What are your options for cognitive enhancement?
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
At the same time I so agree with the author's statement that 'The perspective I’m advancing calls for first exhausting “analog” means to achieve mind-expansion before pursuing either pills or processors or both in combination.' - if your diet is crap, your exercise is nonexistent, you get no sleep, no nootropic concoction is going to make up for that.
As for employer-mandated enhancers - what follows is a very initial stream of thoughts at the idea, not something well thought-through at all. This article made me consider this for the first time. I can see the risk. At the same time there are so many other methods of mental improvement employers could be mandating today. Sure, none may be a "magic pill", but there are things proven to improve or deteriorate our performance at work. Sleep being one of them. Yet not once has an employer attempted to track and mandate a certain number of sleep hours to me. Not once have I had an employer force me to take up exercise. Having said that my employer does subsidize gym memberships so we are encouraged to stay active, so maybe this is a counter-example; maybe if a magical brain pill existed the way an employer would get you on it is by simply sponsoring it for their employees.
Are you saying this as a statement of fact or more like an advice?
Because, as a statement of fact, it is very probably false. Anti-ADHD medication will make up (and then some) for crappy diet, no exercise and bad sleep (this one probably only to a certain extent).
Same thing about sleep. No sleep = you die. Starting from there, it is obvious that extreme sleep deprivation is bad for you. It is the details that are less certain.
imo and ime, adhd meds like amphetamine derivatives will NOT make up for these things, but it will allow you to push through not having them them for a limited time. These things will eventually catch up to you in a few weeks.
This model of people "crashing after a few weeks" and similar are mostly driven by people's idea of how a just world should operate, not by actual data--as your use of the morality-laden phrase "catch up" nicely demonstrates. While some drugs exhibit such behaviour (L-DOPA, caffeine), far more do not (insulin, Aspirin). Some even become more potent with regular use (glucocorticoids, unfortunately).
Many are somewhere in-between. Alcohol is a pretty good example to calibrate your intuitions: it's probably at the "yes tolerance!" end of the scale. If you have ever gone to college you will have noticed your alcohol sensitivity decreasing. But this effect has an even more noticeable plateau, and it's a far cry from no longer being able to get drunk.
The ADHD reaction to amphetamines is somewhat atypical anyway: it does not produce agitation as it does for "normal" people or at higher doses, but rather calmness/zen/serenity. IIRC sleep duration and quality tend to increase, for example.
Even amphetamine abuse is unlikely to actually kill you[0], nor will you accumulate <negative mojo x>. Just look at the average life expectancy on Wall Street. It does, however, significant alter behaviour: it provokes a certain OCD-like enjoyment of stressful but repetitive work (fighter pilot, stockbroker, Elton John) while somewhat ruining your ability to function socially or cope with varied tasks.
[0]: Speed will kill you the first or second time you take if you are unlucky enough to have a pre-existing heart condition. Cocaine will kill you with constant probability over time.
Even the famous marshmallow experiment didn't claim that people eating the marshmallow right away caused their disappointing career trajectories. (the successful people actually got twice as many marshmallows out of that experiment-go figure)
That's a misunderstanding of how ADHD works for most people. Most people with ADHD do not experience a deficiency with focus, but an inability to selectively focus on something. What someone with ADHD needs to do, they might not be able to focus on, and yet they may be able to hyperfocus on a task that they enjoy. Thus it can be seen that they do not lack the ability to focus, but merely the ability to control how they focus on something, and how intensely they focus on something. ADHD medication is focused on not improving focus, but improving their ability to control that focus.
The brain for people with ADHD is very different, and people with ADHD generally do not find that stimulants act in the way that they do for people without ADHD.
https://www.additudemag.com/understanding-adhd-hyperfocus/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-distracted-coupl...
At first reading of your comment it doesn't sound like it agrees with what you're saying, at least the part about having different effect on people without ADHD.
I actually deliberately stay away from SSC because it has "less wrong" brainworms present. Not only is that community regularly participated in by the founders of neoreactionary conservativism (scott is outspoken against it but it hasn't stopped his site and the LW community having large swathes of them), but they deliberately obfuscate their terms and have a distaste for any literature that could disprove their pet theories or how they constantly misapply bayes theorem, and they regularly produce articles based on spurious evidence that can sound convincing to laymen who do not know enough about the subjects in question to understand why their ideas are incorrect, or to rebutt them.
This is provably false.
Amphetamines reduce the appetite; they in no way "make up" for crappy diet.
Amphetamines increase blood pressure and heart rate; while this keeps one skinny when combined with the above point, it does not strengthen the cardiovascular system. It doesn't "make up" for no exercise.
Finally the comorbidity associated to bad/no sleep is exacerbated by amphetamine usage.
I am impressed at how every point you made is false.
We are talking about using "nootropics to help increase mental acuity and focus". In that sense, amphetamines will make up for lessened mental performance that you may have due to bad diet or lack of exercise.
There are plenty of studies of the effects of amphetamines on sleep-deprived individuals (it does help with alertness and mental acuity, provided the deprivation is not severe, and even then only in the short term).
Can you link articles proving your claims about amphetamines clearing up reduced mental performance specifically due to bad diet or lack of exercise?
The summary is that Adderall works well to increase focus for basically everyone.
If those muscles are still doing more work than baseline, how does it matter what is causing them to do so?
1500 calorie dinner with lots of fresh salad, fruits, meat, veggies, cheese at ~5:30 pm.
Get at least 7 hours of sleep.
One cup of coffee at 6:00 AM, black, no dairy/sugar, no breakfast (continue fast).
At 12 pm, have 1-2 apples to break fast and to fend off hunger. Eat the entire apple/core for probiotic properties.
Tip: try to stay on my feet most of the day, standing desk, moving to other places, etc. —
It has taken a decade to find this diet for my cognitive enhancement. I do not get tired post noon now until after 4 pm.
Extremely alert around 9 to 11 AM.
A daily 18 hour fast seems to be working really well for some reason. Only one cup of coffee per day. Sleep is critical and should be repetitive.
I know I am in a good place when I am consistently waking up 3-5 minutes prior to 5:30 AM alarm.
If I snack before bed or eat around 20/21, I can feel more hunger pains the following morning around 10, which is a negative on the cognitive performance :)
Evidence points to the benefits of eating only within an 8-12 hour window each day. With newer evidence suggesting having that eating window open from breakfast through lunch being the best for health/longevity/etc.
Dr. Rhonda Patrick gets into this with Dr. Panda in a few episodes. https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/satchin-panda https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/satchin-round-2
For instance, is the effect only temporary, in the sense that it unlocks some region of not normally traversed mental state space? (E.g. allowing you to write paragraphs you wouldn't otherwise be able to.) Or is the effect more permanent, in the sense of teaching you something, providing you with a new muscle which can be used later even in a sober state of mind (teaching you to ride a type of brain bike, which then can't be unlearned), or by showing you connections between disparate ideas you hadn't previously had the ability to see next to each other?
I'm currently leetcoding in preparation for tech interviews, and find it much easier to work out the "trick" to solve problems while microdosing LSD
Of course this is not new. Ritalin has been used as a study drug for meaningless academic tests for decades.
But it really goes beyond drugs. The experiences created by media and games today, even social app feedback loops, are far more powerful than any real-world experience. Go to bed every night with a show or a game or a social app, and you will lose your edge very quickly. (I’m currently embroiled in a muted partner dispute of several years over this.)
And yet I have considered exactly the same, because the last few years has filled my head with so much crap that I never wanted to think about; perhaps microdosing would allow a more intentional reset, and leetcode may be the closest thing normal folks have to productive mental engagement. Certainly not most jobs, even in tech, which is sad.
I feel highly certain that outcomes are ~all derived from the effect of psychedelics on the default mode network of the brain, and the corresponding downstream effects of those changes on thinking, perception, emotions, etc.
Google: "microdose" "default mode network" and you will get tons of reading material - I would recommend reading a mixture of clinical studies and anecdotal narratives. Take everything with a grain of salt of course, but also keep an open mind. This is new territory, we know very little about it.
> For instance, is the effect only temporary, in the sense that it unlocks some region of not normally traversed mental state space? (E.g. allowing you to write paragraphs you wouldn't otherwise be able to.) Or is the effect more permanent, in the sense of teaching you something, providing you with a new muscle which can be used later even in a sober state of mind (teaching you to ride a type of brain bike, which then can't be unlearned), or by showing you connections between disparate ideas you hadn't previously had the ability to see next to each other?
I would say, speculatively: all of the above, potentially, depending on the person. The "correct" answer to such questions is currently not known, but this seems very difficult for many to realize, which is quite ironic.
Children are more receptive to novel ways of thinking because you need to invest in that kind of thing for a while to achieve effective cognition. Once you're closer to death, it's more productive to use what you've got than to invest in further creative problem-solving skills.
Recently, life expectancies have increased radically. Evolution optimized us to mature into cognitive equilibrium fast enough to reproduce. Evolution has yet to adapt to these new conditions, in which it's optimal to keep shaking up your brain for longer than it used to be.
I would love to hear entrepreneurs who find it useful (I talk mainly about micros dosing now)
Related articles I read not long ago, about this subject:
- https://psmag.com/education/microdosing-may-increase-creativ...
- https://qz.com/1449166/study-finds-magic-mushroom-microdosin...
- Negative outcomes. They _might_ be valuable, but they might be incredibly harmful, especially if taken at the wrong doses.
- Legality. I have a family to take care of. I am not going to put them at risk for this.
- Availability. Where does one obtain illegal drugs safely.
- How much upside? Caffeine also can be helpful. Is this more or less helpful than something relatively harmless?
The most productive and successful people I meet almost always have been mostly sober their whole life, exhibiting balance and clear headedness. If psychedelics are doing any good, it is because those who are taking them are already so broken, any kind of change could be construed as positive.
Remember, psychedelics are not a new phenomenon in human society...
You won't take my anecdotes seriously, just as I won't take your anecdotes seriously, so I hope you see now why this kind of hyperbole is worth nothing if not backed up by peer-reviewed science.
Are you seriously suggesting I'm brainwashed because I asked for sources? Jesus man, you're very far gone.
The thing is that it maybe true that your definition of "positive experience" fits my definition of what I have seen as the before and after. Many of these people who have become more hippy like would also describe that as a positive thing. But like I was saying, what I have seen has been that psychedelic effects on peoples brains are often deterministic, many people who have taken too many end up with very similar psychological profiles and dispositions. Clearly there is something going on there.
In some ways, part of the angst in my post arises from all of these different news articles popping up that talk about the positives of psychedelics, when neither the people writing the articles, nor those reading them probably know very many people with any experience.
If you already have a certain mindset you are going to dismiss evidence to the contrary, too. You may just be confirming your opinion by only acknowledging positive samples. For example, you may not even know about the subset about psychedelic users who are perfectly normal and "un-hippy" because they do not tell you about their drug use. Likely, if you observe habitual and open drug-use you may also encounter a specific personality type.
>when neither the people writing the articles, nor those reading them probably know very many people with any experience.
I also would dispute that, drug use in the US is not that uncommon, especially under millenials and university graduates. So it is quite likely that both readers and authors are familiar with psychedelics.
The caveat here is that real hard science needs real hard data, not anecdotal evidence.
[0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...
Of course it only happens to some subset of users and the link is far from clear
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/19/7049482...
I've seen the same as you, in myself and others. It might not be true for all people, but at least a significant, noticeable subset of the people who use psychedelics do fall into that 'category'. Like minds unraveling themselves, almost becoming ghosts in their vague perceptions of themselves and others.
And I think your perspective is justified, just by listening to the stories people tell about the experience itself, not by doing statistical analysis per se. Users tend to speak about feeling one with their surroundings. In group settings, boundaries disappearing between people. People becoming more sensitive to ideas and 'vibes'. Do it often enough, and you'll become more and more biased towards the things you surround yourself with while under the influence.
But here's the thing.. that stuff will pull you under if you're not careful.
> Almost everyone that I meet who has done considerable, or even moderate, amounts of psychedelics has clear and obvious personality changes. Personality is a poor word to use, but something like their disposition, "hippy" attitude is extremely common.
How many samples have you based your conclusion on? Did all/most members belong to one common group of people (your subsequent comment suggests yes). Is it safe to assume all individuals will adopt this style of thinking, and to a similar degree that you've experienced?
> So much so that I think these drugs cause long term physical damage to peoples cognitive faculties.
May cause (I suspect you know this, but just making note of it).
> The most productive and successful people I meet almost always have been mostly sober their whole life, exhibiting balance and clear headedness.
How do you know they have been mostly sober their whole life?
> If psychedelics are doing any good, it is because those who are taking them are already so broken, any kind of change could be construed as positive.
This is a theory, with little if any supporting evidence (I suspect you know this, but just making note of it). My point is, stating theories as facts can alter the mental models of those who read your comments (which is likely the sort of thing going on with the group of friends you observed)
> Society tells us that anecdotal evidence is false, but that's brainwashing.
Here I very much agree.
> I can see with my own two my eyes what drugs do.
What drugs can do, as you've interpreted, in a very small set.
> Most likely certain areas of people brains are dampened or flattened by these drugs, and so if youre and anxious person, maybe you experience "relief", but that comes at a cost.
It comes at a cost sometimes. How frequent this is, and to what degree, is unknown. (I suspect you may know this, but here I am less confident).
> its very common for people on hacker news and elsewhere on the internet to argue against being able to extrapolate truth from subjective experiences.
Very much agree, and this thinking is so clearly incorrect that is frustrates me to encounter it so frequently among rational people.
> But like I was saying, what I have seen has been that psychedelic effects on peoples brains are often deterministic, many people who have taken too many end up with very similar psychological profiles and dispositions. Clearly there is something going on there. In some ways, part of the angst in my post arises from all of these different news articles popping up that talk about the positives of psychedelics, when neither the people writing the articles, nor those reading them probably know very many people with any experience.
I agree. These are powerful substances, are often taken far more lightly than they deserve, and opinions expressed on forums often lack epistemic humility.
These are all at least as likely to lead to "deterministic" behavioural and emotional changes, not to mention direct physical health issues.
In a broader context, your implication that psychedelics are somehow uniquely dangerous because you disapprove of how they have affected a sample of people you know personally really doesn't stand up to wider scrutiny.
If you were instead expressing an opinion I'd have no complaint. Perhaps I've misinterpreted you?
I've also seen dozens of people who had life altering psychotic breaks from taking LSD and Mushrooms. By contrast I've only known two people who have lost their marbles the old fashioned way.
As for microdosing: zero of the people I know who have done it, including myself, envinced any obvious performance improvement.
placebo effect, power of positive thinking
Anyway for me personally the one time I tried acid it was more like: hey cool experience, it feels like I am experiencing things for the first time, kind of like a child. While the trip itself did not really change me a whole lot it made me reexamine things in my life and consider how I approach things and made me more aware of how my emotions and my brain in general can have an effect on my perspective. In that it was a teachable experience and any change in my personality after that experience was due to me having experienced the world in a different way even though it only was once.
I am not planning on taking it again anytime soon though. I can also see how it might affect others differntly, anyway they are mind altering (even if temporary and the changes can be permanent, like a holiday or a car crash and with my limited experience I can not speak to how it could exactly go wrong but I suggest anyone in here respects their mental health and reads up on all this before considering to try it)
Of course it is often countered by negative effects on respiration. Cannot find the study anymore, but it was very interesting.
I don't think you know about drug use of successful people because they know how to hide such consumption. But it is pretty clear that there is an enormous demand in the higher echelons of society.
I wouldn’t bet my health on it.
I have no skin in this game, but I find it curious.
Wait. Wikipedia says Elon Musk skipped out on his mandatory South African military service. Is he still allowed back in South Africa? Does he still have their citizenship?
Maybe Mr. Musk will chime in on this thread. I bet he lurks here.
It is the big problem with psychedelics. Too random. And it is not just from one person to another. The same person can have very different experiences depending on the situation. "Set and setting" as experienced users call it, but even with that knowledge, bad trips happen.
And for the studies you linked, none of them seem to be controlled (no placebo group), and from my limited experience, the placebo effect is very real. I've seen people feel high on blotters with nothing on it, at least before they realize they have been scammed.
Not saying that psychedelics can't do yourself some good. But I tend to be skeptical of studies suggesting a reliably positive effect.
I don’t really care if I’m working to 100% of my potential. My employer won’t pay me more for that optimization anyway.
I think there’s something of a toxic attitude in Silicon Valley that we should all be honing ourselves into this amazing constantly-tinkering engineer who runs a really cool blog. There’s also a general toxic mentality in America that we can all work our way to becoming billionaires - in reality, none of us can optimize our way into having family connections to the elites in our society. In reality, that engineer doing all that cool stuff in the Bay Area in their shared studio apartment probably doesn’t have a better retirement plan than the community college sysadmin with a paid-off single family home in upstate New York.
For me, I just work to put food on the table. I want to be average enough to he employable. Anything beyond that isn’t worth the diminishing return on investment, or a reduction in family time.
I can’t optimize my way to being genetically gifted enough to match the output of the 10x engineers who do get promoted, and I certainly can’t match their 24/7 dedication to work. Employers generally promote people for making the right person happy at the right time, not for producing the most technically competent work.
But in order to negotiate good work life balances, family time, free weekends etc. programmers would have to negotiate as a group. Yet for some reason they seem to think that doing that -- forming unions -- is somehow horrible. Thus you alone don't have enough leverage.
Eventually the industry is going to cool, but for now Tech really is the closest thing to that Steinbeck quote about temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Those who are self-employed may feel differently.
If you value a certain kind of balance in life, I agree with everything you said.
There are many of us who have an internal drive to do “impossible” things; it’s a valuable and inseparable part of our identity.
It’s OK that not everyone has this, the world would probably be worse if everyone did. And it should never feel like an externally-imposed expectation, that would definitely be unhealthy.
Current billionaires are almost all from non-elite backgrounds. Only 1 of the top 10 came from a family with billion dollar wealth. https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#57168b13251c
If you come from an upper middle class background (top 25th percentile), you can become a billionaire in America (with luck and hard work).
No one in the top ten is a rags-to-riches story. Plenty of elite universities and family connections.
> In reality, that engineer doing all that cool stuff in the Bay Area in their shared studio apartment probably doesn’t have a better retirement plan than the community college sysadmin with a paid-off single family home in upstate New York.
I don't think this is accurate, the net worth of the former is probably a multiple of the latter accounting for age.
If my body didn't get a chance to notice the pattern, that's what made it behave different. Same goes for exercise, if I do regularly one type of exercise - body quickly gets used to it and it's harder to achieve gains by doing the same movement.
What I do is irregular fasting. Sometimes I won't eat for 30 hours. Sometimes I'll eat 6x a day. Sometimes it'll be eating at 11:00 and next meal is 12 hours after. These are not guidelines, just examples of irregular intervals.
I noticed results, it could have been placebo, who knows, I have no means to measure except subjective feeling. If you're capable of enduring hunger, you could try it. It might be dangerous so don't listen to random advice from a nobody online :) anyone reading this and trying what I wrote out: it's not my fault if something happens to you, I'm not a medical doctor.
Anything relatable in this sentence, and any tips to help "get over the hump" you might have?
Coffee helped. Also, planning my meals.
I had little problem recruiting the willpower to fast, but willing myself to a good mood was something I wasn't really able to act on. Something to keep in mind for next time!
Also, my wife had success starting with putting Coconut/MCT oil in her coffee. The Bullet Proof coffee folks swear by this and I think most would say they're still "fasting" and getting the same benefits but now they have a TBSP of oil in their stomach helping. Might be a step to going full "nothing but coffee" for 16 hours or whatever you're trying.
Electrolytes (salt et al) are a commonly recommended aid for the intermittent fasting folks.
You don’t need many pizza slices to hit 1500
Edit:
Also, the benefit to cognition that you mention is sort of like a secret because I never seen anyone mention it. When I first started on a "keto" type of diet I woke up one day with a feeling which was like being wired on coffee but without the jittery side effects. Except, it didn't go away. I would have thought I broke something if it wasn't such a positive. It's amazing to think that's how we should be feeling and that nearly everyone is working below this level.
Personally, I got distracted, had a bunch of changes at home and failed out of it. I'll be climbing back on after the holidays.
I still like to drink coffee in this state, though I limited my intake to one cup every couple of days. Nicotine seemed to be neither a negative or a positive. It didn't cause more or less problems for me. I could also drink beer with no problems.
How did keto work for you if you had interrupted sleep?
Again, everything went out the window with some major life changes at home. And I'll be looking at getting back on after the holidays. But when I was sleeping well during this same period I was amazed at how I was able to settle into a route of being dead tired and jumping out of bed at the same during at night and in the morning respectively. This is probably another normal life thing which I had never discovered because I had never thought to set a normal sleep schedule. Everyone looks at sleep as something to be managed and scheduled rather than listening to the body.
It's interesting that you mention your kids are your alarm clock. Kids generally need more sleep than adults. And of course adults look forward to putting the kids to bed to get some quiet time. Maybe try timing your sleep so that you sleep right after the kids and wake up on your own before they wake up? Hopefully that would be a viable experiment in your household. ;)
Normal scheduled sleep has its benefits for sure; Newborns through those plans out the window though.
Now that I read these comments and looked up some info, I feel like I found a mistery and that things got clearer, just like sorting out the "secret" as you say.
Already got the benefits of excercising regularily and last week jumped into the IF wagon (still having mood issues, hope it subsides soon), will for sure try out reducing processed carbs and hope to get feeling even better everyday.
Thank you both!
There seems to be a debate on beer containing carbs. I haven't found a definitive answer, though I haven't looked hard. One side says there are carbs because of what goes into the beer. The other side says that all of that goes away during the process of making the beer and there's very little carbs.
To be honest, I followed a keto diet but I never did the keto testing. However, the changes I experienced were real and powerful. The mental clarity couldn't have been placebo because I didn't know that it would be a side effect. It was shocking, unexpected.
For years I started getting this fluid buildup in my ears. At best, I felt occasionally dizzy. At worst, it felt like my brain was in constant "I feel like I have a cold and I'm so slow to think".
Short story: I've drastically reduced carb intake (letting myself cheat a little on Sat.) and definitely no alcohol. The effect has been amazing. I feel 10-15 years younger. My brain is back. Fluid's gone. So many other body things have improved: no joint pain, no weird rashes. I used to get these awful colds, but if I've had a cold this year, I can't even remember, it must have have been tiny.
It's wild how many folks now who I talk to who have similar symptoms and never try to simply cut out the damn carbs and watch as they eat tons of sugar and alcohol. It's really worth a try giving those up for a week and see how you feel.
I've written about this before on HN so won't rehash everything (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21053034).
I still drink occasionally but it has to be a pretty special occasion for me to have a second cocktail. I still love junk food but I've cut way, way back on it because the sugar hangover isn't worth it.
Other than pretty much constant tinnitus and occasional bouts of cedar fever (I'm in Central Texas), I feel pretty good most of the time. I know I need to get more exercise and I'm working on that by doing bodyweight exercises and rowing. I'm not really getting any stronger, but I feel like I'm at least maintaining where I'm at.
Rust requires you to program well. At the same time, it doesn’t expect you to know everything before starting. When something is not going to work in a program, the compiler will not only tell you what is wrong but suggest fixes to the code.
I realize this is a bit besides the point, but why are the two often presented as mutually exclusive? Why can't something be done both in a collective and a libertarian fashion?
I'm only good at _giving_ advice, but I don't think there's any secret besides those things..?
This is so fucked up.
It literally is the premise.
>Its equilibrium exists for a reason, disrupting the equilibrium in order to "overclock" a part of it (cognition) must come with backlash of some sort.
But, maybe the reason was the limited caloric landscape of our ancestors. If I could turn a cup of olive oil into productive mental work my income and social group would approve.
Where does sexual selection still favor physical strength exclusively? Doesn't income dominate among developed countries?
"The potential for employer-mandated enhancers should force us to reflect deeply about the importance of work, the relative value of enhancers, and illusion of choice."
"In my view, the best methods to heighten creativity and increase your “out of the box” thinking are traditional, analog, and noninvasive. These methods can be found in John Dewey’s classic “How to Think” primer, first published in 1910 or even earlier from Rene’ Descartes’s Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and Seeking Truth in the Science."
The opening few paragraphs are just setting the stage. Showing you what crazy people get up to. A juicy dystopic vision to capture reader attention.