What If The Limitless Pill Was Real?
Smart products are all the rage.
Smartphones paved the way for smartwatches, smart TVs, and even smart toasters.
More than anything, however, what we’d really like is a smart pill: a pill that could boost
our intelligence and make us a better version of ourselves.
Such a supplement could unlock the full potential of our minds and provide us with limitless
opportunities.
This is Unveiled and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: What If the Limitless
Pill Was Real?
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The moniker “Limitless Pill” was popularized by the movie of the same name, and later the
show, but the notion of smart pills isn’t new.
They’re known as nootropics, a term coined by Dr. Corneliu Giurgea in 1972 after he stumbled
upon a supplement he thought could provide mental benefits.
There are a variety of smart pills on the market, but none as effective as the fictional
Limitless Pill, which granted users with a perfect memory and the ability to process
vast amounts of information in an instant.
By speeding up and enhancing key mental functions, it also made them faster and more focused.
Drugs that affect the brain work by altering the activity of neurotransmitters, the chemical
messengers that transmit signals between neurons.
Using chemicals that mimic neurotransmitters, or that block their re-uptake, we can stimulate
neural activity.
We can also reduce the production of neurotransmitters, or block the receptors they target, to do
the opposite.
Most addictive drugs work by increasing the amount of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which
is responsible for pleasure - triggering a comforting feeling or sense of euphoria.
Nootropics work in the same way, targeting chemicals that make the user more alert and
focused.
A common combination involves caffeine and l-theanine.
Some drugs focus on stimulating dopamine, serotonin, or norepinephrine receptors.
But we have yet to achieve the effects of the Limitless Pill.
A real Limitless Pill would allow you to remember details perfectly, make accurate calculations
and predictions, and never feel mentally tired.
In other words, it would make people feel like more advanced versions of themselves.
While we’re still waiting for such a pill, in 2016 billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk
founded a company called Neuralink that hopes to develop implantable brain–machine interfaces
using nanotechnology.
So although we’re some ways away from a supplemental boost that mimics the Limitless
Pill, we may soon have other ways to speed up and improve our cognition.
Though it seems like such a fantastic invention would take a while to become available to
the public, this might not be the case.
Many current nootropics are not considered medical products, and are therefore only lightly
regulated.
Whereas most medications take months or even years of testing before approval, supplements
barely need to prove anything!
When it arrived, the Limitless Pill would become a phenomenon overnight.
Social media would explode, with vloggers and influencers raving about their enhanced
mental capabilities and showing off the effects.
Soon everyone who could afford it would HAVE to take the Limitless Pill - otherwise, you’d
be lagging behind, whether in college, at work, or even in social settings.
In fact, one downside is that, depending on the price of the drug, it could further widen
the gap between the haves and have-nots.
Those without the means, or who refused to take the pill on other grounds, would face
an uphill battle against the superpowered intellect of those on the pill.
Eventually though, a brain-enhancing drug like the Limitless Pill would eventually become
near-universal.
Every country would welcome it eagerly, fearful of being left behind in terms of technological
progress.
Every researcher, doctor, athlete, and engineer would feel the need to use it every day to
better compete.
Scientists, in particular, would come to depend on the pill for focus and creativity.
In fact, governments might actually make the pill mandatory for top-level researchers and
engineers working in important positions such as weapons design.
It’s almost guaranteed that they’d also provide soldiers with the pill to boost performance
and reaction time.
Giving enhancing drugs to soldiers isn’t a new concept.
Back in World War Two, the Germans took stimulants to perform their Blitzkrieg tactics and Allied
pilots ingested amphetamines to stay awake for long flights and operations.
In 2018, the US government tested recently developed nootropic Alpha Brain on soldiers
to see if it would improve their marksmanship.
It didn’t work, but imagine soldiers on a Limitless Pill.
Regular intake would lead to a new breed of super soldier.
This would lead to a big problem, however.
With everyone becoming so dependent on the pill, many could become addicted.
Users would feel lethargic and depressed without them, as their brain stopped producing those
neurotransmitters naturally.
People who’ve regularly taken pills that affect their dopamine levels, such as antidepressants,
often find that they’re unable to feel happy without the pills at first, because their
brains are used to a consistent hit of dopamine.
This would fade in time, but the withdrawal period would likely be brutal.
Sure, life would feel amazing when you’re on the pill, but would feel conversely terrible
and pointless when you were off it.
Because of this, many people would make the pill a staple of their daily routine, taking
it every morning straight out of bed along with their water or coffee.
Some might eventually forget what it’s like to be ordinary - to deal with problems like
low energy or motivation on a daily basis.
Instead, they would be enhanced versions of themselves all the time.
Unless the pill was found to have negative side effects, it would probably become used
by people for entire lifetimes.
It would be a necessity in being successful in the world, and people would invent different
ways to ingest it - via liquid form, pill, even smoking.
With so much of the population taking the pill daily, technology and science would flourish.
We’d see a new renaissance in art and technology, with artists feverishly creating new forms
of art, and more people having the energy and motivation to go about pursuing their
dreams.
The original creators of the pill would become billionaires, and might look for new ways
to create an even better pill to push humanity’s possibilities even farther.
And for all we know, we might need it - especially if there comes a day when we have to compete
against superior artificial intelligence.
And that’s what would happen if the Limitless Pill Was Real.
What do you think?
Is there anything we missed?
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