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We have pretty strong indications of when and why things go wrong. Openness vs rigid thinking are an axis that are very strong correlative factors. A lot more nuance but there is a lot we do know about risk factors so it isn’t a complete question mark.

> The problem with psychoactive drugs, as I understand it, is not the lack of positive results. There are plenty of well recognized cases.

There is a long way to go toward solid research on this topic. The studies that exist have small sample sizes and usually very limited monitoring periods after the dose, which makes them extremely prone to placebo effects. There’s no real blinding in a study with powerful psychedelics, so long-term comparisons against active comparators (therapy, other antidepressants) are needed.

There is a lot of reporting that would make the studies seem like slam-dunk, case closed results, but every study I’ve read so far has felt very weak compared to traditional antidepressant studies. That’s expected for early stage research, but it’s going to take a lot more to quantify the treatment effects.

> The problem is the the unpredictability, because there are plenty of catastrophic results too, and we don't really know why.

The studies go to great lengths to have controlled circumstances like therapists monitoring and guiding the situation for hours, including integration sessions afterward in a lot of the studies.

This helps control the situation for those studies, but it’s hard to translate that to real world practices. If the current proliferation of poorly-run ketamine clinics by cash grabbing providers is a clue, it would be really hard to ensure the level of trained therapist oversight that happens in these studies if this every becomes mainstream.

There’s also the big problem of occasional majorly negative outcomes, as you noted. There are a lot of reports around the internet of even seasoned psychonauts who eventually had a trip that left them depressed or dissociated for months. For the longest time these anecdotes were dismissed as having triggered an underlying mental health disorder as a way to avoid blaming the drug. The advice was always that people with mental health problems shouldn’t take the drugs. Well now that we’re talking about using these as antidepressants (maybe) then it would be exclusively people with severe mental health conditions taking them.

I don’t think it would take very many severely negative public cases to shut it down or at least severely restrict it.

> The problem is the the unpredictability, because there are plenty of catastrophic results too, and we don't really know why.

i can think of a way to find out :)

we'll have to take it in stages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial

The War on Drugs only serves to give law enforcement unlimited extra constitutional powers.

Even the bizarre murder of Central American fishermen is justified by someone somewhere having a dime bag or something.

Who needs trials , or evidence. Drugs are bad.

Government good.

Drugs bad.

He actually talks about that in the video and compares and contrasts the weaving based patterns, nature based patterns and hallucinogenic patterns. The datura pattern being nature based.

could also say a corroded civilization makes vulnerable people feel bad and drugs make them feel good

My spidy sense is tingling on this video. The related recommendations on the side include these videos:

In particular it is the thumbnails that look identical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6NeLNYCGo0 The Zombies Of America! (i have never seen anything like this..) by Frank van Dam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snN0PNZVWNA Inside Philadelphia's Real Life Zombie Outbreak by Tyler Oliveira

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htZCX1Y0ZiA THE ZOMBIES OF AMERICA (I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS) by Joe HaTTab

What do you mean "was"?

I meant the graffiti and needles in tunnels and under bridges etc.

Beer may have lead to the domestication of cereal grains. This is not my theory, here's an article about it: https://nautil.us/beer-domesticated-man-234697

Specifically, we have evidence of beer older than we have evidence of cereal domestication. There is evidence that beer's side effects were considered important for social and religious gatherings (as they are today as well). People wanted to make more beer and so figured out how to plant it. The process to make bread is actually a lot more involved than to make beer and porridge... and porridge just doesn't make as much sense as a motivating factor for domestication when the grains ripen at the same time as many many other easier and tastier foods are also ready in the natural environment.

Arguably, the domestication of grain and invention of agriculture played a role in the rise of many civilizations.

There's no reason to think that humans 10k years ago didn't enjoy getting buzzed, just like humans today do.

I can't quit it. When I do, after about 2 weeks I completely lose the ability to be a good worker bee and sit in my open plan office,and hide my contempt for the absolute rank ineptitude of almost everyone else there. Load me up with the happy brown juice and I can pretty much make it through. I'm not convinced this is sustainable tbh.

And nicotine, don't forget that. Smokers built the modern world (and then developed lung cancer for their troubles).

As the saying goes: “the dose makes the poison”. Many (perhaps most) drugs cause harm at the wrong dosage.

Poison is a function of dosage. Water is a poison in a high enough dose.

What’s you’re arguments it’s not a drug?

It’s much more of a poison to some of our primate relatives. iirc the genes that facilitate alcohol metabolism evolved in great apes millions of years before homo sapiens, and we inherited them; we’ve been boozing long before we were even human.

if alcohol can damage your short term memory,

Imagine what effect alcohol has

Reconciling the profound interiority of the experience with a mere external catalyst can be quite challenging.

Consider the question yourself next time you are in the throes of an exoerience and see how hard it is to maintain objectivity...

It’s a controversial theory, but it does exist[0]. As far as I know, there is no prevailing theory about where consciousness came from so speculating based on existing theories isn’t claiming it’s the truth.

Is it such a leap that fungi are one of the few natural drugs that cause brain elasticity so maybe our early ancestors took it to get the evolutionary process started.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_ape_theory

"This reads like recycled lamarckism."

Recycled Lamarckianism would be Lysenkoism. :)

Fungi grow as a vast interconnected network and can communicate to other fungi. Similarly to how the neurons in the brain communicate.

In fact, when you take fungi, it tones down common neural pathways and allows new ones to form between new places.