4 ms·

What I find most astonishing is that people administer 'smart' drugs without having the slightest clue to their long-term side effects. You discount long-term r

What I find most astonishing is that people administer 'smart' drugs without having the slightest clue to their long-term side effects. You discount long-term risks in favor of short-term gains. We humans simply don't understand much of what goes on in the brain - I wouldn't believe there is anything to be done to your brain, like enhancing cognitive abilities through drugs, without unintended consequences.

AngryParsley 16y ago
...long-term side effects. Modafinil has been around since the 70's. So far, no studies have found issues with long-term use. Actually, some studies found it to have a neuroprotective effect. I wouldn't believe there is anything to be done to your brain, like enhancing cognitive abilities through drugs, without unintended consequences. The environment we evolved in is quite different from the environment we now live in. Humans used to have much more limited supplies of food and nutrients. Our bodies are built for famine resistance instead of maximum performance. There's probably a similar trade-off in our brain functions, since the brain is a pretty big energy hog (responsible for around 25% of calories burned). We can use drugs to tweak the trade-offs made by evolution. We don't have to worry about food and nutrients today. Stimulants can decrease appetite and need for sleep, both of which would be disastrous in a food-limited environment. Even the effect of stimulants we find beneficial (spending hours in concentrated thought) would likely be harmful on the African savannah. The precautionary principle is too often applied in the case of enhancement. We don't completely understand the brain yet, but we do have some idea of how it works, and today there are safe effective drugs that improve cognitive abilities.
- rsheridan6 16y ago
  >So far, no studies have found issues with long-term use. Most likely translation: there have been no long-term studies of modafinil. A quick search doesn't turn any up.
- narrator 16y ago
  wouldn't believe there is anything to be done to your brain, like enhancing cognitive abilities through drugs, without unintended consequences. Although there are many illegal drugs that have negative consequences, the practice of applying this as a naive general law of medicine is largely a result of many years of this idea, or ideas similar to it, being drilled into us by the war on drugs propaganda machine. Each substance must be evaluated on a case by case basis and if people have been taking certain drugs for 30 years with no deleterious effect, the evidence is certainly in favor of long term safety, or even * gasp * benefit. There are other beliefs similar to this, such as any radio signal emitting device causes cancer, that have silently entered the culture as fact without much science to support them.
deleted 16y ago
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AngryParsley 16y ago

...long-term side effects. Modafinil has been around since the 70's. So far, no studies have found issues with long-term use. Actually, some studies found it to have a neuroprotective effect. I wouldn't believe there is anything to be done to your brain, like enhancing cognitive abilities through drugs, without unintended consequences. The environment we evolved in is quite different from the environment we now live in. Humans used to have much more limited supplies of food and nutrients. Our bodies are built for famine resistance instead of maximum performance. There's probably a similar trade-off in our brain functions, since the brain is a pretty big energy hog (responsible for around 25% of calories burned). We can use drugs to tweak the trade-offs made by evolution. We don't have to worry about food and nutrients today. Stimulants can decrease appetite and need for sleep, both of which would be disastrous in a food-limited environment. Even the effect of stimulants we find beneficial (spending hours in concentrated thought) would likely be harmful on the African savannah. The precautionary principle is too often applied in the case of enhancement. We don't completely understand the brain yet, but we do have some idea of how it works, and today there are safe effective drugs that improve cognitive abilities.

rsheridan6 16y ago
>So far, no studies have found issues with long-term use. Most likely translation: there have been no long-term studies of modafinil. A quick search doesn't turn any up.
narrator 16y ago
wouldn't believe there is anything to be done to your brain, like enhancing cognitive abilities through drugs, without unintended consequences. Although there are many illegal drugs that have negative consequences, the practice of applying this as a naive general law of medicine is largely a result of many years of this idea, or ideas similar to it, being drilled into us by the war on drugs propaganda machine. Each substance must be evaluated on a case by case basis and if people have been taking certain drugs for 30 years with no deleterious effect, the evidence is certainly in favor of long term safety, or even * gasp * benefit. There are other beliefs similar to this, such as any radio signal emitting device causes cancer, that have silently entered the culture as fact without much science to support them.

deleted 16y ago

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