3 ms·

Mind-enhancing drugs: Are they a no-brainer?

17 points by nreece 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
- TrevorJ 17y ago
  What do you feel it does for your cognitive process? My understanding was is simply allows you to stay up for days on end?
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
nreece 17y ago
Seems like a sensitive subject (among young hackers I suppose). Four comments have been deleted so far by their respective authors.
- frisco 17y ago
  I expect that use is way, way more prevalent that is commonly believed.
  - ctb9 17y ago
    I'd say its highly (negatively) correlated with age. everyone knows that college students, especially at elite schools, are taking it like candy and that very few 50 year olds are being medicated for ADHD.
chaosmachine 17y ago
Every time I read about these, I can't help but think of that scene in Blade Runner. "The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy."
lionheart 17y ago
I can say this: if I was sure that a drug like this had no long-term side effects I would take it, at least sometimes when I was working on a hard project. But since we don't really know the potential long-terms effects of these drugs I've made sure to stay away.
- staunch 17y ago
  Even if there's a 0.1% chance it will trigger schizophrenia or something it wouldn't be worth it for me. A healthy mind is the only thing more important than a healthy body.
  - kinghajj 17y ago
    Ah, but isn't it worth risking a closed, healthy mind for an open one?
    - lispm 17y ago
      you can open your mind by watching the nature.
      - iamelgringo 17y ago
        Or reading a good book.
    - jasonkester 17y ago
      From the article: "He adds that there are cognitive trade-offs in taking Ritalin, with a loss of creativity" So it would seem that this particular set of drugs would actually server to close your mind further. If so, I'd be surprised if they didn't actually reduce your effectiveness at a creativity-driven activity such as programming.
- csomar 17y ago
  There's no medecines without sides effects. All medicines I have took on my life have sides effects and sometimes dangerous. For me the "drug" is a disaster, because it confirm that people don't work for WORK and don't study for KNOWLEDGE but for EXAMS and work for MONEY which is the biggest problem.
lispm 17y ago
I don't care that much how people perform in exams. I don't hire people when they need drugs to reach the work level they claim to be at. Should I send the guy to a consultant job and on expenses then pay for the drugs he needs to do his/her job? Here is what I do to improve mental performance: I go jogging with my co-workers in the morning. It is well known that sports like these also increase mental capacity + it also has lots of other positive effects.
- sho 17y ago
  "I don't hire people when they need drugs to reach the work level they claim" "I go jogging" Interesting that you are prejudiced against externally administered drugs, and yet seem to support the idea of deliberately and regularly inducing opioid release in yourself. I don't deny that jogging is a generally beneficial and healthy activity, but I wonder how you can justify favouring one chemical and being opposed to another on the sole grounds of their origin?
  - euccastro 17y ago
    Moderate physical exercise has been tested for millions of years, and there is no big company interested in selling you into it, potentially at your own expense.
  - lispm 17y ago
    I go jogging to maintain a certain fitness level, no to 'induce opiod'.
    - sho 17y ago
      That's "opioids". And regardless of your intentions, by engaging in vigorous exercise like jogging, you are triggering the release of very similar drugs to those you'd criticised mere sentences before. I don't mean to beat up on you or anything. Just want to point out that it's all just chemicals. Drugs work, after all, by manipulating your built-in neurophysiology - just as you unknowingly do by exercising. It is ridiculous to arbitrarily discriminate against one category of drug, while recommending another. Any human who wants to be purely drug-free better remove their brain from their body, because that's the biggest drug lab around ..
GHFigs 17y ago
The trend towards describing drugs like Adderal and Ritalin as "mind-enhancing" is troubling. It seems more like a marketing strategy than science or medicine and it implies that they make your mind function more like that of a naturally smarter person, rather than the actual effect, which is to make your mind function more like that of someone who has taken cocaine or meth. That may not be a bad thing per se, but what will happen to a generation that is so sold on the idea that they are "mind-enhancing" that they can no longer tell the difference?
- ctb9 17y ago
  What do you mean, my generation will no longer tell the difference between adderall and cocaine or meth, or that everyone will be medicated so often that "mind-enhanced" becomes the norm? also, for the record, there's a large amount of biological and statistical work proving their efficacy, granted only on controlled, specific tasks.
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    I mean that if we continue proliferating simplistic views of the effects that drugs have, our collective ability to distinguish between that view and the more nuanced truth will be diminished. We risk redefining "intelligent" to mean "high on speed". And yes, I am aware of their efficacy, but it's the "only on controlled, specific tasks" part that concerns me. Blanket terms like "mind-enhancing" mask the specifics of their effects in favor of a more marketable label. After all, who doesn't want an enhanced mind? (And it is about marketing. Articles like this reek of PR if you read them closely.) The distinctions are too important to play so loose with language. If I feel like a genius after downing a fifth of bourbon, that does not make bourbon "mind-enhancing", even if the genius ideas that I have while so sloshed turn out to be right. That's just not what we mean when we say "mind-enhancing". Likewise for amphetamines. They don't cause you to think better or to have better ideas, they cause you to think all of your ideas are good ones; they don't give you focus, they nullify the sensation of boredom and make everything exciting. At least that's how we describe the same effects when they're caused by cocaine or manic episodes. We could describe cocaine and meth and manic episodes as "mind-enhancing" by these standards, too, but collectively we've realized that it's more complicated than that, and describing them as something universally positive would be misleading. You also can't patent cocaine or sell a manic episode.
radu_floricica 17y ago
The article is a bit optimistic. If there is anything that scares me about mind-enhancing drugs is students of all ages abusing them. But I do agree more openness is needed, and more studies on long-term side-effects in their use as mind-enhancers.
spudlyo 17y ago
I would like to experiment with very low does of LSD to see what that does to my focus and concentration. I think it'd be interesting to see what 5-10 micrograms feels like.
biaxident 17y ago
Maybe if students find it necessary to take these drugs to succeed in exams it highlights something going wrong there! Are we pushing these kids too hard? Or letting in students who don't have the capabilities to succeed?
- euccastro 17y ago
  Or maybe it is just because they have procrastinated and want to cram, in a stressed night, the material they were supposed to absorb in one semester.
CalmQuiet 17y ago
I would have said the same directly to The Independent's post, but that would have required creating a "Live Journal" account :/ In the meanwhile, I suggest a search of better stories / exchanges that have appeared in the past on Hacker News . Just in case The Independent monitors us here, this is what I wanted to convey to them: How might "smart drugs" help journalists? For example: how might accuracy and attention to detail by reporters, writers, and fact-checkers be improved. More specifically, would someone at The Independent have caught this article's reference to "the University of Harvard" and realized it was as absurd as "the University of Oxford"? Perhaps... if Ritalin & co. boosts performance of sleep-deprived journalists as well as sleep-deprived helicopter pilots. --from other side of the pond
diabolical 17y ago
In college I used every single drug I could get my hands on, for both academic and recreational purposes, and I can tell you as an expert that coffee is still the most effective and alcohol is the most fun. The rest aren't worth it.

17 points by nreece 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

TrevorJ 17y ago
What do you feel it does for your cognitive process? My understanding was is simply allows you to stay up for days on end?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]

nreece 17y ago

Seems like a sensitive subject (among young hackers I suppose). Four comments have been deleted so far by their respective authors.

frisco 17y ago
I expect that use is way, way more prevalent that is commonly believed.
- ctb9 17y ago
  I'd say its highly (negatively) correlated with age. everyone knows that college students, especially at elite schools, are taking it like candy and that very few 50 year olds are being medicated for ADHD.

chaosmachine 17y ago

Every time I read about these, I can't help but think of that scene in Blade Runner. "The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy."

lionheart 17y ago

I can say this: if I was sure that a drug like this had no long-term side effects I would take it, at least sometimes when I was working on a hard project. But since we don't really know the potential long-terms effects of these drugs I've made sure to stay away.

staunch 17y ago
Even if there's a 0.1% chance it will trigger schizophrenia or something it wouldn't be worth it for me. A healthy mind is the only thing more important than a healthy body.
- kinghajj 17y ago
  Ah, but isn't it worth risking a closed, healthy mind for an open one?
  - lispm 17y ago
    you can open your mind by watching the nature.
    - iamelgringo 17y ago
      Or reading a good book.
  - jasonkester 17y ago
    From the article: "He adds that there are cognitive trade-offs in taking Ritalin, with a loss of creativity" So it would seem that this particular set of drugs would actually server to close your mind further. If so, I'd be surprised if they didn't actually reduce your effectiveness at a creativity-driven activity such as programming.
csomar 17y ago
There's no medecines without sides effects. All medicines I have took on my life have sides effects and sometimes dangerous. For me the "drug" is a disaster, because it confirm that people don't work for WORK and don't study for KNOWLEDGE but for EXAMS and work for MONEY which is the biggest problem.

lispm 17y ago

I don't care that much how people perform in exams. I don't hire people when they need drugs to reach the work level they claim to be at. Should I send the guy to a consultant job and on expenses then pay for the drugs he needs to do his/her job? Here is what I do to improve mental performance: I go jogging with my co-workers in the morning. It is well known that sports like these also increase mental capacity + it also has lots of other positive effects.

sho 17y ago
"I don't hire people when they need drugs to reach the work level they claim" "I go jogging" Interesting that you are prejudiced against externally administered drugs, and yet seem to support the idea of deliberately and regularly inducing opioid release in yourself. I don't deny that jogging is a generally beneficial and healthy activity, but I wonder how you can justify favouring one chemical and being opposed to another on the sole grounds of their origin?
- euccastro 17y ago
  Moderate physical exercise has been tested for millions of years, and there is no big company interested in selling you into it, potentially at your own expense.
- lispm 17y ago
  I go jogging to maintain a certain fitness level, no to 'induce opiod'.
  - sho 17y ago
    That's "opioids". And regardless of your intentions, by engaging in vigorous exercise like jogging, you are triggering the release of very similar drugs to those you'd criticised mere sentences before. I don't mean to beat up on you or anything. Just want to point out that it's all just chemicals. Drugs work, after all, by manipulating your built-in neurophysiology - just as you unknowingly do by exercising. It is ridiculous to arbitrarily discriminate against one category of drug, while recommending another. Any human who wants to be purely drug-free better remove their brain from their body, because that's the biggest drug lab around ..

GHFigs 17y ago

The trend towards describing drugs like Adderal and Ritalin as "mind-enhancing" is troubling. It seems more like a marketing strategy than science or medicine and it implies that they make your mind function more like that of a naturally smarter person, rather than the actual effect, which is to make your mind function more like that of someone who has taken cocaine or meth. That may not be a bad thing per se, but what will happen to a generation that is so sold on the idea that they are "mind-enhancing" that they can no longer tell the difference?

ctb9 17y ago
What do you mean, my generation will no longer tell the difference between adderall and cocaine or meth, or that everyone will be medicated so often that "mind-enhanced" becomes the norm? also, for the record, there's a large amount of biological and statistical work proving their efficacy, granted only on controlled, specific tasks.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  I mean that if we continue proliferating simplistic views of the effects that drugs have, our collective ability to distinguish between that view and the more nuanced truth will be diminished. We risk redefining "intelligent" to mean "high on speed". And yes, I am aware of their efficacy, but it's the "only on controlled, specific tasks" part that concerns me. Blanket terms like "mind-enhancing" mask the specifics of their effects in favor of a more marketable label. After all, who doesn't want an enhanced mind? (And it is about marketing. Articles like this reek of PR if you read them closely.) The distinctions are too important to play so loose with language. If I feel like a genius after downing a fifth of bourbon, that does not make bourbon "mind-enhancing", even if the genius ideas that I have while so sloshed turn out to be right. That's just not what we mean when we say "mind-enhancing". Likewise for amphetamines. They don't cause you to think better or to have better ideas, they cause you to think all of your ideas are good ones; they don't give you focus, they nullify the sensation of boredom and make everything exciting. At least that's how we describe the same effects when they're caused by cocaine or manic episodes. We could describe cocaine and meth and manic episodes as "mind-enhancing" by these standards, too, but collectively we've realized that it's more complicated than that, and describing them as something universally positive would be misleading. You also can't patent cocaine or sell a manic episode.

radu_floricica 17y ago

The article is a bit optimistic. If there is anything that scares me about mind-enhancing drugs is students of all ages abusing them. But I do agree more openness is needed, and more studies on long-term side-effects in their use as mind-enhancers.

spudlyo 17y ago

I would like to experiment with very low does of LSD to see what that does to my focus and concentration. I think it'd be interesting to see what 5-10 micrograms feels like.

biaxident 17y ago

Maybe if students find it necessary to take these drugs to succeed in exams it highlights something going wrong there! Are we pushing these kids too hard? Or letting in students who don't have the capabilities to succeed?

euccastro 17y ago
Or maybe it is just because they have procrastinated and want to cram, in a stressed night, the material they were supposed to absorb in one semester.

CalmQuiet 17y ago

I would have said the same directly to The Independent's post, but that would have required creating a "Live Journal" account :/ In the meanwhile, I suggest a search of better stories / exchanges that have appeared in the past on Hacker News . Just in case The Independent monitors us here, this is what I wanted to convey to them: How might "smart drugs" help journalists? For example: how might accuracy and attention to detail by reporters, writers, and fact-checkers be improved. More specifically, would someone at The Independent have caught this article's reference to "the University of Harvard" and realized it was as absurd as "the University of Oxford"? Perhaps... if Ritalin & co. boosts performance of sleep-deprived journalists as well as sleep-deprived helicopter pilots. --from other side of the pond

diabolical 17y ago

In college I used every single drug I could get my hands on, for both academic and recreational purposes, and I can tell you as an expert that coffee is still the most effective and alcohol is the most fun. The rest aren't worth it.