Hacker Cinema
Limitless
2011 · Film · 106 min
Directed by Neil Burger
ThrillerMysteryScience Fiction
The life of an unsuccessful writer is transformed by a top-secret 'smart drug' that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life.
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67 comments on Hacker News
Reading about GLP-1 medications reminds me of the movie Limitless. Being on them sounds great, getting off of them not so much.
Reminds of the protagonist in the movie Limitless. LOL.
The main thesis of this - well worth the read btw! - article very much reminds me of a throw-away line from the (otherwise forgetable) movie adaption of "Limitless": "[NZT-48/AI] works on what it's there." If you are smart AND crave cognitive engagement, you will use AI to sharpen your skills and expand your horizon, outpacing others.
Yes, I think that having the code completely checked by AI is not a good idea, but an AI that says, "Check these," because they are noteworthy. This is my idea of a future where I hope AI is like the movie "Limitless." That is, it supports you in improving yourself and giving you greater capabilities, not in replacing you entirely.
Um...
> This experiment was inspired by @swyx’s tweet about Ted Chiang’s short story “Understand” (1991). The story imagines a superintelligent AI’s inner experience—its reasoning, self-awareness, and evolution. After reading it and following the Hacker News discussion, ...
Umm... I <3 love <3 Understand by Ted Chiang, But the story is about super intelligent *humans*.
Like Tatja Grimm's World or the movie Limitless.
PS: Referenced tweet for the interested: https://x.com/swyx/status/2006976415451996358
Ted C
The buddy-cop television series Limitless spin off series is superior to the Bradley Cooper movie of the same name.
The American Alien(s) 1,2 and 3 Limitless The Bourne movies Heat Leon
It's not about the movies themselves but for example with Bourne or the American, it's certain scenes that get me in a mood. A single professional or group doing his / its thing, it's kind of calming.
Feel free to suggest movies in a similar vain.
If I really had to make an ad about this, maybe I'd try to for this "limitless" movie vibe to appeal for people who seek that.
Limitless the book was much better than Limitless the movie. And, yes, it doesn't have a Hollywood-style happy ending at all.
I just finished reading "Flowers for Algernon" the short story and I never read the novel. It also immediately reminded me of "Limitless". (The book, I wouldn't compare it to the movie, again, at least because of that silly "happy end", which seems to be obligatory in the Hollywood.) If you want somebody's (i.e. mine) take on it: well, "Limitless" was much, much better of a read. I was a lot younger when I read it, so I don't how I would react now, but I remember it to be pleasantly realistic, unlike the vast majority of [English] sci-fi. Unlike in the movie, though, there was a lot less "magic" to MDT. There was no silly stuff like being suddenly able to multiply 10-digit numbers in the head and similar Hollywood representations of "being incredibly intelligent" which are just annoyingly stupid, if you ask me. In the book it felt very real, it was very easy to "feel" what is that effect. It's basically just an exceptionally potent nootropic drug, think "amphetamine, but better". And, yes, that was motivational. This is the main reason I remembered it, actually: there I very much felt how the protagonist was "improved". In the "Flowers for Argernon", on the other hand, it just feels like author is trying to explore some idea he isn't mentally equipped to explore. I.e., he has no idea what he is trying to describe. It's childish and unrealistic.
All I can say about "Flowers for Algernon" the short story — I was thinking that the novel must be much better for this to be considered worthwhile. But then there is an addendum at the end of this:
> The novel, published as a mainstream work by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, is not as effective as the story version, which is much tighter and written from a very successfully executed first-person point of view.
Soo… yeah. I'm not gonna try it right now. But then, again, I must admit that anybody who mostly likes sci-fi shouldn't even listen to me, because I can say only bad things about vast majority of famous sci-fi books, with only just a couple exceptions. Mostly it's literally just pulp fiction, comic books without pictures. Not what I expect when somebody talks about "literature".
I love Ted Chiang and that story is a banger. The movies like Limitless, Lucy or Phenomenon don't really take the concept to its conclusions. Limitless posits day trading, or politics, as the highest goal. Lucy goes post human in a silly, fantasy way. Phenomenon was pretty cool except for the telekinesis. But Understand sort of hits all the bases and I really like the thesis that there is an irreducible, existential struggle between Utilitarianism and Aesthetics. And of course, the realization that the protag is actually the bad guy. Not a huge fan of the idea of "programming" another person with engrams and random stuff in the environment, to like, die, but it's more plausible than telekinesis!
He also wrote the best, IMHO, time-travel story ever written: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_and_the_Alchemist%27s_Gate. A gorgeous little tale.
It's interesting to compare this story to the movie Limitless, which has a fairly similar premise, but ends on a positive note. Algernon seems to have more influence, probably because of it is fundamentally a kind of morality tale, but I actually kind of prefer Limitless, [0] as limited as its plot is.
There is something motivational about it, which is probably why there are so many YouTube productivity videos with the soundtrack. [1] I get the same feeling from The Last Samurai a book (unrelated to the Tom Cruise movie) by Helen DeWitt, which is about raising a genius child.
I don't know what the psychological effect is called, but there does seem to be something significant to the idea that it's inspiring to read about/watch extremely intelligent people flexing their intelligence.
0. The film is based on a book, The Dark Fields, which doesn't seem quite so positive, although I haven't read it.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7BRQ9neSrw
Curated list of favorite underrated movies:
#1 pick for HN Crowd: The Man From Earth // must see, especially if you like philosophical movies (don't recommend the sequel by the way)
Runner's Up:
Being There // absolute classic and must see for every person, at least once
Peaceful Warrior
The Lion In Winter // one of the best dramas ever made, and unbeatable cast with young Anthony Hopkins
Predestination // incredible drama about time travel paradoxes
The Interview // Hugo Weaving
Vitus // amazing story about a piano prodigy who fakes losing his talents to have a normal life
The Perverts Guide to Cinema // documentary, Slavoj Zizek's tour de force psychoanalysis of cinema as an art form; addressing the philosophical and psychological question of whether cinema (and other art forms) fulfil your desires, or rather teach/train you both to desire (and what you should desire), thus the sensationalistic and polemical invocation of it as "perverted"
Le Professionnel (French film, not to be confused with the one with Natalie Portman)
Revolver // Guy Ritchie's quote "It took me three years to write this film whereas Snatch took me three months". It is a masterwork metaphor about the ego, ego death, consciousness, meditation, spirituality, and the nature of reality. Recommend reading an interpretation of the film either before or after viewing to better appreciate what is happening in the story as it is most metaphorical.
Rest of the List: The Big Kahuna, Tao of Steve, Crazy Stupid Love, Megamind, Eyes Wide Shut, Dead Poet's Society, Before Sunset, Gambit, Five Minutes of Heaven, Temple Grandin, Croupier, The Good Guy, 3 Idiots, Limitless, Drive, Whiplash
Very true. I can see that Edge of Tomorrow, Limitless, and Source Code are all PG-13, so he might want to start with those.
Edit: At the same time I feel like these suggestions (including the R-rated ones) are all wonderfully simple, understandable, yet though-provoking and constantly entertaining. Perfect for anyone that finds 2001 to be a slow and tedious movie. I would really want to trust that it's safe for anyone to watch these as long as they have an adult next to them, and someone they can talk about the movie with after.
First some that I don't see mentioned here yet:
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Limitless (2011)
Looper (2012)
Upgrade (2018)
Source Code (2011)
District 9 (2009)
Black Mirror S3E2: "Playtest", S4E1: "USS Callister"
The 7 minute YouTube video "Slaughterbots"[1]
The YouTube series The Backrooms[2]
If you are worried about your son hearing swear words and seeing blood, and not just whether or not he will be able to understand/appreciate the movie, then you probably want to wait with a couple of those.
And then I would also agree with those here that mention Inception, Interstellar, Back to the Future, The Martian, Men in Black, Minority Report, The Terminator, Terminator 2, and The Expanse. I also don't think he should have much of a problem following along with The Matrix.
[1]: https://youtu.be/O-2tpwW0kmU [2]: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVAh-MgDVqvDUEq6qDXqORBioE4Yhol_z
I have tried ritalin, vyanse, and adderall in college before. Those drugs scare me because they are in my opinion the greatest drugs in the world. When I am on them I literally become the movie limitless in real life. I feel more amazing than ever and I want to take them all the time. I would like to solve my issues without becoming reliant on medication. It feels like a patch rather than a solution. Lately I have been trying meditation. If it cures my 'adhd' I will let you know
I asked ChatGPT. It gave me bunch. I got some I've never heard of. I think I'll look into them.
<ChatGPT>
list 50 interesting movies that explore AI.
The Matrix
Ex Machina
Blade Runner
The Terminator
I, Robot
The War of the Worlds
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Transcendence
The Fifth Element
2001: A Space Odyssey
WarGames
Westworld
The Machine
Her
The Iron Giant
Automata
The Truman Show
The Prestige
The Martian
The Fly
The Bicentennial Man
Surrogates
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Limitless
Robocop
Electric Dreams
The Island
The Time Machine
The Circle
The Arrival
The Host
The Stepford Wives
The Brain that Wouldn't Die
Frankenstein
The Invisible Man
Metropolis
The Thing
Jurassic Park
Independence Day
Gravity
Artificial Intelligence: AI
Avatar
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
Inception
Interstellar
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Butterfly Effect
The Future.
</ChatGPT>
One of those disturbing things about nootropics is that people frequently stack a large number of them so the effects of any particular one is unclear.
There are also questions about what exactly a substance is.
Years ago I bought a tub of Piracetam that felt a little bit like that stuff in the movie Limitless. No Piracetam I bought afterwards felt that way so I wonder if I'd really gotten something more like amphetamine.
I've just recently been diagnosed with bipolar type II. This is something I should have been treated for 20 years ago. If you don't know about it, look it up as it's quite interesting and very common among the greatest minds in history (not that I'm one of those).
The difference between type II and type I is the intensity and length of the two extremes. Rather than "mania", type II has "hypomania", characterized by periods of heightened confidence, creativity, sexuality, rashness, productivity and ideas. Then the depression cycle is generally less intense, but usually lasts a longer time. The time between the extremes can last for many months. Hypomania can be confused with ADHD, which I've had been taking meds for for years.
This cycle of brilliance and despair describes my career perfectly. I am amazing for a month, do awesome work, have incredible insights and generally impress everyone around me - from bosses to relationships. Then, slowly, over months become less productive and have increased anxiety and self-doubt, less energy, care less about everything and longer and longer bouts of deep depression until I can barely get out of bed. Then I rally, think I've finally turned a corner and return to "normal". I'll apologize to bosses and coworkers, catch up on missed work, do something great again and feel that I've finally got a handle on things.
But what I considered my "normal" baseline wasn't real or sustainable, it was hypomania. The realization of what is actually normal has been a revelation, as the expectation of always performing at that intensely high level actually exacerbated my depression in a vicious cycle. "Why can't I think today??"
There are so many examples of famous people who did brilliant work, but also would end up struggling with depression for years. Ada Lovelace, Van Gogh, Churchill, Hemingway, Stephen Fry, Coppola, every other famous actor and more.
Every time I had my yearly psych evaluation for my Adderall, they would ask me, "Have you ever had episodes where you had out of control racing thoughts, and you didn't need to sleep for a day or more, exaggerated confidence and unusual talkativeness?" And I'd say, "No... Well, I'm normally talkative and distracted, but that's my ADHD, but never had moments of being out of control, or racing thoughts and no need for sleep." And my psychs (various, as they came and went from my HMO) would check off a box and continue on.
What they were describing is mania, not hypomania. So for two decades I've been under the impression that "normal" was my periods of hypomania and that I had ADHD, and that I also had clinical depression and that I needed to figure out the right meds or personal habits (eat right, regular sleep, exercise, etc.) to overcome. This was a horrible misdiagnosis which has affected my life in countless ways.
If you are ADHD, but also have depression, talk to your psych about bipolar disorder. It gets worse with age, so something that is minor now will get so intense later that it will ruin your life - you'll get fired, lose relationships, spend money recklessly, take risks you shouldn't - but not realize that when you "fix" these problems that you really haven't, and in a few months, or six, or a year - just long enough for you to think you're on the right track - it'll all start again.
The one "good" thing is that hypomania has its perks. Think of the movie Limitless - for a month year, I got to be a genius. Anyone who met me then still has the impression of me as a person with an endless font of knowledge and brilliant ideas. Those are the people I still have as contacts on Linked in. The ones who dealt with me during my episodes of depression have the exact opposite view and avoid me at all costs.
I would bet that there are a lot of really smart people here in Silicon Valley that are in a similar situation, but don't realize it. If this sounds like you, get yourself treated before it's too late.
Perhaps the movie/book Limitless was ahead of its time. I do believe that there is much more potential in the human brain than we use currently.
How does this compare to the experience of taking focus drugs for those that have problems focusing? Is the film “Limitless” a modern retelling of this in some aspects?
If we constrain ourselves to physically/biologically plausible stuff rather than the ability to teleport or whatever, and maybe assume you can't interfere with the lives of others:
1) Perfect health for the duration of my life (e.g., no insomnia, no autoimmune bs, no mental health issues, etc.).
2) Probably all the benefits and none of the downsides of that pill from the Limitless movie/book/TV show. Perfect memory and superhuman learning ability would be fucking amazing. (I would also be happy with just Jon von Neumann's brain.)
3) The third wishes that come to mind are too personal for me to put online, so maybe just being able to be completely rejuvenated with just 4 hours of sleep so there's more time in the day to put to use doing good with my world-class genius granted to me by (2).
I was in a deep dark pit of depression, mostly life long that got worse in the past few years. Sought help, found a therapist, and after 2 years she asked me if I ever considered I might have ADHD. I looked into it in December, every fucking thing made sense, got diagnosed in January and started my medication in March.
I'm still learning to live with it, but I've managed to understand how my brain ticks, why I'm in a constant search for pleasure, and now I have a theory why my life got so bad lately: I've quit my marijuana habit 8 years ago, I quit my smoking habit 2 years ago, and I've quit coffee because it doesn't play very nice with my anxiety and heart, and the more stimulants I've removed from my life, the less functional I've become, and even at my peak "drug" usage my motivation and focus was always outside my control, anyway. But at least I had the mental energy to do _things_. I was self medicating without knowing it.
I did suspect, when I started using Reddit 15 years ago the ADHD thing was a meme everybody said "yeah, I have that." It remained a meme for me, until, guess what, I actually have a problem and I shouldn't be struggling that much. The medication doesn't turn me into that Limitless movie, it gives me the chemicals needed to pick up trash off the floor, make boring phone calls and be a productive member of society. What's ordinary for most people, for me is absolutely mind blowing.
I have mild ADD and can't read books very well. I read a book like I read Twitter, extracting little soundbites and quotes out of it to mull over later. With movies, I get the basic gist of a story and I'm happy with that. A movie is a watered down book that I don't have to wade through. Some key movies that I always loved: Limitless, The Matrix, Fight Club, all of the LOTR movies.
Those movies moved me in ways a book simply couldn't. And I've tried reading Tolkien, and just couldn't pay attention. A little hack I do (since I will never read all the books in the world), is read the last line of a book I randomly picked up in the library or a book shop, and commit that line to memory. I've memorized ~100 'last sentences' of books now!
Disagreed, I quit drinking when I was 18 and it was a super power. Not only I had now Saturday/Sunday morning where I was fresh, but when I did go out with my drinking friends and clubbing it felt like I had a super-brain (think the movie Limitless). The only problem is that, at least initially, it was harder talking to girls in the club, but I decided I'd overcome that myself over going back to drinking (and I did).
But to be fair I only drank once, maybe twice a week with friends (though not little), so I don't consider either me or my friends were` alcoholic. Also I had a new group of friends who didn't drink, so we instead did urban exploration. I did go back to drinking socially back in college when I was 20-something.
Now that I'm over 30, I miss more the non-drunk days than those I was drinking, though had great experiences in both.
Limitless is the film version of Alan Glynn's book The Dark Fields. It was published in 2001, so it would've been written before or at most a year or two after modafinil got FDA approval, and long before modafinil was popularized by Wired, etc in the mid-2000s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Fields
The book is really, really good. Much darker than the film, however. The ending is completely different, particularly the implications of the last paragraph.
If you're on a Dark Fields kick, Ted Chiang's 1991 short story Understand is worthwhile. Geekier and not as philosophically weighty, but way more fun.
The rumour is Limitless (the movie with Bradley Cooper in the early '10s) was modeled on Modafinil, the side effects being "inspired by" as well. I didn't have the peripheral vision failures to register, but the death like fatigue is real.
I know what you mean about The Social Network and Silicon Valley. Not tech specifically, but definitely motivating and inspiring for me are:
Moneyball Margin Call Limitless The Big Short Wolf of Wall Street That Fyre documentary and at Christmas - Trading Places
I recommend discarding any anecdotes from people who recently started taking stimulants like Adderall, Vyvanse, or Ritalin. The parent comment is correct in that early stimulant usage is associated with euphoria and motivation that do not last.
If someone describes Adderall like the magic drug that Bradley Cooper takes in the movie Limitless, they probably haven't been taking it very long. Tolerance quickly builds to those effects.
People who have been taking Adderall since childhood or for a decade of adult life tend to have more mixed reviews. That's not to say it doesn't have a place in treatment of life-impacting ADHD disorders, but it should be noted that it's not a miracle drug that automatically turns you into a motivated, organized person. Even patients who take stimulants must make an effort to build good time management habits and self-discipline. Those who rely too heavily on the motivating effects of stimulant drugs can end up worse off when they inevitably build tolerance to the euphoric effects and still haven't learned how to manage their ADHD.
I've also noticed a huge uptick in ADHD misinformation in the form of overly broad diagnostic criteria. If you see infographics that describe ADHD symptoms as common behaviors like "have trouble remembering names of new people" or "I sometimes forget to do all of my tasks" then it's likely junk science. Don't confuse normal human behaviors for ADHD. ADHD is something far more debilitating.
>I feel like that movie Limitless was inspired by someone who really needed ADHD medication and finally got it.
Watching it tonight.
Seriously. After 15 years of struggling with various self help programs, an ADHD-PI diagnosis and medication fixed 90% of my problems. I feel like that movie Limitless was inspired by someone who really needed ADHD medication and finally got it.
Microdosing is mostly hype. I know many people who've tried microdosing. Does it give you a 5% edge? Maybe... but sometimes it distracts and subtracts 5%.
It is not NZT from the movie Limitless, despite media hype.
As a productivity drug, amphetamines far outclass psychedelics.
there is plenty of payoff, and I'm not just talking about the social aspect of it. contrived example: they could do a youtube channel and winning those races gets them the cred from viewers to bring them thousands a month.
Since everything is monitizible, we'll probably see cheating in many places we dont traditionally see it. It reminds me of the movie limitless, everyone successful was doing the drug
Intelligence is hard to improve upon because it's poorly defined (as you noted). However, specific parts of it can be trained and targeted, eg short term memorization and recall, number of productive hours awake (especially on little sleep), ability to hold strong emotions at bay.
Medications that address such things this may not "improve intelligence", but at the end of the day, if they let someone concentrate and be productive for 18 hours in a day, with no "hangover" the next, or lets them visualize complex protein makeup while altered, with enough retained to write up a scientific paper about said protein when sober, isn't that close enough for the pop-sci definition of "improved intelligence"? What the person is able to do with them, is still better than if they did not. Nootropics and micro-dosing are popular topics for those trying to use medication to improve overall effectiveness, in the quest for the drug that's still science fiction featured in the movie Limitless.
Annihilation, Dark City, Riddick Chronicles, Babylon A.D., Guardians of The Galaxy, Fast and Furious, Hummingbird, Transporter, Crank, Hardcore Henry, Revolver, Lucy, Ghost in The Shell, Now you see me, Passengers, Transcendence, Maze Runner, Limitless...
I think we've had a good run; I also think it's easy to be biased and not see it because of some nostalgia-effect of sorts. If you are f.e. 30+ you might more easily dismiss a movie as Limitless or Lucy as uncredible; both are based on a common myth that we only utilize a low percentage of our brains capacity, as an example, so they are that: unrealistic. But I think that's an unfair comparison because of an inherent bias that when you think about a movie like The Matrix you don't see it with the same critical lens because you perhaps had less knowledge of the world in your earlier years. #JustAFewThoughts
Don't worry. I know how to do it the proper way an don't do it anyway.
I've once gotten 2 grams of pure crystals rather than pills, done a lot of research (the "limitless" movie inspires to invest in such a research first, reddit and quora are great places to start), experimented a lot (with practices and supplements to take to protect the body from the bad things it does and mitigate tolerance growth) and came to the point when I could marathon for a week without sleeping without even having hangover once I stop. The feelable negative results were (after I've found a proper way) almost none but over-concentration (narrowed mental view), disregulated blood sugar and butt ache caused by 22x7 concentrated working sitting on a chair. Nevertheless I stopped and don't use it and my actual working dose I used on some occasions (but the experiments) to concentrate for hours was almost homeopathic - 3 minuscule sand-like specks a day. I've even helped some addicts to quit gracefully.
As for weed (which isn't legal at my location either yet quite easy to get with little or no risk of prosecution - people use to smoke in the streets and cops walking by don't care) I've tried smoking it (in tiny doses, my body is very sensitive to all the substances) regularly for some time but didn't really like it and now I don't even know where to get it (as well as any other illegal substances, the dealers I knew have vanished over time as I was an extremely infrequent buyer and I don't bother to look for new). It made my mind a way less sharp, some strains made me sleepy, some strains made me crazy, the only thing the weed actually was great with for me was sex.
If you happen to know particularly good strain names I'd love to know too, however. I once met a guy who offered 9 different strains and I haven't bought any just because I didn't knew which I could like.
BTW the only thing other than meth that used to help was 1/4 pill of xanax (especially stacked with sunifiram). But it's almost impossible to get. I was lucky to get 4 pills once so I could take it 12 times and leave a pill for for a rainy day. I've also tried bromozepam but it doesn't do the job for me.
I'll add to this by saying that going on zoloft a year ago has been like the best nootropic experience of my life. In many ways, the first 6 months were like a persistent 24/7 microdose on MDMA ..... it was incredible. I also turned my life around and accomplished some of my life's most impressive work, all while not trying to kill myself anymore!
Beyond solving a massive sudden depression, it was actually quite enhancing. I felt like I was in the movie limitless. Given the pathways SSRIs target in the brain, I'd say they have similar benefits to all of that SV legacy around psychedelic use....
Sadly, things normalized and the burst of awesome tapered off. Now the medication is the new normal, and skipping doses brings the depression back, just not nearly as bad as it was. Hopefully some day we will learn how to tweak it so the immensely positive experiences last forever.
These days, I no longer think of antidepressants as any kind of crutch. If anything, it is another tool in the transhumanists toolbox allowing the human body to perform better than nature has provided.
Is this what the film 'Limitless' was loosely based on?
Because people who didn't ever taken a drug have never felt nearly this bright and this happy and such intensity of pleasant feelings and mental capacity is far outside of boundaries of their imagination. Once an addiction-prone person experiences that it's possible they will never want to feel ordinary again. Also, if they do it wrong (and they usually do, unfortunately so many people choosing to try drugs don't care to do research nor to spare money on supplements that are going to protect their health during the experience and help to recover after it) they are going to experience hangover caused by their body resources depletion and receptors disregulation, feel particularly bad and hurry to fix this with just another dose of the same substance taken the same (or even worse) way that caused that. I took the way depicted in the "limitless" movie (not to the point of becoming a politician :-) though) and given it up completely shortly after (as I prefer the normal state and don't really like to stress myself and undermine my health that way) but many people who are less rationally-minded, less psychologically-developed and have less-satisfying lives just go junky and I believe many of them could be saved by just being educated (not scared) better. I really don't recommend anybody to try drugs but whoever already takes them or is going to do anyway - search trough and read the darn Reddit, Quora etc thoroughly!
It is also important to emphasize that that's about just a single class of drugs you've mentioned. Popular psychedelics, although able to induce even stronger sensations usually don't cause even psychological addiction (although there are some rare people who start taking them every weekend, a normal person will hardly feel like repeating the experience soon and any kind of regular - it's just too intense psychologically and there also is tolerance, the acid wears off in some hours and won't really work until the next week) and (except some of them) hardly cause any harm (unless you're a psycho already - then you may happen to go nuts completely) or hangover. Opiates, at the same time, don't make you bright but just give a strong sense of relief kind of "I just feel good and uck everything absolutely" yet cause powerful physiological addiction, severe hangovers and serious risk of lethal overdose.
Feels like the movie "Limitless".
I wouldn't automatically put yourself into the average intelligence group. The fact that you are able to do Physics at a C means you are already way above average.
I always use to think that Intelligence was a binary black and white thing. Constantly struggling at school, understanding things in the moment but never able to recall and apply the knowledge effectively to get good grades. People would always think I was intelligent by the way I talked and thought, but looking at my grades or ability to manage daily/mundane tasks and you could see something very wrong.
I read book after book, learned about the brain, learning, memory and plethora of things in between. After developing negative feedback loops with everything, I generally accepted that I would be a failure at everything.
One day I came across a book that just explained what was fundamentally wrong. Long story short my brain couldn't focus and never did, it never developed structures necessary for success in anything let alone math, physics, computer science, music. I found a very very special treatment that can change the network in your brain responsible for focus and enhanced it.
Then all those years spending learning about improving abilities was all accessible, like someone flipped a switch and everything I read/experienced was there. Now I spend my days excelling at everything, there is not a single thing that I am not above average at and in some things far far above average. I live the Limitless movie(although its taken a year for it to be really evident) everyday of my life.
My brain has changed so fundamentally, I can't even say I am the same human being anymore. Now I spend my days trying to become a "genius" I always dreamed about and starting to understand that intelligence isn't one thing in particular its many things:
1. Focus 2. Sensory Awareness 3. Reaction time 4. Analytical Ability 5. Working and Long-term Memory 6. Creativity 7. Emotional Intelligence 8. Executive Function/Task Management
There are probably more, but those are the ones I focus my attention on. You have to find ways to improve those things, it might take a year or it might take the rest of your life. I make it my life mission to identify geniuses in any domain and learn from them. Most of my learning has come from a Kung Fu and Dance master and he excels in all these areas.
Just remember that your abilities are heavily dependent on your intellectual/emotional development. If your parents have serious limitations in those areas you will probably have them to because in your core development years you were mirroring their neurons, but that doesn't mean it can't change. The hardest part is identifying the limitations.
The brain is infinitely complex, everything you have perceived/experienced is probably there, its just a matter of how you access it. You have a universe in your brain use it. I have really only scratched the surface, because even knowing all these things is not enough. You actually have to do physically/mentally stimulating activities to develop these abilities. Even then it is luck, but not impossible.
I am not trying to inflate my ego(because that's a weakness), I am not a genius or anything special in my mind. But it is a just the reality I worked tirelessly to create and I like to share that experience.
Edited For Brevity
its interesting the push/pull that goes on with PED.
many students are taking adderall to ace exams/boards/bar/standardized tests, and athletes are taking steroids/HGH/etc. Its largely considered academic fraud / cheating, but also largely unpoliced.
sometimes i feel the world is becoming like the movie/series limitless. those that you see are succeeding / influential are juiced up.
I think it's a price you decide to pay or not. If you want to think sharper, you need to pay with the side affects. Very similar to Limitless (the movie and tv show), if you saw it.
The movie Limitless showed how this will play out for most people. No, not the story of the main character, the 5 minute scene showing his ex-girlfriend who fell completely apart after her period of hyper-success. Think I'm wrong? Well I have a very easy way to measure how far away you are from reaching that same point... look at your dosage amount.. how far are you along from 0mg to the max dosage offered?
You aren't the exception, you will continue hitting plateaus where your dosage has to be adjusted up until you hit the top. Oops, did I say top? I meant to say bottom. You aren't the exception and the happy ending of Limitless was Hollywood magic. Hell, read the book it was based on and even that'll tell you the end of the party IS coming for YOU, don't kid yourself. I give it 3 years before we start seeing massive fall-out from all the stim abuse happening right now in our industry and others.
"Limitless" is a fun movie to watch for anyone interested in this subject.
Reminds me of Limitless movie. Probably gambling (no identity required to start) is good idea for the first step, and stock exchange is good idea for the second step.
It's called Adderall. You may have seen the 2011 documentary about it, Limitless.
There's also Donepezil, a drug similar to the one from the movie Limitless (2011).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2593268/The-drug-helps-adults-learn-fast-children.html
- Donepezil is used to improve memory function in Alzheimer’s patients - Children learn skills quickly as their brains go through 'critical periods’ - Researchers found donepezil can revert adult brains to these periods - It increases the 'elasticity' of the brain making it capable of learning rapidly - Researchers rewired a visually impaired patient’s brain to process images - The drug works by boosting chemicals in the brain that reduce with age
I actually take Modafinil for narcolepsy. It's not quite as life-changing as the recent articles make it out to be; it doesn't make you smarter or think faster or anything of the sort. It just removes the fog in your brain that builds up when you have too many things competing for attention.
One major downside, however, is it's fairly quick to build up an immunity to, especially if you have it as a medical prescription.
Overall, it's pretty useful, and as far as I know, harmless. Just don't expect it to be like the movie Limitless.
I know how skeptical and cynical HN can be, so I thought I should add that while I've become an evangelist, it isn't me that is claiming NSI-189 as a treatment for depression and ptsd, its the maker Neuralstem, and it's backed up by autopsied rats whose hippocampus grew 20% in size after the drug was administered.
Here is an interesting blog post from the maker about NSI-189 and NZT from the movie limitless.
http://www.neuralstem.com/neuralstem-ceo-blog/86-i-cant-give-you-brains-but-i-can-give-you-a-diploma
I think NSI is such a cool story because besides perhaps rescuing millions of people from the despair of PTSD, it is so similar to the concept of NZT in Limitless.
And just like in Limitless, it is not easy to procure at the moment.
Take up Yoga.
My personal experience is I benefited on the points that you have mentioned and then some more. Would sound corny but the best way to describe the experience is like what was shown in the movie 'Limitless' - it was of course not to that extent, but after doing Yoga for few weeks I felt as if some fog was lifted from my brain (which prior to that I didn't even realize was there), I was able to connect things much more efficiently, do pattern matching and all at subconscious level. Also, I realized I could remember long numbers (ex. ph no.) much more easily - I was never partial to mathematics right from childhood. If I have to rationalize it then I would think its not only because of exercises, inverted postures (which allows more blood flow to your upper regions of the body) etc. but also due to breathing exercises - which not only helps your lungs but brain as well.
There are scientific work around Yoga and improvement on cognitive abilities, one that I could find easily: The Acute Effects of Yoga on Executive Function http://kch.illinois.edu/research/labs/neurocognitive-kinesiology/files/Articles/Gothe_2013_TheEffectsOfA.pdf
Yeah, well, not mentioning Erowid is pretty counter-intuitive to the entire article. It's ignorance dressed up as education. The path has already been started long before VC/SV smelled something interesting. Maybe if VC/SV had a great track record in investing in actual research science, which in fairness is being choked and driving people out of the profession, then maybe there'd be some hope. Thus far, I see far more risk than reward in complimenting or encouraging the VC/SV community to pursue this field.
Also, citing movies like Lucy and Limitless just feels juvenile. Why not strap on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for some counter balance? Drugs is drugs is drugs...
One of the most interesting exceptions I've seen on this convention was the 2011 movie Limitless(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/). They still used the orange-blue complement, but switched saturation between them, sometimes every scene. It was used as an indicator of how the protagonist views the world: bright and with an orange saturation for when he is on NZT, dull and blue when he isn't. I thought it was a great way of deconstructing this particular trope.
Stimulants can essentially directly increase your intelligence for a time. You think faster, answers can just pop into your head faster, you can code faster. Laser focus, a sense of unlimited capability, too. A more realistic version of the movie "Limitless".
They don't seem to help with creativity, and can do the opposite. It's easy to get concentrated on the wrong thing. I knew a PHP dev on pro vigil long term, and when he'd take an extra dose of stims, you could tell. A flurry of good idea emails in the morning, then disappeared into his office all day.
But... One time, he spent all day trying to optimize the platform for TLB misses. From PHP code, that made a MySQL call every ten lines. Without the hyper focus and drive of stims, no way anyone would waste a day chasing down such crazy thing. (What annoyed me even more was that this useless but "hard" work received a lot of respect from people that understood less...)
So simulants are best taken when one has a clear idea of what to work on and can get into that work right away. In many cases, I think they're a win, and for thought focused work, like students, mathematicians, programmers, simulants should be more widely available legally. Why should we not want most of the population to have performance enhancing medication? As you note, the state is well aware of the effectiveness.
Also note that stimulants can cause psychosis over time, so there is some risk in having everyone use them all the time. But a measured use, like an afterburner, seems like a good thing to have available.
Yep definitely felt like I watching the trailer for the movie limitless.
Just extrapolating: that highly abstract symbolic language/keyboard, combined with an agile mind (think 'Limitless' the movie) and 10-finger virtuosity, would be an incredible coding force...
Not entirely unrealistic, I might add.
I feel for this guy - people can't understand that what he wants is "Life his way" and not to be a martyr to society burning his happiness to solve up equations. The greater good and so forth.
But there is a fundamental angle that I find odd about people's perception of intelligence. People expect intelligence to be always found alongside ambition.
When I watched "Limitless", it did hit me in an odd way. If I suddenly could out-think 99% of humanity, I wouldn't be running for president or becoming a stock trader profiting off the market. Actually, I don't know because I'm not that intelligent - but is that kind of ambition pasted over by Hollywood on top of intelligence?
In comparison, everything from Thor, Dark Knight, Iron Man and even the new Wall Street movie was about clean power - hell, even Inception has got the guy with the windmills. That I felt like was an ambition that could occur with genius (i.e "First thing you do, is find the biggest problem on your planet and beat it").
But government official or company executive?
That feels odd.
You might like this movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limitless
The people in it fight to the death for their smartness drugs.
Nano-factories are interesting but I think safe biological enhancement, especially of intelligence, is going to be even more interesting. Anyone ever see the Limitless movie? Sure, that's not possible today but we are quickly unraveling the mysteries of the body.
This kinda reminds me of that movie, 'Limitless'.
Sorry, I should've been clear that I don't actually believe the myth. Only that the movie Limitless is about it.
This reminds me of the movie Limitless, in which a drug is invented that gives people who take it access to the 80% of their brain that they don't normally use.
Exactly - I never buy vitamins because i'm under the impression that i have enough vitamins in my food. The body can only process so many vitamins an hour, and you get no benefit from having extra vitamins that pass through your system.
Have you seen the movie limitless? Make some pills that augment my abilities :)
As far as what my coding zone looks like, ours are very similar.
I have found working at night is the best for me.
When I'm coding I find that interruptions don't bother me, because I usually become hyper focused and I block out everything around me.
Strangely enough, I like to watch movies while coding. Preferably ones that motivate me like Limitless, or V for Vendetta, or the Social Network.
Turns out, if I have music or tv playing in the background that works just as well.
I try to eat health and, I don't drink pop or coffee (they make me crash hard once I break out of the zone.)
Finally, once I start coding I must finish what I sat down to start. That way each time I code, when I'm done I feel like I have accomplished something. Which in turn makes me want to do it again.
This reminds me of the movie Limitless, where the protagonist devised computer algorithms that would scan forums and other social media sites to get people's sentiments of what would happen to the stock, then successfully made 40x+ returns within months.
why did you think it was more related to mdma versus an amphetamine? i remember when i saw limitless the first time, i kept thinking 'is this movie just about adderall and vyvanse?'
second: this is a viral promotion for a Hollywood movie.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/limitless-viral-video-creates-buzz-169169
Obviously this is fake. But this is a brilliant PR stunt.
If you watch the follow-up video, the guy gets interviewed on how he comes up with this stuff. He says he uses NZT - the drug used in the upcoming movie, limitless. Also the video that he "hi-jacks" on the big screen is a preview to that movie.