This is by far the weakest article of Scott's I've ever read. Granted, these were only "reasons for skepticism", but there's always reason for skepticism, this list as written seems more like advocacy for not even bothering to try, although perhaps I'm reading it more critically than the spirit in which he wrote it.

1. "...for example, a study two years ago found that psilocybin did not permanently increase the Openness personality trait. This was one of the most exciting studies and had shaped a lot of my thinking around the issue. Now it’s gone."

Increases in openness were not permanent, therefore nothing of interest remains (for example, medium term increases, that can potentially be reinstated)?

2, 3, 4: Eventual disappointing outcomes of other over-hyped approaches.

5. Between 10% and 50% of Americans have tried psychedelics. If psychedelics did something shocking, we would already know about it.

Largely depends on what he means by "did something shocking" I suppose. Regardless, they do indeed, and I'd wager that less than 10% of the population (despite his statistics seemingly indicating otherwise) has a remote clue about what they can do. Set and setting are not just important, they are crucial - doing psychedelics at a party at college and laughing it up with your friends is one thing, doing them while sitting alone in a quiet room with your eyes closed for several hours is something else entirely.

6. In my model of psychedelics, they artificially stimulate your insight system the same way heroin artificially stimulates your happiness system. This leads to all those stories where people feel like they discovered the secret of the universe, but when they recover their faculties, they find it was only some inane triviality.

Well sure, many people say very silly things after using psychedelics (which is why people always say integration is so important). I suspect this would strongly correlate to intelligence or styles of thinking (say, high correlation with a lack of critical thinking, which is often found in spiritual communities in my experience). But this in no way implies there's nothing valuable among all the nonsense.

7. Even if all of the above are wrong and psychedelics work very well, the FDA could kill them with a thousand paper cuts. Again, look at ketamine: the new FDA approval ensures people will be getting the slightly different esketamine, through a weird route of administration, while paying $600 a pop, in specialized clinics that will probably be hard to find.

This is a problem with the FDA, not psychedelics.

--------------

If I was able to choose one person on Earth to do psychedelics and write about it afterwards, Scott Alexander would be my #1 pick by far.

EDIT: I'm extremely curious about the reason behind downvotes, any explanations would be appreciated.