My experience, obviously not scientific, with modafinil is mild mania, grumpiness/quick to anger (What I think is the tiredness coming through), increase concentration and attentiveness to a task. My intelligence goes down. Mixed with alcohol it can cause blackouts (It has a long half life so this can be a day or so later). Hard to sleep on. Euphoric enough to take recreationally.
Listening to other people they have different effects.
For me I'm not sure it's a effective drug. Because it's said long term you can build up tolerance I've always only done it one pill per week for small projects, so maybe doing it on a regular schedule it might stop some of the above negatives.
Along with clean water and covered sewers we have improved working conditions (which medical science has contributed to without making everyone take medication), and a range of other quality-of-life changes that have occurred in society.
Given that our brains have been under heavy evolution, there's no particular reason to think we're at a local optimum.
The environment we've evolved for is not the one we are currently in. What was adaptive 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 years ago may not be what we need today.
Your definition of "optimum" and your genes' may differ wildly. For example your genes build disposable bodies for the same reason humans build disposable cars: there's no sense in working ever harder to keep the old model going when making a new one is easier.
On the other hand, I've got a similar sentiment from a different perspective: it is surprisingly easy to to FUBAR an evolved system. We're still trying to figure out what effects electric light has on humans. [1] Anybody who thinks they've figured out all the subtle effects of a drug like this is fooling themselves.
Even if it was a thing, it has your species interests at heart, not you.
There is a lot to the article and you should take heed it's the future, like it or not.
But if you want a warning sign on Modafinil as per the article the drug came out in 1998, it has been and is still is fairly easy to get, why is it not bigger than it is?
These drugs are still just rough tools, the new batch are coming soon, but Modafinil is not "Limitless"
Humans have already stepped outside the boundaries of natural evolution. We make casts and hardware for broken limbs; form societies and specialized communities; use drugs to resolve medical issues in individuals that evolution would've killed off. Although as a species we probably rose to dominance by being long-distance runners, most of us can't run a marathon today, because we no longer need to.
Likewise, evolution didn't make humans naturally better at living in cubicles focusing on a tiny device for many hours a day over the course of the last 50 years. The natural wiring for human neurology is still geared towards being aware of our environment, distracted by sounds and sights and things going on, because that's how you survive sneak attacks from predators or spot camouflaged prey.
It's smart to be skeptical of anything claiming to be a miracle cure, but not on the basis of some kind of spooky evolutionary action. Rather, we haven't yet gotten a great track record of coming up with chemicals that can do only one thing to our brains without upsetting some other aspect of our neurochemistry, and that's largely because the brain is wickedly complex and only recently are we starting to make some progress in understanding how it works. I have no doubt that one day we'll be able to fine-tune our own neurochemistry with few side-effects, but today might not be that day.
If you're tired, you can use it as an alertness aid. If before, you would have fallen asleep at your desk from exhaustion, you will instead be able to continue to work (but still be fairly tired). Modafinil will allow you to continue on from the point of exhaustion and be able to function in some reduced capacity (50-60%). You will experience some periods of higher function (almost like waking up and being a bit tired, and then your mind clears a bit), basically you will alternate between tired and fine for a few hours, each period about an hour in duration. Taking modafinil in this manner isn’t especially recommended, but if you just spent all day / night putting out fires and you need to come in the next day to ensure everything is still running smoothly (but hard work isn’t expected), modafinil will do great here. Alternatively, I would recommend using it at the beginning of a normal day after a full night’s rest. This will result in some periods of clear headedness, and generally make it incredibly easy to focus on a task. I wouldn’t say I’m as ‘quick’ on modafinil, but I can certainly refactor code and slowly improve it for hours without feeling bored or getting distracted. I find that it makes me super calm as well. It definitely hampers creativity / big picture thinking, I wouldn’t do system design on modafinil, or even design for a subcomponent, I wouldn’t be at my best and might miss details or produce a subpar design. Basically, if you are just implementing a chunk of code, and have already figured out the details, modafinil will result in a good experience, you’ll make steady progress, your work will be of high quality, and the day will go by fairly quickly.
aaron695 mentioned dose – 2-3 pills a week is fine. Alternating entire weeks on and off is fine. I would only take at most one pill a day, but some people take two and are fine. Tolerance builds up about as quickly as it does for Adderall IR. Definitely don’t go drinking on the drug, but if you typically have a drink with dinner you’ll be fine - just don’t expect to feel any of the effects from the alcohol. I’ve felt the beginnings of depression on other nootropics (specifically piracetam - I generally have a poor diet though, so that may have been my fault) – but haven’t had a problem with modafinil after an extended period of time. It will be difficult to sleep if you take it too late in the day, definitely dose in the morning.
Essentially it’s a stronger, better version of caffeine (increased alertness, focus, can be used to increase performance with acute use, but with regular use tolerance builds and productivity decreases).
Evolution isn't an "optimal" process. It is very random. And very slow.