most the professional world and voting populace have a very negative view on psychedelics
whilst the potential upsides might be sizeable, they likely don’t compare to the negative damage to EA that EA orgs publicly supporting such work would likely do.
if done in secret that’s a) a secret (generally bad) and b) inevitably going to get out.
and a fair number of non EAs are working on it anyway as it’s quite a popular idea in California. I’m guessing anyone super passionate about it could get funding and hire without having to be associated with EA at all.
A common misconception is that if something is being talked about publicly there is probably funding available for it somewhere. But the number of weirdness dollars actually available in the wild for anything not passing muster with Ra can still be safely rounded to zero for most purposes. Even people who have had past success in more conventional areas often have trouble getting funding for weirder ideas, and if they do wind up spending a lot of time fundraising.
most the professional world and voting populace have a very negative view on psychedelics
whilst the potential upsides might be sizeable, they likely don’t compare to the negative damage to EA that EA orgs publicly supporting such work would likely do.
I would push back against this somewhat. It’s historically been the case that the general view of psychedelics is negative, but I think a case can be made that this is changing fairly quickly. Media coverage of psychedelics over the past ~5 years has been positive, e.g. The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Vox, CBC Radio, The New Yorker. Michael Pollan’s latest book How to Change Your Mind was pretty pro-psychedelic and was a New York Times #1 bestseller. Denver also recently decriminalized psilocybin mushrooms, and there are decriminalization ballot initiatives planned for Oregon and California in 2020.
I’d guess the best argument is the obvious one:
most the professional world and voting populace have a very negative view on psychedelics
whilst the potential upsides might be sizeable, they likely don’t compare to the negative damage to EA that EA orgs publicly supporting such work would likely do.
if done in secret that’s a) a secret (generally bad) and b) inevitably going to get out.
and a fair number of non EAs are working on it anyway as it’s quite a popular idea in California. I’m guessing anyone super passionate about it could get funding and hire without having to be associated with EA at all.
A common misconception is that if something is being talked about publicly there is probably funding available for it somewhere. But the number of weirdness dollars actually available in the wild for anything not passing muster with Ra can still be safely rounded to zero for most purposes. Even people who have had past success in more conventional areas often have trouble getting funding for weirder ideas, and if they do wind up spending a lot of time fundraising.
(Essay introducing Ra, for reference.)
I would push back against this somewhat. It’s historically been the case that the general view of psychedelics is negative, but I think a case can be made that this is changing fairly quickly. Media coverage of psychedelics over the past ~5 years has been positive, e.g. The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Vox, CBC Radio, The New Yorker. Michael Pollan’s latest book How to Change Your Mind was pretty pro-psychedelic and was a New York Times #1 bestseller. Denver also recently decriminalized psilocybin mushrooms, and there are decriminalization ballot initiatives planned for Oregon and California in 2020.