Sure drugs are a short-cut, but you say that like it's a bad thing. What rational person wouldn't want to use a short-cut to get to a desired destination?
Did you do that work on your house with trees you'd taken down with your teeth? Or did you use a bunch of short-cuts, developed over hundreds of thousands of years, from saws to cut wood to hammers that pound nails to an exchange economy that allows you to work at one thing and pay someone else to do another for you (like build hammers etc). How big a short-cut is that!
Civilization is nothing but a huge collection of short-cuts.
Every tech company is in the business of developing and selling short-cuts.
So don't be running down short-cuts: they are what make our lives communal, rich, pleasant, civilized and long.
The issues with drugs are not that they get us to places we'd like to go without the otherwise-arduous work required, it's that they don't necessarily get us there, and they can get us to places that are very difficult to get out of. But the very fact that they can mess you up in ways you can't achieve by reading or meditation suggests they can give us positive effects that can't be achieved in other ways. It's not something I'd likely do myself, but if people are bad places already, suffering from PTSD and the like, it's not unreasonable for them to take the damned short-cut if it has a plausible chance of working.
That said, I'm in favour of legalization, or at least decriminalization, in part to reduce the risks: MDMA in particular involves a synthesis that I'd really like to see done in a quality-controlled environment (there are mercury compounds involved and if the chemist screws up their clients can die, which unfortunately happens, and would not happen if the drug was legal, so I lay those deaths at the feet of prohibitionists.)
There are plenty of easy ways to experience altered states. Don't sleep for three days, Hyperventilate, Extreme Sauna, etc. The problem is it's generally a random experience, and random in no way imply's beneficial. So, it's a shortcut to some random place which might be useful, but some people get rich playing the lotto does not mean it's a good idea on average.
> Don't sleep for three days, Hyperventilate, Extreme Sauna, etc.
People are really underestimating altered states when they've never experienced them. Psychedelic drugs are not as subtle as what you are describing and MDMA in particular is not random at all.
Also don't confuse the immediate effect of the drug with what you learn from the experience.
I agree, and I must say I'm pretty curious after reading more and more about these substances. But I'm really not in a situation that allows experimenting. I'd loose the trust of people I depend on that are less open minded. As said, Maybe in another phase of life.
Actually I do know people that messed up their life pretty bad on xtc and weed (ok, perhaps 16 is to young to experiment). Alcohol also messed up the life of someone dear. To be really fair perhaps he just needed more and more to maintain normal social functioning and his anxieties and a lurking depression were probably the real cause.
Did you do that work on your house with trees you'd taken down with your teeth? Or did you use a bunch of short-cuts, developed over hundreds of thousands of years, from saws to cut wood to hammers that pound nails to an exchange economy that allows you to work at one thing and pay someone else to do another for you (like build hammers etc). How big a short-cut is that!
Civilization is nothing but a huge collection of short-cuts.
Every tech company is in the business of developing and selling short-cuts.
So don't be running down short-cuts: they are what make our lives communal, rich, pleasant, civilized and long.
The issues with drugs are not that they get us to places we'd like to go without the otherwise-arduous work required, it's that they don't necessarily get us there, and they can get us to places that are very difficult to get out of. But the very fact that they can mess you up in ways you can't achieve by reading or meditation suggests they can give us positive effects that can't be achieved in other ways. It's not something I'd likely do myself, but if people are bad places already, suffering from PTSD and the like, it's not unreasonable for them to take the damned short-cut if it has a plausible chance of working.
That said, I'm in favour of legalization, or at least decriminalization, in part to reduce the risks: MDMA in particular involves a synthesis that I'd really like to see done in a quality-controlled environment (there are mercury compounds involved and if the chemist screws up their clients can die, which unfortunately happens, and would not happen if the drug was legal, so I lay those deaths at the feet of prohibitionists.)