<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"></div><div dir="ltr">On Mar 26, 2022, at 8:58 AM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">Gene Krupa was addicted to heroin and insisted that he played better under it. So someone challenged him: tape a session with and without heroin. He admitted that he played better straight.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">I played a variety of instruments but never wanted to do them under the influence. You can put lipstick on a pig............ </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The main thing I’ve seen with people performing under the influence is their impaired judgment. They tend to think they’re performing better but are actually performing worse.</div><div><br></div><div>That said, I wouldn’t expect otherwise. And heroin is not usually classed as a psychedelic. But I would look not for immediate improvements in performance, but for improvements in other things like in emotional/psychological problems. I’m not saying there are any, but that seems a better motivation for using them than playing chess or the cello better. </div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"> I want to hear great music played by great performers. And I do.There are 1500 male grandmasters and 40 female ones. Can we say that men are better at spatial things? Yes - we are very spacial. bill w</div></div></div></blockquote><br><div>I would challenge that: that men are inherently better at spatial. After all, girls are usually raised not to do spatial things, whereas boys are. So years and years of encouraging boys to do X and _discouraging_ girls to do X (or vice versa) plus stereotype threat (meaning most kids tend to conform to pressures to perform certain stereotypical roles: the boy actively discouraged from, say, playing with dolls from the time he’s a toddler) and the like skews the adult data. You shouldn’t actively promote certain roles on almost all children for decades or centuries and then expect equal outcomes, no?</div><div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div><br></div><div>Dan</div></body></html>