I learned that...
1) Materialist disdain for philosophy is, in fact, based on philosophical arguments, even if the materialist is not philosophically gifted enough to recognize this fact, much less the precise nature of the assumptions inherent in said arguments.
2) The Drug War privileges the materialist approach to life by outlawing all substances that might provide us with experiential evidence of more productive alternatives.
Notes:
1:
How materialists lend a veneer of science to the lies of the drug warriors (up)2:
Antidepressants and the War on Drugs (up)3:
How Drug Company Money Is Undermining Science (up)4:
Why Is Biopharma Paying 75% of The FDA’s Drug Division Budget? (up)Materialism

In "The Varieties of Religious Experience," William James demonstrated how materialists are blind to the depth and meaning of psychological states of ecstasy and transcendence -- or in other words the states that are peculiar to mystics like St. Teresa... and to those who use psychoactive substances like laughing gas. The medical materialist is dogmatically dismissive of such states, which explains why they can pretend that godsend medicines that elate and inspire have no positive uses whatsoever:
"To the medical mind these ecstasies signify nothing but suggested and imitated hypnoid states, on an intellectual basis of superstition, and a corporeal one of degeneration and hysteria. Undoubtedly these pathological conditions have existed in many and possibly in all the cases, but that fact tells us nothing about the value for knowledge of the consciousness which they induce."
And so materialist scientists collaborate with the drug war by refusing to see glaringly obvious drug benefits. They acknowledge only those benefits that they believe are visible under a microscope. The Hindu religion would not exist today had materialist scientists held soma to such a standard. But that's the absurd pass to which prohibition eventually brings us in a society wherein materialist science is the new god: scientists are put in charge of deciding whether we are allowed to imagine new religions or not.
This materialist bias is inspired in turn by behaviorism, the anti-indigenous doctrine of JB Watson that makes the following inhumane claim:
"Concepts such as belief and desire are heritages of a timid savage past akin to concepts referring to magic."
According to this view, the hopes and the dreams of a "patient" are to be ignored. Instead, we are to chart their physiology and brain chemistry.
JB Watson's Behaviorism is a sort of Dr. Spock with a vengeance. It is the perfect ideology for a curmudgeon, because it would seem to justify all their inability to deal with human emotions. Unfortunately, the attitude has knock-on effects because it teaches drug researchers to ignore common sense and to downplay or ignore all positive usage reports or historic lessons about positive drug use. The "patient" needs to just shut up and let the doctors decide how they are doing. It is a doctrine that dovetails nicely with drug war ideology, because it empowers the researcher to ignore the obvious: that all drugs that elate have potential uses as antidepressants.
That statement can only be denied when one assumes that "real" proof of efficacy of a psychoactive medicine must be determined by a doctor, and that the patient's only job is to shut up because their hopes and dreams and feelings cannot be accurately displayed and quantified on a graph or a bar chart.
A Quantum of HubrisAssisted Suicide and the War on DrugsBehaviorism and the War on DrugsBeta Blockers and the Materialist Tyranny of the War on DrugsDavid Chalmers and the Drug WarEvery Day and in every way, you are getting more and more bamboozled by drug war propaganda Five problems with The Psychedelic Handbook by Rick StrassmanHow Bernardo Kastrup reckons without the drug warI've got a bone to pick with Jim HogshireIn Praise of Thomas SzaszMaterialism and the Drug War Part IIOpen Letter to Dr. Carl L. HartOpen letter to Wolfgang SmithUnscientific American: the hypocritical materialism of Elon MuskWhy Scientists Should Not Judge DrugsWilliam James rolls over in his grave as England bans Laughing GasWithout Philosophy, Science becomes Scientism
Ten Tweets
against the hateful war on US

The so-called opiate crisis is really a drug prohibition crisis.

When folks die in horse-related accidents, we need to be asking: who sold the victim the horse? We've got to crack down on folks who peddle this junk -- and ban books like Black Beauty that glamorize horse use.

If I want to use the kind of drugs that have inspired entire religions, fight depression, or follow up on the research of William James into altered states, I should not have to live in fear of the DEA crashing down my door and shouting: "GO! GO! GO!"

Who would have thought back in 1776 that Americans would eventually have to petition their government for the right to even possess a damn mushroom. The Drug War has destroyed America.

Researchers insult our intelligence when they tell us that drugs like MDMA and opium and laughing gas have not been proven to work. Everyone knows they work. That's precisely why drug warriors hate them.

John Halpern wrote a book about opium, subtitled "the ancient flower that poisoned our world." What nonsense! Bad laws and ignorance poison our world, NOT FLOWERS!

Americans think that fighting drugs is more important than freedom. We have already given up on the fourth amendment. Nor is the right to religion honored for those who believe in indigenous medicines. Pols are now trying to end free speech about drugs as well.

Malcolm X sensed an important truth about drugs: the fact that it was always a self-interested category error for Americans to place medical doctors in charge of mind and mood medicine.

I hated the show "The Apprentice," because it taught a cynical and hate-filled lesson about the proper way to "get ahead" in the world. I saw Trump as a menace back then, long before he started declaring that American elections were corrupt before the very first vote was cast!

It is a truism to say that we cannot change the world and that therefore we have to change ourselves -- but the drug war outlaws even this latter option.
Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us
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