DanielLC comments on Rationality Drugs - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (119)
"Drug X improves performance measure Y" will in general be an incomplete description of the effects of drug X.
To be a rationalist is to be the kind of person who mentally adds "among other as yet undiscovered effects" to every single bullet point above.
And effects that lukeprog didn't bother to state.
Those count as "undiscovered" too - undiscovered by at least me. :)
This article cited by Luke has more nuanced appreciations of drugs like Donepezil, and generally a more balanced take on the subject. For instance, they report that
The same article goes on to suggest that perhaps 14 days is too short a timeframe for the beneficial effects to be felt. However one can also find studies like this one (not cited by Luke) which show detrimental effects on cognition in healthy subjects over four weeks of treatment.
Neither Luke nor de Jongh et al. report on the frequent side-effects, which (Wikipedia says) include bradycardia, nausea, diarrhea, anorexia, abdominal pain, and vivid dreams.