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Comment by cetahfh14615 | Hacker News Reader

Of the people I've known who did hallucinogens, I knew them all before and after.

NONE of them were better off afterward

You can read all the "life changing experiences" that people have online, but when you take these you roll a dice. Keep this in mind. There's a lot of people who shill them super hard, and they might've had a positive experience, but consider the risk vs the reward and tread lightly

edit: And even the people who had "life changing experiences", they weren't better off. They never came out of it "enlightened" or any better than where they were before (based off of their behavior and the lifestyle choices they made)

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I wonder how much of that's due to the hallucinogens themselves versus the situations that led them to the hallucinogens.

Imo there is no healthy situation that leads someone to any drugs past pot. At that point you enter a rabbithole

I'm curious as to what differentiates cannabis from other psychedelics such that you think there is a healthy path to it and not to anything else.

I personally think turning to psychedelics as form of subjective exploration is perfectly healthy, despite the risks.

> I'm curious as to what differentiates cannabis from other psychedelics such that you think there is a healthy path to it and not to anything else.

Experience. Also you're more likely to come across it due to legality. When you cross the threshold of legality you're more likely to find yourself in bad company

> I personally think turning to psychedelics as form of subjective exploration is perfectly healthy, despite the risks.

Maybe it is, but if I had kids I wouldn't allow them to take that risk

This is a great example of why the war on drugs has been such a tremendous failure. You shouldn't have to risk life and limb to explore your consciousness

I would say it is human, as in humans are social animals, to do drugs socially. I think of alcohol or cigarettes and maybe pot as a rebel cult of teenagerhood.

To seek or try drugs that may change your whole life is not healthy because it means you are implicitly deciding your current existence is not enough and something else needs to be on the other side: be it a nice trip, the most powerful high, or rush. The rejection of one’s existence is a concept that bothers me.

that is what bothers me with religion as well: it is a rejection of ourselves and reality traded for comfort. I get people need it due to bad life circumstances, but like any addiction it is just a pain killer for a festering wound.

> because it means you are implicitly deciding your current existence is not enough

> that is what bothers me with religion as well: it is a rejection of ourselves and reality traded for comfort. I get people need it due to bad life circumstances, but like any addiction it is just a pain killer for a festering wound.

Is it only drugs and religion though? And not just illegal drugs, but the legal ones as well?

Couldn't one argue that people seek out religion for emotional needs, and that emotional needs force people to reject themselves in favor of the community? Or is this a misguided take?

This can be applied to anything that gives us comfort. I take the view that we do these things because of a deep psychological knowledge that we will die. There's a book called The Denial Of Death. It's speaks all about how a lot of choices we make (almost all) once you still down deep enough, are because we are creatures who know the power of our own minds but also are aware that we will die one day.

Another way to think of it is, we have kinds that can imagine and simulate anything. We are practically gods in our own minds. The tragedy is that we have this power but will sooner or later die. This is a tragic a deep realization we all have.

Just curious, were they already fairly normal? I'm wondering if the benefits are only in a narrow group, setting, condition, etc.

For example, I could see these being useful for an alcoholic who has already decided that they need to get sober, but need help beating the dependence. On the flip side, I have a feeling that people who just take it recreationally (not for a conditions nor in a controlled/guided setting) probably aren't getting any benefit. These are all just guesses though.

> Just curious, were they already fairly normal? I'm wondering if the benefits are only in a narrow group, setting, condition, etc.

This is the problem: is anyone? Does anyone have a perfect upbringing? How could they be sure?

Tbh I really don't know whether they were normal, one of them had an abusive dad and afterwards decided to cut family ties, drop out of college, and do more drugs

The problem here, and why I don't recommend hallucinogens to anyone, is that people read the warnings about hallucinogens and think their upbringing was "healthy enough" to handle them. How could they actually know that for a fact?

Yeah, I can see that. I was wondering more along the lines of taking a medication you don't need. At that point it's all risk an no reward, even if the risks are small.

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