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Comment by smabie | Hacker News Reader

Like caffeine or nicotine? And why not? Better living through chemistry, what’s wrong with that?

Also everything is a drug. Food, water, whatever.

It becomes a way to endure difficulties which should not be there in the first place.

True, but "should not be there in the first place" is a moral judgement - no-one should have to deal eg. with clinical depression or intense anxiety, or psychosis. Or painful arthritis or the rest of the evils a biological entity is prone to. But reality cares not for your or my opinion.

We create our own reality. In the EU we subsidize diary production so that powdered milk is cheap and artifically kept at a stable price, which makes food manufacturers use it as an addative in many traditional recipies which it doesn't belong in. It makes a lot of people sick, inflaming the gut, which leads to depression.

> We create our own reality

Try living with long-term chronic pain, disability and flaky mental health. Then tell me it's all in the mind.

I mean if a monk can light himself on fire and not make a noise or move at all, then anything must be possible, right? People have the ability to will themselves into almost any state, it’s just incredibly difficult. There’s been a number of studies on the effect of meditation on chronic pain, and it’s certainly more powerful (and healthy) than painkillers.

Should not be there? Life is hard, has always been hard, and always will be hard. Evolution doesn’t care about you, and minimizing suffering is not what’s important or drives selection.

As a species we have evolved to deal with this issue differently. It is the basis of our success.

Sure, but how can you say suffering should not exist? Like it’s some violation of the natural laws of the universe? Suffering is what’s natural, the fact we can kinda sorta sometimes avoid it is the anomaly.

That extrapolation is far removed from what I said. Why do you reach for an extreme like that instead of assuming I'm trying to say something reasonable?

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