01.01.09
Cognitive enhancement
By Judith Warner (Herald Tribune), Published: December 30, 2008
„What if you could just take a pill and all of a sudden remember to pay your bills on time? What if, thanks to modern neuroscience, you could, simultaneously, make New Year’s Eve plans, pay the mortgage, call the pediatrician, consolidate credit card debt and do your job – well – without forgetting dentist appointments or neglecting to pick up your children at school?
Would you do it? Tune out the distractions of our online, on-call, too-fast ADD-ogenic world with focus and memory-enhancing medications like Ritalin or Adderall? Stay sharp as a knife – no matter how overworked and sleep-deprived – with a mental-alertness-boosting drug like the anti-narcolepsy medication Provigil?
I’ve always said no. Fantasy aside, I’ve always rejected the idea of using drugs meant for people with real neurological disorders to treat the pathologies of everyday life. [...]“