So legalizing modafinil (with corresponding reduction of stigma) leads directly to you having to work four hours more every day, gain an extra item on your budget (modafinil: $1000-$3000/year), get four hours less sleep (admittedly without restfulness cost, but still unpleasant especially for a lucid dreaming hobbyist like myself), plus suffer any unknown side effects of the drug that might turn up. And for all this, you get the chance to earn money that the economy immediately siphons off and throws away on more positional goods.
There is a number of fallacies in the above paragraphs, unusually many for a smart person like Yvain, so I assume that his “60% serious” disclaimer was missing a minus sign.
There is a number of fallacies in the above paragraphs, unusually many for a smart person like Yvain, so I assume that his “60% serious” disclaimer was missing a minus sign.
More generally, while very interesting, I find much of what he writes on his blog substantially less logically sound (but also more light-hearted, which I enjoy) than what he writes on LW, to the point that I constantly have to remind myself they’re the same person because I can hardly alieve that. (His writings on raikoh.net are somewhere in between.)
I apologize for accusing you of not reading the post.
I think your sarcastic coffee analogy is not quite apt. Yvain is advocating the status quo, which is more like “There is a ban on coffee from which me and people like me are exempt.”
Yeah, and that kind of people would still use coffee if it were a Schedule IV substance. And I can see no obvious reason why we are in an optimum, where restricting more or fewer stimulants would both be net negatives. (EDIT Actually, before even finishing to read the post, I thought ‘wow—if what he says about medical students etc. is right, we might want to restrict caffeine! I know I want to become stronger rather than my competition to become weaker, but I don’t know if that applies to others, so...’.)
I have not tried to write a mathematical model (should be reasonably easy), but my intuition tells me that the status quo is an unstable equilibrium. It will likely slide toward more universal acceptance, followed by either legalization or enforced prohibition (like with LSD).
I have, before replying to the OP.
There is a number of fallacies in the above paragraphs, unusually many for a smart person like Yvain, so I assume that his “60% serious” disclaimer was missing a minus sign.
More generally, while very interesting, I find much of what he writes on his blog substantially less logically sound (but also more light-hearted, which I enjoy) than what he writes on LW, to the point that I constantly have to remind myself they’re the same person because I can hardly alieve that. (His writings on raikoh.net are somewhere in between.)
I apologize for accusing you of not reading the post.
I think your sarcastic coffee analogy is not quite apt. Yvain is advocating the status quo, which is more like “There is a ban on coffee from which me and people like me are exempt.”
Yeah, and that kind of people would still use coffee if it were a Schedule IV substance. And I can see no obvious reason why we are in an optimum, where restricting more or fewer stimulants would both be net negatives. (EDIT Actually, before even finishing to read the post, I thought ‘wow—if what he says about medical students etc. is right, we might want to restrict caffeine! I know I want to become stronger rather than my competition to become weaker, but I don’t know if that applies to others, so...’.)
I have not tried to write a mathematical model (should be reasonably easy), but my intuition tells me that the status quo is an unstable equilibrium. It will likely slide toward more universal acceptance, followed by either legalization or enforced prohibition (like with LSD).
Probably, but that may take decades to happen.