Slate Star Codex just published on this. His argument is basically “lots of things look very promising and then fail, and LSD is especially prone to this because it stimulates the insight part of your brain.”, although I encourage everyone to read the full post because obviously there’s more to it.
If this comment wins a prize I’ll pass it on to Scott.
(a) the promising results found in psychedelic research so far may not replicate, and
(b) even if psychedelics are effective in certain settings, US healthcare infrastructure isn’t configured in a way that will promote those settings
(a) seems to be an argument for doing confirmatory research of the initial results (more discussion of that in this thread).
(b) seems like a valid concern (and is currently a live debate amongst psychedelic advocates).
Psychedelic therapy involves both a psychotherapeutic component & a pharmacological component (and a much bigger one than just “here’s a prescription for some pills, take one pill a day”), so it sits at the intersection of our pharmacology institutions and our psychology institutions.
I think meditation retreat centers & psychotherapy clinics are interesting comparables for how psychedelic therapy could be structured as it enters the US mainstream.
Slate Star Codex just published on this. His argument is basically “lots of things look very promising and then fail, and LSD is especially prone to this because it stimulates the insight part of your brain.”, although I encourage everyone to read the full post because obviously there’s more to it.
If this comment wins a prize I’ll pass it on to Scott.
Full disclosure: I won a prize and attempted to pass the winnings on to Scott, but he turned me down.
Easy money :-)
I read Scott as mainly arguing that:
(a) the promising results found in psychedelic research so far may not replicate, and
(b) even if psychedelics are effective in certain settings, US healthcare infrastructure isn’t configured in a way that will promote those settings
(a) seems to be an argument for doing confirmatory research of the initial results (more discussion of that in this thread).
(b) seems like a valid concern (and is currently a live debate amongst psychedelic advocates).
Psychedelic therapy involves both a psychotherapeutic component & a pharmacological component (and a much bigger one than just “here’s a prescription for some pills, take one pill a day”), so it sits at the intersection of our pharmacology institutions and our psychology institutions.
I think meditation retreat centers & psychotherapy clinics are interesting comparables for how psychedelic therapy could be structured as it enters the US mainstream.