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Comment by justinpowers | Hacker News Reader

And thus exercise “messes” with your brain as well. For consistency, you should probably steer clear of that too.

This blurring of concepts is a glib debating technique. There's clearly a distinction to be made between taking a psychotropic drug and going for a run (I've done both). Yes, both affect the chemicals in your brain, but one of them is more direct and, if subjective experience is any guide, far more potent.

I think it's a good thing that these drugs are being studied but I suspect there are risks.

There are absolutely risks, but not to the degree that op's comment suggests.

If one is worried about a microdose, then one can choose to start with 1% of a microdose (or whatever minimal amount one can accurately measure) and then move up slowly.

Just like...exercise. Hence the forever present disclaimer: "Consult with your doctor before beginning this or any new exercise routine." One wouldn't start off with an ultramarathon when they could just walk around the block.

If, on the otherhand, you believe that _any_ amount is a risk, then at this stage it's up to you to provide that evidence. This isn't some new and mysterious chemical, it's been taken for millenia, intentionally or not.

The bigger issue is that people just assume that they don't need guidance or preparation. Or they ignore set and setting. Or they believes there's only one right dose or no such thing as a wrong dose. Or they simply don't know the dose because it's in whole mushroom form. And so they just take whatever they're told and then wait to see what happens.

These are where the risk comparison between exercise and psilocybin breaks down, because if you do make a mistake, you cannot abort the process as easily as you can with exercise. Once you've taken it, you're in for the ride.

But that's quite different from "it messes with your brain".

But humans have been getting exercise for millions of years. It’s hardly comparable to taking a lab-created compound.

If by "lab" you mean the planet through millions of years of evolution, then yes, psilocybin is a lab-created compound.

It’s not lab created. It’s entirely natural.

It's a random organism. While in itself it's natural, nothing about ingesting it by humans is natural.

Everything we consume is some random organism.

My point exactly. Nothing is natural for humans except for perhaps some tree fruits from Africa.

So saying "it's natural" is bs.

You have canine teeth for eating meat instead of tree fruits. Your body can also extract nutrients from this fungus versus merely passing it like if you ate some wood or something else entirely non-nutritious. You might be one of those people who are able to process lactose effectively. None of these things are unnatural to our species if we have natural mutations in our population that confer these adaptions.

> You have canine teeth for eating meat instead of tree fruits.

Probably not cows and pigs though. Maybe sobe birds. Maybe monkeys. Raw. Also no significant natural resistance to salmonella.

I'm sure I have exactly as much genetic adaptations to eating psylocybin mushrooms as I have for eating death caps.

Human consumption of a naturally occurring mushroom (food) that happens to contain psilocybin is absolutely a natural occurrence and as a result has a history of human consumption older than wine.

> Human consumption of a naturally occurring mushroom (food) that happens to contain psilocybin is absolutely a natural occurrence

Same could be said about death cap mushrooms. Something being natural or even being occasionally ingested doesn't make it any better. Natural, occasionally ingested organisms can kill you on the spot.

Except psilocybin-containing mushrooms are edible, death caps are not.

Edible just means it doesn't kill you immediately at doses you can fit in your stomach.

Psilocybin is a natural compound that has been used since recorded history.

Psilocybin is not lab-created. It's the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.

Pretty much anything you do alters your brain. The five senses, what's put in your body, how you move your body, the thoughts you have. Though doing a larger dose of psychedelics definitely does a lot more rewiring at once and should be done with extreme caution and making sure schizophrenia/psychosis doesn't run in the family.

Humans have been consuming psilocybin for 10k+ years

Boy I have news for you about how long hominids have potentially been ingesting this particular compound

Humans as we are are only about 300 thousand years old, we haven’t been doing anything for millions of years.

Animals though have been seeking out mind altering substances for all we can determine, for as long as there were mind altering substances.

The oldest human religions used and still use mild altering substances, it is Christianity which is weird for shunning them (and most of where the abstinence drive comes from) and it was mostly xenophobia targeted against non Christians.

Psilocybin is often just taken by eating mushrooms, when it isn’t, a little isolation and purification doesn’t make much difference.

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