It can't save the environment from cultures that will bulldoze over incapacitated and non-competing westerners who buy this hippie nonsense.
Is there any good data on the effects of taking psychedelics on aggression / ambition / aggreableness / conscientiousness? The "becoming one with Nature" theme seems to be pretty common among enthusiasts, although I personally didn't notice a lasting effect after eating shrooms. I'm curious if there's a cause-effect relationship or it's just bias in people who gravitate to this.
Usually users on HN are conscientious and civil, until they are out of their comfort zone or world view, then it becomes like any other trashy forum with insults like "hippie nonsense".
Science and data are some of the best tools humans have ever found, but they are not the sole arbiters of truth and efficacy.
I was curious and decided to look it up. Turns out there is a peer reviewed Journal of Psychopharmacology that has many published papers on topics that you mention.
> One celebrated study found that drug-naïve volunteers who were given psilocybin experienced lasting increases in openness to experience that were evident more than a year later.
> Openness to experience refers to the breadth, depth and complexity of a person’s mental life. People high in openness to experience tend to be intellectually curious, artistically sensitive, interested in new experiences, and have an active imagination.
None of these are direct counters to aggression, but I’d argue that they all contribute to keeping one’s bulldozers at bay.
In the article Stamets very clearly uses the term "heroic dose" -- meaning, he's differentiating from the experience one has when casually dabbling.
(Note I am not recommending that one takes a heroic dose -- experience and a guide is absolutely required here -- only that transformative experiences tend to happen during high dose experiences and that lower dose experiences are mostly just topical, relaxing and fun.)
Stamets himself is quite a successful entrepreneur, as one data point. He funds much of his research out of the proceeds from his business selling mushroom-based products.
His mushroom-based products are well known for containing only trace amounts of the active ingredients. They are a scam and beg question of Stamet's claims and motives.
Is there any good data on the effects of taking psychedelics on aggression / ambition / aggreableness / conscientiousness? The "becoming one with Nature" theme seems to be pretty common among enthusiasts, although I personally didn't notice a lasting effect after eating shrooms. I'm curious if there's a cause-effect relationship or it's just bias in people who gravitate to this.