Apparently one in twenty kids are on some sort of ADHD mediation, most of which are essentially speed. Giving kids a bunch of potentially addictive drugs and then yanking the supply seems less than ideal.
The DEA is driving people with prescriptions to black market sources at a time when I can’t stop hearing about how dealers sprinkle fentanyl on everything. Overdose deaths are at more than 100,000 people per year.
This is almost as bad as spiking industrial alcohols with poison during prohibition.
Adderall is legal, they’ve just created a system where the legal channels are scarce on purpose. If you don’t win the lottery, your choices are to go without or go to illegal channels where quality issues can kill you.
Going without, for many people, means they can’t do their jobs. The incentives are even stronger than hedonic addiction, the wellbeing of your children is at stake.
You are just wrong about not trying to ensure it doesn't happen again. Not doing so guarantees it happens again, over and over. Now you are right that it probably can't be accomplished, but we should try.
I’d love to get involved in testing or setting up the BrainWaves-Lights-Learning thing. I am still trying to wrap my head around the effect size and fully agree with you that the lack of enthusiasm is astonishing.
I would be happy to test Jacob Shapiro's hypothesis. Part of me wanted to when I read Scott's link post, but the monetary investment made an untested scheme seem unworth it. If you would provide the funding I would be happy to try it. If I try it and it doesn't work, I'd also be happy to mail the relevant technology to another party once I'm done so they can make their own attempt.
My qualifications: very few. I had an IQ test that ranked me at 130 some time ago, and I do think I am moderately bright. But I have no experience with any of the relevant technologies. I would be happy to spend some amount of hours learning how to work the device, read anything that I was pointed in the direction of, but I admit I would be going in blind. As to my overall character, I can produce witnesses to vouch for me, including some people on the periphery of the rationalist community. But I am too much of an observer to have developed a public reputation.
Re: blinking lights and learning, If you read the whole paper (or just scroll down till you get to figure 2.) You find that this like a nothing burger. There is not that much change and I also have some questions of how the control group is defined. (wrong frequency signal shown at trough?) And finally just the signal. They flash a light at your alpha freq. (~10 Hz, period is ~100 ms.) for 15 periods (which I think is meant to capture your alpha rhythm.) And then they show you an image. They turn the image on either starting at would be a peak of your alpha, or at the trough. But the image lasts for 200ms, that is about two periods. weird. Anyway not that interesting to me.
I've got a star next to my name. Anyway I can turn that off? (Knowing who is paying and who isn't distorts my view of the world... I could talk a lot about when I was the one in charge of getting donations for our church for about four years.)
Well I can cancel my subscription, (and just send you a check or something.) But I also don't want to know that the person I'm talking with is also a subscriber. I mean subscribers are what make the system work, and that's important. And on the other hand as a subscriber I don't want subscribers to have an over-riding influence. And yeah the star seems small in that regard, and yet... well this person has a star, so even just for that we should listen more. (Which is something I do.)
OK, it's possible I could change my mind, and giving money and showing who it is a good thing. I just have this awful memory, I was the canvas chair at my UU church. I saw all the checks from everyone, (because I needed to know when we had hit our goal/ budget.) And once I learned where the money was coming from, and this big mouth is giving less than this little old lady with less than two nickels to rub together. Well I just soured on the whole thing, I don't want to know.
Huh, is it every the case that less information is better? (and 'better' is doing all the work.)
If you just care about seeing it yourself, the following uBlock Origin filter will hide it for you locally: (though of course it won't hide your star for anyone else)
"So I issue the challenge. Who wants to try this? I am happy to be part of this experiment. If necessary I would be happy to arrange funding."
I read Don't Worry About the Vase (as well as ACX) religiously.
I read your blog to model your thinking patterns and I appreciate the insights you share on an incredible range of complex issues. You're really a shining beacon in the intellectual world :)
I'm an early career medical doctor and recent Harvard graduate in biostatistics / bioinformatics. I have a small amount of research experience. I've also done some basic study in computational neuroscience while doing my masters.
In expectation, even a 1% chance of a 10% effect size on any type of cognitive enhancement would be worth a huge amount of time.
How can I contact you? I think we might possibly have mutual friends (I'd have to ask around) or is there a public-facing email address I could contact you through?
"What seems to be completely missing is the proper sense of excitement."
I read about this in ACX and thought "big if true, I wish I could try this". Now I see your challenge and I'm beyond excited. I'd like to participate in the experiment; if the hardware is just a few hundred $ (and easy to obtain), I won't need any funding. The tricky part (for me) is how to assemble and operate the device.
I think the ban on three year olds in hospitals isn't really about visitors; it's about patients or family members who don't have childcare. The visiting rules on maternity ward where I gave birth, for example, mostly focused on requiring a second adult to be present and responsible for any visiting toddlers and making it absolutely clear that dad was not allowed to drop the kids off at the hospital with mommy on the way to work.
Apparently one in twenty kids are on some sort of ADHD mediation, most of which are essentially speed. Giving kids a bunch of potentially addictive drugs and then yanking the supply seems less than ideal.
The DEA is driving people with prescriptions to black market sources at a time when I can’t stop hearing about how dealers sprinkle fentanyl on everything. Overdose deaths are at more than 100,000 people per year.
This is almost as bad as spiking industrial alcohols with poison during prohibition.
Adderall is legal, they’ve just created a system where the legal channels are scarce on purpose. If you don’t win the lottery, your choices are to go without or go to illegal channels where quality issues can kill you.
Going without, for many people, means they can’t do their jobs. The incentives are even stronger than hedonic addiction, the wellbeing of your children is at stake.
You are just wrong about not trying to ensure it doesn't happen again. Not doing so guarantees it happens again, over and over. Now you are right that it probably can't be accomplished, but we should try.
I’d love to get involved in testing or setting up the BrainWaves-Lights-Learning thing. I am still trying to wrap my head around the effect size and fully agree with you that the lack of enthusiasm is astonishing.
> unable to fill their meth ADHD med meth ADHD med prescriptions
I think this is a typo? Either that or I don't get the joke.
same
He's suggesting a similarity between ADHD medication and meth. I know both are stimulants.
I got that part, what confused me was why the same joke was repeated twice in a row. That's what I thought was a typo.
I would be happy to test Jacob Shapiro's hypothesis. Part of me wanted to when I read Scott's link post, but the monetary investment made an untested scheme seem unworth it. If you would provide the funding I would be happy to try it. If I try it and it doesn't work, I'd also be happy to mail the relevant technology to another party once I'm done so they can make their own attempt.
My qualifications: very few. I had an IQ test that ranked me at 130 some time ago, and I do think I am moderately bright. But I have no experience with any of the relevant technologies. I would be happy to spend some amount of hours learning how to work the device, read anything that I was pointed in the direction of, but I admit I would be going in blind. As to my overall character, I can produce witnesses to vouch for me, including some people on the periphery of the rationalist community. But I am too much of an observer to have developed a public reputation.
Do with all this what you will.
https://manifold.markets/IsaacKing/if-individuals-test-out-the-flashin
Per the link, the $326 figure quoted was per life-year, not per life.
Yep, I misread it, fixed. Thanks.
https://manifold.markets/JoeBrenton/will-zvi-mowshowitz-write-at-least
https://manifold.markets/group/h5n1-bird-flu
It's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with this. All the figures are laid out like breakfast, make up your own mind.
Re: blinking lights and learning, If you read the whole paper (or just scroll down till you get to figure 2.) You find that this like a nothing burger. There is not that much change and I also have some questions of how the control group is defined. (wrong frequency signal shown at trough?) And finally just the signal. They flash a light at your alpha freq. (~10 Hz, period is ~100 ms.) for 15 periods (which I think is meant to capture your alpha rhythm.) And then they show you an image. They turn the image on either starting at would be a peak of your alpha, or at the trough. But the image lasts for 200ms, that is about two periods. weird. Anyway not that interesting to me.
I've got a star next to my name. Anyway I can turn that off? (Knowing who is paying and who isn't distorts my view of the world... I could talk a lot about when I was the one in charge of getting donations for our church for about four years.)
Alas I have no idea how to turn that off.
Well I can cancel my subscription, (and just send you a check or something.) But I also don't want to know that the person I'm talking with is also a subscriber. I mean subscribers are what make the system work, and that's important. And on the other hand as a subscriber I don't want subscribers to have an over-riding influence. And yeah the star seems small in that regard, and yet... well this person has a star, so even just for that we should listen more. (Which is something I do.)
OK, it's possible I could change my mind, and giving money and showing who it is a good thing. I just have this awful memory, I was the canvas chair at my UU church. I saw all the checks from everyone, (because I needed to know when we had hit our goal/ budget.) And once I learned where the money was coming from, and this big mouth is giving less than this little old lady with less than two nickels to rub together. Well I just soured on the whole thing, I don't want to know.
Huh, is it every the case that less information is better? (and 'better' is doing all the work.)
If you just care about seeing it yourself, the following uBlock Origin filter will hide it for you locally: (though of course it won't hide your star for anyone else)
thezvi.substack.com##.profile-hover-card-target + div
"So I issue the challenge. Who wants to try this? I am happy to be part of this experiment. If necessary I would be happy to arrange funding."
I read Don't Worry About the Vase (as well as ACX) religiously.
I read your blog to model your thinking patterns and I appreciate the insights you share on an incredible range of complex issues. You're really a shining beacon in the intellectual world :)
I'm an early career medical doctor and recent Harvard graduate in biostatistics / bioinformatics. I have a small amount of research experience. I've also done some basic study in computational neuroscience while doing my masters.
In expectation, even a 1% chance of a 10% effect size on any type of cognitive enhancement would be worth a huge amount of time.
How can I contact you? I think we might possibly have mutual friends (I'd have to ask around) or is there a public-facing email address I could contact you through?
"What seems to be completely missing is the proper sense of excitement."
I read about this in ACX and thought "big if true, I wish I could try this". Now I see your challenge and I'm beyond excited. I'd like to participate in the experiment; if the hardware is just a few hundred $ (and easy to obtain), I won't need any funding. The tricky part (for me) is how to assemble and operate the device.
Pfizer throughout the pandemic has spent a lot of time going "IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO BUY OUR NEW SHOT." Contrast Moderna.
Given that, I'm not sure I'd believe their claim beyond a surface level.
I think the ban on three year olds in hospitals isn't really about visitors; it's about patients or family members who don't have childcare. The visiting rules on maternity ward where I gave birth, for example, mostly focused on requiring a second adult to be present and responsible for any visiting toddlers and making it absolutely clear that dad was not allowed to drop the kids off at the hospital with mommy on the way to work.