To clarify, Milan, is your argument that psychedelics would make people more altruistic, and therefore they’d start working on protecting the long term future?
Yes, from the OP:
The psychedelic experience also seems like a plausible lever on increasing capability (via reducing negative self-talk & other mental blocks) and improving intentions (via ego dissolution changing one’s metaphysical assumptions).
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By “changing one’s metaphysical assumptions,” I mean that the psychedelic state can change views about what the self is, and what actions constitute acting in one’s “self-interest.”
I was using “improving intentions” to gesture towards “start working on EA-aligned projects (including long-termist projects).”
(There’s a lot of inferential distance to bridge here, so it’s not surprising that it’s non-trivial to make my views legible. Thanks for asking for clarification.)
In general, I’m not sure people who have tried psychedelics are overrepresented in far future work, if you control for relevant factors like income and religious affiliation. What makes you think increasing the number of people who experience a change in their metaphysical assumptions due to psychedelic drugs will increase the number of people working on the far future?
I think psychedelics can make people more altruistic.
Unfortunately, at present I largely have to argue from anecdote, as there are only a few studies of psychedelics in healthy people (our medical research system is configured to focus predominately on interventions that address pathologies).
Lyons & Carhart-Harris 2018 found some results tangential to increased altruism – increased nature-relatedness & decreased authoritarianism in healthy participants:
Nature relatedness significantly increased (t (6)=−4.242, p=0.003) and authoritarianism significantly decreased (t (6)=2.120, p=0.039) for the patients 1 week after the dosing sessions. At 7–12 months post-dosing, nature relatedness remained significantly increased (t (5)=−2.707, p=0.021) and authoritarianism remained decreased at trend level (t (5)=−1.811, p=0.065).
Whether psychedelics make people more altruistic is one of the studies I most want to see.
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I don’t think the psychedelic experience per se will make people more altruistic and more focused on the longterm.
I think a psychedelic experience, paired with exposure to EA-style arguments & philosophy (or paired with alternative frameworks that heavily emphasize the longterm, e.g. the Long Now) can plausibly increase altruistic concern for the far future.
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if you control for relevant factors like income and religious affiliation
fwiw, controlling for religious affiliation may not be appropriate, because psychedelics may increase religiosity. (Another study I want to see!)
:-)
Yes, from the OP:
I was using “improving intentions” to gesture towards “start working on EA-aligned projects (including long-termist projects).”
(There’s a lot of inferential distance to bridge here, so it’s not surprising that it’s non-trivial to make my views legible. Thanks for asking for clarification.)
In general, I’m not sure people who have tried psychedelics are overrepresented in far future work, if you control for relevant factors like income and religious affiliation. What makes you think increasing the number of people who experience a change in their metaphysical assumptions due to psychedelic drugs will increase the number of people working on the far future?
I think psychedelics can make people more altruistic.
Unfortunately, at present I largely have to argue from anecdote, as there are only a few studies of psychedelics in healthy people (our medical research system is configured to focus predominately on interventions that address pathologies).
Lyons & Carhart-Harris 2018 found some results tangential to increased altruism – increased nature-relatedness & decreased authoritarianism in healthy participants:
Whether psychedelics make people more altruistic is one of the studies I most want to see.
---
I don’t think the psychedelic experience per se will make people more altruistic and more focused on the longterm.
I think a psychedelic experience, paired with exposure to EA-style arguments & philosophy (or paired with alternative frameworks that heavily emphasize the longterm, e.g. the Long Now) can plausibly increase altruistic concern for the far future.
---
fwiw, controlling for religious affiliation may not be appropriate, because psychedelics may increase religiosity. (Another study I want to see!)