Modafinil is just the first of a wave of new lifestyle drugs that promise to do for sleep what the contraceptive pill did for sex – unshackle it from nature. Since time immemorial, humans have structured their lives around sleep. In the near future, we will, for the first time, be able to significantly structure the way we sleep to suit our lifestyles.
(Thanks, Danny Chaoflux).
November 22, 2006 at 8:42 am
In the words of the great philosopher… Moe, Me Wantee!
November 22, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Sounds great, but buried deep in the side effects list is the small percentage of people who, after long use, had their brains consumed by hound-like interdimensional creatures. Seriously, though, there are some things, however desirable, that I’d want to see other people take for a couple of decades. Speaking of which, anyone remember the Mr. X comic?
November 24, 2006 at 10:22 am
Jeezus – I like sleep! Do we really want to be awake to work, spectate and consume for 24 hours? Why is this so cool? Some of us NEED the only peaceful respite we can get! As for the extra time – most of us would just watch more TV and get ever more bored than we have before.
Like a great many ‘liberating’ breakthroughs, it’ll be used by corporations/governments/armies/churches to make us watch, buy and work harder than we ever have before…
Don’t you know sleep deprivation destroys perspective and makes us subject to all kinds of control machines?
November 24, 2006 at 12:37 pm
By Santos, if the street name isn’t “insomnalin,” I won’t take it.
November 24, 2006 at 2:39 pm
To quote Adrian Tomine in his comic Optic Nerve: “Feels Good?!! Lying idly for hours on end feels good? I’ll tell you what feels good! Inking a satisfying page of a comic feels good! Reading a good book feels good! Spending time with the one you love feels good!”
I don’t have a TV and I’m never bored. Even if I didn’t have a day job, I could still use the extra 8 or 9 hours a day that I spend sleeping.
That said, I somehow doubt that this stuff will really work as a long term substitute for sleep.
November 25, 2006 at 2:32 am
“Lying idly for hours on end feels good?”
Yes. Embrace the slack, let it wash over you.
November 26, 2006 at 2:06 pm
There have been numerous scientific studies which have concluded that most of our bodies healing occurs during sleep. Also, that more dreaming leads to better mental health. The effects of taking this drug every day for a long period of time could be nasty. In moderation, it might be okay.