Slate star codex 2016 nootropic survey results | Hacker News Reader

Slate star codex 2016 nootropic survey results

slatestarcodex.com

64 pointseruditely8 comments

LSD microdosing is rated here very highly, but it may be not working at all: "Some early experimental studies with LSD suggested that doses of LSD too small to cause any noticeable effects may improve mood and creativity. Prompted by recent discussion of this claim and the purely anecdotal subsequent evidence for it, I decided to run a well-powered randomized blind trial of 3-day LSD microdoses from September 2012 to March 2013. No beneficial effects reached statistical-significance and there were worrisome negative trends. LSD microdosing did not help me." from https://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing

Sure, it is possible that personal responses vary. But unless people do some blind trails, I am very skeptical of the claims (various placebo effects when acting _and_ grading).

Well Gwern also administered the poll itself right? Or he might have helped with it in some form, I think gwern is just unique in how he responds to things.

Caffeine does so well it almost doesn't make any sense to take anything else, except for how easy it is to develop a tolerance for Caffeine.

Most of the substances have different effects and durations. Their mechanisms of action also differ, so there's the possibility of stacking for greater benefits.

That's a very important point. The results can't really be mapped to a one-dimensional score of some kind of nootropyness. Especially with higher doses, many of the nootropics have wildly different effects.

If one makes you giddy and bursting with creative ideas and another gives you drone-like immunity to distractions, they can't be linearly converted to equivalent doses of caffeine.

I think the survey's score chart is best understood as a "how much do you like it" ranking instead of a conversion chart.

Cerebrolysin seems interesting but the ROA is quite frightening to me.

Knowing this survey tells you what? Nothing.

Background: I don't like the idea that people could start to take one of the higher ranked nootropics just because of the ranking. A quick google scholar tells you that most of the stuff is complete garbage.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com