[TT 037] feeling close, life price, psychedelic value, reality TV shaman, AI mushrooms, bamboo sculpture
Hi there Thrivers,
Friday kicks off the Fungi Global Summit that's hosted by the team behind the Fantastic Fungi movie. It's totally free and there are some great speakers in a variety of different categories from food to ecology to mental health.
Also, between my writing and communication classes, I've been thinking a lot about words. Have you ever tried this American dialects tool? It (mostly correctly) pegged me in Northern California though I enjoyed seeing how far some of my phrases have traveled. Whatever vernacular I use, I have to be careful to avoid too many business jargon terms.
So let's leverage the synergistic flywheel and open the kimono on this week's Thriving Thursday.
On ramping reciprocal intimacy and feeling close
In 1997, a handful of researchers spanning the US did a seminal study on quickly making strangers feel close. The main premise was a series of 36 questions, broken out into 3 groups, that have escalating, reciprocal self-disclosure.
We tried this exercise with just 10 of the questions and I absolutely felt closer to my partner after only 30 minutes.
This reminds me of Esther Perel's recent game "Where should we begin" which combines storytelling, vulnerability, and play. I deeply respect Esther's work so I just ordered a copy to try out.
The other related project I've recently come across is Nod from HopeLabs. They use a combination of chatbot and gamification to help lonely young adults foster social connections. I haven't tried it myself, but absolutely love the idea!
On quantifying the value of human life
What price tag would you put on a human life? It seemed like an outrageous question until we considered the implications for lawmakers to weigh the pros and cons of new regulations.
This Planet Money segment interviews Betsey Stevenson, an economist that worked in the Obama administration, about how they weighed the cost of COVID policies, like shutting down the economy, relative to the cost of lives lost. Very interesting discussion on how the value of a statistical life is calculated and what that means for various policy decisions.
Oh, and that hypothetical life was work $300K in 1982 ($852K in today's dollars) and, nearly 40 years later, has ballooned to $10M. We must age well - that means the government believes we're worth 10x what we were 40 years ago.
On the cost-effectiveness of psychedelic therapy
Closely related to the value of a statistical life is the value of a life year gained or death prevented in healthcare. These numbers are inputs to calculate whether the improved outcomes of new health interventions are worth their cost.
For psychedelics, not all treatments are created equal. MDMA for PTSD is cost-effective and is worth it somewhere around the 3-year mark. Ketamine for depression is not cost-effective and prices need to drop 40% to match the value gained from improved outcomes. There are no current cost-efficacy studies on psilocybin.
To my understanding, this thought process impacts reimbursement decisions for insurance providers (whether that's private or public). For individuals willing to pay out of pocket, whatever works for you is worth the cost you can afford.
Insurances currently cover legal ketamine clinics in the US and no other psychedelics. Very curious to see how that evolves in the next 1-2 years, especially as Oregon comes online with psilocybin.
On reality TV shamans
As I learn more about the psychedelic industry, I stumble into some pretty unexpected corners. ViceTV has a reality TV show called Kentucky Ayahuasca that follows individuals before, during, and after their ayahuasca ceremonies.
Umm ... what?
On artificial intelligence to predict psychedelic efficacy
After patients get prescribed psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, they must complete an incoming interview.
Using natural language processing and machine learning, researchers were able to identify depressed vs. control patients. Even more astounding is that the algorithm also correctly guessed whether psilocybin would work as a treatment for the depressed individual with 85% accuracy.
That is nothing short of astonishing. Granted this is a small sample size and the work needs to be replicated and extended, but the implications of this work for psychiatrists and therapists are remarkably fine-tuned personal care plans based on revealed psychographic profiles. Just wow.
On woven bamboo sculptures
Artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV creates breath-taking large bamboo sculptures. He is a fourth-generation bamboo craftsperson and the amount of vision and skill for this work is outrageous.
Check out the video at the bottom of that link to see how he makes this sculpture from start to finish. I never cease to be amazed by the creativity and skill of certain humans.
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With that, I wish you a lovely week,
~Henry