I feel like I should preface this by noting that I haven't used any of these drugs. There's no one whose told me they are using it.
I'm here because I just don't see what the problem is, and I think people should be allowed to make choices that work for and help them, and I feel like if we are going to start trying to controls people's lives or make character judgements against them there better be real harms real dangers, real reason.
> can merely do the same things off the drug if they decided to put forth the effort
Except their body is responding totally different, sending them totally different messages. Very unpleasant awful messages, for some people! Some people feel hunger very differently, and their challenge is very different than maybe you or I's.
> Taking these drugs, to me, amounts to a sort of tacit acceptance that one lacks any free will entirely.
I see it as taking control and making a decision. That is freedom to me.
(I see what you are doing as shattering free will and respect, as needlessly forming and broadcasting harmful dangerous rude control over other people.)
> And where does that line in the sand stop? Do we accept this, lean into hedonism to satisfy dopamine cravings, or do we try and have some agency over some of our actions in our waking life?
I'm all for control. But I think this is a ridiculous viewpoint to hold against people, to begrudge them this as the sliding scale, as some core thing which must hold, which you must do by yourself without help or aid. It doesn't add up to me. There's a lot of dangers with lack of agency, we are in strong agreement on that! But to let your fears and uncertainties grip you into making arbitrary lines that have to apply to everyone, making this broad judgement calls, that demonize and that deny people their will? Yeah, count me out.
FUD must always be wielded with caution, most of all with what judgements we let form within ourselves.
We are a couple years into a brand new capability opening up, to our options before us being bigger and wider than they were. To having more control and options than ever. It's just so wild to me how people can look at this, and go, oh no! Bad! Options! Yes, there will be some downsides! That usually seems inevitable. But my opinion is that conservatism usually makes things far worse with their aversions and judgementalisms, with the politics of fear, that takes root and propogates fear, makes it arise out of endless nothingburgers.
This is so so young a possibility, and we should at least have a couple decades of maybe, possibly, let's see, before we descend into harshly judging what is still at this point such a strong unknown. Especially for an unknown that has helped so many take back control over their lives.