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Let's set aside the obvious, that it probably has a lot of downsides and doesn't work well (like shrinking testicles and heart problems from steroids). Our soc

Let's set aside the obvious, that it probably has a lot of downsides and doesn't work well (like shrinking testicles and heart problems from steroids). Our society has a real discomfort with "improving" "healthy" people. We make a clear, but somewhat artificial distinction between healthy and diseased, and the diseased people can get recognition and treatment but the healthy ones cannot. That's why there is often a battle to have certain things recognized as a medical condition. For example if you have trouble focussing, you might be considered lazy, but if you get a ADHD diagnosis people will be more accomodating (and you can legally take amphetamins!). I was never especially athletic. I would love to workout more, but find it really hard to make time for it between work and family. And found that many people in my social circle or at the gym don't encourage me but make me feel like I don't belong there. But if I had a "real" recognized medical condition that required physiotherapy, I would get time off work and would get the gym paid (in my country), and most important people would support me. But if you are "healthy enough" and just want to improve yourself, you are on your own. I would love to have a world where everybody can strive to improve themselves - become more healthy, strong, beautiful, smart, and so on - and where you would get the resources and the support needed to do so.

qwerty456127 5y ago
I agree to you 1000% :-) and share your concern. I have always had severe ADHD (never diagnosed officially, also this doesn't give you legal amphetamines or any other benefits outside the US, nor does it convince people - people mostly say "in the US they drug kids to treat a condition that doesn't even exist", even though the condition actually is recognized officially), low muscles, and no free time/willpower for working out regularly. I am a BLTC proponent too. Nevertheless, I speculate the probable downside of "a world where everybody can strive to improve themselves" is competition going even higher. If taking all kinds of meds this way would become a norm everyone would probably have to just to keep up with the new baseline. This (together with many ability-augmenting meds having adverse effects) supposedly is the logic backing the war on doping in professional sports. But I think there is no point in caring about anything (like adverse effects, society's judgement) other than boosting your life quality by all means physically (and chemically) possible when you are old. And it seems logical to me to start in advance because doing so will probably give more effect, giving chance to actually prevent the decline instead of just helping to cope with it.
quantum_magpie 5y ago
An excellent goal! I too hope that it will be possible to experiment and improve the performance of a human with tested, verified substances, known concentrations of active agents in them by legal means. As it stands now, in my country in EU, not only it's impossible to legally take amphetamines for ADHD (only Concerta is allowed for children), it's actually forbidden to diagnose it in adults. So here I am, sitting with my 8/9 DSM-5 symptoms in inattention and the only thing I can do about it is go find a meth dealer!
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  You probably don't need meth. I once tried meth out of panic when I had an overwhelming pile of work and really too little time to do it (I had to design and develop a comparably serious app from scratch alone in a week to production + do a lot of accounting-related paperwork). It helped great and I had no problem quitting (but it felt a way making me sure most of the people will so I strongly recommend to stay away from it). I tried amphetamine in about a month and it had almost no effect so I concluded the medicine I would have to be taking if legally could is Desoxyn. A couple of years passed, my brain chemistry recovered from the damage (tolerance in particular) meth does and now a minuscule speck of black market amphetamine dissolved in the morning tea is enough for amazing, satisfying full-day productivity and happiness. And it is many orders of magnitude less harmful than meth is. Don't take meth. Also don't take amphetamine if you can. An alternative I actually use when I really need productivity is simple nicotine in form of a vape - it's not nearly as good but also helps significantly (if you only use it a couple of months a year). But I still recommend everyone to avoid starting with nicotine either.
  - quantum_magpie 5y ago
    Just to clarify, I'm not going to look up drug dealers and risk a charge forbidding any future international travel, etc. Also, if I would, it wouldn't be in the 'get high' dosage -- 20 mg for amphetamines, 10 mg for meth, typical dosage in ADHD medication would be the ceiling. Basically, legalizing them would allow me actual therapeutic experimentation. I used to smoke 10 years ago, so going back to nicotine in this case is a big nono. :)

qwerty456127 5y ago

I agree to you 1000% :-) and share your concern. I have always had severe ADHD (never diagnosed officially, also this doesn't give you legal amphetamines or any other benefits outside the US, nor does it convince people - people mostly say "in the US they drug kids to treat a condition that doesn't even exist", even though the condition actually is recognized officially), low muscles, and no free time/willpower for working out regularly. I am a BLTC proponent too. Nevertheless, I speculate the probable downside of "a world where everybody can strive to improve themselves" is competition going even higher. If taking all kinds of meds this way would become a norm everyone would probably have to just to keep up with the new baseline. This (together with many ability-augmenting meds having adverse effects) supposedly is the logic backing the war on doping in professional sports. But I think there is no point in caring about anything (like adverse effects, society's judgement) other than boosting your life quality by all means physically (and chemically) possible when you are old. And it seems logical to me to start in advance because doing so will probably give more effect, giving chance to actually prevent the decline instead of just helping to cope with it.

quantum_magpie 5y ago

An excellent goal! I too hope that it will be possible to experiment and improve the performance of a human with tested, verified substances, known concentrations of active agents in them by legal means. As it stands now, in my country in EU, not only it's impossible to legally take amphetamines for ADHD (only Concerta is allowed for children), it's actually forbidden to diagnose it in adults. So here I am, sitting with my 8/9 DSM-5 symptoms in inattention and the only thing I can do about it is go find a meth dealer!

qwerty456127 5y ago
You probably don't need meth. I once tried meth out of panic when I had an overwhelming pile of work and really too little time to do it (I had to design and develop a comparably serious app from scratch alone in a week to production + do a lot of accounting-related paperwork). It helped great and I had no problem quitting (but it felt a way making me sure most of the people will so I strongly recommend to stay away from it). I tried amphetamine in about a month and it had almost no effect so I concluded the medicine I would have to be taking if legally could is Desoxyn. A couple of years passed, my brain chemistry recovered from the damage (tolerance in particular) meth does and now a minuscule speck of black market amphetamine dissolved in the morning tea is enough for amazing, satisfying full-day productivity and happiness. And it is many orders of magnitude less harmful than meth is. Don't take meth. Also don't take amphetamine if you can. An alternative I actually use when I really need productivity is simple nicotine in form of a vape - it's not nearly as good but also helps significantly (if you only use it a couple of months a year). But I still recommend everyone to avoid starting with nicotine either.
- quantum_magpie 5y ago
  Just to clarify, I'm not going to look up drug dealers and risk a charge forbidding any future international travel, etc. Also, if I would, it wouldn't be in the 'get high' dosage -- 20 mg for amphetamines, 10 mg for meth, typical dosage in ADHD medication would be the ceiling. Basically, legalizing them would allow me actual therapeutic experimentation. I used to smoke 10 years ago, so going back to nicotine in this case is a big nono. :)