[JASchilz]

> They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.

In mathematical modeling, they say that every model is wrong, but some are useful.

Insofar as psychedelics are dissociatives, they can cause harm by convincing us to discard our wrong but useful models of the world. And I have experienced that when no associations seem significant, all associations gain significance, independent of usefulness.

Our brain works pretty well with our incomplete-but-useful heuristics, and the ability to discover these heuristics and transmit them culturally is one of our central powers as a species. I don't have the perspective of a state to say why exactly they have been banned, and I don't have the perspective of a god to say whether the lubrication of psychedelics might slip us into a greater local optimum. But I do have enough personal experience to say that bad things can happen to an unmoored mind.

[Zigurd]

That's an interesting conjecture, but is there any evidence at all? Say, in the form of dysfunction in cases where users of psychedelics come into leadership positions or positions of influence? Or among communities where use of psychedelics is common?

[JASchilz]

Respectfully, I make no conjectures. When I say that psychedelics can cause us harm, I mean that psychedelics can cause the individual harm, and I generalize from my own (extremely mild) experience.