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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

The difference with athletes is that they're playing already circumscribed games. Since everyone has to obey artificial rules, there's no harm in making the rules prevent damage to the players. In fact it's hard to think of a sport that doesn't already have rules of this type.

Winning in games is by definition relative. But winning at ideas is absolute. The faster you find a cure for cancer the better.

I'm not advocating using drugs to help you think better, btw, but there's more of a case there than in sports.

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We should be openly advocating for brain performance boosting. An open debate would include clear admission that many of today's drugs have side effects that outweight the benefits. Those drugs that have net positive benefits are used by billions of people, e.g. cafeine.

We need to significantly and openly fund a search for a drug like meth that doesn't make you go batshit crazy.

"But winning at ideas is absolute. The faster you find a cure for cancer the better." This would suggest that one could argue that all children should be given these medicines starting in kindergarten. One could argue that on the basis of US competitiveness in a global economy.

Taking these arguments to their logical conclusions gives me flash backs to Huxley.

That's one reason I explicitly said that I didn't advocate using drugs for such purposes.

I know. I caught that. My point is that is the kind of logic that the rest of society might latch onto. The risk is that study drugs are at a non-trivial risk of being perceived as a silver bullet for the larger societal problem of deficient school systems and American competitiveness. Maybe it wouldn't be mandated but it might be encouraged.

This entire discussion is making me want to go take a pill.

Certainly, I only bring up the sports example in attempt to strengthen the case for mental enhancement. Interestingly, your argument comes to bear on drug use in school since competition there is also relative.

> Since everyone has to obey artificial rules, there's no harm in making the rules prevent damage to the players.

You're begging the question here. Many of these drugs are overwhelmingly beneficial -- e.g. Human Growth Hormone. Prohibiting it makes about as much sense as prohibiting surgery; it's used to promote healing of injuries. If they cared about damage to players, its use would be encouraged. Reducing recovery time means they are playing and making money for the sport rather than laid up for months and just cashing checks. I would argue you have a moral duty to yourself to use any and all means to get better, and anyone who argues you should remain injured longer has no moral basis to stand on.

Baseball's rules are simply about image in this "drug war" climate. It's extremely hypocritical; Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds likely made a fortune for the league with all the excitement about breaking home run records.

It's also uncomfortably Übermensch-ish. If you disallow this type of enhancement, you're leaving it up to whoever was born with favorable genetics. It's not even about who trains the hardest -- someone with better genetics can do less work and get better results than someone else who works his tail off.

Additionally, there is a wide range of performance-enhancing substances, some of which are well-studied and can be safely taken under medical supervision. However, the well-known ones are typically the ones they test for and prohibit, which drives the practice underground and spurs development of experimental new substances of dubious safety.

And realistically, in order to compete in many sports today, you need both the genetics and the pharmaceutical enhancement. Thus the biggest threat to athletes' physical health is the prohibition of well-understood substances and the legal pressure on doctors which makes it difficult for an athlete to get the proper medical supervision. The system simply does not reward people who either lack superior genetics or the willingness to use these substances.

"I'm not advocating using drugs to help you think better, btw, but there's more of a case there than in sports."

This could mean several things. i'm curious what you think about a few cases that make explicit some of the ambiguities.

1 A person has debilitating OCD and is prescribed ritalin by a psychiatrist, which they take daily, so they can function.

2 A healthy person at the top of their field takes ritalin and other stimulaties daily over his career to enhance performance, prescribed by a physician. Cannot perform at the top of his field without it.

3 A person has debilitating OCD, is uninsured, and self medicates by taking illicitly obtained psilocybin mushrooms 6 times a year. (studies show that psilocybin reduces symptoms of OCD for longer then a month).

4 A person has treatment resistant cluster headaches that stops them from thinking. Their treatment provider informs them that their best bet is probably psychedelic mushrooms, which must be obtained illicitly.

5 A person has a psycho-spiritual crisis after finding out their religious leader is a fraud, and takes illicit LSD in the aftermath with confused and possibly self destructive intentions. Partly as a result of this experience, their psychology is permanently altered in a way that makes their thinking better.

6 An alcoholic uses illicitly obtained LSD to induce the kind of spiritual experience his psychologist said correlated with a relapse of alcoholism.

7 A musician takes illicit drugs as part of the creative process.

8 A musician takes prescribed drugs not according to directions as part of the creative process.

1 happens all the time. 2 similar to Paul Erdos. 3 happens occasionally, people can be jailed. adulterants possible. 4. happens occasionally, Jail, adulterants possible. 5 similar to Steve Jobs. Jail, adulterants possible. 6 similar to Bill Wilson, founder of AA (Jung advised him years earlier a genuine spiritual experience was the best hope for treating alcoholism.) Jail, adulterants possible. 7. happens all the time (see: jazz, rock.) Jail, adulterants possible 8. Similar to Glenn Gould. Jail possible (unlikely)

(ritalin isn't prescribed for OCD. My bad, should of said ADHD, but too late to edit)

Ritalin is prescribed for OCD occasionally. It's just not an advertised use.

I thought so. Then I couldn't find nothing to back it up. Cause it's off label and I didn't look hard.

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