“Many sectors of society have winner-take-all conditions in which small advantages produce disproportionate rewards.” At school and at work, the usefulness of being “smarter,” needing less sleep, and learning more quickly are all “abundantly clear.”
Let's drop school because you're not earning money there.
You getting rewards for needing less sleep is called "abuse" and "slave labor" and should be strongly discouraged.
I fail to see how being a little smarter (or learning a little faster) would help oneself in the workplace (I can see how it can be useful once per month, but not every day). In workplace you need competence, mental model of what you're doing, passion and the ability to see the big picture. I don't think that the said drugs would greatly help in any of those areas.
Malcolm Gladwell showed how small advantages often turn into huge advantages over time in his book "Outliers". I realize its not universally applicable, but his anecdote shows that more things are winner-take-all than you would think.
Brief Summary of His Case Study:
A hugely disproportionate number of Canadian NHL players are born in the first couple months of the year. Someone investigated this, and attributed this to the cutoff date for kids' hockey leagues was January 1st. Note that this is for ~7 year old kids or something. Because kids grow so rapidly, the boys born in January and February had a small but real size and strength advantage over the hockey players born towards the end of the year. This lead to the older players being perceived as superior (because they were), and therefore getting more attention from coaches and more playing time. This in turn made the gap one not just of size, but also skill. These better players eventually went to play on travel teams and play even more hockey with more attention, and got much better. Some of these eventually went to play in the NFL.
One year difference is huge when in that age range.
I went to school when I was 6,5 years old. Everybody else in class was 7 with some months. I was the weakest and could not do anything properly despite the fact that I'm pretty gifted. I could only get good grades for any subjects in the fifth grade. And even now I feel the weakest and the least protected by default. ADHD certainly didn't help too.
So no, being 7 years old and being 7 and 3/4 years does give you a big advantage. The fact that everybody is uniform only magnifies it.
In the workplace everybody have the different age, story and skill set, so this hardly applies. It's no longer a function of two variables monotonous on both of them, but a function on dozen.
And also while small difference give clear boost in competitive environments, it's not so obvious in cooperative environment.
Would you call it "slave labor" if you're working for yourself?
I don't think that the said drugs would greatly help in any of those areas
Perhaps you should try them before you start expressing an opinion. There is a great deal of diversity in mental function and perhaps these drugs have exactly the effect you describe for people who function differently than you (or maybe even for you).
As for slave labor for yourself: it still is. Peer pressurized slave labor is still slave labor
Not only is this factually incorrect, it is offensive to those suffering in real, actual slavery.
This the same reasoning that objects to the use of the term "wage slavery"
Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison stated that the use of the term "wage slavery" (in a time when chattel slavery was still common) was an "abuse of language."[25] Most abolitionists believed that wage workers were "neither wronged nor oppressed".[26] Former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass described his elation when he took a paying job, declaring that "Now I am my own master." According to Douglass, wage labor did not represent oppression but fair exchange and former slaves for the first time receiving the fruits of their labor
Well, students in school are in real, actual slavery (they realistically can't quit or change school) AND they are often sleep-deprived. Meaning things are not good.
For wage workers it's less obvious but everything which pushes you for continuous putting of more than 40hr/week without correspondingly large financial gain should be discouraged.
That number - 40hr/week - is there for a reason.
Well, students in school are in real, actual slavery (they realistically can't quit or change school)
You are seriously saying that people in educational facilities are slaves? I'm unsure if you are trolling or just trying to justify your statements beyond logical limits.
Slavery: the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune.
Your definition implies that one can't be a slave to a group of people; but in history (e.g. rome) there always were government slaves.
Education is not much different. Children are underage and can't know what's good for them, so we step in and tell them.
But if we tell them to sleep less, work more and take some pills for that, it should be a crime.
So, through Teetotalism, you're able to enter the "mild mental conditions" corresponding to the use of substances that do things like flood your brain with dopamine?
You sure about that? Your stance sounds like it's just based on a self-aggrandizing platform with no experience with said substances.
“Many sectors of society have winner-take-all conditions in which small advantages produce disproportionate rewards.” At school and at work, the usefulness of being “smarter,” needing less sleep, and learning more quickly are all “abundantly clear.”
Let's drop school because you're not earning money there.
You getting rewards for needing less sleep is called "abuse" and "slave labor" and should be strongly discouraged.
I fail to see how being a little smarter (or learning a little faster) would help oneself in the workplace (I can see how it can be useful once per month, but not every day). In workplace you need competence, mental model of what you're doing, passion and the ability to see the big picture. I don't think that the said drugs would greatly help in any of those areas.