I recently gave a talk to Effective Altruism Toronto on psychedelics and doing good. The slides are available on Slideshare, and I’ve also posted them here along with the event description. The links from each slide are also included below. I hope you find this interesting or useful. Enjoy!
Link: A list of ongoing psychedelic clinical trials
Link: (sign the petition here)
Link: Cause profile: mental health
Link: Increase set of well-intentioned & capable people (Griffes)
Link: Rivalrous games + exponential tech = self extinction (Schmachtenberger)
Link: Psychedelics can change sense of personal identity by altering proposition & ontological qualia (Emilsson)
Link: From closed to open individualism
Link: Legal psilocybin retreats in Jamaica
Link: More about Aaron: https://anesmithbeck.com/
Context (event description):
We are living through a psychedelic renaissance. Spearheaded by academic research and increasingly of interest to media, government and business, substances like psilocybin, LSD and MDMA are returning to our culture after a 40+ year hiatus.
So why all the excitement? How much of this is hype, and how much is potential for real positive impact?
This presentation is about ways psychedelics may be able to do a lot of good. It covers:
- Current efforts towards psychedelic mainstreaming (an overview of the landscape)
- The problems of trauma, depression, anxiety, and addiction, and how psychedelics can help
- How psychedelics might change our personality traits and values
- Long-termist arguments for why psychedelics could improve the future of human health, wellbeing, and flourishing
- What Aaron is working on in the psychedelic space