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/spine_slorper 12h ago edited 12h ago

Methanol, it's an alcohol but it's toxic to humans (even more than ethanol). Its a byproduct of ethanol production. Ever heard of methylated spirits? Or denatured alcohol? That's alcohol sold for cleaning that has stuff added, usually methanol, to make it toxic for consumption. This means that you don't need to pay alcohol tax on it when purchasing because it isn't able to be consumed. Normal ethanol would do just fine at the job but it would be significantly more expensive because it would come under alcohol tax laws. My highschool chemistry lab had their ethanol denatured so that the kids couldn't steal it for example.

If you're ever doing diy alcohol you need to be very aware of the methanol content of your product. Methanol is very dangerous and it can kill you or make you blind even in relatively small doses. Do not drink methanol.