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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> Embracing the full range of experience available to you, and using tools to achieve those states is intrinsically human.

No that's a very post 1960s European/American thing. For most of the rest of the world, it's all about doing what you're supposed to do.

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The idea that there is one "thing you are supposed to do" that defines human experience is ironically a pretty modern reactionary mindset. They were smoking cannabis in ancient Scythia - it's "what you were supposed to do".

Tell me where in the Bible or Quran it tells you to “embrace the full range of experiences?” Let’s throw anything Confucius wrote for good measure.

How on earth do any of those texts have any ability to inform our idea of 'what it is to be human' compared to the actual weight of evidence of what humans have been doing since the dawn of history? What a bizarre non-sequitur!

They’re evidence, from a large cross section of the world, of what humans have been doing since the dawn of the written record. Nearly everyone spent their lives working, eating, raising children, and fighting. That’s what an American shares with people in a Bangladeshi village. That’s what makes you human.

Yes - and whenever those people could, from the dawn of history, they were also getting drunk, high, and tripping balls.

Ironically resulting in many of the modern religions which eschew the use of substances.

Some humans did that, and the others found the behavior odious enough to develop social norms against such behavior. Humans have always had many vices, sure. They lie, cheat, steal, murder, etc. That doesn’t define their humanity.

And other societies developed social norms which sacralized and ritualized the usage of such drugs, or which totally normalized them. Again, the idea that there is a single social expression of what constitutes 'humanity' is a very reactionary mindset that flies in the face of all evidence and history.

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