It is a bit weird that doctors are only supposed to prescribe these drugs for medical conditions and not enhancement. If the effects are beneficial and the drug is safe, why not allow healthy people to take it?
Of course, it's not hard to get a prescription if you want one. I just wish everyone didn't have to play this game of off-label prescriptions and lying to doctors.
Edit: Disclaimer: I take modafinil and I find it very useful.
Because our society has not debated the consequences of cognitive enhancement, and we are worse off for it. There are moral arguments for and against enhancement, but the way it currently is prohibited, yet tolerated (nearly everyone who really wants to can game the prescription requirement), is the worst way to handle it.
So why not allow healthy people to take it? Because it distorts the competition - not who studied the most wins, but he who enhanced himself best. If you allow some enhancement, why not others forms? What about artificial limbs for athletes? Where does enhancement stop? What about everyone then feeling pressured to enhance themselves to still be able to compete, if they want to or not?
I'd say the status quo is bad but not the worst. It would be better if cognitive-enhancing drugs were available for anyone who wanted them. It would be worse if using drugs for cognitive enhancement was illegal.
I don't think the sports analogy maps. Sports are artificial competitions and usually zero-sum. Commerce is cooperative. Intelligent individuals often benefit the less lucky. They invent new technologies that end up helping everyone.
If you allow some enhancement, why not others forms?
My sentiments exactly.
What about artificial limbs for athletes?
I guess that would be the Paralympics, but I don't have a problem with it. Cyborg kickboxing sounds more interesting than any modern day event.
Where does enhancement stop?
Hmm... matrioshka brains I guess. Although I'm willing to compromise and limit people to Jupiter brains.
What about everyone then feeling pressured to enhance themselves to still be able to compete, if they want to or not?
The same can be said for getting a college degree or some other kind of certification. Yes, people feel bad when they have low status, but the benefits of enhancement technologies outweigh the costs. I'd rather live in a world where Einsteins were 1 in 10. That world would have a better chance of solving humanity's problems.
"What about artificial limbs for athletes? Where does enhancement stop?"
Sports is all about artificial restrictions. Not just banning drugs, but banning certain moves and behavior. That's what makes it a sport, and not real life. The idea is to see what people do under controlled conditions.
Now, exactly what those restrictions should be is a useful question. But the existence of restrictions in sports is a given, by definition.
"What about everyone then feeling pressured to enhance themselves to still be able to compete, if they want to or not?"
That's how it's always been. Modern drugs are new, but the idea of self-modification to improve one's lot in life is not. Dressing better, having a better build, being more handsome or beautiful, being (or seeming) smarter; all quite historic pursuits.
I concur. If I were at Harvard Law School or someplace similar, where supposedly 1/3+ of a class take cognitive enhancement drugs, I'd really try to start a ruckus about it. Either expressly allow it or prohibit it effectively (require signing a form allowing the school to revoke your JD in case someone can proove you took drugs etc.; any way to increase the moral tresholds for taking them; ethics courses and honor codes obviously don't work).
Alas, ignoring the problem and thereby severly distorting the outcome of any mental competition is what's going to happen for the next decade.
Why talk about artificial limbs for athletes? There is a long list of banned substances, and there is no limit to the number of arguments you can find for and against the use of PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs) in sports.
Modafinil has fewer side effects and is less habit forming than drugs such as caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. In fact, modafinil is safer than caffeine:
Basti and Jouvet (1988) describe a suicide attempt using 4500 mg of modafinil; the suicidee survived with no long-term effects but temporary nervousness, nausea, and insomnia.
That's 45 doses of modafinil and she was fine afterwards. 45 times the typical dose of caffeine would be lethal. Sure, you can argue from ignorance about potential long-term effects, but that argument works for anything that wasn't invented before you were born. Based on the evidence we have now, modafinil appears quite safe.
Edit: You are the first reply that didn't start with "because." You broke the pattern! >:(
What does being habit forming and having serious side effects have to do with media lethal dose? Just because you can take a lot of something without it killing you doesn't imply it's safe to take daily for extended periods of time.
Would you agree that the following is most likely true? p(long_term_safety|overdose_non_lethal) > p(long_term_safety|overdose_lethal)
That is, if an acute overdose of modafinil is not lethal, then it is more likely that the drug is safe for long term use. An equivalent acute overdose of caffeine would cause ventricular fibrillation and death. Yet few people are concerned about caffeine's long-term safety.
Also, notice the side effects of modafinil overdose: nausea, nervousness, and insomnia. Side effects of caffeine overdose include hallucinations, psychosis, and rapid muscle breakdown leading to kidney failure.
Although modafinil's mechanism of action isn't well-understood, evidence points to it having a neuroprotective effect. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654794/ . So if anything, it's probably beneficial in the long-term.
While I happen to agree with you, I think that andrewf was pointing out that while modafinil is known not to be an acute toxin, that says little as to whether it is a chronic toxin, since its mechanism is poorly understood and may have undesirable long-term side effects.
A good example might be fructose, which you'd have to try very hard indeed to overdose on, but seems to be a long-term chronic toxin with many unpleasant effects, the high LD50 and the advisability of taking it at all being quite unrelated, indeed opposing.
Yes, there are many counterexamples, but most compounds that are safe in large acute doses are safe in small long-term doses. Given this evidence, the studies showing neuroprotective effects, and the fact that modafinil has been around since the 80's, I assign high probability to its long-term safety.
While the WSJ ran an article, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870327860457462... , pretty much saying that black coffee is at worst a wash health wise (though I do note that they said caffeine has a pro-obesity effect and Modafinil an antagonistic effect (it's wiki article says as much)).
My point is that, from what I know, coffee isn't that bad. What information do you have that counters my notion or that modafinil is worth the unknown risks? Preferably with citations, please and thanks. I'm very curious about this topic for obvious reasons.
It's also not at all clear whether their long-term effect will be positive for any particular person, or how to predict it. A large portion are basically milder versions of amphetamines, without nearly as many of the really bad side effects. But they fundamentally do the same thing, upping short-term energy and concentration. One common issue is that people fall into on/off work patterns: you're taking the enhancer and working like mad, or, when you're not, you're totally checked out. There are a lot of kinds of intellectual work for which oscillating between 110% and 0% effort isn't really optimal, though.
I think it's somewhat telling that the best success seems to be at high-pressure environments with fairly prescribed tasks, like law school.
Because the bible says that you cannot take anything that alters your behavior or your body, something like that, and that has been inherited through centuries even if it's not cited as the main reason, but it is the source of the war on drugs.
Millennia old beliefs are the source of many current traditions held by society (specially drugs and sex related). I would love for someone to prove me wrong or at least state otherwise.
"the bible says that you cannot take anything that alters your behavior or your body"
I think most people wouldn't take such an interpretation of the Bible, but even if you did, your explanation doesn't line up with current societal mores.
There are many mind and body altering substances that are not only tolerated, but celebrated. Almost all of modern Western medicine is based on introducing substances or therapies to the body that alter the mind or body. Everything from cold medicine to antibiotics alters the body. There are also numerous mind-altering substances used, such as narcotics, anesthetics, anti-psychotics, and anti-depressants. All of these are fully embraced by the vast majority of people, as well as the medical establishment.
But even if we stay away from medicine, there are plenty of examples of accepted mind-altering recreational substances. Nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol are the most obvious, but there are many other less severe substances (look at the ingredients on some energy drinks). By and large, the use of all of these substances is accepted.
If it were simply the case that cultural history prevented society from accepting mind-altering substances, none of the above would be accepted. The explanation must be more complicated.
If the effects are beneficial and the drug is safe...
There is no drug in existence whose effects are purely and unarguably beneficial. The availability of drugs also has a social impact which goes beyond individual safety or efficacy.
Of course, it's not hard to get a prescription if you want one.
That's assuming you can afford the doctor and the drug and are willing to be a liar. Or if you're under 18, assuming your parents choose to "enhance" you and you choose to accept "enhancement".
I forget where I first heard about it, but the idea of something better and safer than caffeine intrigued me. I take modafinil in the following circumstances:
1. If I feel particularly tired in the morning.
2. If I need to get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time.
3. If I need to study or perform my best for others. (Mostly job interviews or important meetings.)
On average, I end up taking it about twice a week. For me it's basically caffeine++. It helps me think faster and stay focused.
I think that the job of a doctor is defined to be treating people who are ill. If you want to change the definition that's fine, but you need to make an argument for that.
Modafinil is an essential tool in the arsenal of any active start-upper. Get it. If you are anything like me you will wonder how you got by without it, and I am not kidding.
Not that it makes you one, but just so you know: all drug addicts can't imagine how they got by, or would want to get by, without their drug of choice.
I do not think this is true at all. I've been addicted to drugs before (cigarettes) and I certainly was not happy with that. And I've flirted with alcohol addiction too. Again, that was hardly a positive situation I was comfortable with continuing.
I've known others, too, addicted to stronger things. A friend of mine battled a speed addiction for a year. He could very much imagine getting by without it - in fact he quite desperately wanted to, he just couldn't. I would presume the same is true for many, if not most, addicts of heroin.
Anyway, my understanding is that modafinil is not a drug of physiological addiction. It's a tool that one uses to overcome certain physical limitations, if and only if that is required. Think of it as a headache pill, but for tiredness. Certainly that is how I and everyone else I know who uses it views it.
That's actually the best argument for the continued illegality of any enhancing drugs. Drugs _have_ side effects, and creating a situation in which people are compelled to take them ensures that at least some will suffer the consequences.
Your point is logically sound, but you're judging the (possible) consequences to the few as of inherently higher importance than the benefit to the many. You could say very much the same thing about alcohol - some people just can't handle it and should probably not be allowed to drink it, but you can't deny it to everyone else just because of that. Or we don't, anyway, with alcohol, for historical reasons.
I actually support broader legalization, but this doesn't take anything from the argument. And with alcohol it's a different situation - it's not that "some can't handle it", it's that "some feel compelled to use it". A closer situation would be when a non-smoker feels left out from the social life at the company and actually can't advance his career because he's not part of the smoke breaks. Sounds ridiculous, but people have started smoking for exactly this reason, and some/most of them have worse health because of it.
Now this is relatively indirect, but compare it with a situation when everybody at a company is easily able to pull 20 hour days in the week before launching a product. Even if you feel you don't really want to use drugs, can you?
Piracetam is the safest and cheapest nootropic that has consistently had positive effects on me. It is nothing like adderall, modifinil, or coffee. It just slightly improves motivation and short term memory. Have some pubmed abstracts and wikipedia articles:
You have to take it with a choline source. I noticed next to nothing taking it alone, but when I took it with some choline bitartrate, that's when I noticed an effect and my dual n-back scores rose a little.
Here's one better. It's a type 2 diabetes study that compared exercise against metformin against a placebo. The conclusions were so overwhelmingly in favor of exercise that the study was stopped early.
Two of four subtasks that reflect complex cognitive speed (Stroop color/word interference and Concept Shifting Test) showed main and interaction effects with age of aerobic capacity in a hierarchical regression analysis, accounting for up to 5% of variance in parameter score after correction for age, sex, and intelligence main effects.
Still, that study is rather weak evidence. The benefits could be relegated to preventing decline in older people. Anecdotally, I do feel duller on days when I don't run; even if I didn't, I'd still exercise. It helps me relieve stress.
In terms of general benefits, most people would be better off if they exercised more, not less. I mean it's not like fit people wake up one day, look at a mirror and see a firm, toned body with six-pack abs then scream at the sky, "Nooooo! Why me?!"
...really? It seems stunningly obvious to me that exercise and a good diet is good for overall health and mental health. I think the burden of proof is on you here. Or are you just positing that exercise+diet has no impact on productivity, not health?
well, Ritalin, at least, is supposed to do different things to someone who has ADD than to someone who does not, (I mean, personally, I can sleep while taking the stuff) but for me, exercise and diet help, but not 1/10th as much as the drugs. (Note, my experience has been that exercise /and/ the drugs work much better than the drugs by themselves.)
I'm in a lazy state at the moment (where I have lived most of my life), but during periods where I exercised regularly I have had much more energy and drive.
It really is habit forming, though once you fall out it's hard to get back in. After all, being lazy is habit forming too, and once you've stopped accounting for gym time in your day it can be hard to start squeezing it back in.
I'll be the outlier: as far as I can tell exercise does absolutely nothing for me mentally. I've started exercising more in the last year to improve my health and appearance (to be honest, not in that order), and have gotten some positive results there, but I've noticed no short or long term change in my cognitive skills or ability to focus.
what ive found is a 0 sugar, 0 bread, very low-carb diet makes a huge difference in my ability to focus. as your no longer riding the daily ups and downs of the blood sugar roller coaster.
.. certainly not easy to kick sugar/bread/milk habit.
FYI, if you think you may have ADHD, you probably meet diagnostic criteria. If you would look to get medication, fill out an online adult ADHD checklist and bring it to your doctor.
Seriously - if any of these Ritalin / Adderall etc help you think clearly and do more than just let you work on less sleep, you most likely have ADD, and can treat it in a structured way with a doctor helping you, instead of ad-hoc self medication.
I am surprised by the amount of redditors that know all pros and cons of those drugs. The first time I even heard about it was when my sister started using ritalin. It helped her becoming a medium performer in school instead of beeing on the low end and also increased her social abilities.
What do you think is the percentage of academics using cognitive enhancers or similar stuff?
Of course, it's not hard to get a prescription if you want one. I just wish everyone didn't have to play this game of off-label prescriptions and lying to doctors.
Edit: Disclaimer: I take modafinil and I find it very useful.