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I would feel like an absolute failure if I need medicine to help create willpower.

EDIT: under the assumption of an average person who is not under any medical condition that may result in lack of willpower






Wasn't there an ADHD drug that was popular for hyper-productivity, in the years where being productive was all the hype?

Not ADHD specifically, but about 12 years ago, the media was hyping Provigil as a "secret weapon" of the ultra-productive.

Despite having a prescription, CVS told me that my insurance wouldn't cover it and it would cost $1500 for 30 pills. I walked away and then went back to buy it. If I could just get 30 additional minutes of billable time per day per pill it would be worth it.

I took about 5 over a week and destroyed the rest. It wasn't good for anything but keep me awake in a semi-zombie low-creative state. This very expensive drug/lesson was effective and making me realize I need to seriously work on my impulse control.


That was a weird hype train when that happened around that one. I tried it and gained like 40 pounds.

Work place performance enhancing drugs are still a thing. If you are not on them you are at a major disadvantage.

Yeah. Amphetamines. All of those are drugs are like a scooby doo villain unmasking and amphetamines are underneath the mask.

This is the same line of thinking as "drug addicts should just stop doing drugs."

Apologies, I've updated to clarify that my comment is under the assumption that the host is not already under a non-natural influence or medical condition. For example, in the case if there is a medicine that would help drug addicts with their addiction I would be 100% for it.

Even so.

Food can evoke the same neurochemical response as hard drugs or sex for some people. It is even more readily available than either of those things, and it is advertised and produced by multinational conglomerates with huge advertising budgets. They have the resources to maximise the attractiveness of their products and optimise the way they taste to be as pleasurable to eat as possible. Usually that means filling them with terrible ingredients.

It's not much different than social media. People get addicted to social media because they don't stand a chance against social media companies that employ an army of people to optimise every facet of their product for addictiveness.

Modern lifestyles are more sendentary than they used to be, and that plays a part in the explosion of obesity, but so do the conglomerates that produce the junk food.


I have the same reasoning but the opposite conclusion, we should seriously reconsider our lifestyle choices, as a society, instead of just throwing a magic pill in the mix and closing our eyes on the fact that we're building a completely insane system in which humans are everything but thriving

Ok cool, let me know how you plan to do that.

I'm doing that at my scale, helping friends and family with willpower and nutrition. So far I helped a dozen of people get control over their life's, including my father in law who lost 40kg and basically cured his health issues in less than a year. He could have taken ozempic but instead of that we taught him about the important of meal timing, how macro nutrients work, the effet of insulin/ghrelin on appetite, calorie counting, the benefits of walking an hour a day, &c.

100% free and he doesn't have to rely on a magic pill now that he understands what's going on.

When people are educated and motivated you can bring them wherever you want. Nutrition has to fit in the greater picture, if you're obese and addicted to shit food you most likely have much bigger problems in life, usually fixing the root causes unlocks the rest.


I guess people whose strengths and weaknesses differ from your own should feel like absolute failures then.

How would you feel if you were born with an unusual and detrimental somatic condition that could be fixed with medicine?

Updated, I should clarify that assuming no medical needs.

It's a philosophical argument. There's a great Radiolab about this (if you can tolerate their banter). Man is acting weird and offensive. People treat him as you'd expect. Then it is discovered that he has a tumor that is causing his behavior. Now he receives sympathy and treatment.

The point being that we all have different brain configurations which cause our behavior. Some we call tumors. Others are "normal". Your definition of "medical needs" is where the interesting meta-discussion takes place.


Not as much as if such medicine weren’t available. ;)



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