This then begs the question where these new substances stand. Are they barely more than caffeine and mostly harmless? Is maybe the placebo effect playing a role in making them appear more effective to the user than they truly are? But if they do have a significant effect, at what price does it come? The human body needs rest, that is a pretty well-established fact. It seems unlikely that these substances would be able to change this fundamental principle. What does seem likely, if they indeed are effective, is that you are buying more alertness for the moment, but paying for it in the long run.
Normally substances are researched and tested by professionals for years and sometimes decades before declared safe. But even that process is not always perfect and substances with harmful side effects have been known to slip through. Potentially turning yourself into a human vegetable a couple of decades down the road by experimenting with these barely understood substances seems like a dangerous proposition.
Caffeine of course is still #1 for me in terms of efficacy. I'm not desperate enough to use harder stimulants like ephedrines or amphetamines or phenethylamines etc.
There's definitely legal amphetamines, non-amphetamine stimulants (modafanil, methylphenidate if you want to put it there), and lots of literature statistics about what is and isn't a dose which can perform harm, and often a classification for the older drugs as GRAS. There's things which may behave like a stimulant or can replace a stimulant, but aren't really stimulants (bupropion, atomoxetine).
If you're talking about Meth, well, then, yeah. It's illegal and often harmful. It's also not likely to be pure.
For the most part, anything which people consider a performance enhancing brain drug has probably been used or posited as a treatment for ADHD or Narcolepsy. It's often a stimulant or a reuptake inhibitor, usually relating to dopamine in some way. There's a ton of FDA-approved drugs out there that meet this description.
As someone who's taken it a couple times, didn't get much out of it, and is now amazed he didn't end up in serious trouble: stay the hell away from Phenibut. Or, don't take my word for it: Google for "phenibut withdrawal".
Remember kids, if you want a really good placebo experience, buy the good shit.
Basically, for best results you want to receive your medicine as the Star Patient in a Very Important Looking Medical Drama right at the moment where Everything Starts Getting Better.
Edit: Ooh. Apparently bacopa has real effects shown in double-blind RCTs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nootropic#Availability_and_pre...
I previously looked at sourcing modafinil but ultimately decided against it due the the sources available looking dodgy, a lack of clarity in the laws around it, etc. As more reputable companies emerge in the sector I think I may well end up giving the products a go.
If you're a profit-maximizing employer, would you rather hire the person who performs better today, or the person who is looking out for their own long-term safety? Or if you're a startup founder competing against a bunch of doped up super-brains, how strong must the incentive be to join the dark side?
I see similarities with professional sports, where athletic associations are always playing Whac-A-Mole with performance enhancing drugs, and top earning athletes routinely get chastised for doping. Should we expect outcomes in knowledge work to be different if brain hacking proves as effective?
I'm not an American but from what I was taught about folks like Ben Franklin, I think they'd be shocked to know it has become illegal to determine your own treatment.
So I don't know if you can just couch it in terms of personal freedoms... it seems a bit more complicated than that. I don't know what the answer is, but pretty sure it isn't just 'Let people do whatever they want.' At least with heroin and cocaine people have some idea about the risks, even if they decide to ignore them...
With heroin, the biggest risk is the fact it's illegal, thus preventing you from obtaining clean, known-quantity medication. If Tylenol was sold on the streets, with pills ranging from 100mg to 1000mg, we'd have a LOT more liver toxicity cases than we do. It's not like using opiates in a correct manner leads to death on a routine basis.
personally i prefer to dumb myself down with a bit of weed... :)
Obviously this is not a common reaction, and probably very rare with most nootropics. I just want to point out that there are long-tail risks to this. Although many of these agents are probably safe for the majority of the population, creative and ambitious people are likely to be already a high-risk group.
If you're a mathematician or artist or novelist advancing the state of humanity, "enhance" away, and I'll wish you the best in recovery if you get unlucky. If you're a corporate climber and you blow your brain out trying to gain an edge in a zero-sum game, then I have zero sympathy.
Mania can be happy. Or at least a terrible funfuck of a ride while it lasts. At least for the person experiencing it. If they don't have to deal with all the consequences.
I was also self-medicating for Open Plan Syndrome (often a precursor to full-blown Panic Disorder, as it was for me, and not uncommon in tech) so the reason why I was using it (in such absurdly high doses) may be a contributor to the fucked-up-ness.
The problem with studying these supplements is not everyone reacts the same way to them and things like diet and sleep tend to have a dramatic effect on what works and how well.
I don't think Adderall/Strattera/Concerta/Ritalin/etc is as effective on those without ADHD as you're implying it is, and those who actually have ADHD (myself included) are not better at a job just because of the supplement. Remember that the drugs wear off, and those hours unmedicated can kill productivity in other ways from constantly being distracted - disorganization, forgetfulness, procrastination (not don't feel like it, think depression), inability to stop multitasking (this can really kill), ignoring details, impatience,... i could go on.
> As more reputable companies emerge in the sector I think I may well end up giving the products a go
Do you really need to though? There's no free lunch; these supplements are going to have side effects. Using baseball as an analogy here, if you're on a major league team getting millions to push your body for the few years you can keep up, i can see the draw of steroids. But if you're in the minors, why entertain the idea of anything other than basic nutrition, exercise, and a good night's sleep?
It straight up does improve memory:
I don't think Adderall would really give ADHD suffers an advantage. It might bring them close to the level of others, but Adderall has its own effects, and ADHD isn't going to be completely eliminated by it.
I'm not an ADHD sufferer myself, but from what I understand, Adderall is used to help cope with the condition by giving you improved concentration for a while. It doesn't eliminate it.
The effect is that it doesn't improve concentration so much as it allows concentration in the first place.
2. Heroin is a highly addictive substance, that will kill you in sufficient qualities. You don't see that as a problem?? Even if it were cleanly packaged with a black label, people would still take too much and die from it. Cute example with Tylenol, but doesn't cause dependence and withdrawal. Opiates are given to people with pain, where they have a fundamentally different physiological effect.
Opiates do not have a "fundamentally different" effect if you're in pain. I think people like saying that about opiates and stimulants so as to excuse people that "need" it.
And yes, personal freedom is worth people choosing to rip apart families.
The point is about dangerous usage patterns. You are trying to argue that hard drugs are actually not that bad if only they were available with the same safety and dosage rigor applied to approved pharmaceuticals. My point is that it isn't an apt example because nobody gets euphoric or addicted when they take Tylenol. Any drug that causes some physiological disturbance in sufficient quantities is going to be more dangerous if that drug is taken by users in ever increasing quantities.
> Opiates do not have a "fundamentally different" effect if you're in pain. I think people like saying that about opiates and stimulants so as to excuse people that "need" it.
It is different. Say a patient has severe pain from metastatic breast cancer. I can give them a dose of morphine that would stop you from breathing permanently, and they will be fine. Are you saying she didn't really need it, she just likes the rush? I don't understand your point, maybe you can clarify. The rates of opioid addiction in people receiving it for pain are much lower than you would otherwise think from the way people buy oxycodone on the black market.
Personal freedom? What about the personal freedom of the kid who gets bashed by their drunk parent? Or the personal freedom of the cyclist that gets run over by a drink driver? Or the personal freedom of the emergency department nurse that gets her ear bitten off by someone with amphetamine induced violent psychosis?
Seriously, I don't think people doubt mind enhancing drugs exist. We're skeptical of manufacturers and people who believe they've "researched" nootropics because they've read a lot of stuff on the internet written up by marketing guys, PR men, and researchers willing to do shoddy research for money.
Read his comment again.
This article is painting a picture of silicon valley kids coming up with exciting new nootropic drugs that will help us perform better mentally.
OP is saying this new "nootropic industry" smells and sounds like the bullshit that's peddled in Utah. He's not wrong. I can smell the jizz from the pants of the PR guy who coordinated this article with Observer. Unless these new drugs are rigorously studies and their efficacy is independently verified, we're going to be bombarded by all sorts of pseudo-drugs and supplements that are unregulated, untested and potentially dangerous. You're going to see marketing guys, PR men, and all sorts of phoneys trampling over themselves to get a piece of the nootropic action. They'll form associations and lobby for nootropic friendly legislation that defangs the FDA so these marketing psychopaths can experiment on us with their secret blends of brain food.
That's a legit concern because we've seen this sort of nonsense repeated throughout history for hundreds of years. Some of the stuff might be good, most of it will be garbage, and the overwhelming majority of people won't have enough skill or training to be able to discern the bullshit from the real deal. Most pharmaceutical "autodidacts" who "research their shit" online will have no fucking idea what they're talking about, but they'll be more than happy to confidently share their ignorance with others. They won't be able to discern real independent research from industry sponsored research because modern PR groups and associations are really good at lying. The pharmaceutical companies know how to manipulate doctors. Do we really think these marketing and PR assholes can't dupe some autodidactic dipshits who extract only the most vague understanding of the "research" they just happen to come across.
That's what he was getting at, not that there aren't brain enhancing drugs, but that he smells the bullshit coming down the road.
It all starts with a bullshit name that sounds smart (Oohh nootropics!), but is legally vague enough to skirt any meaningful regulation or discernment between bona fide brain enhancers and grass clippings put into pills. You add a story about how nootropics are the future and then you divide the market up into "reputable" brands vs. unreputable brands. People don't have the mental tools to be able to discern what's good or bad, so they'll naturally follow the "wisdom of the crowd" and tell themselves they researched it.
It's the same fucking story. Science and understanding is substituted with brand reputation once again.
Fuck nootropics. Not brain enhancers, but the word nootropic.
But let me understand you: Are you saying that if someone is in pain, their respiratory system just ignores opiates and they can take large doses even if they're opiate naive? Does this work retroactively, like if you don't have Narcan handy can you just snap someone's leg to save them? (And then, with a broken bone, they'd certainly get medicated - double win!)
Sarcasm aside, do you have a citation for this claim? That opiate tolerance doesn't matter in face of pain? That there's a "fundamental difference" in the effect? I'm truly interested in hearing about that (feel free to contact me via my profile if this thread is too long).
Everything I've read and experienced says otherwise. I've talked with some users that were taking opiates for cancer pain management, or for otherwise long-term pain, and they just as happy to take them as unlicensed users (though perhaps a bit more cautious in admitting so). In personal experience from acute trauma leading to a hospital team applying morphine, I went from screaming in pain to absolute noddy-head bliss. I'm pretty sure that's the exact effect people are seeking.
Yes, that's right, if someone is in pain, the respiratory depression is less. This is evident to anyone that prescribes opioids regularly or looks after people with chronic and acute pain (as I do). It is also evident that the ever escalating doses and withdrawal symptoms demonstrated by recreational users of heroin for example, are not manifested in people with pain. So that's why I use the word 'fundamental difference', because the coupling between dosage, physiological response and behavior is completely different.
Lots of people don't enjoy taking opioids, they get nausea, nightmares, constipation etc, or it just doesn't work for their pain. I know this because that is what is reported in controlled trials, and because people complain to me about these side effects all the time.
Reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8867254
More general overview: http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/100/6/747.full
(Glad you are truly interested, but in the time it took to write your sarcastic comment, you could have just googled it, and we'd both be better off right now.)