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I take modafinil and I find it very useful. Modafinil is an essential tool in the arsenal of any active start-upper. Get it. If you are anything like me you wi

I take modafinil and I find it very useful. Modafinil is an essential tool in the arsenal of any active start-upper. Get it. If you are anything like me you will wonder how you got by without it, and I am not kidding.

staunch 17y ago
Not that it makes you one, but just so you know: all drug addicts can't imagine how they got by, or would want to get by, without their drug of choice.
- sailormoon 17y ago
  I do not think this is true at all. I've been addicted to drugs before (cigarettes) and I certainly was not happy with that. And I've flirted with alcohol addiction too. Again, that was hardly a positive situation I was comfortable with continuing. I've known others, too, addicted to stronger things. A friend of mine battled a speed addiction for a year. He could very much imagine getting by without it - in fact he quite desperately wanted to, he just couldn't. I would presume the same is true for many, if not most, addicts of heroin. Anyway, my understanding is that modafinil is not a drug of physiological addiction. It's a tool that one uses to overcome certain physical limitations, if and only if that is required. Think of it as a headache pill, but for tiredness. Certainly that is how I and everyone else I know who uses it views it.
radu_floricica 17y ago
That's actually the best argument for the continued illegality of any enhancing drugs. Drugs _have_ side effects, and creating a situation in which people are compelled to take them ensures that at least some will suffer the consequences.
- sailormoon 17y ago
  Your point is logically sound, but you're judging the (possible) consequences to the few as of inherently higher importance than the benefit to the many. You could say very much the same thing about alcohol - some people just can't handle it and should probably not be allowed to drink it, but you can't deny it to everyone else just because of that. Or we don't, anyway, with alcohol, for historical reasons.
  - radu_floricica 17y ago
    I actually support broader legalization, but this doesn't take anything from the argument. And with alcohol it's a different situation - it's not that "some can't handle it", it's that "some feel compelled to use it". A closer situation would be when a non-smoker feels left out from the social life at the company and actually can't advance his career because he's not part of the smoke breaks. Sounds ridiculous, but people have started smoking for exactly this reason, and some/most of them have worse health because of it. Now this is relatively indirect, but compare it with a situation when everybody at a company is easily able to pull 20 hour days in the week before launching a product. Even if you feel you don't really want to use drugs, can you?

staunch 17y ago

Not that it makes you one, but just so you know: all drug addicts can't imagine how they got by, or would want to get by, without their drug of choice.

sailormoon 17y ago
I do not think this is true at all. I've been addicted to drugs before (cigarettes) and I certainly was not happy with that. And I've flirted with alcohol addiction too. Again, that was hardly a positive situation I was comfortable with continuing. I've known others, too, addicted to stronger things. A friend of mine battled a speed addiction for a year. He could very much imagine getting by without it - in fact he quite desperately wanted to, he just couldn't. I would presume the same is true for many, if not most, addicts of heroin. Anyway, my understanding is that modafinil is not a drug of physiological addiction. It's a tool that one uses to overcome certain physical limitations, if and only if that is required. Think of it as a headache pill, but for tiredness. Certainly that is how I and everyone else I know who uses it views it.

radu_floricica 17y ago

That's actually the best argument for the continued illegality of any enhancing drugs. Drugs _have_ side effects, and creating a situation in which people are compelled to take them ensures that at least some will suffer the consequences.

sailormoon 17y ago
Your point is logically sound, but you're judging the (possible) consequences to the few as of inherently higher importance than the benefit to the many. You could say very much the same thing about alcohol - some people just can't handle it and should probably not be allowed to drink it, but you can't deny it to everyone else just because of that. Or we don't, anyway, with alcohol, for historical reasons.
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  I actually support broader legalization, but this doesn't take anything from the argument. And with alcohol it's a different situation - it's not that "some can't handle it", it's that "some feel compelled to use it". A closer situation would be when a non-smoker feels left out from the social life at the company and actually can't advance his career because he's not part of the smoke breaks. Sounds ridiculous, but people have started smoking for exactly this reason, and some/most of them have worse health because of it. Now this is relatively indirect, but compare it with a situation when everybody at a company is easily able to pull 20 hour days in the week before launching a product. Even if you feel you don't really want to use drugs, can you?