1. What if it’s the most amazing thing ever, like ADHD medication, what if you get insanely productive, and you then have to go back to being mediocre?
2. What if it triggers something bad. If I get 10% worse at focusing on a solving a problem?
Nope
Probably a good time to remind everyone that ADHD medication will not actually make you insanely productive forever. Good for treating genuine ADHD, but trying to use it like a limitless pill just leads to tolerance, dependence, and burnout.
The more involved doctors will actually start people on low doses and titrate up so patients don’t get the wrong idea about what the medicine is supposed to be doing for them. It’s usually the people who took too high of a dose they borrowed from a friend in college or something who have an idea that stimulants are a magic limitless pill without consequences.
You will get 10% worse at focusing on solving a problem and then 20% just as a result of aging and there's nothing you can do about it. Your eyes will get old, your vitreous will start to detach and you'll start to see what looks like worms floating around in your eyes. Again, nothing you can do about it. Your hearing too will slowly start to degrade. High frequencies will fade to dust and those below them will become more apparent and, in some cases, become quite annoying.
Now, if you microdose that’s a different story. I tried microdosing for a month years back at a remote job. I found it made me more able to connect with others. Like I didn’t want to hop off a meeting right away. It gave me some extra creativity when coding, but didn’t increase the output of my code.
I completely respect anyone who doesn’t want to try though, there are even some psychedelics that scare me and I’ve done quite a bit!
Counter anecdote: I tend to compulsively clean my apartment on mushrooms.
Tradeoff is clear for me.
Aldous Huxley would like a word…