51–60 of 68 posts
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By contrast to drugs, "education" has thousands of years to prove it's long-term medical safety. Different drugs have proven to have all kinds of nasty side-effects to a point where it is normal to hold them all suspect by default.
Sometimes you have to take risks. There is some question as to whether cell phones have long term medical risks, but I bet you use a cell phone (for increased productivity no less).
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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,…
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.…
Isn't this akin to advocating for the legalization of steroids only here were talking about a thinking muscle instead of a moving one?
I think the mainstream attitude towards steroids is very hypocritical. If you're meant to play with what God gave you then surely athletes shouldn't even wear glasses! Tiger Woods had his vision surgically "corrected" to 20/15 (better than "normal") and no-one bats an eyelid (haha). Athletes regularly use the steroid cortisone to recover from injury, is that not cheating too? All anabolic steroids do is enable an ath…
And cortisol is technically a steroid, but not the body-enhancing type that everyone refers to.
And steroids do allow you to train harder and recover quicker, but you still have to cycle off after 6-8 weeks... and then you go back to your original strength.
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I think the mainstream attitude towards steroids is very hypocritical. If you're meant to play with what God gave you then surely athletes shouldn't even wear glasses! Tiger Woods had his vision surgically "corrected" to 20/15 (better than "normal") and no-one bats an eyelid (haha). Athletes regularly use the steroid cortisone to recover from injury, is that not cheating too? All anabolic steroids do is enable an ath…
There are sooo many downsides to anabolic steroids. Especially if you take them when you're young. And cortisol is technically a steroid, but not the body-enhancing type that everyone refers to. And steroids do allow you to train harder and recover quicker, but you still have to cycle off after 6-8 weeks... and then you go back to your original strength.
I find it disturbing that this is even controversial. First, the notion that there is an optimal "healthy" state is make-believe. We all get old and die, so in a sense we are all terminally ill. We should have a right to improve our minds and bodies as long as there is room for improvement. More to the point, brain types fall on a spectrum. ADHD is just one extreme. Equating "median" with "healthy" is a fallacy. Cons…
A hallmark of conservativism is to recognize that 90 percent of our behavior is much the same as occurred 2000 years ago, but many, many innovations came and went in between (Heroin: Cure for morphine addiction). What happened to them? They were tried, and they were discarded by the credible professions. Maybe these drugs are good. "Maybe". Most drug tests occur over a matter of months, rather than a lifetime. Caffei…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Overuse
The only difference is, modafinil is classified as a drug and so the negative effects are termed "side effects" while caffeine is classified as food and so the same exact negative effects are termed "overuse". It's an emotional/connotative difference. The list itself is almost identical: nervousness, headaches, insomnia, dry mouth, rapid heartbeat etc. In fact, I don't see caffeine's potential dangers of mania, depression and psychosis on the modafinil list. How's that for conservative?
I'd like to see an incident where caffeine has caused such severe cutaneous and dermatologic reactions as modafinil has. If such drugs were deregulated, we would certainly see the number of victims of these horrible reactions go up.
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You are wrong. Modafinil's only indication is narcolepsy.
I have been prescribed Modafinil for Adult ADD.
Also, I was on medication for about 2 months. Then I threw away the prescription -- it left me soulless. How is it treating you?
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"Legal mind-enhancing drugs are a great danger to society. They will put everyone in the position where they have to take those drugs, or risk perpetual unemployment." Replace "drugs" with "education", and ask what should be done. Ban learning?
By contrast to drugs, "education" has thousands of years to prove it's long-term medical safety. Different drugs have proven to have all kinds of nasty side-effects to a point where it is normal to hold them all suspect by default.
I'd like to see an incident where caffeine has caused such severe cutaneous and dermatologic reactions as modafinil has. If such drugs were deregulated, we would certainly see the number of victims of these horrible reactions go up.
Now if deregulation also resulted in drug companies actively concealing negative side effects, and thus duping consumers, then they would have been victimized.
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By contrast to drugs, "education" has thousands of years to prove it's long-term medical safety. Different drugs have proven to have all kinds of nasty side-effects to a point where it is normal to hold them all suspect by default.
Flash cards don't have thousands of years of history behind them.