81–90 of 121 posts
Here's another way of looking at it: if amphetamines or modafinil are performance enhancing and generally safe (or at least, safer than nicotine), why shouldn't people be allowed to take them?
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I'm sorry but that might be you rather than the chemical.
Given that I don't do that when not on uppers, no it is the drug.
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It lasts too long for me. I would take it early in the morning, and I'd still be wired at 2am the following night, unable to sleep. Made it unusable.
Did you have the experience with Modafinil or Armodafinil? Armoda is meant to last longer; probably too long for some people to take regularly. It's also more anxiety-inducing, so despite being the 'older' variant, moda might be the better choice for a lot of people.
It also gave me a low-grade headache, dry mouth, grinding my teeth, and my pee stank of sulphur. Wouldn't recommend.
This figure provided is wholly anecdotal and pretty much worthless if not to bring the topic in question. However, it sure is concerning that many consider abusing prescription drugs with possibly severe, long lasting side effects to attempt to improve studying effectiveness (or because of self diagnosed ADHD and the likes..). It may become another drug epidemic, if it's not too late already. Misinformation and dubio…
> This figure provided is wholly anecdotal and pretty much worthless How else would you propose answering the question, besides asking people? Election polling is also "anecdotal".
> I just learned from a colleague and it was confirmed by every student I asked, that 25% of students age 16-32 take Adderall 1-7X/week (not prescribed). And 5-10% do the same w/Modafinil or Armodafanil; 30-35% of students are on amphetamine Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. Source is seemingly "anecdata." And this was posted on Twitter. Probably not much to see here other than some outrage for attention.
>Modafinil isn't an amphetamine. Yeah, it isn't. It's a nootropic like caffeine. Similar effects, lasts longer, doesn't create a dependence. It's arguably better than caffeine, and I can understand its use. Amphetamine being popular like that is, however, insanity.
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> I didn't sleep for a week lies
I was also not able to sleep properly after taking modafinil. Which in turns affected my concentration. In my opinion, the best drug is good sleep and less stress.
Apparently we have constructed a society in which everyone, including children, has to spend all day doing things they can't care about without pharmaceutical help. When this last happened under the Qin dynasty, it ended in the Taiping Rebellion, and produced nothing of value except those little canned oranges. I hear pornographic performers are on Viagra too. Meanwhile nobody actually has children, and CO2 PPM keeps…
It kind of reminds me of Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky[1] where the antagonists use technology/chemistry they called "Focus" on the protagonists in order to induce obsession of a single idea and turn them into brilliant and overachieving slaves. Except many of us, here in the real world, are willingly doing this to ourselves to out-compete each other, for the benefit of our corporate captors.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky
2: (EDIT, since I'm post-limited) Yes, not just coffee. Ritalin/Adderall use to cope with workload is not unheard of in offices I've worked. Probably more common than I think since I'm not really in "the scene". If a square like me has seen it, it's probably widespread.
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Like ants? All for the colony. We would already be on Mars if we behaved like ants but what kind of life is that.
Not ants, rather societies that can agree on long term, as opposed to short term, economic goals and modify them easily when needed. Most individual humans aren’t able to do this. A society able to achieve it would be truly remarkable. Despotic systems like communism on the other hand only reflect the goals of a chosen few. So by human limitation these goals can never adequately represent the complexity of the govern…
The fact that it is considered remarkable is absurd. From the perspective of a money system that rewards short term thinking it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that short term thinking is natural. You can also build a money system that rewards long term thinking and then short term thinking becomes remarkable.
You can call it an activity trap if you want. What I think is remarkable that there is this idea of "the" free market. There is no such thing. As soon as you mandate any monetary system its properties will permeate throughout the entire market.
Consider Say's law. It assumes people do not keep money over the long term and always spend everything they earn. In other words, general gluts and the recessions they cause, are impossible. He simply assumed the properties of money away and treated money equivalent to barter. This alone is enough to blame money. One could now construct a huge barter exchange and solve all money related problems by getting rid of it. Alternatively one could merely do away with the ability to keep money over the long term and force everyone to spend everything they earn. Another extreme proposal but it would work. People will argue, hey but there are lots of debtors promising to pay later so holding onto money will help them do investments. So banks do fulfill an important role and they do offer a reason why people shouldn't spend their money or rather, why they should be allowed to keep it. But then people forget that it is the debtors who are the ones providing the ability to accumulate money. People want savings to drive investments when in reality it is investments that should drive savings.
The former position creates the illusion that raising interest rates will drive more investments. It also gives an excuse to always demand at least 0% interest on their unspent money. The latter position shatters that illusion. Rather than letting interest rates be determined by fantasies, the providers of that interest rate have to exist. It means that 0% interest isn't a magic number but rather a distortion of the free market and that is why I have no sympathy for those who cry about inflation. The fact that it is possible to hold onto non degrading money in a world that is degrading all the time is absurd.
It's why the deflation money story (gold standard or Bitcoin) is so ridiculous. Money goes up in value, therefore you receive your most valuable income when you are young. Possibly enough to retire by 40. The incentives are clear, earn as much money as quickly as possible, no matter the long term damage. Who cares about reality when the value of your money is going up? Yet the outcome is obvious, reality catches up, your money will be worthless. The boom is followed by a bust, ahem, because the value of that money didn't follow the fundamentals it was based on, a degrading world. Short term thinking was built into money itself.
If your money system accounts for degradation of the real world, it will reward people to minimize degradation rather than earn money in a way that accelerates degradation and then use money to extract a growing share out of the degrading world. The idea that you can exist independently of the real world if you have money is an "activity trap".
Apparently we have constructed a society in which everyone, including children, has to spend all day doing things they can't care about without pharmaceutical help. When this last happened under the Qin dynasty, it ended in the Taiping Rebellion, and produced nothing of value except those little canned oranges. I hear pornographic performers are on Viagra too. Meanwhile nobody actually has children, and CO2 PPM keeps…
You bring up a good point that this definitely doesn't end when you get out of school. I've worked with more than one person who admitted their high workload in the office could not be achieved without pharmaceutical[2] help. Magic pill = hours of intense focus = keeping your job (at worst) and career growth/promotion (at best). It kind of reminds me of Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky [1] where the antagonists u…
If this is actually true, it does seem to be worth asking whether we're doing a good job with how we're structuring secondary education. If someone isn't in a position where they have a medical reason to take this stuff, but they still feel like they need to -- there are a lot of reasons that might be happening, but it also could indicate something may be wrong with the environment they're in, and that should probabl…
It's similar to issues with performance enhancing drugs. If your course is graded so the top x% get an A, and people are using drugs to get ahead, then there's pressure to take study drugs to level the playing field with your peers. The end state is everyone taking drugs, and nobody being any better off academically.