A few years ago I surveyed nootropics users about their experiences with different substances and posted the results here. Since then lots of new nootropics have come out, so I’m doing it again. If you have nootropics experience, please take The 2020 SSC Nootropics Survey. Expected completion time is ~15 minutes.
Thanks!
MealSquares is a "nutritionally complete" food that contains a balanced diet worth of nutrients in a few tasty easily measurable units. Think Soylent, except zero preparation, made with natural ingredients, and looks/tastes a lot like an ordinary scone.
Giving What We Can is a charitable movement promoting giving some of your money to the developing world or other worthy causes. If you're interested in this, consider taking their Pledge as a formal and public declaration of intent.
B4X is a free and open source developer tool that allows users to write apps for Android, iOS, and more.
The Effective Altruism newsletter provides monthly updates on the highest-impact ways to do good and help others.
Metaculus is a platform for generating crowd-sourced predictions about the future, especially science and technology. If you're interested in testing yourself and contributing to their project, check out their questions page
The COVID-19 Forecasting Project at the University of Oxford is making advanced pandemic simulations of 150+ countries available to the public, and also offer pro-bono forecasting services to decision-makers.
80,000 Hours researches different problems and professions to help you figure out how to do as much good as possible. Their free career guide show you how to choose a career that's fulfilling and maximises your contribution to solving the world's most pressing problems.
Support Slate Star Codex on Patreon. I have a day job and SSC gets free hosting, so don't feel pressured to contribute. But extra cash helps pay for contest prizes, meetup expenses, and me spending extra time blogging instead of working.
Substack is a blogging site that helps writers earn money and readers discover articles they'll like.
Norwegian founders with an international team on a mission to offer the equivalent of a Norwegian social safety net globally available as a membership. Currently offering travel medical insurance for nomads, and global health insurance for remote teams.
AISafety.com hosts a Skype reading group Wednesdays at 19:45 UTC, reading new and old articles on different aspects of AI Safety. We start with a presentation of a summary of the article, and then discuss in a friendly atmosphere.
Seattle Anxiety Specialists are a therapy practice helping people overcome anxiety and related mental health issues (eg GAD, OCD, PTSD) through evidence based interventions and self-exploration. Check out their free anti-anxiety guide here
.
Beeminder's an evidence-based willpower augmention tool that collects quantifiable data about your life, then helps you organize it into commitment mechanisms so you can keep resolutions. They've also got a blog about what they're doing here
Dr. Laura Baur is a psychiatrist with interests in literature review, reproductive psychiatry, and relational psychotherapy; see her website for more. Note that due to conflict of interest she doesn't treat people in the NYC rationalist social scene.
Altruisto is a browser extension so that when you shop online, a portion of the money you pay goes to effective charities (no extra cost to you). Just install an extension and when you buy something, people in poverty will get medicines, bed nets, or financial aid.
Jane Street is a quantitative trading firm with a focus on technology and collaborative problem solving. We're always hiring talented programmers, traders, and researchers and have internships and fulltime positions in New York, London, and Hong Kong. No background in finance required.
The scale being labeled from “Worse” to “Better” is confusing, because the instructions tell us to rate the *benefit*. That is, a 1 should be a small but positive effect as per instructions, but the labels make it look like 1~5 are for negative effects. It would be clearer if “Worse” was changed to “No effect”.
Psilocybin microdosing, Dynamax, and Panamax break from the pattern of the rest with 10 being “Very Bad” instead of “Better”.
This is a mistake right? Rating your experience on a scale from “None” to “Very Bad” doesn’t make too much sense.
I’m sorry, obviously that was a dumb mistake.
Also, shouldn’t there be some differentiation between a net neutral and a net negative effect, instead of both being 0? Going from “this is a waste of money” to “this actually makes me feel/perform worse” is a big distinction in my eyes.
That would be great, but I think trying to implement this would make the survey either longer or more confusing.
Personally, I initially expected 1 to be awful and 10 to be great, and instead 1 was both awful and nothing.
That’s weird, man.
How about a scale from -2 to +10?
“lots of new nootropics came out.” Not “lots of newtropics came out”. Come on Scott.
Also, its kind of odd there are no questions about sleep. Isn’t that the whole point of modafinil and the sleep support stack?
Selegiline (the Emsam active substance) is sold on gray area “nootropic” sites. What’s bugging me is whether you can use the HCl oral form to create a patch by yourself or take it sublingually? Would that make it an MAO-A inhibitor as well & what’s the trick behind the patch?
Disclaimer: Do not play around with MAOIs, they can be dangerous — although not as much as doctors say.
I thought I was reasonably familiar with the nootropics on offer, but clearly not: I’ve never even heard of most of these. A review of new developments in the field would be super useful if anyone who could authoritatively do so was prepared to offer it (i.e. not me).
Yea I felt the same way. Would be interested in hearing anyone who’s tried bromantane, that one sounded interesting.
Once this survey is done, I’ll be able to tell you whether any of these are interesting new developments worth learning about.
Some of the nooptropic supplements featured, like Nicotinamide riboside, you’re not supposed to feel anything. It should feel like a placebo: nothing. People take it because double-blind studies suggest that there are valuable benefits to taking the supplement regularly over extended periods of time. That doesn’t lend itself to this kind of survey. It’s supposed to feel like a placebo but still have a valuable benefit when you take it for months.
Yea, I put a 2 on the survey for NMN because it hasn’t yet had any noticeable effect but putting a 1 just felt wrong. It’ll probably take 10+ years for me to get to the age where it might be noticeable, hopefully it will be worth it.
I understand your point, but a lot of people have said they feel immediate positive effects from it, so I put it in anyway. You’re right that the data won’t reflect long term benefits.
I’ve been taking NR for three years… but I felt the sleep effects on the first night. Definitely has a noticeable effect if you’re old enough.
Man, I’m such a normie. I only use caffeine, nicotine, and amphetamine, which are all too normie to appear on here (except caffeine as a gimme or something).
Scott,
Adrafinil metabolizes into modifinil in the liver. Should I fill out the modifinil section if I’ve only done adrafinil?
I think you should. It’s not quite the same but the difference between Adrafinil and Modafinil is probably smaller than getting Caffeine from coffee/tea/pills yet those are bunched together.
There’s another mistake – survey says “Must be a number greater than 0” for answers to “About how many times have you used this substance?”.