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Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

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Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#51

Post by wpietri »

svat wrote: post #26

Summary: - In 1997, Michael Pollan wrote an essay, a section of which was originally "about making opium tea from his home-grown poppies and drinking the tea". He had some "fear that the Drug Enforcement Administration would raid his house and seize his property" if this were published, as he thought it could be viewed as “taunting the government.” - The published version (available at https://www.wesjones.com/pollan…

I'm just gobsmacked that the publisher saw himself as superior to Pollan given that neither of them was willing to risk federal charges and possible prison. There was nothing stopping MacArthur from making his own opium tea and drinking it.

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#52

Post by svat »

edge17 wrote: post #49
svat wrote: post #26

Summary: - In 1997, Michael Pollan wrote an essay, a section of which was originally "about making opium tea from his home-grown poppies and drinking the tea". He had some "fear that the Drug Enforcement Administration would raid his house and seize his property" if this were published, as he thought it could be viewed as “taunting the government.” - The published version (available at https://www.wesjones.com/pollan…

This summary is longer than the article

Well, counting now, the "summary" part of the comment is 329 words long (and there are another 312 words in the comment), while the posted article here is 900 words long (the original one was nearly 18000 words). But consider that the relevant part of the podcast transcript is 2000+ words long and the comment above is a summary of both, and more importantly the summary is written from a neutral point of view, in chronological order with some added context, and I think it has some value…

But yeah, after typing the comment (mostly for my own understanding) and realising how short the posted article was, I did consider whether to post the comment or not, but having accidentally ended with that perfect pun, it was hard to abandon it. :-)

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#53

Post by mjfl »

bboylen wrote: post #47
mjfl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I'm afraid to do drugs. I'm worried that it will do something to my brain so that I'm impressed by shallow experiences.

I wish I was more impressed by all the shallow, mundane experiences in my day to day life

I think there is a difference between appreciating the mundane experiences in life and thinking you've had a religious experience because you've briefly poisoned yourself. Imo they are opposites, actually.

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#54

Post by svat »

ramraj07 wrote: post #17
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #7

Interesting. I listened to this on the Tim Ferris podcast and, foolishly in retrospect, just took it at face value. I generally enjoy Pollan and I suppose I assume he has integrity, or is trustworthy in his writing and podcasting. Regardless, this seems to potentially fall into the category of misremembering or simply having a different frame of reference at the time. Diverging points of view are common enough, espec…

Not to invoke Godwin’s rule, but this scenario seems a bit too far off from acceptable for “that’s now how I remember things going down” to just let it slide, blaming someone else with a clearly different storyline in a fundamental sense seems a lot more deliberate on the persons part. Just because you didn’t care enough about he involved subjects to walk away from a podcast doesn’t mean the truth can just be twisted…

It's not clear there's any "blaming someone else with a clearly different storyline" here. The storylines seem to agree almost down to the lowest detail, even to the ascription of "blame": both accounts agree that the author was afraid, the publisher pushed him to publish, but the author was so paranoid that even the publisher's (amazing) attempts to calm him only spooked him further. Even from reading only Pollan's account, the podcast interviewer reached the impression of "In reading that chapter, that section, coming back to Rick, I kind of fell in love with Rick MacArthur, honestly".

The only disagreement is over Pollan's speculation in this podcast about why the publisher supported him to such an extraordinary extent, and although MacArthur felt those words to be "nasty jibes" (understandable, if one focuses on the "He was hoping I would get arrested" part rather than the "He’s not afraid of controversy" part), such clearly-marked speculation ("And I shouldn’t speak for him, but my guess is…") seems not quite a case of the truth being twisted.

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#55

Post by esperent »

mjfl wrote: post #44
t8e56vd4ih wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's also my impression after reading his book on psychedelics. interesting and eloquent but also shallow and generic.

This is why I'm afraid to do drugs. I'm worried that it will do something to my brain so that I'm impressed by shallow experiences.

From one guy who writes about drugs supposedly being shallow* to assuming that drugs make people shallow is quite a leap of logic.

* I mean, two people on HN called him shallow. Must be true, right?

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#56

Post by OnlineGladiator »

mjfl wrote: post #53
bboylen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I was more impressed by all the shallow, mundane experiences in my day to day life

I think there is a difference between appreciating the mundane experiences in life and thinking you've had a religious experience because you've briefly poisoned yourself. Imo they are opposites, actually.

> because you've briefly poisoned yourself

You've clearly made up your mind that psychadelics are not for you, and that's totally fine! But this notion of being condescending towards something you've clearly never experienced (and I assume know very little about) just makes you come across as myopic - not the other way around.

FWIW I've never tried psychadelics so I'm not particularly defensive here. Just pointing out the hypocrisy (or at least that's how I interpreted it) of your position.

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#57

Post by slibhb »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #4

This seems like a weird spat over an author deciding to omit an admission of illegal activity from his published works. It’s quite amazing that Harpers went so far as to commit to defending him and financially compensating him to extreme degrees (including the value of his house, if seized) in the unlikely event that he was prosecuted. It’s strange that Pollan would turn around and try to shift blame rather than simp…

> I’ve read many anecdotes of people who sought psychedelics after reading his book with the expectation of life-changing experiences or psychedelic treatments for their conditions, only to be disappointed when they didn’t experience the miraculous experiences and transformations he describes.

I'm in this camp (though I've never read Pollan).

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#58

Post by msabalau »

wpietri wrote: post #51
svat wrote: post #26

Summary: - In 1997, Michael Pollan wrote an essay, a section of which was originally "about making opium tea from his home-grown poppies and drinking the tea". He had some "fear that the Drug Enforcement Administration would raid his house and seize his property" if this were published, as he thought it could be viewed as “taunting the government.” - The published version (available at https://www.wesjones.com/pollan…

I'm just gobsmacked that the publisher saw himself as superior to Pollan given that neither of them was willing to risk federal charges and possible prison. There was nothing stopping MacArthur from making his own opium tea and drinking it.

Publishers generally shouldn't be in the business of poaching writers ideas, even if the writer eventually is too afraid too allow what they've written to be be published. It is not as if there was some urgent conspiracy that wasn't being exposed--the public was aware that opium existed--the tea drinking just supported the point of the essay. Your reading is rather uncharitable.

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#59

Post by abledon »

edge17 wrote: post #49
svat wrote: post #26

Summary: - In 1997, Michael Pollan wrote an essay, a section of which was originally "about making opium tea from his home-grown poppies and drinking the tea". He had some "fear that the Drug Enforcement Administration would raid his house and seize his property" if this were published, as he thought it could be viewed as “taunting the government.” - The published version (available at https://www.wesjones.com/pollan…

This summary is longer than the article

i wish i read your summary of the summary before trying to save time reading the article by reading the summary

Re: Regarding Michael Pollan’s New Book This Is Your Mind on Plants

#60

Post by graaben »

Alex3917 wrote: post #10
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #4

This seems like a weird spat over an author deciding to omit an admission of illegal activity from his published works. It’s quite amazing that Harpers went so far as to commit to defending him and financially compensating him to extreme degrees (including the value of his house, if seized) in the unlikely event that he was prosecuted. It’s strange that Pollan would turn around and try to shift blame rather than simp…

Watch Hamilton Morris’s interview with Pollan. I think people are starting to get tired of his schtick, so he’s no longer getting the benefit of the doubt.

Can you elaborate on this? I've watched that interview and didn't get the sense that anyone was "tired" of Pollan. Hamilton is an expert and maybe was able to bring the conversation away from some Pollan's talking points, but I would say the drug community is overall mostly grateful for the discourse he's fostering.
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