Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All • Hacker News Board

Re: Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All

#11

Post by octaveguin » Wed, Nov 21, 2012, 2:51 PM UTC

gozmike wrote: post #5

I believe in research, I believe that we need to seek understanding and explore concepts, technologies and questions that can improve our race. However, I have a huge issue with one of the goals of the project "People may choose to take nootropics due to the additional clarity it gives them, leading to increased performance in all walks of life." The ethical dilemmas that this creates are massive. What about the auth…

I don't know if these things work or not but the premise that improving people's abilities is somehow unethical is dangerous.

One could argue that giving good education to students gives them an unfair advantage to those without such an education. Does this mean that education is unethical?

Improving people's mental ability, whether through drugs or education, improves all of our lives. To win at being higher functioning and making better choices is not just a win for the individual but for the society at large. Those people can go on to improve the live of others and grow our collective economy. It's not zero sum as athletics can be thought of.

As an aside - if these improvements make us less human, then I don't see why modern medicine doesn't also make us less human. Do we define human purely as a certain cognitive ability?

Re: Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All

#12

Post by acuozzo » Wed, Nov 21, 2012, 2:52 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #9

acuozzo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about the adverse affects it will have on competition against those who don't have access to the enhancement (due to physiological, economic or other reasons)? This is already a "problem". I don't think a new (potentially, safer) nootropic drug would make matters any worse.

Did you just imply that existing problems are difficult to make worse, so we should only worry about brand new problems?

No, I didn't.

Re: Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All

#13

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 21, 2012, 2:56 PM UTC

octaveguin wrote: post #11

gozmike wrote: post #5

I believe in research, I believe that we need to seek understanding and explore concepts, technologies and questions that can improve our race. However, I have a huge issue with one of the goals of the project "People may choose to take nootropics due to the additional clarity it gives them, leading to increased performance in all walks of life." The ethical dilemmas that this creates are massive. What about the auth…

I don't know if these things work or not but the premise that improving people's abilities is somehow unethical is dangerous. One could argue that giving good education to students gives them an unfair advantage to those without such an education. Does this mean that education is unethical? Improving people's mental ability, whether through drugs or education, improves all of our lives. To win at being higher functio…

[deleted]

Re: Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All

#14

Post by clavalle » Wed, Nov 21, 2012, 3:15 PM UTC

$12,000? I think they forgot a few zeros. Who is going to risk their brain chemistry on a substance that has undergone this level of testing? I think they will raise all of our collective IQs once they test it on themselves and remove themselves from the gene pool.

On a side note: Does IndieGoGo have no standards at all? There is so many garbage projects there compared to KickStarter. It makes it very tedious to browse.

Re: Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All

#15

Post by jonstjohn » Wed, Nov 21, 2012, 3:28 PM UTC

dkroy wrote: post #2

Can anyone let me know if these are legitimate? I have heard things about them in the past..

I first read about nootropic drugs 15 or so years ago when I picked up a small book on the topic. Pricetam seemed like an effective drug with few side effects, and it could be bought over-the-counter in Mexico. I was living in San Diego, so I picked some up at a pharmacy and gave them a try. I did notice a significant impact on my concentration and mental clarity when taking the dosage recommended in the book. I think I finished off the bottle of a few months but never really thought about trying to get more. I think it was mostly because of not really knowing the side effects and not wanting to alter by body's natural chemistry too significantly.

Re: Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All

#16

Post by carsongross » Wed, Nov 21, 2012, 3:29 PM UTC

a splash quite unnoticed this was Icarus drowning

Re: Brain-Enhancing Drugs For All

#17

Post by odiroot » Wed, Nov 21, 2012, 3:32 PM UTC

I have (nearly) nothing against drugs, especially those seemingly harmless. Still, reading articles like this I'm always reminded of this Blade Runner quote: "The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long".

Let's hope this is not the case.