Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013

Thomas

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Why haven't we done an systematic investigation of drugs as means towards debiasing?

I recall some limited discussion of nootropics and microdosing on LSD but not much else. In particular I'm thinking about substances that are easily acquired such as off label use of medication, easy to synthesize substances or recreational drugs (legal and otherwise).

By systematic investigation do you mean a literature review? I hope so. Does such literature even exist, have you done any searches?

I have to take SSRIs to stay sane, but they blunt my emotions (which is usual) and kill my motivation. This has to affect my biases in some way. Then again depression would make me ridiculously biased. Nicotine and caffeine seem to make me overconfident, but help me to get things done.

2wedrifid13y

I have focussed my attention more on enhancing cognitive function more generally, which has some benefits with respect to debiasing but is far from explicitly targetted. There are some specific behavioural and psychological biases that I can target pharmaceutically but not all of them, not without combining drugs with training. Of course there is much that can be done to enhance the executive function, motivation and relaxed self awareness that makes training oneself out of biases much more viable.

2[anonymous]13y

Ritalin is pretty helpful for me (when I can get it) against akrasia. Dunno about bias.

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Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013

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Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013

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