From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Jul 16 2000 - 16:28:28 MDT
"Michael M. Butler" wrote:
>
> OK, now you appear to have conflated "random tampering" with your
> (presumably prescribed) Prozac use.
Just because the incompetent who prescribes Prozac has a doctorate
doesn't make the tampering any less random.
> But I know people, for example, who might trade three putative IQ points
> for an alternative to sleeping 18 hours a day. Some of those people are
> stuck in loops of self-criticism, not exactly the highest thing there
> is.
Okay. I don't disagree with that. (Well, actually I do disagree with
that. I deeply, fundamentally, and irrevocably disagree with that. I
don't think it's worth shaving three IQ points off your *potential*,
much less your actuality, even if the alternative is running a 20%
lifetime risk of suicide.) All I'm saying is that, with the current
state of neuropharmacology, you can either be happy or you can be smart,
but not both.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://singinst.org/beyond.html
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