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Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right?
- JulianMorrison 19y agoOf course it isn't. What a silly idea. Enhancement is always good, that's why it's enhancement and not harm.
- kirubakaran 19y agoDude your profile is interesting. I have similar interests and similar singularitarian ideas :-)
- aflag 19y agoAcademia is different from sports. Despite what many people may think, academia and science are not a game. Your goal is not to be better than someone, but to do good research. If you feel the need to take drugs and you're willing to take its risks, then by all means do. It's not cheating. Now, requiring people to use substances that might be bad for them is not a good idea. People have to have the freedom to choose if they will take those substances or not. Neither should be mandatory. The reason for this is that we want people to be able to make their own decisions and do whatever pleases them the most; may it be using drugs or not.
- daniel-cussen 19y agoGood point. Academia is not a zero-sum game.
- Alex3917 19y agoKnowledge is not a zero-sum game. Academia, not so much.
- daniel-cussen 19y agoVery true. That's a lot more accurate.
- iamwil 19y agoIt is if there are limited spots for an academic position, papers a journal can publish, etc.
- dhimes 19y agoAcademia is extremely competitive at the professional level,as are many pursuits. That's why many many researchers cheat, and it's so scandalous when they are caught. Think about this: you lose out on a job opportunity to someone who forged their data or perhaps used stimulants to work at an unnatural pace over a certain period of time. This changes your career in a dramatic way. When that person is caught, what is your compensation? Yes, he (she) was exposed but you were wronged. What would be fair compensation?
- amichail 19y agoI disagree with this distinction that it's cheating with sports but not academia. I think what matters is whether there's a health cost to these drugs and if so how much. If a drug is quite safe, then it should be allowed -- no matter whether we are talking about sports or academia.
- cstejerean 19y agoSports are for the entertainment for those watching. The consensus seems to be that the spectators enjoy it more when they know the athletes didn't use any performance enhancing drugs. Academic research is not done for entertainment, it directly benefits society and mankind in general. If someone wants to risk their health to find a cure for cancer faster, more power to them.
- amichail 19y agoSpectators like to see new world records.
- JulianMorrison 19y agoI would be happy and interested to watch a sporting competition in which enhanced humans could compete. Yes, this would change the focus to "who has the best toys" - but how is this any different from "who was born with the best genes"? To my mind, the element of randomness makes heredity less fair. A striver might be able to get sponsorship for a course of enhancements, but he can't change his birth.
- noonespecial 19y agoNascar racing is a sport in which enhanced humans compete at superhuman speeds. They wear specially developed exoskeletons on the field knows as cars. Its great fun to watch, and a complex set of rules has developed over the years as to which enhancements are allowed and how much.
- mrtron 19y agoI would be happy if you could find a sporting competition where humans are not enhanced currently. There are many known tricks such as blood doping that are almost impossible to prevent, and once a few people start doing it everyone must to remain competitive. A huge number of potential athletes take steroids in high school, before testing begins. I personally think that we should take care to ban these drugs and practices to people who are still developing mentally and physically, but adults should be allowed to make their own decisions. If Stallone wants to eat barrels of HGH to get huge for Rambo, he should be (legally) allowed.
- jamesbritt 19y ago"Despite what many people may think, academia and science are not a game. " Wait; all that over/under stuff on the Fields Medal betting is a scam? Damn.
- mhartl 19y agoIt's worth noting that caffeine, in proper doses, enhances both physical and mental performance. So be careful of the slippery slope: slide far enough down and you'll kill your cappuccino.
- anewaccountname 19y agoI've heard food can have the similar effects, let's ban that too.
- delackner 19y agoActually if you read the literature on Provigil, it is much safer than caffeine in two vital ways. It is not a stimulant, whereas caffeine is, like amphetamines. It very specifically and directly affects the brain's chemistry. It is also not addictive, whereas many a coffee-fiend greets the morning, lunch, afternoon, and night with coffee, and woe to he who gets in their way. The only reason caffeine, and alcohol, and tobacco are viewed differently from MUCH safer drugs is that some people subscribe to illogical belief systems that differentiate between 'old' drugs and 'new' drugs, regardless of the fact that many of the drugs they hate are just as old as the ones they love.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- wallflower 19y agoReminds that marijuana is classified as a performance-enhancing drug by many national (NBA) and multi-national sport governing boards
- robg 19y agoI once had a Carribean taxi driver tell me that marijuana is the only drug (there are some he probably hasn't tried) that you don't have to process or change in any way. You can ingest it directly from the ground for the same effects. Try that with caffeine, chocolate, tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, etc. And of course, the psychotropics that "enhance" takes that processing to a whole new level.
- kingnothing 19y agoHeroin is processed opium. Opium comes from poppy seeds, and the processing for that is minimal. Cocaine is made from the coca plant; the leaves of which can be chewed raw for a similar, but markedly weaker, effect. I doubt tobacco has to be processed to be smoked. Psilocybin mushrooms require no processing. Peyote requires no processing. Alcohol be found naturally from rotting, fermented fruit fallen from trees. There's a video on Youtube of animals getting drunk from eating it. I'm sure there are several other plants that will get you high that I'm unaware of. Just thought I'd throw a little knowledge out there for anyone who might be interested.
- rms 19y agodon't forget about kratom! ;)
- robg 19y agoI didn't say he was right! But it is an interesting observation, to me, because he's mostly right, based on quantities. Good luck collecting enough poppy seeds. Same deal on the coca leaves, but try eating a mouthful. Same deal there on tobacco. The same logic applies to caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol. The drug is extremely weak in it's natural form so it requires a decent amount of work to get something really psychoactive. To him, you can simply pull a marijuana bud off a plant, like an apple from a tree, and eat it for the full effect. That's quite a contrast. Psilocybin and peyote apply but I don't think he's ever had the opportunity, especially since they don't grow like a weed. His point: Nature has done a pretty remarkable job providing for our physical and mental health. Why muck with that?
- tptacek 19y agoI offer no judgement, but note that if performance-enhancing drugs become the norm in academia and industry, those who opt not to chemically alter (and perhaps harm) themselves are obviously going to be marginalized. That's why steroids are a problem in sports. It's not that kids "look up" to Barry Bonds. It's that they're not stupid, and they quickly realize the only way to succeed is to dope. Staying up all night coding sounds awesome to me. Having 2x focus sounds awesome. When research assures me I'm not going to be clinically depressed for the remainder of my life as a result of medicating, I might even consider taking pills for work. But I'll feel guilty about the future I'm creating for my kids.
- yters 19y agoYes, and a corollary is that this doesn't necessarily mean the non doped can just go live easier lives because the doped are doing so much more work. The same thing has been said about most of technological revolutions, but do people live more leisurely, relaxed lives today because of our advances?
- mhb 19y agoHow is this a corollary? As a result of increased productivity in society, everyone becomes better off. And yes, people today live more leisurely, relaxed lives materially because of increased productivity.
- yters 19y agoHe argued that in academics and sports, increased performance due to chemical abuse will pressure the non abusers to do the same. This is bad if the abuse is bad for the user. I'm echoing the idea that increased production doesn't necessarily entail increased happiness due to second order effects. One scenario: a lot of those WoW players can play so much because their parents have worked very hard. But, they play so much because they don't have good relationships with their parents, since their parents spent so much time working hard. Then there is the issue of whether the level of production is sustainable, and what happens to a society dependent upon such activity if it stops or slows. Also, what kind of class attitudes develop with the societal stratification.
- __ 19y agoDr. Chatterjee: "The way this is likely to be framed is: 'Look, we want smart people to be as productive as possible to make everybody's lives better. We want people performing at the max, and if that means using these medicines, then great, then we should be free to choose what we want as long as we're not harming someone.' I'm not taking that position, but we have this winner-take-all culture and that is the way it is likely to go." Huh? "Winner-take-all culture"? This seems like a moral issue. I suspect that a lot of human suffering -- or at least missed potential -- is due to our cognitive biases and other mental shortcomings. I suspect there are many leaders, inventors, and researchers who would improve the human condition far more if they could think faster, remember better, and get tired less. Fighting against a drug that could unleash this potential energy and save huge numbers of lives seems immoral.
- Electro 19y agoI think the effects must be weighed. Is it wrong for a molecular biologist to take drugs if it means he can invent a cure for cancer in 5 years instead of 20? I believe one person should be allowed to do whatever they want with their body as long as it doesn't negatively effect other people, and in said example he might die younger but he'll have saved around 114 million people from death. We're not talking about handing someone over to some evil aliens or they'll murder 114 million innocents. We're talking about someone saying, "My death will be worth saving 114 million people from an early death." I can't fault someone choosing to do that.
- robg 19y agoI'm surprised no one's said it yet: Who says you're enhanced? As far I know, few studies have shown actual improvement in mental or physical performance without serious side effects. I think even the military, which has studied both amphetamines and steroids, has found that the side effects far outweigh the benefits. As a big baseball fan, I think the current PED controversy is illustrative. Many folks think they're getting a benefit and are willing to go to great lengths for that edge. But it's not clear they're getting anything other than an confidence boost. You wouldn't take the pill if you didn't think it would work or is working. So you keep taking it. I think the same is true of neurocosmetics. It easier to believe they work. Still, I'd rather take a nap than a pill. And I'm more worried about neuroimplants - in fifty years.
- yummyfajitas 19y agoThe Air Force says you are enhanced by amphetamines: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/02/57434 http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/02/57434 (The reporter is a little more skeptical. Then again, the military tend to be big users of statistics, so I expect they have some reason to believe this.)
- robg 19y agoThe fighter pilots I've talked to says it only works in heavy doses for short time periods. That doesn't sound very good to me.
- Tichy 19y agoI always ask myself: if substance X is supposedly so beneficial, why doesn't the body manufacture it by itself? Or just creates the effect the drug is supposed to create to begin with?
- noonespecial 19y agoPerhaps it used to, and is broken now. Putting the chemical back is fixing it, like a diabetic with insulin.
- lutorm 19y agoIf you read that article, you'd think that drugs are the only way to enhancing brain performance... I enhance my brain all the time, but with exercise instead of drugs. The article seems to be based on the premise that unless you take drugs you can't do anything about the performance of your brain, when there's a wealth of research indicating otherwise. Maybe if people didn't have the misconception that intelligence is something fixed and innate, they would actually try to train their brain instead of taking drugs?
- rms 19y agoSurprised no one has mentioned Erdos yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdős http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdős