3 ms·

No drug stays in development for 20 years (AFAIK), so the risk of nasty side-effects after 20 years is there with all newish drugs. And in practice, how often d

by asdflkj 18y ago

No drug stays in development for 20 years (AFAIK), so the risk of nasty side-effects after 20 years is there with all newish drugs. And in practice, how often does that turn out to be a problem? In my understanding, almost never. If you're so risk-averse that this isn't good enough for you, you should feel free not to take them, but insisting that others don't take them crosses over into the territory of "meddlesome".

DenisM 18y ago
You did not read my post, did you? Let me repeat it here for you: [quote] It would totally suck to be forced to take those drugs to remain cometitive, so I hope they will keep those drugs in limited circulation until their safety can be proven beyond doubt. [end of quote] If these drugs are allowed, everyone will have to chose between employment + drugs or drug-abstinence + unemployment. There will be no opt-out. At all.
- asdflkj 18y ago
  Sure there will be opt-out. If drugs double your productivity, then a non-user's salary will be half of a user's salary, and no less than that. That's just basic economics. Which is as it should be. They create double the wealth; they get double the money. Of course this will suck for you, because from your point of view, it will be as if the number of programmers in the world has just vastly increased, creating competition for you and driving down your salary. Presumably just as candle-makers' salaries were driven down by the invention of the light bulb (which could make you blind after 20 years--nobody knew for sure).
  - DenisM 18y ago
    I don't think it works that way. If you sell half as much stuff as others sales agents in the store you will get fired rather than get your salary cut in half. But ok, let's suppose it's true. Let's take this to extreme - suppose that there is a ticking bomb in these drugs and after 20 years of intake one becomes a medical ruin, similar to crystal meth addicts. So you can take the drugs and die in 20 years from now, or you can abstain and live for another 20 years (40 years total). Those who abstain will be priced out of their lives, but most will give up and start taking drugs - let's be real. Nobody knows about it now, so there will be no push-back until 20 years later, and when the time comes everyone will be medically ruined by then (except the youngest kids). And you are really stretching it wrt lighbulbs making people blind - it's not in the same ballpark of likelyhood as drugs ruining people's health.
    - asdflkj 18y ago
      If you sell half as much stuff as others, it means you're costing the store customers, because presumably you approached close to the same number of customers as the other sales agents approached, but more of your customers decided to take their business elsewhere. This not an issue in a programming job. Let's not "take this to the extreme", and instead be realistic. Your "ticking bomb" would be the first in history. Like I said, no drug is tested for 20 years before being released (and approved by FDA), so if there was such a risk, then with the sheer number of new drugs developed, you'd see these disasters left and right. Where are they?
      - rsheridan6 18y ago
        Tobacco.
        asdflkj 18y ago
        Tobacco causes severe side effects which get progressively worse before the "big stuff" kicks in. That's a pretty good cue that you're poisoning yourself. Not so with Provigil.
        rsheridan6 18y ago
        If you want one that sneaks up on you, try fen-phen. No noticeable side effects and then you die of a heart attack. As for modafinil, a quick look doesn't turn up any long-term safety studies (pub med is either down or even slower than usual today, which amounts to the same thing, so I might be missing something), except for one 9-week study. You could smoke for 9 weeks without being affected much. It's not like it's a rare thing for drugs to turn out to be harmful. We'll just have to wait and see. EDIT: given the lack of long-term safety studies, but also the lack of problems with short-term studies, I personally would use modafinil for finals week or a long car trip or something like that but not day-in day-out for years.

by asdflkj 18y ago

DenisM 18y ago

You did not read my post, did you? Let me repeat it here for you: [quote] It would totally suck to be forced to take those drugs to remain cometitive, so I hope they will keep those drugs in limited circulation until their safety can be proven beyond doubt. [end of quote] If these drugs are allowed, everyone will have to chose between employment + drugs or drug-abstinence + unemployment. There will be no opt-out. At all.

asdflkj 18y ago
Sure there will be opt-out. If drugs double your productivity, then a non-user's salary will be half of a user's salary, and no less than that. That's just basic economics. Which is as it should be. They create double the wealth; they get double the money. Of course this will suck for you, because from your point of view, it will be as if the number of programmers in the world has just vastly increased, creating competition for you and driving down your salary. Presumably just as candle-makers' salaries were driven down by the invention of the light bulb (which could make you blind after 20 years--nobody knew for sure).
- DenisM 18y ago
  I don't think it works that way. If you sell half as much stuff as others sales agents in the store you will get fired rather than get your salary cut in half. But ok, let's suppose it's true. Let's take this to extreme - suppose that there is a ticking bomb in these drugs and after 20 years of intake one becomes a medical ruin, similar to crystal meth addicts. So you can take the drugs and die in 20 years from now, or you can abstain and live for another 20 years (40 years total). Those who abstain will be priced out of their lives, but most will give up and start taking drugs - let's be real. Nobody knows about it now, so there will be no push-back until 20 years later, and when the time comes everyone will be medically ruined by then (except the youngest kids). And you are really stretching it wrt lighbulbs making people blind - it's not in the same ballpark of likelyhood as drugs ruining people's health.
  - asdflkj 18y ago
    If you sell half as much stuff as others, it means you're costing the store customers, because presumably you approached close to the same number of customers as the other sales agents approached, but more of your customers decided to take their business elsewhere. This not an issue in a programming job. Let's not "take this to the extreme", and instead be realistic. Your "ticking bomb" would be the first in history. Like I said, no drug is tested for 20 years before being released (and approved by FDA), so if there was such a risk, then with the sheer number of new drugs developed, you'd see these disasters left and right. Where are they?
    - rsheridan6 18y ago
      Tobacco.
      - asdflkj 18y ago
        Tobacco causes severe side effects which get progressively worse before the "big stuff" kicks in. That's a pretty good cue that you're poisoning yourself. Not so with Provigil.
        rsheridan6 18y ago
        If you want one that sneaks up on you, try fen-phen. No noticeable side effects and then you die of a heart attack. As for modafinil, a quick look doesn't turn up any long-term safety studies (pub med is either down or even slower than usual today, which amounts to the same thing, so I might be missing something), except for one 9-week study. You could smoke for 9 weeks without being affected much. It's not like it's a rare thing for drugs to turn out to be harmful. We'll just have to wait and see. EDIT: given the lack of long-term safety studies, but also the lack of problems with short-term studies, I personally would use modafinil for finals week or a long car trip or something like that but not day-in day-out for years.