I used to think like you do. But the real place where we could make tons of progress is in relationships. Many stories of great thinkers involve one or a few crucial mentoring/pedagogical relationships. Without those, a person could forever find themselves trying to fit their square peg into the round hole of what "normal" society around them seems to expect. I can easily see how my life could have ended up like that.
As someone who benefited greatly from a few mentors in childhood and adolescence, my goal is to be able to give the same to at least a few other people in my lifetime.
Was just discussing various parenting stories with my colleagues over lunch and, like relationships, childhood environment and parental boundaries (or otherwise) would likely be the greatest influence to any individual.
But then, if 'mentors' applies to parents, then I guess I'm saying the same thing.
Having said that, my teenage son wastes a lot of his life playing online games with his friends, but having said that, I heard him say mid-game to a friend of his "Brazilian isn't a language you idiot!". So, I mean it's trivia, but he knows there's no language called Brazilian. He's a smart kid (that's not the only data point).
(I had to look it up: Portugese is the official language of Brazil).
>> As someone who benefited greatly from a few mentors in childhood and adolescence, my goal is to be able to give the same to at least a few other people in my lifetime.
+1. Same for me.
Relationships has been more important than what I could consider ideal or optimal (in terms of how many missed opportunities are there).
Once I was reading a technical paper from a colleague and could not follow much. Spoke to him and he could explain the crux of it in two-three sentences. I was left wondering why that was not there in the paper itself. But that happens repeatedly. People are able to explain much better than the literature they produce*.
This perhaps has a contribution as to why good relationships and mentors end up being so important. But then, this ultimately comes in the way of scalability.
* Of course, it may possibly also be that in a verbal conversation when the author personally knows the reader, they can explain to that reader better. However, I think this effect is less important than people being able to write better.
> Straight edge (sometimes abbreviated as sXe or signified by XXX or simply X) is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and recreational drugs in reaction to the punk subculture's excesses. Some adherents refrain from engaging in promiscuous or casual sex, follow a vegetarian or vegan diet and do not consume caffeine or prescription drugs. The term "straight edge" was adopted from the 1981 song "Straight Edge" by the hardcore punk band Minor Threat.
I've always been pretty much straight-edge. Don't drink much alcohol, and recently went off caffeine.
I'm naturally tired at around 2am. I barely dream, or can't remember my dreams. I struggle to wake up at 6:30 even after 7+ hours of sleep.
I do like an afternoon nap, but Sunday's are almost the only opportunity. As a bad consolation prize, I involuntarily micro-sleep at my desk, working from home or in the office, a handful of times most days, generally at peak afternoon nap times (1:30pm - 3:30pm).
I wouldn't say I'm productive, but I would say that the work I produce is generally of a high quality.
Well assuming we’re talking about Elon Musk, he has admitted to using prescription Ketamine for depression, which seems to have a negligible effect on cognition for therapeutic use
Interesting, I have seen some pretty scary interviews with Elon. If I had noticed a family member acting the same way I would have taken them to the ER.
I wonder what effects do you expect from that on a societal scale in the long term (at least 3,4 decades) ?
For instance we banned meth and other drugs that have tremendous productivity effects at the expense of the individual and how we had to deal with them, so it's not a rhetoric question.
Not quite, but if one does not have ADHD or something similar, things like adderall have a very different effect than they do to someone who has ADHD.
Your apparent disbelief in ADHD doesn’t make it imaginary, by the way. Consider yourself lucky that you do not have it; I am unemployable without medication.
People without ADHD take adderall &etc for focus/performance enhancing reasons. Some get it from a friend, some are incorrectly diagnosed. I don't know if you disagree that this is the case, but I don't think it implies anything about ADHD.
I'm aware we never "ban" any specific substance, as we say the dose makes the poison. And any substance that has any effect is also a potential cure for the disease that has the opposite effect.
I should have been clear I saw it in the "make people smart" light, as doping an already acceptable situation, instead of correcting something perceived as a pathology.
Meth was widely available over the counter at some point, and we made it legally disappear outside of strict medical settings.
Surely the most used because of its affordablity and easy access. Coffee, energy drinks, tea, caffiene pills, etc.
I wonder what academia would look like if adderall, vyvanse, modafinil were just as accessible, or even less controlled substances that are considered to enhance mental performance like L-tyrosine, alpha-GPC, Lion's Mane mushroom, Bacopa, or Ginko.
A vape is definitely not a less addictive form, I can attest to that. But especially with the patch, and to a lesser extend with gum, it’s not that addictive to (most) people who that never had a cigarette/vaping/dipping/pouching addiction. Gum is probably still more addictive than coffee but I would guess it’s at least closer to that of coffee than inhaling it.
In the past, when I've heard the 'less additive form', it was in contrast to nicotine from tobacco, where there are other chemicals and compounds at play. While it's true ROA can be a big part of habit formation, I'd argue it's a stretch to call it different form when it's the same chemical in either case.
tbf tho, I am somewhat contradicting another comment I made about bioavailability on this very gp thread so suffice to say, I do understand your point.
I mean they quite literally come in completely different forms of products, but I get your point. I thought nicotine vs tobacco was mostly important for health risk, with the exception of cigarettes which IIRC have all sorts of nasty stuff added or in trace amounts.
That's also my understanding, and nicotine has some other strange health benefits - for instance, it's a better schizophrenia treatment (for symptom relief) than the actual medications for it, which is why almost all schizophrenics smoke.
On the other hand, I just looked at Twitter and saw two different people get ~$3000 payments from a class action lawsuit against Juul, which is by far the biggest payment I've ever heard of from a class action signup, so I suspect they're about to die.
I bet if such an effective drug were created, that just like Ozempic, we'd end up in a situation where the rich buy it up and use it to increase their advantage thus only widening the wealth gap. Like some dystopian Monkey's paw effect.
I think modafinil is a wonderful drug, far more potent than caffeine or nicotine. It's also very easy to get with no long term ill effects. There is a whole subreddit dedicated to this.
Positive eugenics would result in more smart people with zero drugs or genetic engineering involved. And it requires zero oppression or violence. Just pay couples with high IQs to have babies.
