So advice like this:

> 4. Be skeptical, read the literature; understand the risks you are taking.

is bad? Is the idea that we should turn off critical thought and blindly accept pro-LSD arguments, while blindly rejecting the anti-LSD arguments? That seems backwards.

That's right. Pretend the other three points not only didn't exist, but weren't directly contradictory to the point you quoted.

But I'll be down voted to oblivion for calling you a propagandist for doing things that propagandists do. So this is me not calling you one.

You are being downvoted for your ridiculously hostile tone.

Yeah, but you know the drill, I'm inviting the down votes. When I have conclusive data on what I'm working on here, you and Dang will definitely be the first to know.

Either way, thank you for the commentary. There have been times I actually didn't understand the downvotes, and your posts were rather enlightening.

Hang on: dang is an HN mod. I'm not. I'm just someone who comments too often.

Which is why I figured you'd be first to know. :-)

I'm sorry, I don't quite get what you're trying to say. Are you saying that using/taking drugs is a prerequisite for talking about drugs (and drug use in general)?

If so: That's total nonsense and an unbelievably unscientific attitude.

Yeah, calling someone out on FUD is definitely unscientific. Thanks for that.

You have yet to substantiate your claim of FUD. (And your claim of unfitness-to-comment, but I'll leave it at that.)

One does not need to be a sock puppet account to astroturf.

Again, I'm mystified. Please state your case plainly. Whom, exactly, are you accusing of astroturfing?

(I realize that this not necessarily contributing to NH as such, but I'm genuinely intrigued.)

I'd say the first point is kind of important, considering it's a synthetic drug and not a plant. I have no anecdotes for LSD, but a few people died in my city after only a normal dose of ecstasy (no alcohol).

Ecstacy is known to cause the body temperature to rise. People write it off as just being the club, alcohol, etc. For some people, the temperature becomes high enough to cause death.

This doesn't have anything to do with drug purity and has everything to do with the effects of the drug itself.

Millions of people take MDMA every weekend. Deaths from pure MDMA have happened, but they are extremely rare. It's important to think about risk from a statistical point of view. Everything has risks.

To be fair, I think that you are more likely to get a bad batch of a "party drug" like ecstacy than LSD. Though I can't really talk from experience here, it would seem (to me) that party drugs are more popular and would attract more people to cut corners to turn a quick buck.

Pure mdma would not kill anyone at a normal dose. Test your pills everyone!

Test your pills? How? Anyone can do it?

In fact, yes: there are nonprofits that distribute testing kits for recreational drugs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pill_testing).

Are you proposing that one should do any drug without skepticism after reading a wired article about it?

Lemme know what part of my grandparent mentioned your straw man.

Lemme know what part of my statement was a strawman.

The part about doing any drug without skepticism. I'll wait.

What about that is straw man? I don't think you have a full understanding of the fallacy. The wikipedia definition is

"A straw man is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on the misrepresentation of an opponent's argument."

I haven't misrepresented your argument in any way since I haven't represented your argument in any way. I never claimed you claimed anything. It isn't fallacious to ask someone to clarify an argument.

You didn't explicitly state your argument (or anything of substance), so I asked what you were actually trying to claim.

You van insult my post all you want, but you're blind if you honestly think your reply wasn't a misrepresentation of my original statement, unless you can prove that I said exactly what you said I did in the post before I pointed out the straw man.

But you can't, so you won't.

There is no strawman because I was asking a question about your position, not asserting that you held a certain position.

Please, if your position isn't what I asked, state what it is.

really? your entire defense is coming down to "it's not a strawman if it's asked in a question"?

definitely adding you to the list of astroturfers on HN with that reply.

Questions aren't assertions, and one of the requirements for straw man is asserting you hold a position.

I'm done with this discussion at this point. I don't think you really have a concrete claim regarding the topic and you are avoiding creating one by derailing the conversation by arguing my question is fallacious.

You are not even wrong.