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So you're telling me you alter your biochemistry to become more productive without a care for how it affects your overall (mostly mental) health? Hell, I starte

So you're telling me you alter your biochemistry to become more productive without a care for how it affects your overall (mostly mental) health? Hell, I started smoking cigarettes at 16, which I rank near the top of my worst decisions ever, despite the fact that it helped me hack my brain chemistry as I powered through numerous difficult math and CS classes with top scores. As a result, I spent years thrashing, kicking the insane habit and returning to baseline healthiness. To me, the entire idea of performance-enhancing chemicals is the essence of Moloch (http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/) - the supposed optimization that we choose to "gain an edge" and end up worse off than if everyone had just been a bit more cynical and abstained. To what ends? Eventually this kind of thing ends up costing you $50 a month and keeping you on par with everyone else in the office (who also happen to brain-chemistry-hack), side-effects be damned. Luckily, I can fall back on my experience and relative skill at programming. Many cannot - as a late-aughts college student and "yuppie", I saw "the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness" induced by incessant Adderall use in a futile attempt to either "keep up" or "get ahead". To what ends? Some sped their way through upper-levels or toiled through back-breaking entry level jobs only to develop near psychosis, emotional numbness, apathy, and a resume piece that I too gained with considerably less strife. Don't get me wrong, I drink a cup of coffee (or two) in the mornings to get going, but it's usually an break from my workday, not an essential part of it. More than that, it's enjoyable - added focus and clarity be damned. Silly as it may sound, I've even seen coffee become a problem for the hopelessly driven and chronically sleep-deprived - reducing them to diarrhea-ridden, jittery maniacs! Maybe the TL;DR here is: sleep more, bike hard, and have some fun struggling instead of constantly grinding for carrots on sticks. It is true, after all, that many people (men, in particular) say their greatest regret was working so hard - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-fiv...

bambax 10y ago
Very well said, this should be at the top of the thread!! ;-)
princeb 10y ago
> that many people (men, in particular) say their greatest regret was working so hard i think many people also regret not working harder.
- danneu 10y ago
  Also, "working hard" is pretty meaningless without context, especially if we're going to talk about regretting it. For example, carving out some time at night for your side projects that might pay your rent one day vs. staying longer at work to get a leg up on imminent deadlines that were too aggressive vs. working hard to be Employee of the Month vs. working hard to learn programming.
- hasbroslasher 10y ago
  It's great you think that, but the data I've seen nearly always says the opposite.
Lynolix 10y ago
It's a trade-off between risk vs. reward. Whatever constitutes risk and reward is with respect to one's own morality.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>incessant Adderall use in a futile attempt to either "keep up" or "get ahead". To what ends? So you can get to Wall Street or Silicon Valley and take even more Adderall to "get ahead", obviously.
zodiac 10y ago
> So you're telling me you alter your biochemistry to become more productive without a care for how it affects your overall (mostly mental) health? This is quite disingenuous, he specifically searches for nootropics with few side effects
orangecat 10y ago
To me, the entire idea of performance-enhancing chemicals is the essence of Moloch Moloch specifically refers to zero-sum games. Intelligence enhancement is not that; if everyone in the world gained 10 IQ points we would almost certainly be far better off. To what ends? Curing cancer and Alzheimer's, getting self-driving cars on the road by 2025 instead of 2030, colonizing Mars, figuring out how to fix our diets without requiring infinite willpower, etc, etc.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  you need only a bit of willpower to fix your own diet, nothing more. many people are unwilling to get into any form of unpleasant state (ie abstaining from sweet stuff, workouts etc), they are 'too soft' and avoid hardships. that's all. and none of what you mentioned could be magically achieved by one person popping a pill to gain some short term effect, and probably lose something in longer run. feel free to experiment on yourself, just please don't force anyhow this pitiful activity on others.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    The vast majority of diets fail in the long run. Fat people forced to lose weight develop the symptoms of starving people and obsess about food, and always quickly return to their previous weights after release. During diets their metabolisms slow down to keep them at the same body weight despite the decreased calories.
    - saiya-jin 10y ago
      that's because people are 'lazy' - they don't want to do the hard work, rather they spend significant amount of time, energy and cash to chase pure dietary solutions. they expect that some 30-day dietary course will change their life, especially when right after they go back to their old eating habits. obviously, it doesn't work, ever. so they try another diet and so on... I believe massive changes in life can be done just by permanently altering diet, but best, fastest and most durable results are in combination of diet and exercise. proper workout stimulates metabolism, makes people more happy and the feeling of strength and endurance coming from your own body is just priceless. oh and it prolongs life too on top of adding massive quality to it. did I laid out a massive change in somebody's life? yes. so what? great rewards come after great hardships, naturally. but many people will keep throwing money at their problems, refusing to change, instead of pouring sweat for free and keep wondering why it doesn't work.
hx87 10y ago
> Eventually this kind of thing ends up costing you $50 a month and keeping you on par with everyone else in the office (who also happen to brain-chemistry-hack) If it makes the entire office more productive, wouldn't that be positive-sum, not zero-sum?
- hasbroslasher 10y ago
  No, your own health, sanity and money are costs in the equation. And let's be honest: it's highly improbable that your work is doing anything for the good of humanity. In fact, it's actually very likely that your work (or some constituent part of it) carries negative environmental externalities, e.g. it's bad to do, even worse to do more of. My work certainly isn't essential to the arc of history. So what good is my productivity, especially at these costs?
greenshackle 10y ago
> So you're telling me you alter your biochemistry to become more productive without a care for how it affects your overall (mostly mental) health? Uh? Did you read Gwern? This is literally the opposite of what he does. He is ALL ABOUT weighing risks to overall health. Did you miss the fact that half of his articles detail the potential bad effects of the drugs he's trying? >Hell, I started smoking cigarettes at 16, which I rank near the top of my worst decisions ever, despite the fact that it helped me hack my brain chemistry He has an article on non-tobacco nicotine (nicotine gum, patches). His conclusions are, IIRC, 'kinda useful, but has some risks'. He doesn't have a page on cigarettes. You know why? Because cigarettes are THE WORSE. Everyone knows this. It's silly to write off all performance enhancing drugs on the grounds that you once made the bad decision to use possibly the very worse one, from a risk/benefit perspective." I grant you that brain chemistry hacking may be one step towards em-world, which is as Moloch as it gets, but if you're working on important problems it the edge may be worth it.
- hasbroslasher 10y ago
  Fair point. My point wasn't "hur hur cigs are bad ergo caffeine is bad" - rather that there are costs and benefits to everything (adderall, cigs, coffee, probably this modafinil shit) and that I don't think the benefits to being able to work around the close really exceed the costs, especially on a personal level. Like I said, becoming a diarrhea-ridden coffee maniac isn't a great fate either, especially when a good night of sleep solves the same problem. It sounds like we agree there.

bambax 10y ago

Very well said, this should be at the top of the thread!! ;-)

princeb 10y ago

> that many people (men, in particular) say their greatest regret was working so hard i think many people also regret not working harder.

danneu 10y ago
Also, "working hard" is pretty meaningless without context, especially if we're going to talk about regretting it. For example, carving out some time at night for your side projects that might pay your rent one day vs. staying longer at work to get a leg up on imminent deadlines that were too aggressive vs. working hard to be Employee of the Month vs. working hard to learn programming.
hasbroslasher 10y ago
It's great you think that, but the data I've seen nearly always says the opposite.

Lynolix 10y ago

It's a trade-off between risk vs. reward. Whatever constitutes risk and reward is with respect to one's own morality.

forgetsusername 10y ago

>incessant Adderall use in a futile attempt to either "keep up" or "get ahead". To what ends? So you can get to Wall Street or Silicon Valley and take even more Adderall to "get ahead", obviously.

zodiac 10y ago

> So you're telling me you alter your biochemistry to become more productive without a care for how it affects your overall (mostly mental) health? This is quite disingenuous, he specifically searches for nootropics with few side effects

orangecat 10y ago

To me, the entire idea of performance-enhancing chemicals is the essence of Moloch Moloch specifically refers to zero-sum games. Intelligence enhancement is not that; if everyone in the world gained 10 IQ points we would almost certainly be far better off. To what ends? Curing cancer and Alzheimer's, getting self-driving cars on the road by 2025 instead of 2030, colonizing Mars, figuring out how to fix our diets without requiring infinite willpower, etc, etc.

saiya-jin 10y ago
you need only a bit of willpower to fix your own diet, nothing more. many people are unwilling to get into any form of unpleasant state (ie abstaining from sweet stuff, workouts etc), they are 'too soft' and avoid hardships. that's all. and none of what you mentioned could be magically achieved by one person popping a pill to gain some short term effect, and probably lose something in longer run. feel free to experiment on yourself, just please don't force anyhow this pitiful activity on others.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  The vast majority of diets fail in the long run. Fat people forced to lose weight develop the symptoms of starving people and obsess about food, and always quickly return to their previous weights after release. During diets their metabolisms slow down to keep them at the same body weight despite the decreased calories.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    that's because people are 'lazy' - they don't want to do the hard work, rather they spend significant amount of time, energy and cash to chase pure dietary solutions. they expect that some 30-day dietary course will change their life, especially when right after they go back to their old eating habits. obviously, it doesn't work, ever. so they try another diet and so on... I believe massive changes in life can be done just by permanently altering diet, but best, fastest and most durable results are in combination of diet and exercise. proper workout stimulates metabolism, makes people more happy and the feeling of strength and endurance coming from your own body is just priceless. oh and it prolongs life too on top of adding massive quality to it. did I laid out a massive change in somebody's life? yes. so what? great rewards come after great hardships, naturally. but many people will keep throwing money at their problems, refusing to change, instead of pouring sweat for free and keep wondering why it doesn't work.

hx87 10y ago

> Eventually this kind of thing ends up costing you $50 a month and keeping you on par with everyone else in the office (who also happen to brain-chemistry-hack) If it makes the entire office more productive, wouldn't that be positive-sum, not zero-sum?

hasbroslasher 10y ago
No, your own health, sanity and money are costs in the equation. And let's be honest: it's highly improbable that your work is doing anything for the good of humanity. In fact, it's actually very likely that your work (or some constituent part of it) carries negative environmental externalities, e.g. it's bad to do, even worse to do more of. My work certainly isn't essential to the arc of history. So what good is my productivity, especially at these costs?

greenshackle 10y ago

> So you're telling me you alter your biochemistry to become more productive without a care for how it affects your overall (mostly mental) health? Uh? Did you read Gwern? This is literally the opposite of what he does. He is ALL ABOUT weighing risks to overall health. Did you miss the fact that half of his articles detail the potential bad effects of the drugs he's trying? >Hell, I started smoking cigarettes at 16, which I rank near the top of my worst decisions ever, despite the fact that it helped me hack my brain chemistry He has an article on non-tobacco nicotine (nicotine gum, patches). His conclusions are, IIRC, 'kinda useful, but has some risks'. He doesn't have a page on cigarettes. You know why? Because cigarettes are THE WORSE. Everyone knows this. It's silly to write off all performance enhancing drugs on the grounds that you once made the bad decision to use possibly the very worse one, from a risk/benefit perspective." I grant you that brain chemistry hacking may be one step towards em-world, which is as Moloch as it gets, but if you're working on important problems it the edge may be worth it.

hasbroslasher 10y ago
Fair point. My point wasn't "hur hur cigs are bad ergo caffeine is bad" - rather that there are costs and benefits to everything (adderall, cigs, coffee, probably this modafinil shit) and that I don't think the benefits to being able to work around the close really exceed the costs, especially on a personal level. Like I said, becoming a diarrhea-ridden coffee maniac isn't a great fate either, especially when a good night of sleep solves the same problem. It sounds like we agree there.