[mistermann]

One some topics this is realized and praised on HN.

On other topics, the cognition flips.

This is the nature of evolved, culturally conditioned consciousness (one of the things most HN'ers like talking about from an abstract perspective, but really don't like talking about at the object level during discussions of certain controversial ideas, when heuristics have taken control of the mind).

For fun: observe the nature of comments in this thread from a meta perspective of a curious alien observer.

[fragmede]

Most of the people here aren't biochemists, hence q "biochemistry = scary untouchable magic" POV. But for those that have done the chemistry in a university setting before and gone on to being professionals in the field, know the plant-based history of the field, as well as the history of synthesizing "stuff" and ingesting it, by certain individuals in the field.

it's important to get the chemistry right, but if you know the failure modes, it's far less of a black box and thus less scary.

[mistermann]

Sure, but most people here have technical backgrounds and well above average skills in logic. But prompt them with specific topics, and skill in logic vanishes.

I think this phenomenon itself is very interesting and a huge deal (cognitive ability is what makes us the most dominant species, and is required just to maintain living standards), but also the secondary effect is interesting: the mind does not allow focus to be placed on it.

If you ask me, it is about as close to magic as you can get.

[ryao]

My college chemistry professor said never to ingest anything made in a lab. Thus far, I have followed this rule and I have been fine, not that I have been around any chemistry labs since college.

A chemist broke this rule on YouTube by turning styrofoam into cinnamon candy that he ate himself, but he went through an extreme amount of effort to make it safe:

https://youtu.be/zMaTrgUKC1w

[fragmede]

Yeah! I love NileRed (and blue). To be clear, it's not safe for someone without a lot of training to ingest a chemistry project and even then. Hopefully it didn't read like I was endorsing anyone to do so. Just that there's a history of that which we've walked away from (for good reason!) and that we wouldn't be here without some brave chemists to do the insane thing.