Here's a sincere informational question. Where is there a sound research base on any "nootropic" or "neuroenhancer" or "smart drug" or the like that has been subjected to thoughtful scientific examination
and has resulted in genuinely superior levels of human cognitive performance? I'm not talking about Wikipedia articles. (I'm a Wikipedian, and I know how many fudged references and commercial product-pushing there is on Wikipedia.) I'm talking about large-n, placebo-controlled, double-blind experimental studies that get published in a major, high-impact journal and pass muster with a process like Cochrane Review
or prominent mention in a major textbook or practitioner's handbook on pharmacology.
There is huge worldwide interest in people engaging in smarter behavior, but where is there the evidence that anyone really, truly becomes smarter at anything in a sustained way under the influence of any of the "smart drugs," "nootropics," or "neuroenhancers"?
I ask, because I have been reading claims for smart drugs in online communities since 1992, and I have yet to see any examples of especially smart behavior on the part of anyone making those claims. I have acquaintance with the behavior of highly smart young people,
so perhaps I know smart behavior when I see it, but I have not found, after diligent search, any reliable evidence that any drug intervention is more effective in bringing about smart behavior than drinking coffee. Where is the good quality evidence?
P.S. I just found the earlier submission, from the year of publication, to HN of this article:
There are plenty of studies showing "genuinely superior levels of human cognitive performance". However it is unclear how well these tests ("microbenchmarks" if you will) correspond with "smart behavior". It is difficult to imagine how improvements to short-term memory span, visual memory, spatial planning etc would cause a decrease in "smart behaviour", though.
Having said that, here are a couple of studies I've posted elsewhere on this story (ironically in rely to another similar comment by you, which you seem to have missed?):
Modafinil produced a similar pattern of cognitive enhancement to that observed in healthy adults, with improvements on tests of short-term memory span, visual memory, spatial planning, and stop-signal motor inhibition. On several measures, increased accuracy was accompanied by slowed response latency. This alteration in the speed-accuracy trade-off may indicate that modafinil increases the ability to "reflect" on problems coupled with decreased impulsive responding. Improvements were also seen in sustained attention, which was unaffected in healthy subjects.
Modafinil significantly enhanced performance on tests of digit span, visual pattern recognition memory, spatial planning and stop-signal reaction time. These performance improvements were complemented by a slowing in latency on three tests: delayed matching to sample, a decision-making task and the spatial planning task. Subjects reported feeling more alert, attentive and energetic on drug. The effects were not clearly dose dependent, except for those seen with the stop-signal paradigm. In contrast to previous findings with methylphenidate, there were no significant effects of drug on spatial memory span, spatial working memory, rapid visual information processing or attentional set-shifting. Additionally, no effects on paired associates learning were identified.
> Where is there a sound research base on any "nootropic" or "neuroenhancer" or "smart drug" or the like that has been subjected to thoughtful scientific examination
It's hard to get studies like this approved and funded. Some chemicals are either illegal, or they are in a legal grey area. And it's very hard to get ethics panel approving for something that is not"treating" or "curing" ill patients.
Think of all the millions of articles that have been written about caffeine, stimulants, etc. That's all the frame of reference these journalists have, so they only look for information similar to things they already know about.
It takes decades and a multi-million dollar drug company marketing budget for a new idea in medicine to become widely familiar. Take, for example, the unique nature of SSRI anti-depressants vs the ones that came before. For years most people didn't get Prozac. Is it an upper? A downer? Like speed? Like heroin? Like Valium? Like benzos? It took forever for it to become widely understood that it was something all together different.
Yes, it was disappointing that the the article conflated stimulates like Adderall with non-stimulate based nootropics like Provigil/modafinil.
It's unclear if the author understands the difference at all - for example, modafinil is supposed to let you do without sleep, and yet fall asleep when you choose. That's an important distinction compared to stimulates like Adderall, but doesn't seem to be mentioned.
If you're going to try it, consider following a similar procedure here before you commit to it since it's rather expensive compared to other enhancers: http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#adderall
However, there's a massive difference between instant release (IR) and extended release (XR) Adderall pills. The body is effective at downregulating pharmacological peaks as they happen, so IR is less effectively potent than XR. For example, for me, a 20mg XR lasts longer with greater effects than an entire 40mg IR pill rationed apart and taken within 4 hours.
I'd go as far as to recommend against IR amphetamine. The peaking of IR doses builds tolerance incredibly fast. I'd place XR amphetamine on a different plane entirely.
If anyone isn't having success with IR, I recommend XR.
Finally, prescription amphetamine is dirt cheap with insurance. I don't have script drug insurance and pay $160 for 30 pills of generic 20mg Adderall XR. With insurance, it's a mere $12 for a month's worth.
If anyone isn't having success with IR, I recommend XR.
SWIM[0] (who couldn't get IR) didn't get much lasting value from XR, because it took too long over the course of the day, but discovered that opening the caplet and crushing the contents before ingesting made for a bigger immediate kick. SWIM also found it hard to find a consistent optimum dosage this way, but experimenting has been helpful.
Well, we're talking about therapeutic use, here. I think upping an XR dose (no more than 30mg XR) would be more effective than crushing pills and bumping them for an "immediate kick".
In Russia there is also a widely popular among students and programmers neuroenhancing drug Phenotropil/Phenylpiracetam/Carphedon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylpiracetam).
Unfortunately there are no research about safety of long term use.
I've tried Adderall a few times and never got the productivity burst that users claim to receive. It tends to have the opposite effect on me. My attention darts everywhere and my skin feels like it's being pricked by thousands of needles.
The reason why I was productive in college and pulled 4.0s most semesters is because I actually found my coursework interesting. It wasn't something I was plowing through because the degree would get me fame and fortune. I didn't need exogenous motivation in the form of a pill.
I know three people who swear by Adderall/Ritalin/Vyvanse/etc and I've heard the same summary from each of them: "It helps you get through boring work, but it kills your creativity." One guy will switch between pot and Adderall to do his work. He smokes when he needs to be creative and takes Adderall when he wants to bang out lines of boilerplate code.
The substance lifestyle really isn't something I can buy into.
I've tried Adderall a few times and never got the productivity burst that users claim to receive. It tends to have the opposite effect on me. My attention darts everywhere and my skin feels like it's being pricked by thousands of needles.
Such drugs typically work by correcting an imbalance. If you don't start with this imbalance (say, lack of dopamine) then the effects may not be what you want.
The substance lifestyle really isn't something I can buy into.
A big problem is that one tends to become adapted to the drugs and their effects are diminished. Ritalin stopped doing anything for me, and Adderall doesn't seem much better (when taken as prescribed).
People thinking of taking such enhancers on their own should have in mind a plan to get off them.
There are a few things that you can do that are good for your mind before considering supplementation. These are really basic but most people do not follow them. I didn't till a few months ago.
Do you get enough water? About 2L a day is good for most people but is something to be modulated by your activity levels. Dehydration drastically degrades physical and mental performance (stamina, ability to focus, encode memory etc). As you get older you get less able to notice that you are thirsty.
Do you get enough sleep? It seems almost a matter of pride these days to boast about how little sleep one gets. But sleep continues to be important. There is evidence to believe that sleep aids in mental maintenance and the encoding + consolidation of memories - moving them from the lower level hippocampus to the higher level neocortex. Akin to transferring bits from high speed, throughput RAM to longer lasting but slower long term storage. If you are not getting enough sleep then you are impairing your ability to learn higher level abstractions and patterns.
Exercise - Everyone knows exercises is good for you. In addition to all the other cardiovascular benefits it is also good for your mood (opiates - yes opiates as in opium - such as endorphins get released) and memory. Exercise has been linked to neuron growth in the hippocampus and new nerve cell survival rates. As well as benefits to spatial reasoning and memory (makes sense).
Diet
This one is involved. But the greatest offenders are high Glycemic Index foods such as Refined grains and sugary food/drinks and hydrogenated fats. Other than the fact that providing nutrients to your body in a suboptimal way will reduce the performance of your mind and body and wanting to maintain a health weight, such foods have further negative effects. The brain does not store energy so low GI food that provide a more smooth delivery insure that your brain will have access to energy across the day. In addition, sugar spikes will result in a release of insulin to manage the glucose, antagonising further use by say your brain and thus making you feel tired and unable to focus. Constant Insulin and glucose spikes are no good in general though e.g. increased diabetes risk. Furthermore chronic high levels of blood sugar has been linked to memory, mood and attention disorders as well as nueroinflamation.
Adequate Choline intake? Choline is often not sourced at adequate levels despite being an important nutrient. It is also a precursor to acetylcholine which is involved in arousal, reward, attention and synaptic plasticity (in particular to do with learning).
Other minerals such as Magnesium, iodine and selenium have been shown to have a positive effect on mental health but are not sourced well enough in modern diets. Also indicated for energy and mental function are B Vitamins.
Other considerations
Think More - your brain is not some static rock. See nueroplasticity. Using your brain increases survival rates of new neurons. This stacks well with exercise, meditation and calorie restriction.
Did you know that your foods contain drugs (they obviously must if they are nueroactive). Eating foods that are high in precursors to certain monoamines - e.g. high in tryptophan or tyrosine etc. such as turkey, eggs, parmesan cheese may or may not have an effect - at the least they increase the bioavailabity of chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. Also consider foods that interact with the GABA pathway for anxiolytic effects (various teas ++green) and a healthier way to achieve the so called Ballmer peak.
Reduced Calorie Intake - There is aging related benefits to this. But there is also evidence that it is neuroprotective as well as inducing nueron growth. This tricking the body to releasing stress proteins is well studied. You must come to your own conclusions.
Did you notice I sourced nothing here? This is because I don't want you to blindly follow my writing. I am not a medical expert and so I prefer you to search, do your own research and come to your own conclusions. I did leave search able key phrases interleaved through out.
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I don't take what people typically mean by drugs. But before going on I will ask you, do you know what you or I mean by drugs? When I say drugs I mean the stuff that is neurotoxic or prone to tolerance and or addiction (ethyl-alchohol, Tobacco: MAOIs in herbs + nicotine is culprit of addiction, MDMA, amphetamines, cocaine,heroin,opium, etc). I also have never taken the less harmful stuff like LSD or marijuana because they are illegal and hence not regulated. But more importantly I don't want to aggravate my chances of getting arrested by dealing with the people who typically deal such things. I also do not take marijuana beacause although it has been shown to be neuroprotective and anticarcinogenic it is also indicated in short term memory damage. And short term memory is strongly correlated to IQ.
When you say drugs you probably mean stuff that the government has deemed illegal and waging war on for whatever arbitrary reasons without thinking about what the term actually means. For me anything that is psychoactive is a drugs. So I am amused by the contradictions of people who say they don't take drugs while drinking beer or coffee, eating chocolate, eggs, meat or eating foods that are high in sugar (nueroactive by serotonin pathway amongst others).
I once tried giving up alcohol, and I found it was suddenly a lot more difficult hanging around friends who were drinking.
I've also been through stages in my life where I used other less legal substances, and looking back it was one of the most fun and happy times of my life.
To me, chemicals have provided variety, fun and different and unusual states of mind. Fortunately I never got into anything that affected my health in a significant way, although I have a constant back-of-the-mind concern about my alcohol intake, given how poisonous and ever-present it is.
> opiates - yes opiates as in opium - such as endorphins get released
Small correction: endorphines are opioids, not opiates. Opioids are chemicals that bind to opioid receptors, whereas opiates are opioids derived from the opium poppy.
Thanks. You're right. I realized that I'd made that mistake when I was no longer at my computer. I do still readily conflate the terms but not the meanings.
Try and get some non-fluoridated water too, sodium fluoride is neurotoxic - move to Europe or http://findaspring.com.
"Drinking fluoridated water is linked with reduced cognitive ability in children. There are also over 30 animal studies showing that fluoride is a neurotoxin which reduces learning and memory. Essentially, fluoride makes you a bit less intelligent."
"Nationwide, pharmaceutical manufacturers routinely pay medical professionals..State-employed doctors and researchers are generally no exception, though they are supposed to comply with their individual institutions' conflict-of-interest policies."
"Beginning in March, federal law will require drug and device companies to report and disclose all of their payments to medical professionals and researchers; by September, the data is supposed to be displayed in a searchable online government database."
I think he's intentionally seeing how far he can take his readers before they call BS. That article is possibly his greatest work in the genre, thanks for posting it.
Unfortunately the article you linked doesn't read in a very balanced way. For instance:
"If you were to injest a mere 2-5 grams of sodium fluoride (a common ingredient in toothpaste), you would probably die. The amount of fluoride in a typical tube of fluoride toothpaste is sufficient to kill a small child if it were consumed all at once."
To ingest 'a mere' 2 grams at the WHO's guideline water fluoridation rate of 1.5mg/L would require drinking over 1300L of water (nearly two years' worth at 2L/day), and many other substances that are beneficial to (or even required by) the human body are toxic in large doses. As for toothpaste - well, it usually says clearly on the packaging that you shouldn't swallow it, and certainly not an entire tube at once. Likewise mouthwash, soap, etc.
Well the point is really this: the evidence you're citing to suggest that fluoridation 'messes with your pineal gland' is dubious at best; consider the possibility that you may be mistaken.
re: everything adding up - the human body is actually pretty efficient at disposing of toxins generally, so no, not everything adds up. I don't know whether or not this applies to fluorides though - are you aware of any research there?
Dan - I'd prefer that you go and research if fluoride is healthy or not, the burden of proof that it is good/bad for you and in what amounts, is on you. I am happy with my decisions.
The question is not if you are happy with your decisions. The question is about the ethics of spreading misinformation.
In this circumstance, you are simply wrong about the dangers of fluoridated water. Your claims suggest an ignorance about fundamental tenets of pharmacology, and the importance of dose. It is not everyday knowledge, and everyone is ignorant about many things; I don't mean it as an insult. It does mean, though, that you should be careful about giving others advice.
"The question is about the ethics of spreading misinformation."
Are you sure your sources on sodium fluoride being safe is not misinformation, and that rather I'm the one spreading misinformation? Have you researched opposing points of view?
Beyond research, is it common sense to ingest a known neuro and bone toxin at any level for any length of time? Have you tried spring water for any length of time, how does it make you feel?
Oh hold on, I'm wrong about fluoridated water, and now my health is at risk for not having it.
I'm a physician, and I read quite a bit of primary literature. I also know that there are great sources of info on the Internet, but many of them are not so great. I read this article, and a few linked from it, in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry, before I responded.
Your argument, "is it common sense to ingest a known neuro and bone toxin at any level for any length of time?" continues to expose your ignorance. Anything, even water, is toxic at the right concentrations. All substances can be poisons, but some at the right dose can be medicine.
It is faulty to say that "if a lot is bad, then even a little is bad," just as much as it's wrong to say "if a little is good a lot must be great" like the vitamin mega-dose proponents say.
Well, I have read about Nazis putting fluoride in their death camp water on numerous occasions. Do you think they did that for the betterment of health and improving lives?
I've also read about many countries banning its use. I've also read about it accumulating in the pineal gland.
Do you think you can trust dentists for accurate information on fluoride after they put mercury into people's mouths, calling it silver amalgam?
> Well, I have read about Nazis putting fluoride in their death camp water on numerous occasions. Do you think they did that for the betterment of health and improving lives?
The Nazis were also interested in getting rid of parasites on their prisoners and stopping epidemics.
Wait - are you saying public health efforts aimed at stopping communicable diseases are Nazi-approved?! I can't believe I approved of Nazis! Quick, tell the anti-vaxxers!
From the Wikipedia article on choline: Unfortunately, dietary recommendations have discouraged people from eating high choline foods, such as egg and fatty meats. The 2005 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey stated that only 2% of postmenopausal women consume the recommended intake for choline.
Advocating the daily use of stimulants is dangerous. I have tried Adderall but could never do anything productive while using it. It'd make me feel odd and irritated.
My roommate had a prescription and ultimately abused it to the point of destroying his life. Of course, it was his abuse that was the problem not the drug per se.
But to me, Adderall is no different than meth. It is more pure and clean but essentially the same thing. The best way to increase your productivity is to do it naturally as Dn_Ab outlines above.
From the article: "Users are also more likely to belong to a fraternity or a sorority, and to have a G.P.A. of 3.0 or lower." If what is usually said about grade inflation
fits the baseline at the colleges surveyed, the implication is that the "neuroenhancer" users have below-average G.P.A.s, which then raises the question of whether "neuroenhancer" is really the correct term for drugs used by below-average performers.
What's desperately needed, in the social context reported in the submitted article, is verifiable research
showing what drugs might actually genuinely improve performance (as judged by knowledgeable third parties) rather than merely gaining user self-reports of subjective improvements in performance. Maybe there is something that can help a harried parent, or a college student working his way through college, match performance with a colleague or a classmate with fewer distractions in life, but the way to find out what that is would be to do careful research. For the moment, the help that is found from drugs seems mostly to help people at the low end of the performance scale. Again from the article, "Farah told me, 'These drugs will definitely help some technically normal people—that is, people who don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for A.D.H.D. or any kind of cognitive impairment., But, she emphasized, 'they will help people in the lower end of the ability range more than in the higher end.'"
That's a fault of the article, not the research. There is adequate evidence that some drugs help the performance of some tasks associated with intelligence:
a two week regimen of piracetam was found to enhance verbal memory in healthy college students in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study [1]
Another study of fighter pilots showed that modafinil given in three divided 100 mg doses sustained the flight control accuracy of sleep-deprived F-117 pilots to within about 27 percent of baseline levels for 37 hours, without any considerable side effects.[2]
Modafinil selectively improves neuropsychological task performance in healthy volunteers, possibly through improved inhibitory control.[3]
Modafinil significantly enhanced performance on tests of digit span, visual pattern recognition memory, spatial planning and stop-signal reaction time.[4]
There are some weird causation conclusions in that article.
From my experience, stimulant proliferation in university is largely dependent on your social circle. Adderall was passed around freely in my fraternity and some of my circles. Have a test coming up? Pop a stimulant like it's nothing.
Yet I was in other circles (squareish students) where the individuals weren't really exposed to stimulants much less the mentality of flippantly popping them under academic stress. They wouldn't really know where to get them, either.
In other words, I have a problem with drawing a conclusion of stim effectiveness from demographics and their respective grades. I don't know anyone who wouldn't consider amphetamine effective for buckling down and burning through some work. You don't need to have ADD to benefit from a flood of dopamine.
I'm a libertarian and I am in favor of drug legalization. In addition, I'm a big fan of The Singularity and believe that mankind is not going to stay the same biological construct. I experimented with various drugs in high school. I am a big believer of hacking my mind for optimum performance and I take a few nutritional supplements on a regular basis because of that. Finally, I have a sleep disorder and have both a prescription for various neuroenhancers and a traditional reason to use them. So I'm about as big of a poster boy as possible on the benefits of better living through modern chemistry.
But I must advise caution here. The main problem is that your brain is not the thing to use to measure how your brain is doing. It doesn't work. What we end up measuring instead is how good something makes us feel. For instance, Provigil is great stuff; it fulfills a role of addressing wakefulness. But it also makes a person feel really good.
I'd never support further legal restrictions, but I would most certainly caution folks to take a hard look at what you are doing. From what I see, once you start down this road you can never stop. Let's say you took your magic pills and aced your exam. Was it you, or was it you with the pills. Well, honestly, you don't know. Maybe you could have passed without the pills and maybe not. So now it's a few months later and time for the next exam. Do you take the pills again? I don't see how you couldn't -- why handicap yourself when you know the pills give you enhanced performance?
It just continues on like that -- more and more exams, job interviews, dates, parties -- life becomes a series of achievements. As you use neuroenhancers to accomplish each one, the natural conclusion is that you should take them again for the next one. The pattern builds up, and pretty soon you're telling yourself you'd be a fool to do X without the extra help. Note: I'm not trying to describe psychological addiction here. You may be perfectly able to physically quit at any time. What I'm saying is that you become logically addicted; that the most logical thing for you to do is to continue taking them. So now suddenly instead of a kid who took some speed back in college to ace an exam or two, you're the 30-something who has been taking pills on a regular basis for over a decade to change the way his brain works. Is this where you want to end up?
There are certainly people for which your description of "drugged life" is true, but the older I get, the more I see that everyone has a sense of self-regulation (and at least the people I'm around seem to listen to it). People know when they're turning into automatons, people know when they're compromising their health. There comes a point with any drug where your tolerance rises and you have to decide whether to consume more or take a break, explore other avenues. Almost everyone I know on Adderall has slowed down or quit over time. The returns diminish and regular usage of a strong dose tends to make people noticeably neurotic (incessantly talkative) - going off of it is kind of a relief.
My experience with Adderall has been far different than the "faster, faster faster" characterization. It really makes the psychological term "executive function" make sense - I temporarily get a much clearer sense of all of my priorities and the systemic obstacles to reach them. It's made me more social, organized and energetic long after the high wears off.
I take 20+ something supplements every day, half of which are intended to improve cognition. (You can see most of them at http://supplementwiki.org/Supplement_Wiki:Todo_List ) I attest to their utility, however their cumulative effect is actually really mild. If anyone's taken adderall or other stimulants before, you know it kicks in and wears off really quick. With nootropics you'd actually want to take long term, it's almost as if they don't work. After a few months, however, you notice you learn and observe more quickly and your speech and interactions become a lot easier and articulate.
"Since, in essence, this life was impossible, Alex began taking Adderall to make it possible."
If you're doing this, or thinking about it, consider that it's a prescription drug and if it's not prescribed for you then you're getting a) illegally, and b) reducing the supply for people who need it.
This is a lame argument, akin to complaining that people using computers for fun are reducing the supply for people using computers for work. We can just make computers for everyone. That is what the free market is designed to do.
You should direct your ire at the people who are actually reducing the supply directly, namely the DEA, who are the ones preventing the production of sufficient Adderall. If there were not arbitrary restrictions on manufacture, then both the people who need it and the people who want it would be able to obtain it, and more cheaply at that.
"This is a lame argument, akin to complaining that people using computers for fun are reducing the supply for people using computers for work."
The DEA limits how much of these drugs are allowed to be made. Companies have to petition to make more. The DEA says there's enough, yet people with prescriptions sometimes have to get the drugs illegally themselves.
"CONAN: Well, I was interested in your piece to hear the DEA say there is no shortage.
KNOX: Yes, I was - I was surprised, too, because the FDA says there is. And, you know, they have a website on the FDA that lists all the drugs in shortage, and there are a lot of them these days. And I've - one thing that caused me to do the story is I found that methylphenidate, the Ritalin-type drugs, popped up on that list a week or two ago."
The DEA is only one factor. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to suggest that Shire is giving less than 100% towards the production of Adderall since they have a new brand-name drug Vynase that is still protected by patent.
I'm still not exactly sure how Shire managed to set it up so that they are the only ones making the ingredients for generic Adderall.
That holds for many other things in life, even basic necessities such as food, money, shelter. What's interesting though is that the drug doesn't seem to have too many bad side effects based on the article - reduced appetite & sleeplessness are what many people can live with. What would be interesting to know is if there is any other more dangerous side effects of prolonged intake of this chemical, eg. addiction(?), or inability to concentrate without it?
Re:side effects of prolonged use. Adderall is safe if used responsibly, even over the long term. We even understand how it works, which is more than you can say about eugeroics, like modafinil. Not surprising, given that it's an amphetamine and the US military handed them out like caffeine pills in WW2 and last I heard still used them sometimes. Erdos also used speed the majority of his life. I believe there's a guide to safe long-term amphetamine use on the last psychiatrist, I'd link but I'm on my phone.
Presumably you could just take street methamphetamine (or illegally imported pharmaceutical amphetamine), saving money and preserving the nation's critical legal amphetamine supplies for authorized users.
There's some pharmacological difference between methamphetamine and methamphetamine, but IMO the much bigger difference is perception and the context in which they're used, vs. the chemical itself.
This isn't "underground". I'm in high school and many, many people I know pop ADHD medication and other stimulants so they can get better grades and focus more; AKA, to be more boring (kidding..sort of).
Find any bored suburban neighborhood and many of the people there are popping lots of pills, openly and unashamedly (is that a word?), for lots of different purposes.
I sometimes think people are less scared throwing in some mind-altering drugs than altering their xorg.conf (that could break something and it'll take all weekend to fix!).
I agree with the author that "it makes no sense to ban the use of neuroenhancers." I'll talk about Ritalin, because that's the one I know.
Let us stipulate, for now, that Ritalin both improves certain aspects of human cognition and causes negative physiological side effects, potentially including addiction. (I believe both to be true.)
As it stands, doctors generally can't prescribe Ritalin if there is nothing 'wrong' with you. Just improving cognitive performance for 'normal' people isn't allowed.
In my opinion, that is not as it should be. What could possibly be more generically worth doing than improving human cognition -- thereby potentially advancing all worthy human pursuits: curing disease, saving babies from starvation, traveling the stars, etc. etc.
That's the big picture, and one reason that I think we as a society should allow people to dope their brains if they want. But the small picture is also interesting. What if you personally could significantly improve the quality and rate of your output (be it software, architectural designs, robots, whatever), but doing so involved some negative consequences and a minor amount of risk to your health. Would you be interested? I was.
I have used Ritalin extensively, and in my mind very successfully. It definitely helps me write cleaner code with fewer bugs in less time than without it. It's a programming force-multiplier for me.
(It can also help with getting various other things done more efficiently. However, I personally don't find taking a powerful simulant to do something like clean my garage to be a worthwhile tradeoff.)
Using these stimulants need not be illegal, at least in the US. There are many doctors you can visit, describe certain aspects of your personality, how your concentration isn't where you'd like it to be, and recieve an ADHD diagnosis with a prescription.
But since you have to obtain a 'disease' diagnosis to get the drug legally, many people don't, and the result is that many kids (and adults) end up popping their friends' pills illegally, without appropriate medical supervision. It would be better if everybody could discuss it frankly with a competent doctor, without the little sham of pretending they're taking it to 'fix' something rather than just to improve mental function.
Whether Ritalin is 'worth the risk' is a personal judgement, one that depends entirely on what you are using it for. But for me, it unquestionably has been. At certain times in my life, I've used Ritalin to dramatically improve my contribution to important projects. I think that at least one of these project would have failed entirely, without me being in superman mode. And these are the projects that have shaped my career, and so have pretty much directly led to the comfortable standard of living I and my family now enjoy. Ergo, if I had never encountered Ritalin, I think it's very likely that I would have a smaller house and less free time than I presently do have. Verdict: Ritalin is fucking awesome.
OTOH, I'd never use it year round (heart and addiction risks), never instead of sleeping properly, never ever ever fucking give Ritalin to a child, I get kinda irritable after a whole day on it, it somewhat degrades the quality of my, uh, stools, it feels a little bit speedy (which I dislike), and it totally degrades certain other aspects of human cognition, such as those required for writing fiction, watching a dance recital, or listening sympathetically to my wife bitch about her day.
I've always been interested in nootropics and have dabbled with most of the ones you can get on your own -- piracetam, vasopressin, choline, DHA/DHEA, green tea, etc. -- and none of them had nearly as noticeable an impact as Ritalin. (Green tea is the only one of those I've stuck with.) I have never tried Modafinil but am keenly interested, and am likely to discuss it with my doctor the next time I have a software project where I feel that it's really important to me to be at my absolute best.
Methylphenidate is a rather new drug. Until we know all the risks doctors won't prescribe it when not (absolutely) necessary. I don't think that's a bad thing. And I don't relate caution with banning.
Sure, I can understand that point of view, although I don't quite agree.
But I probably should have mentioned somewhere in my comment that I believe pretty much all drugs should be legal, even just for people who want to get high -- so of course I advocate individual choice for drugs that demonstrate benefits that can actually improve one's quality of life (beyond simple recreation).
Ever heard about Thalidomide? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide
I think there are good reasons why we are careful with prescribing drugs.
Take cocaine for example. Before 1900 they used it a lot. Even on children. But cocaine addiction caused a lot of troubles.
Are Ritalin and Thalidomide in the same reference classes, that it makes any sense to compare them? Specifically, one drug was offered for less than 3 years or so, and then withdrawn due to horrible unexpected side-effects that were suspected within a year or two. And another drug has been publicly prescribed for roughly 50 years and has been investigated in detail with a long list of pretty well-understood side-effects. (You tell me which is which.)
>>Whether Ritalin is 'worth the risk' is a personal judgement
If Ritalin becomes legal for enhancement purposes, as you recommend, it won't be a personal judgement to use it or not; it will be something you will have to use just to compete.
Edit: That said, I'd love to get my hands on Ritalin legally. :-) (I'm not going to start doing illegal drugs.)
That's probably true, to an extent. I mean, not that people would literally be forced to use performance-enhancing drugs, but that they might feel increasingly pressured to do so.
Still, people already have to make a lot of hard health-impacting choices in order to compete. For instance, I would be surprised if Ritalin, in commonly prescribed doses, was likely to be more harmful than the unhealthily insufficient sleep habits of many (most?) harried modern workers. (I'd definitely welcome additional studies on both of those topics, though.)
I don't understand why people do this. I mean, overcommit to activities which would unlikely produce money or fame.
Why not throw it all out, watch porn and write patches for amaroK all day like I did today?
I can understand when you're pulling a lot of weight for a short time doing incredible things, but continuous pointless activity is a thing I strongly resent.
I dunno, I've always wanted to do more with my time than I am able to. I want to do a bang up job at work, but still have time left over to learn an instrument, practice photography, and maybe learn a new language. There just aren't enough hours in a day to get all of this done.
If there was a good-enough guarantee against unforeseen side effects, I'd be all over these drugs. I'm non-religious, so in my view, the more I can get done before I bite it the better. If I could remove my need for sleep entirely without side effect, you can bet your ass I will.
> "but continuous pointless activity is a thing I strongly resent."
So... wanking and writing patches is an extremely purposeful activity? More so than studying history or whatever the hell else people do while hopped up on neuroenhancers?
It isn't an activity. It's leisure. Leisure is cool. Friends suggest friends do leisure.
Hobbies are fine but sleep is a very good thing indeed.
And having three hobbies at once means low efficiency and mediocre results.
Take e.g. language. Odds are against you. You don't have people speaking that language around all the time. You're not surrounded by texts in that language. You do boring homework and it's like you're carrying water in a sieve.
I learned English by not learning it. I had to read various texts because that's how you program, surf the web and play games, and eventually I could read in English at the same speed as in my native tongue.
Recently I tried to learn Korean and it's now on hold. I had a half year of courses and some audio lessons, but I lack discipline and therefore my progress is zero.
As for history: if it's a map of dates to event descriptions then it's a pretty boring thing indeed, and if it's a mental model of how people lived NNN years ago then you can't build it by busy loop studying. You have to think, contemplate and compare a lot. Watching Rome series with your wife gets you more in your long term memory than a bookful of words and also helps your personal life.
> "And having three hobbies at once means low efficiency and mediocre results."
Only because you don't have the time to do all of them justice. But imagine if you could create the time.
Sleep is only important in our present state - if there was a way to remove the need for sleep, then it becomes pretty pointless. I would very willingly remove the need to sleep - it's not as if I derive some kind of enjoyment from it besides feeling rested. If I can be rested and ready-to-go without sleep, all the better.
> "You have to think, contemplate and compare a lot. Watching Rome series with your wife gets you more in your long term memory than a bookful of words and also helps your personal life."
Yes, and how much extra contemplation, research, and comparison can you achieve if you took your 7-8 hours of sleep each night and dedicated them to study? What if, instead of going to work in the day time, you work during the night and spend your days going out there and doing feet-on-ground research on a historical topic?
As a coder, the prospect of removing sleep entirely is extremely tantalizing. Much of my work can be done in the middle of the night, and having days completely free opens up limitless opportunities for personal growth.
If I could create active time I'd put it all in my currently active occupation, and when I'm done with one occupation I'd switch. One at a time is good enough for me.
If you had more time in a day, how is it different from having more days?
Why do you think that you don't contemplate while sleeping or being about to? I do, a lot.
If you would not sleep it means dropping a vital link in your information processing chain.
"I don't understand why people do this. I mean, overcommit to activities which would unlikely produce money or fame."
In a quite fucked up society, everything seems to be used to become more fucked up.
Perhaps all these activites are just a way to dispel the fear of death,
that you have to get the most out of this one life.
I also wonder how Americans talk about ADHD as if it is something bad.
Last regular go-to-the-office job I had there was no end to the number of people who would proudly declare how ADD they were. I think it was a roundabout (and ironically commonplace) way to say, "Look at me! I'm so creative."
I finally decide that the way to tell if someone really did have ADD was to note how often they seemed so cheerful about it.
Prescribe meds against it, even.
Have you ever been driving on the highway, and found yourself struggling, I mean really struggling, to pay attention to the damned road, because it was too boring and your brain kept deciding to redirect your attention to everything else on the off chance it was more interesting? Knowing that if you don't pay attention you could die, yet having to fight to look out the windshield?
ADD is not about a lack of attention, it's about inappropriate attention. Sometimes that's a wonderful thing. Sometimes, though, you really do have to pay attention to something even when your brain has other plans.
BTW, schizophrenia and major clinical depression might also be considered "a vital part of [the] self" but not everything you're born with is a 100% good thing.
People taking brain drugs need to weigh the pros and cons.
If you're happy with whatever chemical soup is naturally in your skull, more power to you. Other folks might need some seasoning.
I don't drive car much and when I do it's interesting enough to be able to focus.
But I am unable to watch movies without company because I will immediately switch tasks, either physically on my PC or mentally, focusing on something else. And I annoy everybody who I watch movies with by commenting things we see because this switch helps to flush temporary boredom.
The list of symptoms you read, did it include hating yourself and thinking yourself a loser because you failed to complete (or even start) important tasks, lost jobs, failed in school, even when you knew how important it was to pay attention, stay on task, and get shit done?
So how do you work like that? I'm having real trouble working, since my brain just jumps from one idea to another and I have to always keep the task at hand in my mind, which is pretty damn hard...
I usually have a zillion of small tasks and I switch between them real fast, and at the end of day most of those are done.
Version control systems and command line histories help greatly.
When I need to write a sizable chunk of code: I might spend a hour or two surfing the web, but when I finally push myself in I get into the zone that Joel described without much problems.
Bonus points: Being ADHD, I'm able to switch tasks and spend a few minutes doing another task without leaving the zone! Resuming without productivity loss. And I absolutely neverming talking, I can talk and be in the zone at the same time.
There are times when these "symptoms" have a positive effect on your life and times when they have a negative effect. These medications give you the equivalent of an "off" switch for use when they are undesirable, if you have the discipline to use them correctly. For me, that constitutes extra choice in life and in no way eliminates a vital part of the self.
It's really useful to be able to remain calm and focused, especially if that's not part of your normal personality. These drugs aren't permanent by any stretch, they barely last 8 hours, so it's not likely to do much damage to your sense of self.
“Many sectors of society have winner-take-all conditions in which small advantages produce disproportionate rewards.” At school and at work, the usefulness of being “smarter,” needing less sleep, and learning more quickly are all “abundantly clear.”
Let's drop school because you're not earning money there.
You getting rewards for needing less sleep is called "abuse" and "slave labor" and should be strongly discouraged.
I fail to see how being a little smarter (or learning a little faster) would help oneself in the workplace (I can see how it can be useful once per month, but not every day). In workplace you need competence, mental model of what you're doing, passion and the ability to see the big picture. I don't think that the said drugs would greatly help in any of those areas.
Malcolm Gladwell showed how small advantages often turn into huge advantages over time in his book "Outliers". I realize its not universally applicable, but his anecdote shows that more things are winner-take-all than you would think.
Brief Summary of His Case Study:
A hugely disproportionate number of Canadian NHL players are born in the first couple months of the year. Someone investigated this, and attributed this to the cutoff date for kids' hockey leagues was January 1st. Note that this is for ~7 year old kids or something. Because kids grow so rapidly, the boys born in January and February had a small but real size and strength advantage over the hockey players born towards the end of the year. This lead to the older players being perceived as superior (because they were), and therefore getting more attention from coaches and more playing time. This in turn made the gap one not just of size, but also skill. These better players eventually went to play on travel teams and play even more hockey with more attention, and got much better. Some of these eventually went to play in the NFL.
One year difference is huge when in that age range.
I went to school when I was 6,5 years old. Everybody else in class was 7 with some months. I was the weakest and could not do anything properly despite the fact that I'm pretty gifted. I could only get good grades for any subjects in the fifth grade. And even now I feel the weakest and the least protected by default. ADHD certainly didn't help too.
So no, being 7 years old and being 7 and 3/4 years does give you a big advantage. The fact that everybody is uniform only magnifies it.
In the workplace everybody have the different age, story and skill set, so this hardly applies. It's no longer a function of two variables monotonous on both of them, but a function on dozen.
And also while small difference give clear boost in competitive environments, it's not so obvious in cooperative environment.
Would you call it "slave labor" if you're working for yourself?
I don't think that the said drugs would greatly help in any of those areas
Perhaps you should try them before you start expressing an opinion. There is a great deal of diversity in mental function and perhaps these drugs have exactly the effect you describe for people who function differently than you (or maybe even for you).
As for slave labor for yourself: it still is. Peer pressurized slave labor is still slave labor
Not only is this factually incorrect, it is offensive to those suffering in real, actual slavery.
This the same reasoning that objects to the use of the term "wage slavery"
Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison stated that the use of the term "wage slavery" (in a time when chattel slavery was still common) was an "abuse of language."[25] Most abolitionists believed that wage workers were "neither wronged nor oppressed".[26] Former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass described his elation when he took a paying job, declaring that "Now I am my own master." According to Douglass, wage labor did not represent oppression but fair exchange and former slaves for the first time receiving the fruits of their labor
Well, students in school are in real, actual slavery (they realistically can't quit or change school) AND they are often sleep-deprived. Meaning things are not good.
For wage workers it's less obvious but everything which pushes you for continuous putting of more than 40hr/week without correspondingly large financial gain should be discouraged.
That number - 40hr/week - is there for a reason.
Well, students in school are in real, actual slavery (they realistically can't quit or change school)
You are seriously saying that people in educational facilities are slaves? I'm unsure if you are trolling or just trying to justify your statements beyond logical limits.
Slavery: the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune.
Your definition implies that one can't be a slave to a group of people; but in history (e.g. rome) there always were government slaves.
Education is not much different. Children are underage and can't know what's good for them, so we step in and tell them.
But if we tell them to sleep less, work more and take some pills for that, it should be a crime.
So, through Teetotalism, you're able to enter the "mild mental conditions" corresponding to the use of substances that do things like flood your brain with dopamine?
You sure about that? Your stance sounds like it's just based on a self-aggrandizing platform with no experience with said substances.
Lulz at the history major needing adderal/Ritalin to write papers/gpa. Most likely he was procrastinating all night too, and using the drugs as a crutch to be coherent at 3 in the morning. Many people have survived ochem/thermo/analysis without anything other than coffee, you just have to be _interested_ in the subject.
It's quite clear not a lot of the posters in this thread have actually used these illegal substances. Which is understandable, as those who have would be reticent to come out.
I'll come out and say that although I haven't used amphetamines (though I know the story of Erdos as well as the military using it), I have been prescribed valium for anxiety issues. It's helped with random things in life like striking up conversations with completely random women at bars by reducing the anxiety felt in a situation.
Anecdotally I know in the SF startup scene, amphetamines are used quite a bit. Amphetamines (of which adderall is one) are basically a better version of caffeine. It allows you to stay up three or four days perfectly lucid (unlike the stress response from caffeine from increasing cortisol levels in your bloodstream), and you also get a mental speedup (quite literally, the clock speed of your brain is increased)
Anyways, I really hope they legalize this stuff someday hah! I'd be a lot more productive, especially with reading the laundry list of books on my reading list...
It's quite clear not a lot of the posters in this thread have actually used these illegal substances.
I've used numerous illegal substances, including various stimulants. I also used to experiment with nootropics back in the '80s; occasionally I run into one of my own USENET posts from then. :)
Anyone curious about these things really needs to a) know themselves, and b) know some neuropharmacolgy. It helps if you know a doctor who will answer questions about potential drugs and nutrients.
People should be comfortable hacking their wetware. The current laws and social taboos make this hard, but not impossible. Know the risks and make informed decisions.
Which is understandable, as those who have would be reticent to come out.
I talk about it because I'm tired of a world where it's apparently OK to get shit-faced on alcohol but not toke a blunt or get some focus from amphetamines so you can do something useful.
I can pump my body full of sugar, starch, and fatty foods, but not smoke high-grade smack? Because the latter is, what, dangerous?
People need to speak up and speak from experience to help counter the scare stories from the likes of the DEA.
> [Amphetamine] allows you to stay up three or four days perfectly lucid
Nope. No known stimulants negate the need for sleep, nor do amphetamines significantly “increase your clock speed” (certainly not by the amount necessary to counteract sleep deprivation even before the end of your second day).
By the end of day three, you'll suffer from increasingly severe effects of sleep deprivation including but not limited to: cognitive dysfunction, paranoia, and hallucinations (probably auditory at first), plus of course the compulsive behaviour induced by most stimulants.
>> [Amphetamine] allows you to stay up three or four days perfectly lucid
> Nope. No known stimulants negate the need for sleep
Technically true, but there is a whole class of non-stimulant drugs that do approach this level, without the weird, "amped" feeling of stimulant. Provigil (modafinil) is the best known of these.
Eg: Another study of fighter pilots showed that modafinil given in three divided 100 mg doses sustained the flight control accuracy of sleep-deprived F-117 pilots to within about 27 percent of baseline levels for 37 hours, without any considerable side effects.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil
That's correct, I used “stimulants” in the narrow sense and should have been clearer.
I don't have much information on modafinil or other substances in its class so I can't speak to it except to say that the early studies seem promising (I say this as someone who really, really hates the waste of time that is a good night's sleep) despite some reported side-effects.
I would certainly like to see more studies, as well as further information about sustainability. That is, it's great if it really does let you work reasonably well for 3-4 days (within 30% for < 2 days isn't really conclusive), but even then there's the question of what happens after. I doubt you'd just be able to sleep 8 hours and get right back on track.
But this all reads like a generation of kids amped on semilegal stimulants and nothing else. Is that really "neuroenhancing"?