Would you take smart drugs to perform better at work? | Hacker News Reader

Would you take smart drugs to perform better at work?

bbc.com

24 pointswslh52 comments

"We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com."

That is all great and all, but it's not answering the most important question - how can I, as a UK user, access this content? If I can't, then you just got an answer to why piracy is still a thing.

This annoys the hell out of me but apparently it's due to a ruling that the BBC cannot compete with the private sector in the UK market, due to its tax funding, non-profit nature.

I kind of understand it, but it does lead to ludicrous outcomes like this.

I didn't have the issue but I dont think I could ever "understand" such a thing. Sounds like a pretty big oversight.

If you haven't yet found a way around this: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/10606070

Also: http://web.archive.org/web/20140123002343/http://www.bbc.com... (posted earlier by someone else but now down the page)

Thank you :-)

If only there were some sort of transparent onion router that could obscure the geographical source of your network traffic!

maybe hola.org could help here?

Some professions could go the way pro-cycling has been for much of its history: you have to take the drugs to just keep up with everyone else.

If we assume 'miracle drugs' with no side-effects then there is the small matter of money. Drugs are expensive, market forces tends to keep it that way. So, to be a 'rockstar programmer' you might have to fork out $100K a year in pills, therefore making entry into 'the sport' cost prohibitive to outsiders that aren't on the drugs and able to ride with 'the pack'. Lance Armstrong and co. were selling their sponsor provided bikes on eBay to pay for the pills and riding old bikes, things got so desperate for the drugs slush-fund.

Even if we assume legal status for pills (so they don't have to be paid for with unaccounted funds) and affordable pills (supply exceeds demand), the money spent on pills means money not spent on other things such as the mortgage, the pension fund, fruit and vegetables etc.

Any simple means of raising IQ would be so powerful economicly that many countries would have a huge incentives to disregard IP agreements. The market for illicit synthisis in contries that enforce monopolies would likely be bigger than modern recreational drug markets. It's the type of thing that would get cheap fast, as pretty much everyone would like to be smarter, most people don't care about improving their biking speed.

I would. I already take one, caffeine.

As long as there are no harmful effects and no-one is forced to use anything I have nothing against it.

This is exactly what I thought.

The question isn't really "are smart drugs ethical to use" (nobody objects to worldwide mass consumption of caffeine), it's "are the side effects ones that won't negatively impact society too much".

Yep, if we ban these drugs because it's "not fair" we are limiting our progress as a society, unless they pose a health risk there is nothing wrong with them.

A heavy caffeine user, I also have occasional seasonal allergies (a week per quarter?) and rather than take simple Loratadine, I always prefer the versions that include Pseudoephedrine. It noticeably gives me a bit of extra pep to push on through the sniffles. I'm honest with myself that caffeine is a drug, and that my occasional consumption of Psuedoephedrine is a step away from being low-grade meth user.

So would I use something with cognitive benefits at concentrations (or consumption rates) that exhibit no harmful effects? I already do.

CAFFEINATED (PT.1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OecTZBjFvw

"And being the inquisitive individual that I am, I decided to hit the streets, and talk to a few people about this issue."

... and I stopped watching.

http://web.archive.org/web/20140123002343/http://www.bbc.com...

This is a very comprehensive write-up by Daniel Tenner, startup founder, about his experience taking Modafinil:

http://swombat.com/2012/2/27/modafinil-and-startups

No, because I don't trust that they wouldn't just make things worse later, increase the chance of burnout etc.

Also I'm already amazing, thanks.

I'm a caffeine user, have been for years. But the most important thing I've done for my cognitive fitness is to be aware of and adapt to my changing reaction to food.

As a teen, I could - and did - consume frightening quantities of sugar with few ill effects, at least intellectually (very high metabolism, about 145 lbs all through high school, A+ student, great scholarships). University wasn't too much different, though adding beer added weight.

Now in my late forties, I can feel the difference between sharp days and dull days. Too little sleep is the biggest contributor, too much sugar - or, more to the point, a protein-fat-carb imbalance - the other.

I know how much coffee I need, and I know how much is too much. I can feel the glucose hit and insulin rush if I have the wrong sweets at the wrong time.

Sometimes I can feel my sharpness, my intellect, being just out of reach. I hate days like that, when I feel stupider.

I also know that if I can skip one day of exercise after 2 or 3 days on, but not skip two. Without the squats and weights and deadlifts, I can feel myself slipping all the more.

Would I take enhancing drugs? At 48? Knowing that I am on the slow decline, that I need to slowly but continuously up my dietary awareness and slowly but continuously ease off foods I've always liked?

Yeah, maybe. What are the risks? And am I am objective enough to evaluate them?

Dunno.

I haven't read the article (I'm in the UK), but I currently do not, and I hope I can continue with this principle.

In particular, I don't even drink coffee. I refuse to put my health in danger just to please my employer. Now, I usually don't eat heavily carbohydrated food, which makes me sleepy, during work, and on the rare occasions that I do, I can afford to doze off for 10 minutes without fear of being fired. I know that most people aren't that lucky.

What's wrong with coffee? If anything, the current state of research says it's possibly beneficial, and otherwise inconclusive [0].

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/coffee/

It's addictive. When people get used to it, they "have to have it in the morning". I don't want to become one of those people.

And? We're also dependent on oxygen, water, and food.

I dont drink coffee either - I just dont like the taste.

The incredulous looks I get when I mention that I am a developer and I dont drink coffee are enough to continue to not drink coffee.

I've been using nicotine on-and-off, after reading up on Gwern's self-experimentation[1], in order to moderate my caffeine dependency.

I would probably use other chemicals, if the cost-benefit balance was good enough:

1. Easy to acquire - even nicotine gum is a bother to buy, compared to the various teas, coffees, colas, or caffeine drinks within a few metres of my desk.

2. Valuable - there would need to be a positive economic benefit, otherwise it would be a recreational chemical.

To think like an economist, the 'positive economic benefit' would provide $-amounts for:

3. Quality of Life costs - a smart-drug which affects your sex-life (e.g. Adderall) or causes me to lose focus on my health will have a high negative value.

4. Long-term Health costs - similar to above, except this is more of an expected-cost for (the likelihood of it causing long-term health issues) * (the negative value of those health issues). Not usually very high, but as the article mentions, not many of these drugs have had conclusive efficacy trials, never mind long-term studies of their effects. This one really depend on your personal risk-aversion.

[1]: http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine

On #2, the line between recreational and having a positive economic benefit is rather blurry. Many people take drugs to expand their mind or to work through psychological problems which can definitely give a positive economic benefit. Some people just take it to have fun, but some people only take them to help out a problem.

True, but I think that I parse "performance-enhancing" as being to do with immediate on-the-job performance.

If we're talking about the benefits of a drug for any purpose though, you could put recreational use under (3) and medicinal use under (4).

Ditto here on what you've been doing. Caffeine modulation (I alternate month intervals btw caffeine and nicotine gum).

I have a preference for well understood/studied chemicals now. Previous experiments with narcotics and pharmaceuticals were helpful in understanding dependence/addiction, mysticism, and enlightenment. Those experiments only revealed that most effects are aberrations and the cost+risk+utility of these is a net loss for me. I encourage people to experience this and have offered guidance on managing it - definitely do not try specific ones if you have ever had a notion of dependence or inability to control things like alcohol, smoking, etc. Addiction is not the goal and almost always is a net loss, so be aware of yourself and don't take foolish risks.

My experiments have so far led to net positive, but I am only now about to begin sleep modulation since I have baselines for the chemical experiments.

Basically, balanced nutrition to meet your needs for exercise and productive knowledge and skill acquisition (and relationship building) are foundational. Then start testing augmentation. Keep logs/journals and be open about it with nurturing people around you who understand your life goals, etc. You can also consider your various relationships as variables, so be careful when and how you enter, and alter, relationships while you journey. You need to be able to extricate yourself when you see losses not in line with your larger goals. Developing codependent relationships AND addictions is a dark road.

All this sounds great, and I've considered doing the whole quantified self thing, but aside from a massive helping of motivation, how do you go about keeping track of all the data?

Are there any good data-entry applications, or do you just note the data down and transcribe it into a spreadsheet later?

It's going mainstream already. Brain Toniq has a "light" version that's kosher and vegan, with no caffeine, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners (it's sweetened with monkfruit and stevia), and ... a dose of piracetam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracetam

I would take, or at least would try, even if not required by job. And I would absolutely trust doctor or bus driver who takes the drugs, what could be the reason not to? Maybe I'd trust even more than non-takers, because with higher focus a driver, for example, would be less likely to go into accident.

I take 75mg armodafinil and 30mg noopept every work day. They both help me. Its not like some magic bullet, but thinking, recall and motivation are definitely better.

I started taking them because my doctor put me on effexor for anxiety, and it made me so sleepy and foggy I couldn't code. Both smart drugs really helped clear up the fog in my brain

I was taking 150mg armodafinil but after i finally got off effexor ( a month of hell, dont ever go on that shit! ) I found 75mg was all I needed. I've also tried nefiracetam but I cant say I noticed a difference. I'm thinking of cutting out the armodafinil but not the noopept.

I hear you about the effexor. The only reason I'm still on it is because of the withdrawal effects. Those brain zaps are nasty!

man, fuck those brain zaps.

i dropped down to 35mg for 4 weeks, then started taking them every 2 days for a week, then every 3 days, then i stopped.

When I dropped to the every two days per week period i was taking nefiracetam and also exercising. I still got the brain zaps but it wasnt the full on 'whats going on in my head, make it stop! ouch! fucccckkk!' zap that came with the 75mg doses. it was doable.

nefiracetam supposedly gives you some seretonin so it may of helped there. Its hard to say, im not exactly going to get back on effexor just to see if i can quit them without the nef :O

GOOD LUCK!!!!

I have had ADHD since I was a child, so I can and do take these drugs(Vyvanse) when I go to work/school. Even though I have ADHD I feel like they give me an edge over those that do not take them, from my perspective I seem to have better concentration than my peers.

The people with ADHD have the so called "hyperfocus". It's like the flow, but you cannot stay in it if there are distractions. Pills help to ignore those distractions. You are more resourceful by training (from your condition), pills just enable you to show it.

Wow I've never heard of this but I can definitely see it in myself. I'm pretty much useless on days when I forget my medicine, but usually more productive than others then I do take it.

The real issue with hyperfocus is not so much being distracted out of it as not being able to target it. Sure, you can sometimes focus on something for 6 hours, but if it is the wrong thing, then you can blow through deadlines like nobodies business.

When I started on ADHD medications, the biggest thing I noticed was that I would worry more, and then actually adjust my focus to those problems.

I took modafinil for around 3 months last year when I started on a huge porject at work.

I work as a software engineer and my output was pretty staggering in comparison. The code was cleaner & probably better than anything I'd done before.

It was fantastic at keeping me focused for hours...

Why did you stop taking it? Any side effects?

I stopped taking it as I didn't feel the need to. As far as I can tell there's no reports on long term usage.

As for side effects, was a little harder to sleep, and I had to remember to eat. I lost about a stone in a month, but then my appetite came back.

Oh, and it has asparagus-like effects on the body.

I've still got some in a drawer I keep for the days I've got a hangover. Beats the hell out of coffee & a fry-up as a cure.

That is terrifying!

My opinion is that if you would answer 'yes' to this question then you should re-appraise the role that work plays in your life.

I can imagine certain roles where taking stimulants would be understandable: soldiers, for instance, whose survival in combat depends on having the mental edge.

But taking stimulants for a corporate coding job...?

I've been there (legally). You have to be motivated by your goal. And be prepared for a few bad days when the pills end. And you will miss this extra power you've tasted.

Its a slippery slope. Please plan very well.

DMAE. Went through FDA testing a long time ago and was so safe and effective they made it over the counter.

I don't use it more than a month a year, though. I just don't believe that lunch is free.

is better performance at work is the goal or is it a mean that would supposedly [magically] lead to some better things?

I think better performance at work can be converted to better performance in your side project.

I don't like drinking coffee, so my go to stimulant is 200mg of caffeine with 200mg of l-theanine (Suntheanine).

I took l-theanine for a long time, four or five years, and with tolerance I don't know whether or not it still had any positive effect but that same concern for tolerance also made me too cautious to stop it and take the possible rebound.

That happened anyway for silly reasons and it took me a few days to realize that the serious and ever increasing neck pain I had been suffering for a couple years (and blamed on computer use) had simply vanished. It's been a couple of months and what had been chronic has not returned with even a trace.

There was no psychological expectation or placebo factors because I never had considered the possibility that they might be connected, the cessation was inadvertent with no intent and something I thought little about, and it was several days before I realized that I had been completely free of increasingly disabling pain for the same several days. This could be coincidence but I don't think so. Just sayin'.

I would use smart drugs to make myself smart enough to escape work.

I really wish the BBC would cite their source...

Stimulants = smart?

For most white-collar professionals, very little is going to be gained by doing so. Drugs might help you grind out more hours, and they can give you confidence in your focus (the subjective sense of accomplishment is increased more than actual performance). Those drugs certainly make boredom less of an issue if you're at the bottom in a very demanding firm (e.g. an investment bank's analyst program). They're not going to make you better at politics, however.

Overperformance is far more dangerous to your career in a typical office job than underperformance. That's why the highs of a cyclic mood disorder like bipolar are more dangerous to one's employment than the lows. In a low, you underperform and might attract bad notice after a couple months. On a high, you work hard on something you weren't asked to do, it's brilliant, and then you get canned for (whether in fact or in appearance) neglecting your assigned work. Most white-collar workers are 25% depressed, chronically, by middle age and it doesn't hurt their ability to keep a job (although it's a disadvantage in interviews for new ones). It helps them fit in.

I'd say that it's worth using "smart drugs" for short bursts of work, or possibly in the creative professions if you don't answer to anyone. But most corporate workers don't need more "smart". They'd fare better with the opposite.

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