'Mind Doping' Becoming More Common

runamock writes "The Los Angeles Times is running a story on the growing use of 'mind drugs': 'Forget sports doping. The next frontier is brain doping. ... Despite the potential side effects, academics, classical musicians, corporate executives, students and even professional poker players have embraced the drugs to clarify their minds, improve their concentration or control their emotions. Unlike the anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and blood-oxygen boosters that plague athletic competitions, the brain drugs haven't provoked similar outrage. People who take them say the drugs aren't giving them an unfair advantage but merely allow them to make the most of their hard-earned skills.'" There's an interesting comment on this topic in Fresh Air's top cultural trends of 2007 broadcast.

Comments

Flashback!

[grub]

People who take them say the drugs aren't giving them an unfair advantage but merely allow them to make the most of their hard-earned skills.

That sounds like what I used to say when I was dropping lots of acid and eating oodles of mushrooms in the '80s! Worked for me and never affect me in any way... gotta run, the xmas tree is breathing again.

Re:Flashback!

[jollyreaper]

A hundred comments and no Sapho/Mentat/Dune references? Who are you people, and what have you done with the real Slashdot? What if we took a legendary Danish king, made some clones of him, then gave 'em all a dose of the drug, would that count as a Beowulf cluster?

See, the Dune references were too easy. We dotters like a challenge, we want to work for our lame jokes.

Re:Slashdotters Are Not Using the Drugs

[Walt Dismal]

I have a most excellent elixir made from the blood of young virgins (you know, the ones under 12, the only ones left) and it sharpens my mind and clarifies my vision. Except for the times when I black out and regain consciousness holding body parts that are not mine. On the other hand, it enabled me to write a lot of Windows code at Microsoft until the day Redmond security came to my cubicle and showed me the surveillance cam footage with the black plastic bags and the shovel and the dirt... Then they took away my badge and my honor. But I got even. Now I work for Google. I like their motto: "Do no evil at which you can get caught". Now pardon me. I must go. There are little children outside on the street here in Mountain View. This cannot be tolerated.

- Sweeney Torvalds, demon coder of Fleet Street