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What if a Pill Can Change Your Political or Religious Beliefs?
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Wintermoot
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  • Scientific American Full Article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-if-a-pill-can-change-your-politics-or-religious-beliefs/

    This piece focuses on psilocybin, which is likely to become a licensed medicine by 2022, and the effect it seems to have on people's personality. To quote the article: "psilocybin seems to make people more liberal". A recent study has shown that it decreases people's authoritarian political views and increases the "personality domain of openness, itself a predictor of liberal values".

    At this time it's not known whether it actually creates these values or simply reinforces whatever was there before taking it, so it's still a bit of a what if, but...what if there was a legitimate treatment for a condition that could also possibly alter your personality? Make you more liberal? What if there was a pill that could possibly make you more conservative? What are the political implications of legitimate treatments with such side effects? Should such a treatment be celebrated for being "remarkably effective in treating a wide range of psychopathologies", or feared for how they can change who somebody is in the process?

    I wonder if those answers are going to depend on whether the person answering them is liberal or conservative. :P
    2 people like this post: Ogun of Valeria, Imaginative Kane


    I went all the way to Cassadega to commune with the dead
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    Wintermoot
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    Doc
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  • There's already a substance that changes your political beliefs dramatically based on how much exposure you get to it.
    That substance is called 'money'.
    Until we prohibit that substance from influencing people's political beliefs - say, by equalizing the resources people have and have access to under a socialist system of economic governance - I wouldn't worry too much about pills that make rich, conservative people marginally more liberal, because the only difference is that they'll think gay people are okay, they'll probably still detest the poor just as much as they did before eating magic mushrooms or consuming pills containing their active ingredient.
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    Ogun of Valeria
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  • If this pill makes people conservative, I have a list of places I'd like it to be dispersed in.

    Spoiler

    Jim Inhofe's coffee
    Tom Cotton's liberty burger
    Ted Cruz's 30 lb steak
    Mitch McConnell's blood pressure pills
    Join Ernst's corndog at the Iowa state fair
    The water system of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Wyoming
    1 person likes this post: Red Mones
    Spoiler
    Wintreath
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