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Notes -
This makes me think about the fifth precept
which in nearly all Buddhist texts is specifically targeted against alcohol. But not all.
https://tricycle.org/magazine/reader-responses-fifth-precept/
Perhaps extending the fifth precept to intoxicating ideas is a recent Western Buddhist innovation. And it seems to come in two versions.
Version one is a purity spiral. One extends the fifth precept to make it stricter. Not just Tee-total but heedful of the warning of Dostoevsky against ending up as a Raskolnikov.
Version two is a dilution. One excuses drinking a can of beer because ideas are the big danger. It is safe enough to relax with a beer after work providing that one does not buy into the ideology of alcohol and start thinking that beer is the only way to have a good time and that getting drunk shows that one is a real man.
I'm quite cynical, so I mostly think that "intoxication by ideas" is a dilution, not a purity spiral. But maybe Aaron Bushnell died of intoxication by ideas, and his burns are a later link in the causal chain by which poisonous ideas eventually kill people.
VinoVeritas survives his small-molecule intoxication, while Aaron Bushnell did not survive his big-idea intoxication. And I'm probably not reading the room. The Motte is the wrong place to say "Less thinking please. All these fancy words will mess with your head and you will end up dead."
Edited to remove a stray space that was ending a block quote prematurely.
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