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Nature invented a tool for self exploration so meaningful that some of us burn it’s symbol onto our body, and humanity decided those who touch it need to be sent to jail https://twitter.com/c_angermayer/status/1306979654503464960">https://twitter.com/c_angerma...
I don& #39;t think people realize quite how much of a power law humanitarian interventions are. If we had taken psychedelic drug development and psychedelic therapy as a serious science for the last 50 years we may have cured much of the suffering humans go through
even the crudest tools are shockingly effective. MDMA is 60%+ cure rate on the worst PTSD, and I think it& #39;ll cure the vast majority of eating disorders. Repurposed horse tranquilizer and cures 60%+ of severe depression, and 5-MeO-DMT under the right settings may be 80%+
I can& #39;t overemphasize how stupid these molecules and therapeutic protocols. MDMA is an extremely dumb non-specific and known neurotoxic drug, yet no matter how we setup the therapy it seems to be magic. A better protocol or less terrible drug will prob work 10x better
it might be < 5 researcher-years away, but we criminalized actually doing the research. I think it& #39;s likely the humanitarian bad (DALYs, qualitative, anything) of banning it 50 years ago overshadows the good of everything positive they& #39;ve done in that time combined
good intro by openphil that talks about the power law of philanthropic giving, which I& #39;d expect to be far more uniform than the distribution of impact of the largest technological innovations in general https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/hits-based-giving">https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/hits...
The power law means we can screw up *almost everything* if we get the few most important things right. Our world handed us many inconvenient truths, but it also gave us the key to a couple of these important things on a silver platter. All we had to do is not criminalize it
For ~50 years we& #39;ve known MDMA helps you change low-level emotional memory your brain rudely prevents you from accessing otherwise. After 100ks of sessions, psychotherapists coined it "the penicillin of the soul". I colored the countries that put you in jail if you take it blue
