)
Are you saying that the probability of serious and irreversible harm to your brain is smaller than 1%?
Or are you saying that the potential benefits are so large, that the 1% chance of seriously and irreversibly harming your brain is totally worth it?
I think that at least one of these two statements needs to be true, in order to make experimenting with LSD worth it. I just don’t know which one (or possibly both?) are you making.
Note that the 1% probability of hurting your brain (heck, even 40% probability) is still hypothetically compatible with the statement that for a median person the experiment is a net benefit.
Suppose you start taking LSD. Not as a part of a scientific experiment where the dosage was reviewed and approved by a research ethics board, but based on a recommendation of your friend and an internet research you did yourself, using doses as big as your friend/research recommends, repeating as often as your friend/research considers safe.
(Maybe, let’s also include the risk of self-modification, e.g. the probability that once you overcome the taboo and find the results of the experiment appealing, you may be tempted to try a greater dose the next time, or increase the frequency. I am mentioning this, because—yes, anecdotally—people experimenting with psychoactive substances sometimes do exactly this.)
Are you saying that the probability of serious and irreversible harm to your brain is smaller than 1%?
Or are you saying that the potential benefits are so large, that the 1% chance of seriously and irreversibly harming your brain is totally worth it?
I think that at least one of these two statements needs to be true, in order to make experimenting with LSD worth it. I just don’t know which one (or possibly both?) are you making.
Note that the 1% probability of hurting your brain (heck, even 40% probability) is still hypothetically compatible with the statement that for a median person the experiment is a net benefit.