Yes. The answer is yes.

So what if your boss walked in one day and handed you a bottle of Provigil and asked you to work for a week straight without sleep? Perhaps surprisingly, that's not a far-fetched question. We already ask Air Force pilots to do the same thing. Michael Scott on speed may be the next step.

Those wacky nerds at io9 present my favorite sort of moral dilemma: The ethical use of psychotropic drugs. With America's economy in the toilet and its sedentary workforce still cheating hours on their respective timesheets, it could certainly use a chemical boost in productivity and work ethic.

The linked article rattles off Ritalin as the first example, but I think Provigil is much more interesting. Provigil keeps you up and alert for days without any noticeable side-effects. It's not an amphetamine and it doesn't work on the same pathways as normal stimulants— think Provigil is to speed is to work as Ambien is to Valium is to sleep. It's the next generation of brain drug.

Basically, Provigil is god.

You may argue that we shouldn't be making our work ethic chemical-dependent. You should point your nose toward any given coffee pot in any given American office and get a whiff of America's current state of caffeine dependence. Caffeine's cultural acceptance is arbitrary and its supposed safety is arguable. It is far from the best drug for the office setting. Now we have the option to move away from coffee and moved toward safer, better brain steroids.

I, for one, wouldn't mind the occasional dose of modafinil— as long as it wasn't pushed on me.

[io9 - Do Americans Need Ritalin To Stay Ahead In The Global Economy? - Cognitive enhancement]