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A comment on Legal Use of Hallucinogenic Mushrooms Begins in Oregon. Parent comment

Re:Legal Use of Hallucinogenic Mushrooms Begins in Oregon by throwaway4aday on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @11:30AM (#34233616)
> This statement about what is "good for society" can't be evaluated by statistics or metrics

I'd beg to differ. One can think up any number of metrics that would be inarguably good for society. Reduction in suicide would be a huge one. Reduced crime rate. Reduced addiction rate. Increase in lifespan. Increase in standard of living. Reduction of domestic violence. There are many more dimensions you could measure, establishing direct causation is the tricky part but it is certainly possible to establish if the state of society in general is improving.

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Re:Legal Use of Hallucinogenic Mushrooms Begins in Oregon by bjt2n3904 on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @12:23PM (#34234514)
No, you've missed my point completely. You are talking about the ends. I'm talking about the means.

Yes, a society with less suicide is a better thing. We can achieve that in many ways -- however, some ways come with significant or unpredictable side effects.

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