Psychedelics could bring many benefits, but the EA community needs to be careful not to become associated with flaky New Age beliefs. I think we can do this best by being very specific about how psychedelics could help with certain ‘intention setting’, e.g.
1) expanding the moral circle: promoting empathy, turning abstract recognition of others beings’ sentience into a more gut-level connection to their suffering;
2) career re-sets: helping people step back from their daily routines and aspirations to consider alternative careers, lifestyles, and communities; 80k hours applications;
3) far-future goal setting: getting more motivated to reduce X-risk by envisioning far-future possibilities more vividly, as in Bostrom’s ‘Letter from Utopia’
4) recalibrating utility ceilings: becoming more familiar with states of extreme elation and contentment can remind EAs that we’re fighting for trillions of future beings to be able to experience those states whenever they want.
Psychedelics could bring many benefits, but the EA community needs to be careful not to become associated with flaky New Age beliefs. I think we can do this best by being very specific about how psychedelics could help with certain ‘intention setting’, e.g. 1) expanding the moral circle: promoting empathy, turning abstract recognition of others beings’ sentience into a more gut-level connection to their suffering; 2) career re-sets: helping people step back from their daily routines and aspirations to consider alternative careers, lifestyles, and communities; 80k hours applications; 3) far-future goal setting: getting more motivated to reduce X-risk by envisioning far-future possibilities more vividly, as in Bostrom’s ‘Letter from Utopia’ 4) recalibrating utility ceilings: becoming more familiar with states of extreme elation and contentment can remind EAs that we’re fighting for trillions of future beings to be able to experience those states whenever they want.