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The thing is that amphetamines are some of the most well understood medications prescribed by doctors. They've been prescribed for almost 80 years. Doctors kn

by j_baker 17y ago

The thing is that amphetamines are some of the most well understood medications prescribed by doctors. They've been prescribed for almost 80 years. Doctors know their effects better than most "conventional" medicines. And it has never been proven that they have seriously harmful side effects when taken under appropriate medical supervision. Although it's hard to objectively diagnose ADHD (just like any other psychiatric condition), doctors know what they're doing when they prescribe stimulants. Therefore, the choice isn't "brain damage vs 10 points on a test." It's more like "performing like a normal human being vs failing at life."

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Is the topic here people that self-medicate in order to gain a few points on a test over non-medicated folks, or people who have serious, real brain problems that need some intervention to be more normal? Because I'm talking about the first case, and you seem to be talking about the second. The article, to me, was geared toward the first scenario. If you'd like to talk about the second scenario, that's fair game, but not what I was talking about at all.
- j_baker 17y ago
  That's a fair point. I think the article was more saying "You should only take stimulants if they're prescribed to you. But whether they were prescribed to you or not, here's how to get the most out of them." At least that's how I read it.
- kragen 17y ago
  I don't really think that it's okay that our society penalizes people who are bad at taking tests, because test-taking isn't actually productive work. But the fact remains that it does, and they're something that a lot of people have trouble with, and have a lot less trouble when they're on speed. While we're working to reform the education system, we shouldn't deny people the chemicals they need to cope with the system as it is. When it comes to taking tests, 99% of the population seems to me like they have serious brain problems. They perform far below my level, which I arbitrarily designate as normal. The kinds of "real brain problems that need some intervention" that we're talking about here are defined pretty empirically; we mostly aren't talking about things that show up on an MRI, we're talking about things that are "diagnosed" by people scoring 1½σ below the mean on an IQ test. To take a concrete and fairly extreme example, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with people that they can see a word spelled correctly dozens or hundreds of times and still not know how to spell it. But that seems to be the case for 99% of the population. The function of correct spelling in modern society seems to me to be essentially the same as the function of good penmanship a century ago: to demonstrate to the reader that the writer is properly educated, i.e. approximately that their parents were rich enough that they didn't have to pull them out of school in 1950 when they were 10 to work on the farm. Fundamentally, this is harmful to the social fabric. Either prejudice distracts from the quality of the writing — there are any number of Nobel-winning writers with terrible spelling and penmanship. (I was expelled from eighth grade for picking a particularly inopportune time to explain this point of view, somewhat less articulately: coming in second in the regional spelling bee, if I remember correctly.) It's fortunate that this particular neurological deficit doesn't happen to cause any harm, and unfortunate that we choose to stigmatize the 99% of the population who's dramatically worse at it than I am. But given that there's a relatively safe drug that allows many people to escape that stigma, it seems reasonable to let them have it until such time as we can expiate the stigma.
  - swombat 17y ago
    Quick note about the spelling thing - I agree on the whole, but you should be aware that there are glaring exceptions. Right now I work a lot with architects, for example, and many of them are very smart and yet have disastrous spelling abilities. Since I observed that there are smart people who can't spell, I've revised spelling ability down to "weak indicator" of stupidity or poor education. I.e., if someone spells poorly and has a few other things going against them, then the spelling will help decide the matter. But I would not make any rapid judgements on someone's intelligence based purely on their spelling/grammar.
    - kragen 17y ago
      I guess I wasn't very clear, because that's one of the points I was trying to make.
- rms 17y ago
  Amphetamines don't cause brain damage in either case -- look at the military use, from World War II on.
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    Amphetamines are well known to induce mania, which is one reason they are no longer used, as there were formerly used, to treat depression. I'd like to see some medical references for the statement "amphetamines don't cause brain damage," because study of long-term neurotoxicity or neuroprotective effects of most medicines is still in very early stages. What medical journal references can you cite on that point for amphetamines?
  - brl 17y ago
    Look at Paul Erdős.

by j_baker 17y ago

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

Is the topic here people that self-medicate in order to gain a few points on a test over non-medicated folks, or people who have serious, real brain problems that need some intervention to be more normal? Because I'm talking about the first case, and you seem to be talking about the second. The article, to me, was geared toward the first scenario. If you'd like to talk about the second scenario, that's fair game, but not what I was talking about at all.

j_baker 17y ago
That's a fair point. I think the article was more saying "You should only take stimulants if they're prescribed to you. But whether they were prescribed to you or not, here's how to get the most out of them." At least that's how I read it.
kragen 17y ago
I don't really think that it's okay that our society penalizes people who are bad at taking tests, because test-taking isn't actually productive work. But the fact remains that it does, and they're something that a lot of people have trouble with, and have a lot less trouble when they're on speed. While we're working to reform the education system, we shouldn't deny people the chemicals they need to cope with the system as it is. When it comes to taking tests, 99% of the population seems to me like they have serious brain problems. They perform far below my level, which I arbitrarily designate as normal. The kinds of "real brain problems that need some intervention" that we're talking about here are defined pretty empirically; we mostly aren't talking about things that show up on an MRI, we're talking about things that are "diagnosed" by people scoring 1½σ below the mean on an IQ test. To take a concrete and fairly extreme example, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with people that they can see a word spelled correctly dozens or hundreds of times and still not know how to spell it. But that seems to be the case for 99% of the population. The function of correct spelling in modern society seems to me to be essentially the same as the function of good penmanship a century ago: to demonstrate to the reader that the writer is properly educated, i.e. approximately that their parents were rich enough that they didn't have to pull them out of school in 1950 when they were 10 to work on the farm. Fundamentally, this is harmful to the social fabric. Either prejudice distracts from the quality of the writing — there are any number of Nobel-winning writers with terrible spelling and penmanship. (I was expelled from eighth grade for picking a particularly inopportune time to explain this point of view, somewhat less articulately: coming in second in the regional spelling bee, if I remember correctly.) It's fortunate that this particular neurological deficit doesn't happen to cause any harm, and unfortunate that we choose to stigmatize the 99% of the population who's dramatically worse at it than I am. But given that there's a relatively safe drug that allows many people to escape that stigma, it seems reasonable to let them have it until such time as we can expiate the stigma.
- swombat 17y ago
  Quick note about the spelling thing - I agree on the whole, but you should be aware that there are glaring exceptions. Right now I work a lot with architects, for example, and many of them are very smart and yet have disastrous spelling abilities. Since I observed that there are smart people who can't spell, I've revised spelling ability down to "weak indicator" of stupidity or poor education. I.e., if someone spells poorly and has a few other things going against them, then the spelling will help decide the matter. But I would not make any rapid judgements on someone's intelligence based purely on their spelling/grammar.
  - kragen 17y ago
    I guess I wasn't very clear, because that's one of the points I was trying to make.
rms 17y ago
Amphetamines don't cause brain damage in either case -- look at the military use, from World War II on.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  Amphetamines are well known to induce mania, which is one reason they are no longer used, as there were formerly used, to treat depression. I'd like to see some medical references for the statement "amphetamines don't cause brain damage," because study of long-term neurotoxicity or neuroprotective effects of most medicines is still in very early stages. What medical journal references can you cite on that point for amphetamines?
- brl 17y ago
  Look at Paul Erdős.