<story><title>LSD microdosing: a randomized, blind self-experiment</title><url>http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m upvoting this, and I hate to be cranky asshole guy, but something&amp;#x27;s been buggin&amp;#x27; me and I&amp;#x27;m not sure how or where to provide this feedback.&lt;p&gt;Gwern&amp;#x27;s articles are, well, &lt;i&gt;deep&lt;/i&gt;. There&amp;#x27;s usually huge wall of text with lots of allusions and footnotes. Looks like a term paper somebody would write for a college course, (only extremely well done, btw)&lt;p&gt;My problem is that I&amp;#x27;m finding it difficult to actually consume the articles. Sure, if I had an extra hour everyday to lounge around studying the intricate details of his self-experiment with LSD, such things might interest me. But the sheer volume and technical facade of the piece works against it. At best it engages my natural inclination to nit-pick. At worst it&amp;#x27;s just boring. In either case, I&amp;#x27;m not left with a greater understanding. Having said that, if it&amp;#x27;s something I already agree with, it does make me feel like &lt;i&gt;gee, I&amp;#x27;m really smart for feeling this way. Here&amp;#x27;s this well-researched article that agrees with me!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I freely admit to being an outlier, so take my feedback for what it&amp;#x27;s worth. I am interested, however, that my feelings validate what newspaper editors found out centuries ago: state your conclusion in the lead, then supporting evidence. Write in a pyramid fashion. That way people can review the point at their leisure, then dive down if they feel it&amp;#x27;s worthwhile. Articles for the general public should not read like mystery novels. Say what you want to say, punch them in the nose. Then make your case and impress them with how smart you are.&lt;p&gt;Since I&amp;#x27;m playing grumpy old guy already, I&amp;#x27;ll also note that these essays are getting upvoted &lt;i&gt;way&lt;/i&gt; quicker than it&amp;#x27;s possible to actually read the things. I&amp;#x27;m not implying a voting ring, more like a bandwagon effect. (Same result, but without all the sinister implications)</text></comment>
<story><title>LSD microdosing: a randomized, blind self-experiment</title><url>http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Alex3917</author><text>&amp;quot;The claims made by psychonauts are frequently extravagant and unjustified; the tangible benefits are either unrelated to the truth of the experience (such as lessened anxiety of death)&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think this is accurate. The key mediating variable for reduced anxiety is having a mystical experience, and one of the defining characteristics of the mystical experience is that it feels more real than real life. C.f. csp.org&amp;#x2F;psilocybin&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Physicalism, by contrast, could be easily falsified. If science ever established the existence of ghosts, or reincarnation, or any other phenomenon which would place the human mind (in whole or in part) outside the brain, physicalism would be dead.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I know he&amp;#x27;s just quoting Harris here, but this is BS. There is literally no known phenomena which you couldn&amp;#x27;t explain away with some as yet undiscovered materialist phenomena. C.f consciousness, spooky action at a distance, etc.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Many years later, I have yet to have a mystical or religious or peak experience which could either convert me or leave me unmoved, and thus empirically settle the issue as to why I am an atheist - absence of experience, or reasoned belief?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Given that 80% of people have these experiences in the lab while on psilocybin, if you are judging without having had these experiences yourself then that&amp;#x27;s just lazy. Even if you don&amp;#x27;t want to go the drug route, the vast majority of people also have chakra type experiences within the first few days of taking up meditation in a retreat setting.</text></comment>