[greenshackle]

> So you're telling me you alter your biochemistry to become more productive without a care for how it affects your overall (mostly mental) health?

Uh? Did you read Gwern? This is literally the opposite of what he does. He is ALL ABOUT weighing risks to overall health. Did you miss the fact that half of his articles detail the potential bad effects of the drugs he's trying?

>Hell, I started smoking cigarettes at 16, which I rank near the top of my worst decisions ever, despite the fact that it helped me hack my brain chemistry

He has an article on non-tobacco nicotine (nicotine gum, patches). His conclusions are, IIRC, 'kinda useful, but has some risks'. He doesn't have a page on cigarettes. You know why? Because cigarettes are THE WORSE. Everyone knows this. It's silly to write off all performance enhancing drugs on the grounds that you once made the bad decision to use possibly the very worse one, from a risk/benefit perspective."

I grant you that brain chemistry hacking may be one step towards em-world, which is as Moloch as it gets, but if you're working on important problems it the edge may be worth it.

[hasbroslasher]

Fair point. My point wasn't "hur hur cigs are bad ergo caffeine is bad" - rather that there are costs and benefits to everything (adderall, cigs, coffee, probably this modafinil shit) and that I don't think the benefits to being able to work around the close really exceed the costs, especially on a personal level. Like I said, becoming a diarrhea-ridden coffee maniac isn't a great fate either, especially when a good night of sleep solves the same problem.

It sounds like we agree there.