This semester has worked me harder than I've ever worked in my life. It is scary how much I identify with the people mentioned in the article (minus the stimulants and the partying). After reading that so many people want to live the way I've been living for the past five months, I can't help but feel pity for the western world. Counter intuitively, working so hard makes me feel small, unimportant, and unhappy. None of the work I'm doing right now matters in the long run, but it forces me to abandon side projects that might be.
For people to want to live their lives in this way for more than a few months to achieve specific goals seems extremely shallow. There is little in life, save saving your own life, that would warrant this kind of constant grinding effort. We should be creative, happy creatures, not constantly constrained by time and energy. All these drugs allow us to do is become the epitome of a World of Warcraft player.
The marginal gains of these drugs(at the moment) do not appear to be worth it to me. A truly transformative neuroenhancer might be attractive, but it has yet to come.