[HN Gopher] Regarding Michael Pollan's New Book This Is Your Min...
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Regarding Michael Pollan's New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants
Author : Petiver
Score : 81 points
Date : 2021-07-09 19:05 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (harpers.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (harpers.org)
| unixhero wrote:
| Internet -> Joe Rogan -> Hacker News
|
| what a time to be alive
| jugg1es wrote:
| My psychiatrist father was just talking to me about this book
| yesterday, who definitely does not listen to Joe Rogan. Don't
| give Joe Rogan so much credit.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Perhaps too off topic, but given how easy it is get get opiates
| from poppy 'milk' - as shown from the original unpublished
| article - I've wondered why we don't see more of it from fairly
| tame occasional use like Pollan to addicts going around scoring
| and milking poppy bulbs in the neighborhood.
|
| Poppies seem to grow really easily in a lot of places. You don't
| have to be a fancy chemist to just smoke or shoot the gunk.
|
| Here's a typical Vice story on this, big headline, fairly
| unsatisfying reality lol.
|
| https://video.vice.com/en_uk/video/heroin-holiday-in-the-cze...
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This seems like a weird spat over an author deciding to omit an
| admission of illegal activity from his published works. It's
| quite amazing that Harpers went so far as to commit to defending
| him and financially compensating him to extreme degrees
| (including the value of his house, if seized) in the unlikely
| event that he was prosecuted.
|
| It's strange that Pollan would turn around and try to shift blame
| rather than simply staying quiet. What does he think he stands to
| gain by throwing his former publisher, who went to great lengths
| to support him, under the bus? Why not simply let it stay in the
| past? Or admit the truth and give credit where credit is due?
|
| I have to say, the more of Pollan's work I read the less I enjoy
| his writings. He seems intent on riding the current waves of pro-
| drug and anti-enforcement sentiment to propel his own notoriety
| as an author. This also manifests as very one-sided portrayals of
| drug use that glorify and exaggerate the benefits while
| downplaying the negatives. In his book "How to Change Your Mind"
| I felt that every pro-psychedelic argument was presented with
| little questioning, while he only offered easy strawman counter
| arguments as skepticism, easily dismissed by the reader after
| reading a few more chapters of his pro-psychedelic writings.
|
| "How to Change Your Mind" was very popular several years ago and
| continues to circulate in certain circles. I've read many
| anecdotes of people who sought psychedelics after reading his
| book with the expectation of life-changing experiences or
| psychedelic treatments for their conditions, only to be
| disappointed when they didn't experience the miraculous
| experiences and transformations he describes.
|
| I wish we had a more engaging alternative writer to reference
| about the realities of psychedelics and other drugs. Someone who
| was more interested in delivering realistic, albeit necessarily
| less boring, descriptions of the realities of this space. Some of
| the depictions of psychedelics as miracle cure-all medicines have
| gotten out of control and have become completely detached from
| the actual research, which puts a heavy emphasis on many (10-20
| or more) therapy sessions surrounding the guided and monitored
| psychedelic administration. These books tend to downplay the
| realities and instead glorify the romantic notion of mushrooms as
| a forbidden, mystical cure for all ailments. The realities are
| much less clear-cut and definitely not always as positive as they
| sound in these modern psychedelic mysticism books.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I'm surprised by this view of how to change your mind. Most of
| his personal experiences in the book mentioned there were no
| major changes. I also thought the book was level headed
| compared to the typical stuff you read about psychedelics. His
| history section was really neutral and all of the trips were
| done under supervision of a therapist. If you came away from
| that book expecting miracles I think you just hear what you
| want to hear.
| teknopaul wrote:
| If someone is really trying to do you a favor, and all you
| see is conspiracy theory, that is bog standard reaction to
| too much acid. It doesn't matter _how_ you do it, or how
| much, if you get to the stage where, as well as opening your
| mind, you close your mind to the good intentions of of
| others, you have done too much. All too common I'm afraid.
| Bad things happen in the world, someone offering to
| underwrite your losses because they respect you as a writer
| is not one of them.
| pksebben wrote:
| I'm curious as to where you got the impression that
| conspiracy theorizing is a standard reaction to "too much
| acid". I've not seen anything of the sort despite a fair
| amount of exposure to the culture.
| elevenoh wrote:
| >I wish we had a more engaging alternative writer to reference
| about the realities of psychedelics and other drugs. Someone
| who was more interested in delivering realistic, albeit
| necessarily less boring, descriptions of the realities of this
| space.
|
| Was pollen really all that disingenuous in the reality of psych
| use/effectiveness at treating medical conditions?
|
| Seems his claims were pretty in-line with the research overall.
| If anyone has a quote of pollen overstating benefits, feel free
| to post the quote as I, for one, would like to see it.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| It's almost as if taking cannabis (and a few other things) off
| schedule 1 would allow for publicly funded research into the
| dangers and benefits of these drugs so that we all could be
| better informed.
| teknopaul wrote:
| People do study pyschadelics. A lot. Cool stuff about
| ketamine is coming out o HN, turns out the trick is not to
| take 5 grammes a day. ;)
|
| I have been involved in publicly funded recreational drug
| research, it does happen. Trouble is drugs takers don't like
| the results, which unfortunately are not entirely positive.
| e.g. huge numbers of people in mental institutions in the Uk
| had their episode triggered by recreational drugs, especially
| weed, which we all consider a soft drug. Studies happen, the
| information is there but people don't like it because it does
| not help their arguments. Despite many studies it still comes
| down to the question of weather an individual has the right
| to fuck themselves up or not. There is still no study that
| shows smoking is good for you.
|
| Yet.
|
| Dont hold your breath.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Per NIH/NAS [1]:
|
| > Despite these changes in state policy and the increasing
| prevalence of cannabis use and its implications for
| population health, the federal government has not legalized
| cannabis and continues to enforce restrictive policies and
| regulations on research into the health harms or benefits
| of cannabis products that are available to consumers in a
| majority of states. As a result, research on the health
| effects of cannabis and cannabinoids has been limited in
| the United States, leaving patients, health care
| professionals, and policy makers without the evidence they
| need to make sound decisions regarding the use of cannabis
| and cannabinoids. This lack of evidence-based information
| on the health effects of cannabis and cannabinoids poses a
| public health risk.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425757/
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Clearly something is terribly wrong if law or policy
| dictates scientists can not study a specific subject,
| based on political reasons
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Living up to your name, I see.
|
| Wholeheartedly agree. People looking to cure their depression
| are going to quite surprised if they actually find themselves
| in the worst imaginable hell possible.
|
| It's so bewildering how substances like psychadelics and opiods
| can simultaneous be the thing producing the most heavenly
| euphoria or the most terrifying hell; by a roll of the dice too
| in psychadelic's case. The universe is funny.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I've enjoyed and gotten a lot out of every book of his I've
| read.
| hcrisp wrote:
| He does seem to be sliding down hill. A decade ago I picked up
| his book _The Botany of Desire_ not knowing what kind of writer
| he was or his fame. It was a very interesting read, especially
| the part about apples and the history of their variety. It led
| me to try other, more delicious varieties than I had known. It
| also included a more surprising section on cannabis. He
| recounts a time when he grew it in his garden (which tells you
| that his interests aren 't only agrarian or abstract). The
| cannabis growing account ends with a rather humorous story
| about him selling firewood to a person who shows up in his
| driveway and turns out to be a sheriff in his day job. A
| frantic attempt to dispose of the aforementioned illegal
| controlled substance ensues so that the sheriff doesn't finds
| out, and I won't ruin the ending.
|
| Fastforward to the other articles and books mentioned here, and
| I'm starting to wonder if this earliest episode led him to try
| more daring and far riskier exploits. Has writing about drug
| cultivation and his conflicts with authorities large and small
| become his shtick?
| leephillips wrote:
| I haven't read his more recent writings, but _The Botany of
| Desire_ is a fascinating book. It will show you how
| interesting the history of plants and their relationship with
| culture can be. I read it many years ago, but I still find
| myself going "did you know..." to people before recounting
| something I learned there.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _' I've read many anecdotes of people who sought psychedelics
| after reading his book with the expectation of life-changing
| experiences or psychedelic treatments for their conditions,
| only to be disappointed when they didn't experience the
| miraculous experiences and transformations he describes."_
|
| Now this sounds at least as interesting as anything Pollan
| himself writes about.
|
| I'd be interested in hearing the details of what they tried and
| how (ie. their set and setting).
|
| Why these substances work for some people and not others (even
| when administered in the exact same therapeutic settings and
| using the same protocols) is one of the biggest open questions
| in psychedelic research.
| Animats wrote:
| See "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". Feynman was
| convinced by Dr. Timothy Leary, in the 1960s, to try LSD.
| Feynman then thought he'd solved some problem he was working
| on. But when he went to give a talk on the problem, he
| realized that he had not solved the problem. He had only
| hallucinated that he had solved the problem. After which
| Feynman didn't try LSD again. "I like to think. I don't want
| to break the machine", he wrote.
| svat wrote:
| The "I don't want to break the machine" part from the book
| was mainly about alcohol, and only secondarily about LSD:
|
| > I started to walk into the bar, and I suddenly thought to
| myself, "Wait a minute! It's the middle of the afternoon.
| There's nobody here. There's no social reason to drink. Why
| do you have such a terribly strong feeling that you _have_
| to have a drink? " and I got scared.
|
| > I never drank ever again, since then. I suppose I really
| wasn't in any danger, because I found it very easy to stop.
| But that strong feeling that I didn't understand frightened
| me. You see, I get such fun out of _thinking_ that I don 't
| want to destroy this most pleasant machine that makes life
| such a big kick. It's the same reason that, later on, I was
| reluctant to try experiments with LSD in spite of my
| curiosity about hallucinations.
|
| Also, according to this passage, Feynman's experiments with
| LSD/hallucinations came _after_ (and despite) this
| decision, and they are described extensively in the book. I
| don 't remember a mention of Timothy Leary in the book (it
| mentions John Lilly; maybe you've mixed up the two), and I
| also don't remember the part about him giving a talk about
| a problem he thought he had solved.
| elevenoh wrote:
| "I like to think. I don't want to break the machine"
|
| The 60s had some quite negative urban legends regarding
| LSD's effect on the brain:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_legends_about_drugs#Lys
| e...
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| I think it is useful to come up with incorrect theories
| and then and thus understand what is wrong with them.
| Then one can come up with a better one perhaps.
|
| For Feynman it must have felt like a dangerous experiment
| since it led him to come up with incorrect conclusions.
| But I tend to think I learn most from my incorrect
| thinking (assuming I realize it is incorrect)
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I love that book, and find Feynman eloquent, likeable, and
| funny. He was also incredibly smart and highly
| accomplished.. in his own field.
|
| But Feynman, like many other intelligent, famous people,
| had a bad habit of opining on and dismissing out of hand
| subjects he knew little about. He did this with philosophy
| and with psychedelics.
|
| At least he tried LSD, but he was clearly not an authority
| on LSD, and his experience with it was minimal. Not to
| mention that back in the 60's little was known about how
| best to use it (there was some research in to this, but
| most people were not aware of the most effective methods..
| and even now, while we know better we might not have the
| optimal method figured out).
|
| While Feynman might not have solved his scientific problem
| on that particular session that doesn't mean that it's
| useless in helping problem solving. In fact, there has been
| research that indicated that it helped with both creativity
| and problem solving: [1][2] and there's still ongoing
| research in to this subject.[3][4]
|
| As we all know today, the benefits of psychedelics can
| extend far beyond helping with creativity and problem
| solving, however.. they can help with various personal and
| mental issues, for example, increase empathy and openness,
| help with end-of-life anxiety, help with relationships,
| etc... apparently Feynman was either completely ignorant of
| this potential or chose to ignore it while focusing only on
| the narrow subject of scientific problem solving and his
| fear.. which is understandable, but not really a fair
| assessment of the potential of psychedelics.
|
| Which isn't to say that Feynman should have taken more LSD
| (that's a personal choice for everyone, and I respect his
| decision).. but just because Feynman didn't doesn't mean no
| one should.
|
| [1] - https://www.amazon.com/LSD-Spirituality-Creative-
| Process-Gro...
|
| [2] - https://maps.org/news/media/4814-jim-fadiman-on-
| psychedelics...
|
| [3] - https://sciencetrends.com/does-microdosing-lsd-
| stimulate-cre...
|
| [4] - https://maps.org/news/multimedia-library/3171-can-
| psychedeli...
| teknopaul wrote:
| To say Feynmam knew "nothing about" a drug he actually
| personally experienced is a hard sell.
|
| "Feynman was either completely ignorant of his potential
| or chose to ignore it". [citation needed]
|
| IMHO he did rather well i his limited time on the planet.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| It's interesting that you quote me as saying that Feynman
| knew "nothing about" LSD, when I actually said he knew
| "little about" it.
|
| Not the same.
|
| Having one trip does not make you an expert. It makes you
| a novice with still a lot to learn. Feynman, as smart as
| he was, could not become an authority on LSD after a
| single trip.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Watch Hamilton Morris's interview with Pollan. I think people
| are starting to get tired of his schtick, so he's no longer
| getting the benefit of the doubt.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/2c2QS
| svat wrote:
| Summary:
|
| - In 1997, Michael Pollan wrote an essay, a section of which was
| originally "about making opium tea from his home-grown poppies
| and drinking the tea". There was some "fear that the Drug
| Enforcement Administration would raid his house and seize his
| property" if this were published, as Pollan thought it could be
| viewed as "taunting the government."
|
| - The published version (available at
| https://www.wesjones.com/pollan1.htm as pointed out by
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27804124), under the title
| "Opium, Made Easy" in Harper's Magazine, left out that section.
|
| - Pollan's new (2021) book "This is Your Mind on Plants" restores
| that material. (Which, incidentally, involved finding a zip
| drive, and using LibreOffice to read the old Word document.)
|
| - Recently, in a Tim Ferris podcast, Pollan's version of the
| events of 1997 (see https://tim.blog/2021/06/30/michael-pollan-
| this-is-your-mind... starting with the phrase "in the '90s at the
| height of the drug war") kind of suggests that the section was
| left out because of the advice he got from the lawyers of
| Harper's Magazine.
|
| - (Though he does mention their lawyer saying "you must publish
| this article for the good of the Republic", and a contract the
| publisher made saying "If you get arrested, we will not only
| defend you, we will pay your wife a salary for the whole amount
| of time it takes for you to defend yourself and if necessary,
| serve your sentence. And if they take your house, we'll buy you a
| comparable new one.")
|
| - In the posted submission here, John R. "Rick" MacArthur, the
| president and publisher of Harper's Magazine, points out they did
| their very best to get him to publish it, and it was Michael
| Pollan who "insisted on withdrawing the passages about making and
| drinking the tea".
|
| - It concludes with "Pollan took the easy way out. I don't blame
| him for having been afraid. He just now shouldn't try to lay
| responsibility for his decision on anyone but himself."
|
| That's the summary, but after having read both the posted article
| and the transcript of the podcast, it's not clear to me what
| disagreement there is, if any. Both versions seem to agree almost
| entirely: both versions point out that the publisher heavily
| pushed Pollan to publish the article in its entirety, even
| offering him that amazing contract, and it was Pollan who
| chickened out.
|
| The main disagreement seems to be about Pollan's speculation in
| the podcast:
|
| > I mean, he's a crusading publisher, like a crusading
| journalist. And I shouldn't speak for him, but my guess is he was
| hoping something would happen. He was hoping I would get
| arrested. This would put Harper's on the map. This would be a
| giant case. He would take it to the Supreme Court, and he would.
| He has bottomless pockets. I mean, and publishing for him is kind
| of an avocation. And he was always looking for the big story that
| Harper's would get involved with. I mean, we saw that just last
| year with the Harper's letter around free speech versus the
| efforts to curb free speech in the name of various woke values.
| He's not afraid of controversy.
|
| Here the publisher himself mentions "It was a bitter blow to me,
| because I have always put the freedom to publish in the forefront
| of my work, and I lost some respect for Pollan after that", so
| the entire thing seems a non-issue to me. All we've left of the
| disagreement is
|
| * the (rich, fearless) publisher encouraging an author in every
| way possible to publish something controversial,
|
| * the (not-so-rich, not-so-fearless) author thinking/speculating
| something along the lines of "it's easy for you, but I'm not so
| bold as to court controversy; it's [not] my cup of tea".
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Interesting. I listened to this on the Tim Ferris podcast and,
| foolishly in retrospect, just took it at face value. I generally
| enjoy Pollan and I suppose I assume he has integrity, or is
| trustworthy in his writing and podcasting.
|
| Regardless, this seems to potentially fall into the category of
| misremembering or simply having a different frame of reference at
| the time. Diverging points of view are common enough, especially
| within this time frame.
|
| I definitely came away from the podcast with no bad feelings
| about anyone. While it would have been nice if Pollan didn't
| incite this kind of response through his recollection, it seems
| harmless enough.
|
| It is important though to be as objective as possible with things
| like this since no one could possibly fact check it.
| LargeWu wrote:
| One of the reasons I stopped listening to Ferris's podcast is
| that he's a totally uncritical interviewer. His guests are
| allowed to blatantly self promote
| lc9er wrote:
| Ferris is kind of a grifter. If he were to probe deeply, then
| others might do the same to him.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Not to mention the blatantly self indulging attitude as well.
| Of course, he's talking to people who are at the least
| millionaires if not more, so that's expected, but some
| episodes just reek of tone-deaf "I'm smart and rich and have
| no idea how insensitive my hobbies and activities might sound
| to a Normal person" sense.
|
| But he does talk to a lot of smart people, and there's often
| much interesting to learn about, so I put up with their egos
| and extract the information by listening.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Not to invoke Godwin's rule, but this scenario seems a bit too
| far off from acceptable for "that's now how I remember things
| going down" to just let it slide, blaming someone else with a
| clearly different storyline in a fundamental sense seems a lot
| more deliberate on the persons part. Just because you didn't
| care enough about he involved subjects to walk away from a
| podcast doesn't mean the truth can just be twisted any way?
|
| Also is it possible to walk away from a podcast offended at
| all? The explosion of this medium and the way everyone seems to
| consume it suggests you can't afford to emotionally involve
| with what you're listening to anymore.
| glennpratt wrote:
| I think I listened to the podcast in question biking last week.
|
| https://armchairexpertpod.com/pods/michael-pollan
|
| For what it's worth, I came away with a completely positive view
| of Harper's, though maybe I didn't pick up on every word of it.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| I believe that this is Pollan's article from 1997, related to the
| main post here:
|
| https://www.wesjones.com/pollan1.htm
|
| Very interesting, thanks!
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| I never knew about Michael Pollan and his works. But now I'm
| tempted to buy the book. Controversy is good for readership
| elevenoh wrote:
| "[Pollen's] recent remarks on a radio podcast during which he
| laughingly speculates about my motives were simply not true: 'My
| guess is he was hoping something would happen. He was hoping I
| would get arrested. This would put Harper's on the map. This
| would be a giant case; he would take it in front of the Supreme
| Court, and he would. You know he has bottomless pockets.'"
|
| It seems like this podcast comment might have sufficiently
| motivated the editor (McArthur) to write this article. Not that
| this is a bad thing. We all have a sense what it's like to want
| to restore truth to an unjust public comment.
|
| Aside: We'll never quite know pollen's motive for censorshing his
| book's personal psychedelic use content.. could be as simple as
| arguably unfounded paranoia.
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