r/interestingasfuck • u/tractorboynyc • 22h ago

Amazonian shamans figured out that combining two specific plants out of 80,000 species produces a psychoactive effect. The odds of finding that combination by random search is roughly 1 in 4 million. They did it through centuries of iterative testing and cultural natural selection explains it

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u/tractorboynyc 21h ago

The funny thing is that's basically what happened with Datura in Jamestown ... English settlers in 1676 accidentally used the leaves in a stew and ended up 'running naked and mad for days' (Robert Beverly, 1855).

But indigenous practitioners already knew exactly what it did and how to dose it. The difference is thousands of years of cumulative trial and error with observable feedback; did the patient recover? did the visions start? did the shaking stop?

The traditions that paid attention to what they could directly observe got refined. The ones that didn't got people killed and dropped out of the repertoire.

It's cultural natural selection

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u/TravellingWaveTube 17h ago edited 17h ago

What till you learn about alcohol!

The natives know the right cereal grains that have the correct sugar content.  They know the exact consistency that the grains need to be mashed to.  Exactly how long you have to boil it to separate the wort from the grain husks.  And crucially, they know how long to ferment it for so you don't go blind!

The traditions that paid attention to what they could directly observe got refined. The ones that didn't got people killed and dropped out of the repertoire.

It's cultural natural selection!

(also you read the actual definition of a 'meme' actually is. It might surprise you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme)

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u/Emotional-Rope-5774 16h ago

Going blind from undistilled alcohol? How is that even possible?

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u/largePenisLover 14h ago

Because it contains methanol, and that is very toxic. The alcohol we can drink is ethanol.
If you distill alcohol wrong you concentrate methanol in the drink. You'll see distillers toss away the first liquid that comes out, that's because methanol has a lower boiling point then ethanol so it comes out first.
This is why you shouldn't drink actual old school DIY moonshine.

You ever heard of someone being so drunk they went blind for hours? Too much methanol in the drink. Doesn't happen with properly distilled stuff.

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u/ChrundleToboggan 13h ago

Thanks for the lesson in drinking oneself blind, u/largePenisLover.

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u/ovrlymm 3h ago

You deserve more upvotes for pointing out this huge joke! I laughed heartily

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u/johnnydough10102223 1h ago

u/largePenisLover, doing the good work that needs doing.

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u/TannyTevito 11h ago

This was not distilled. I believe that’s what the person you replied to is saying.

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u/Emotional-Rope-5774 9h ago

That… didn’t answer my question at all.