Not insane. Unsane.

loup-vaillant

Edit :Excellent suggestions in the comments. Two of them stood out for me:

"Untaught" may be better. It is less connoted (if at all), conveys about the right meaning, and can be understood by about anyone (thanks, shminux).
Using a word to name a category can raise walls around it. In this case, we must be extra careful not to stigmatize the very people we'd like to join us (thanks, daenerys).

We often use "insane" to describe people whose behaviour or beliefs are below the sanity waterline. But as most must would agree here, you cannot call someone insane with a straight face just because he happens to believe in magic.

I'm currently watching Future by Design, a documentary featuring Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project. Jacque came up with this word, "unsane", to describe people who basically, aren't rational because they haven't been exposed to the right ideas yet. Which would be different from "insane", which is more about irrevocably irrational people.

I like this word, because there isn't the tone of accusation we find in "insane". This neutrality makes it easier to say that we can do something about it. Insanity should be eradicated like vermin. Unsanty on the other hand can be fixed.

So, do you think this word, "Unsanity" might be worth using?

Edit :Excellent suggestions in the comments. Two of them stood out for me:

"Untaught" may be better. It is less connoted (if at all), conveys about the right meaning, and can be understood by about anyone (thanks, shminux).
Using a word to name a category can raise walls around it. In this case, we must be extra careful not to stigmatize the very people we'd like to join us (thanks, daenerys).

So, do you think this word, "Unsanity" might be worth using?

I'm also coming from a perspective where I would claim that the most 'sanity' you will get out of a brain will involve the careful use of 'drugs'.

Could you elaborate on that? Are there any useful drugs that are not included in Gwern's Nootropics Guide ?

Could you elaborate on that? Are there any useful drugs that are not included in Gwern's Nootropics Guide ?

Those are the most obvious examples. There are also other drugs that improve sanity that are either/or more focused on improving the sanity of individuals with specific traits or are more drastic in nature.

More drastic example: I've found injecting myself with cerebrolysin to give significant benefits to sanity and that is a substance that would give improvements to most people.

An example that is both drastic and dependent on the individual: There ... (read more)

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Not insane. Unsane.

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Not insane. Unsane.

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