James Hamblin, for The Atlantic:

Among people who took the placebo pill, those who wrote about existential anxiety set much higher bail ($450) [for prostitution] than those who wrote about the dentist ($300). But if they took Tylenol and wrote existentially, that sense of moral judgement seemed to be blunted.

There was a tiny sample size but shows interesting (and oddly unsurprising) results. The study of the mental effects of non-psychoactive drugs is so often overlooked.

And, as commenter Tim_Sims says, “It’s only a matter of time til our teenagers are sitting around a dimly lit basement, indulging in the devil pill Tylenol and feeling marginally less anxious about existential fears.”

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