
People Who Have Taken Psychedelics More Likely To Be Environmentally Friendly - anythingnonidin
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/people-who-have-taken-psychedelics-are-more-likely-to-be-environmentally-friendly/
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meri_dian
>"The researchers say this isn’t the case because people who are into
environmental issues are not more likely to indulge in other drugs, whether
it's tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, or recreational illegal substances."

Ok, but it still could be the case that people who are into environmental
issues are just more likely to be into LSD.

Actually, from my own personal experience this makes sense. People I've known
who prefer hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and shrooms tend to fit into the
'hippy' personality type, which seems to exist antecedent to their drug use
and is accentuated by it rather than being caused by it. Again, just personal
experience here, but people who really like hallucinogens tend to be 'seekers'
who are disillusioned with the human world and so idealize nature.

Other drug users who dislike hallucinogens and instead prefer drugs like
cocaine, heroin and MDMA are less hippies and more partiers who like drugs
because they make them feel good rather than giving them access to some
spiritual connection with the world, or any other hippy trope.

So that this study claims "people who are into environmental issues are not
more likely to indulge in other drugs" doesn't surprise me.

~~~
yorwba
The paper rejects the hypothesis that this is the full explanation:

 _Lastly, as the relationship we found remained significant after controlling
for demographic variables and personality traits such as openness to
experience, conscientiousness, or political attitudes, it is unlikely that the
association we found can be entirely explained by a collection of personality
traits stereotypically associated with psychedelic users (e.g. being of the
“hippie” type)._

~~~
meri_dian
Interesting results, but they may not be testing for the right personality
traits.

~~~
criley2
>Interesting results, but they may not be testing for the right personality
traits.

As with any scientific reporting, the probability that they're not testing for
the right thing is inherent in their experimental design and analysis.

As they state, it's very unlikely that error led to this case.

Generally, your results must reach a certain probabilistic rigor (95% chance
the listed results are due to the listed reasons), so that there is a 5% or
less chance that the effects being observed are due to design failure or
similar issues.

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delegate
Psychedelics are also called entheogens ("generator of the divine within"),
because one common trait of a psychedelic 'trip' is experiencing the nature of
the divine, but also the divinity of 'life' in all living things when
'tripping'.

The realization that plants, animals, water, air, are all part of one whole
living system of which we're just cells, just like the cells within us, ...

In other words, the realization of the divinity of nature.

Most people tend to treat divinity with respect hence the link.

I personally think everyone should have at least one psychedelic experience,
especially in this age that we're in right now.

~~~
kaffeemitsahne
I think it would be more constructive to base environmentalism on rational
arguments (of which there are many), rather than chemically flipping some
switches in the brain to make everyone love nature.

~~~
colecut
There may be people who aren't concerned with rational arguments / are close
minded / fixed in their own beliefs, who then have an experience that rattles
their perception, and shows them that their perception is only that -
perception. And how loose/fragile perception is. And often they will pause and
question things a little more, think for themselves a little more. And this is
usually for the better and will open them up to more rational points.

That said, despite my fondness for these experiences, I do personally know 2
people who experienced prolonged (1-2 weeks) psychotic episodes after taking
LSD. So there is more risk associated than many believe or want to accept. I
haven't heard of this happening with mushrooms.

~~~
3pt14159
Could you expand what that was like for them? I've always heard that LSD was
one of the safest drugs out there, aside from false beliefs like thinking you
can fly.

~~~
dsnuh
I hope GP doesn't take this the wrong way, as I am sure their friends may have
had truly terrible experiences. It's not a myth, but it is also something that
has been overly demonized. No, LSD doesn't make you think you can fly. That's
after school special propaganda.

That said, don't accept third hand reports of psychedelic experiences. If you
want to read first hand accounts, I recommend browsing the trip reports at
[https://www.erowid.org/](https://www.erowid.org/).

Or better yet, just give it a try and see for yourself. :)

~~~
colecut
I am not at all trying to demonize it.

I guess I stated it in the way I did because, most enthusiasts start thinking
that LSD is "the answer" or "the cure" etc etc.. and get super 'bout it and
consequently tend to reject the idea of any real negative consequences,
because the experience really is truly amazing and even the day after can be
even more amazing, in stark contrast of the 'hangover'.

So I just wanted to mention in spite of this, weird things do happen in very
rare cases, and this could even be due to the fact that it's illegal and thus
not manufactured with consistent/optimum purity.

Both of my friends were quite experienced with dozens of enjoyable trips under
their belt.

------
drcongo
Number people who drowned by falling into a swimming-pool correlates with
number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in.

[http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=359](http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=359)

~~~
tyfon
I was about to say I can probably correlate the number of births in Denmark to
the number of storks entering the country or something.

Regarding the study I think both the LSD and being environmentally friendly
are the result of certain personality traits, some of which I certainly
possess.

~~~
arjie
Other HN readers, you may accept the following excerpt from the link to
determine whether your fellow commenters read more than the headline before
they comment:

> However, the relationship between taking psychedelics and being green is
> only a correlation and the eco-friendly behaviors in the study were all
> self-reported. This begs the question: Are people who have environmental
> concerns just more likely to be open to trying drugs?

> The researchers say this isn’t the case because people who are into
> environmental issues are not more likely to indulge in other drugs, whether
> it's tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, or recreational illegal substances. There
> was also no hint that certain personality types are drawn towards both
> psychedelics and nature.

Doubtless your fellow commenters will say the explanations are inadequate. But
was that the impression of the article that they wanted you to have in their
original comments? That the question was asked and inadequately answered? I
leave this to you.

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monktastic1
Roland Griffiths, PI for psilocybin research at Johns Hopkins:

> Frankly, I can’t think of anything more important to be studying. As I’ve
> said, the core feature of the mystical experience [that we can now occasion
> with high probability] is this strong sense of the interconnectedness of all
> things, where there’s a rising sense of not only self-confidence and
> clarity, but of communal responsibility – of altruism and social justice – a
> felt sense of the Golden Rule: to do unto others as you would have them do
> unto you. ... Understanding the nature of these effects, and their
> consequences, may be key to the survival of our species.

------
hanoz
Interestingly their survey was conducted using Mechanical Turk.

It struck me as highly dubious they could possibly control for the myriad
dimensions of personality and social background with any statistical
significance with a sample of 1487, of which, what, 10% would have taken
psychedelics? Turns out it was 26.9%, versus a background level of 13.6% found
in some larger study.

So I think one thing we can safely conclude is that that taking psychedelics
tends to turn people into Mechanical Turks. Or the other way round?

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sova
People who take Psychedelics

People who go outside

People who spend some time in a forest

People who have had at least 1 close pet

People who got to study leaves in the middle of winter as a classroom activity

People who look at the stars at night with awe

Psychedelics is not the only way to remember where we came from.

~~~
beepboopbeep
Sure. But it's one we don't understand, so we research it.

------
alexandercrohde
I sense a lot of dismissive response, mostly it seems from people who didn't
read the article. For what it's worth, of my friends who did psychedelics,
they were much more likely (even the fairly strong-minded ones) to come out of
the experience trying to articulate the following ideas:

\- Everything is connected \- I'm a piece of the larger system \- Inanimate
objects have feelings / matter

Of course I reject all of these notions as clumsy to absurd.

~~~
dsnuh
Why do you reject them?

------
blubb-fish
Some people here seem to suggest that people who care about environment have a
hippy mentality and hence are open to consume LSD b/c the real hippies in the
sixties chose accidentally LSD as their drug. As if Cocaine or Heroin could
have just as well ended up as their medication. Well - Cocaine's affect would
have certainly not supported what hippies do stand for - Cocaine makes over-
confident, un-self-reflecting and numb. LSD on the otherhand raises empathy,
self- and environmental awareness.

Also everybody with relevant experience in the field of psychedelics know that
the by far most interesting environment for a trip is the nature, a field, a
forest. Why - b/c green looks awesome and fractal shapes on plants become
alive.

So - LSD might be consumed for whatever reason - it will make you empathic -
and that might be the reason to take it. So the choice of LSD by some people
is for a reason and LSD will also foster this particular motivation.

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c517402
I know good ol' boys who stick to beer, whiskey, and a little weed who
regularly cull the duck, quail, deer, and wild pig populations to keep them
from overbreeding. Mostly, they leave the coyotes alone because they keep the
rabbits and prairie dogs in check.

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lubujackson
Phrased another way, hippies are more likely to have taken LSD than non-
hippies.

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jamez1
_The study did not look for a causation, yet it hinted "there is strong reason
to believe that psychedelic substances increase nature relatedness as a
function of their ego-dissolving effects."_

This is not science, this is academic rubbish. The only thing they have a
strong reason to believe is that a correlation exists.

Maybe people who walk in forests are more likely to pick mushrooms and take
them? I wish universities were held to some sort of scrutiny, instead they
pollute the pool of human knowledge with rubbish.

------
bencollier49
Of course it does. They both correlate with "openness" in the five-factor
psychological model.

~~~
monktastic1
Not just correlate. Psilocybin is known to _cause_ more openness.

"But more than a year after their psilocybin sessions volunteers who had had
the most complete mystical experiences showed significant increases in their
“openness,” one of the five domains that psychologists look at in assessing
personality traits."

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-
treatment](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment)

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alexjray
Lol, no surprise here.

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gt_
This is a cultural coincidence, not a causal correlation.

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olavolav
The actual article may be less garbage than the headline of the news post
suggests:

Our model controlled for experiences with other classes of psychoactive
substances (cannabis, dissociatives, empathogens, popular legal drugs) as well
as common personality traits that usually predict drug consumption and/or
nature relatedness (openness to experience, conscientiousness, conservatism).

(that's from the abstract)

Of course we won't know for sure – all praise the paywalls of science!

~~~
yorwba
The walls are but an inconvenience for the determined:
[http://journals.sagepub.com.sci-
hub.cc/doi/pdf/10.1177/02698...](http://journals.sagepub.com.sci-
hub.cc/doi/pdf/10.1177/0269881117714049)

I'm not qualified to evaluate the paper, but here is their summary.

 _Summary. We found a linear relationship between lifetime experience with
classic psychedelic substances and scores on two sub-dimensions of nature
relatedness, NR-Self and NR-Experience. The more people had experience with
classic psychedelics, the more they enjoyed spending time in nature, and the
more they construed their self as being a part of nature. None of the other
substance classes included in our model significantly predicted any of the
nature relatedness dimensions individually._

 _NR-Self, in turn, was the only dimension of nature relatedness that
positively predicted self-reported engagement in pro-environmental behavior,
and significantly mediated the relation between experience with classic
psychedelics and pro-environmental behavior. That is, the perception of being
part of the natural world — rather than being separate from it — that is
heightened for people who have experience with classic psychedelics, is
largely responsible for the increased pro-environmental behavior that these
people report. Notably though, as the direct effect of experience with
psychedelics on pro-environmental behavior remains marginally significant
after controlling for the indirect effect, it is likely that it is not
entirely driven by the mediating variable we identified. Which other factors
may contribute to this effect, however, is for future research to determine._

------
gras
Plot twist: the popularity of LSD in the 70's was a CIA operation to prepare
the public for the global warming hoax (among other things).

/s although stranger things have happened.

