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Comment by danneu | Hacker News Reader

You spent the entire comment condemning the lack of experimentation protocol, yet your final challenge is the most trivial of all.

What conclusion could you draw from your proposed duel? If someone can't beat you in a standardized IQ test after ingesting 20mg of amphetamine? Or a cup of coffee? Or 5g of a racetam? Seems to me your conclusion would be "I perform better than you even when you're mentally stimulated". Okay, you're smart and awesome.

I'd wager that most people taking nootropics are looking for personal results in our ubiquitous struggle to ward off lethargy while spurring motivation and concentration, not to win some mental duel with their peers.

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Yeah, the reason I take Adderall is best summed up by the difference in my college GPA that occurred after being prescribed Adderall midway through. (Not to mention all the depression-like symptoms that came from underachieving constantly and knowing it and wanting to change that on my own but failing over and over.) And in the years since then I've gone a few months at a time without it to try to see if, now that I've got more interesting jobs, I still need it to focus. Sadly, it seems like I do.

But there are tricks to it. It has something of a threshold for me: after a certain level, higher dosages don't seem to help any more (other than the first day or two right after the switch), as my body builds some tolerance. The just make the side effects worse. And the side effects are unpleasant at best, even at the relatively low dosage my doctor and I have gotten myself down to. I would absolutely not take it regularly if I felt like I could get stuff done at a sufficient level without it. Some people need their coffee, I need something a bit stronger. Sucks, but I'm stuck with it for now.

If you are in any type of relationship or looking to start one I would advise you to make it clear to your S/O when you are taking Adderall. From my experience, I'd imagine they can tell. When I met my current G/F she was basically addicted to a very heavy dose of Adderall. She would get moody and incredibly snippy when she started taking her daily dosage. I described it as "lasering". She couldn't do anything except whatever was in front of her for the next $x hours. She stopped adderall cold turkey and has been just as productive and a more personable for the last 5 months. YMMV but if you care about the people in your life, make sure they are also aware of what could be driving you.

Yes, GP's closing paragraphs were absolutely baffling to me:

>To sum up, I am willing to do a mental test (memory, or IQ, as the smart drug promoter chooses) duel with anyone who claims that smart drugs have helped him become smarter.

Wait, what? He spent 1000 words explaining to us all of the ways in which research around nootropics is lacking and then closes by proposing a ridiculous test fraught with a glaringly obvious confounding factor (the test subject's baseline intelligences). Baffling.

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