[stolio]

Would this article make the front-page if the word mushroom was replaced with mycelium or fungus which removed the hope of legitimizing psychedelics? I doubt it, even in the article they extol the virtues of "magical" mushrooms:

> While it’s also being researched for uses in less cosmic concerns like breaking addiction and treat​ing cancer, psilocybin’s third-eye-opening properties aren’t superficial. Some the​ories argue that modern human intelligence itself was borne of consumption of the stuff. Magic mushrooms are something about which Stamets is (naturally) an expert...

OTOH, maybe it's good to have the word mushroom in the title since it also signals to the rest of us that it's probably going to be an article by and for fans of psilocybin.

[coderzach]

I doubt anyone read the title, and then upvoted, because they assumed it was an article about how psychedelics held the key to humanity's survival.

[stolio]

How many pot-heads have you known who would chew your ear off about hemp? It's innocence by association.

[smt88]

I think that very few people clicked this because they thought that psychedelic mushrooms could somehow solve the problems threatening the human race (e.g. climate change, overpopulation, water shortages, nuclear weapons, etc.)

My bet would be that they thought what the title wanted them to think: "I wonder how mushrooms are good to feed humans and/or save the ecosystem?"

Just because some readers of HN use drugs doesn't mean they're any less science-y or that they're idiotic, blind fans of psychedelic mushrooms.

[stolio]

If the article wasn't in Vice, if the main subject of the article didn't credit magic mushrooms for his world view, if the author of the article didn't reference insane theories of evolution happening because primates started tripping on mushrooms, if the author didn't extol the virtues of psilocybin, I would probably agree with you.

As it is the article clearly has a bias towards mushrooms because of the psychedelic properties some of them possess.

[api]

If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed.