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I'm hedging because I have never personally prescribed stimulants (other than sharing my own with friends and family, and informally diagnosing some of them for later followup with a psych). AHDH is also next to unknown in India, which is personally surprising because I'm well aware of how hyper-competitive academics are here, such that in a vacuum I'd expect everyone and their dog to be desperate to get their children on them if they believed it would boost their performance.
As such, my actual IRL exposure to other people with ADHD is near nil, so I'm forced to rely on anecdotes from people/psychiatrists like Scott himself, and from a casual familiarity with online nootropics/stimulant/recreational drug communities.
I see, that didn't come across to me! Thanks for clarifying, although I still do think some selection bias is at play, especially given the frequency for stimulant usage in the US.
I must be a true red-blooded 'Murican at heart, because I fully sympathize with their position haha. I know that simply "trying harder" didn't work for me, and I see nothing inherently immoral about taking obvious shortcuts, as long as you're aware of the pitfalls. But does that surprise you as mutual transhumanists? I wouldn't think so, that's just how we're wired.
Again: I understand the aspiration. There's no naturalistic moralizing here (though I do have a somewhat aesthetic problem with most psychoactive substances because they, uh, just erase information, like when you play with curves in Photoshop. Pretty sure I've written on it in the past but search's a bitch).
It's just, current-gen commodity interventions have simple crude mechanisms of action, a pretty low ceiling, tradeoffs, and, when abused, easily push you below the baseline. They make a tantalizing but largely unwarrantable promise. I've known people, transhumanists in fact, who fried their brains with «biohacking» based on telegram bro advice – especially as they went past their early 20s.
The boomerish «just sleep/exercise/play sports/socialize/meditate/eat well/have sex, kiddo» dictum is actually the most reliable biohacking you can do right now, and it's been this way forever. It would certainly have helped Yud look better.
The catch, of course, is that good lifestyle is a signal of higher class because it actually requires tons of executive function, and that is genuinely lacking in many, and so this is another justification for stims.
I want biohacking that works. It's not remotely that simple yet.
Depends on what you're aiming to hack IMO.
For example, we finally have safe and FDA approved drugs for weight-loss, and my priors suggest that judicious use of stimulants can make you effectively superhuman in some capacity without any real downsides as long as you cycle and take tolerance breaks.
Still, it's an undercooked field, and I have little doubt that you can do serious damage by experimenting without knowing what you're doing, and just knowing isn't sufficient to stop unexpected tragedies to boot.
(I didn't think you were moralizing, I know you better than that haha)
Available only in the USA AFAIK. I even purchased prescription for it (Ozempic) - months ago. But it's available either nowhere or in some random pharmacy several hundred kilometers away.
Well, I also purchased Tirzepatide from some online shop selling it as research chemical. I didn't get around to using it yet, probably because I fear disappointment in case it's fake as it cost ~$500 for 5x5mg doses :|
Scott did a deep dive into it a little while back, and it has expanded availability outside the US by this point!
I'm sure the costs will plummet further, nothing benefits from economies of scale like a drug for weight loss haha
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