By all accounts, Erdos was a dysfunctional human being and hardly worth immitating :-) a great mind, yes, but he had way too many eccentricities to make him a bit odd. For example, Erdos found sex disgusting, in an squemish "I am gonna vomit" kind of way.

You actually see the same thing in artists. Sure, the top geniuses are prone to hard-life and drug use, but there are plenty of phonies abusing drugs and living the "life style" without producing any work of value. My gf is a musician and every time I hangout with her friends I feel like I am the dirty unhealthy one. Nearly all the musos are vegeterian yoga freaks, even the rockers, while I the computer programmer chase cigarettes with spirits like a "rockstar" :-P

From what I've read, I'd much rather live in a world full of Erdőses than a world full of Feynmans, a world full of Paul Grahams, or a world full of Gell-Manns.

I wouldn't describe Erdős's amphetamine use as "hard life". He wasn't taking the pills for euphoria, and his body survived longer than most people's; amphetamines in the doses he was presumably taking don't seem to cause much extra wear and tear on the body.

I just read his biography.

Basically, he tried stopping taking amphetamines, and was okay, but couldn't do any math without them. He was dependent on them.

As the author of the original article stated, that's how the amphetamines "work" when used properly. Something is studied under the influence of amphetamines, and is much easier to access when in that state again.