There are a ton of very successful opiate addicts. OxyContin alone does around $3BN of sales a year, in addition to other opiates and generics. It's safe to say that not all of that is going to people in hospitals or on workman's comp. While failed users are gonna generate a storyline and visible effects, successful users aren't going to make a big deal out of it.
Heck, the commander of Germany's Air Force was a lifelong addict. Not that he's a good role model, but that should dispel the idea that opiates kill the ability to run a "successful" life (for some values of successful), in the same way that FB using PHP should dispel idea that you can't write a world class service in PHP.
Keep your eyes open in meetings with "successful" white collar people. If you look carefully, you should not have a hard time finding plenty with pinned pupils.
It'd be interesting to do an analysis of famous drug addicts and see if any pattern emerges in their work.
For example, do amphetamine and cocaine addicts get more work done in the long run? Are heavy psychedelic users more creative than average (examples like Francis Crick's discovery while on LSD seems to point that way, but the sample size is small)?
Sure...play with fire, I sure did. I would never tell anyone (except maybe as a suggestion to my kids, due to the troubles in my life) not to.
Prescribed attention deficit disorder medication non-withstanding, coke and meth addicts are just ticking time bombs.
I know a bunch of speed (meth) users who truly believe that are being super productive, but in the end all they have to show for it is scrubbed concrete, an empty bank account, and psychosis.
These are just my personal experiences as a 48yo who has been deeply involved with recreational drugs since age 13.
now you're mixing apples and... uranium ore. next step is extrapolating heroin/crack/meth addiction drawbacks to alcohol and tobacco addicts, right?
I tried shrooms roughly 10-15x in my life, gradually found a way to get most out of the experience (instead of 5-6 hours of mediocre intensity having 2-3 hours of pure joy). Never tried anything harder/different than this & pot, so there goes gateway thingie.
I don't even know how to describe what I've been trough, but always purely positive extremely intensive experience. FOr me it's not social drug like pot. In fact, when trying to walk around in broad daylight, meeting people etc. the struggle to look normal was literally killing whole trip, since reality was much stronger info feed to my brain.
Since it's digested, after laying down in bed and closing eyes, I would describe the event as gradually losing all senses and connection with body. My self dissolving into something like a mist, breaking into atoms and just hovering. I am an atheist, but it was always very spiritual experience (to me it explains a bit why there are so many religions - we have it built in somehow). Coming back from trip was not instant, always like going down some massive mountain, step by step, discovering your senses and body again (you don't realize that you are "seeing" without anyhow utilizing your eyes, until you start getting them back. Same for rediscovery of hands for example).
Would I advise these to anybody? Nope. As article said, if one has some deep issues, this can unearth them. But so can excessive alcohol and other stuff (one of my ex' father had schyzophrenia attack triggered by excessive drinking, stayed with him whole life after that accident). Is this an issue of psychedelics? No, just us. They are just powerful tool, nothing more.
That being said, didn't have ones for couple of years, mostly because they are not easily accessible (collecting wild mushrooms can bring nasty poisoning if you mix them up for others, and I don't feel up for Tor orders :)). They are definitely not addictive, in fact after each experience being so hugely intense, I didn't feel the curiosity for quite some time. Also, trip being super intense, after it I always get terrible headache from my brain being literally owerworked.
I say everybody who is mentally OK (strong condition here) should try them once. I think mankind overall would look better, and be happier :)
Personally, as someone with ADHD who began taking medication for it only recently, his statements resonate with me.
I would guess that, at the forefront of a field like mathematics where you need to hold a virtually superhuman amount of the field in your mind at once, and explore it for possible cross-connections in a very thorough and rigorous way, being neurotypical would feel like having ADHD, and being on speed would feel like being "functional."
"Failed users are gonna generate a story line and visible effects..." True. But you act as though this is not a serious thing to take into account when weighing fucking consequences. Take a sample of everybody who crosses a busy highway blindfolded and survives. Cause, that's scientific.
Heck, the commander of Germany's Air Force was a lifelong addict. Not that he's a good role model, but that should dispel the idea that opiates kill the ability to run a "successful" life (for some values of successful), in the same way that FB using PHP should dispel idea that you can't write a world class service in PHP.
Keep your eyes open in meetings with "successful" white collar people. If you look carefully, you should not have a hard time finding plenty with pinned pupils.