gwern comments on Intelligence Amplification Open Thread - Less Wrong

46 Post author: Will_Newsome 15 September 2010 08:39AM

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Comment author: gwern 15 September 2010 02:52:56PM *  3 points [-]

Personally, I can't. In nootropics, the more powerful something is the more likely it is to be illegal. If even piracetam is out... (Incidentally, the FDA letter to smartpowders.com banning it from selling piracetam went up on fda.gov today or yesterday.) Maybe the other racetams aren't banned? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetam)

Maybe you'd be better off trying n-backing. That at least is legal, although you might have trouble getting subjects to do enough to matter.

Comment author: James_Miller 15 September 2010 10:14:45PM 3 points [-]

To the best of my knowledge only one small N-back study has been done and the results were strongly positive. There would be significant social value in getting more data on N-Backing.

Comment author: gwern 15 September 2010 11:00:58PM *  3 points [-]

http://www.gwern.net/N-back%20FAQ#support

Besides Jaeggi 2008, there have been 2 or 3 studies supporting it to some degree, and 2 or 3 studies opposing it to some degree.