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Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

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Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#331

Post by jacquesm »

ac2u wrote: post #287
jacquesm wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is in a power relationship with his subordinates, he is definitely not the one to go and prescribe medication. The best thing he could have done is to send you to a doctor. If a CEO here in NL suggested I take some pills in order to improve my productivity and offered to supply them my first step would be to inform the board in writing and my second would be to resign my position. This is simply not ok, and n…

>If a CEO here in NL suggested I take some pills in order to improve my productivity I'd agree that it's not professional/ethical, but the OP didn't say the CEO suggested it. For all we know, poster might have initially asked (Of course, agreeing to hand out arbitrary medication is of course not the right answer).

It says 'to help productivity' which to me sounds like a benefit to the employer more than to the employee, which in turn suggests which way the flow was. That could of course still be wrong.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#332

Post by taurath »

m_fayer wrote: post #325
Eilene wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that one reason we use chemicals to "enhance" our brains is because we are living in ways we aren't intended to live? Human beings aren't made to sit in front of a screen for 16 hours a day. We probably shouldn't be as isolated as we can get, we shouldn't be living the way we live (in crowded cities, say, disconnected from family or community, doing one thing--coding, for example--for 10 hours at a time,…

I instinctively like these arguments but I think we should be careful about indulging them. A big part of the human animals biological advantage is just how damn versatile it is. The range of diets, climates, and lifestyles which we tolerate is vast, compared to other animals. Different permutations may produce different outcomes in terms of happiness, health/longevity, and so on, but I doubt that you could find some…

Nor for non-movement and staring at a glowing rectangle all day while doing the intense abstract reasoning. We have all sorts of natural mechanisms in our bodies to produce reward chemicals that are not used at all in our lifestyles.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#333

Post by taurath »

whalesalad wrote: post #28
Eilene wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very insightful, I think, about the exec at a big company. A therapist who treats tech people in Sil Val said she has been told there is coke being done openly at some exec committee/board meetings, etc. and pressure to do it. Like Wall Street in the 1980s. Do you think there's any validity to this?

I'm not so sure about that (never seen it myself)... but cocaine is a LOT more prevalent than people realize. There is a funny meme I saw recently that rings true: Two biggest shocks of adult life. 1. everyone does cocaine 2. cheese is fucking expensive

While I'd give you the point, my personal experience is that its only prevalent in certain circles, and in those circles its EXTREMELY prevalent.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#334

Post by cgiles »

cryoshon wrote: post #100
Blahah wrote: post #42

I am open to discussing this in raw detail - contact in my profile. Most programmers, scientists, people in finance and startups I know take a lot of stimulants. I take a lot of stimulants. [Edit - as others have pointed out, there's a strong selection bias going on here. I actively seek out people who I know take stimulants, and we naturally congregate socially based on a bunch of subtle and explicit cues that signa…

chiming in here to corroborate that stimulant use/abuse is heavily prevalent in scientists and startup types that i know. even the md/phd types who have been in clinical practice for 20 years do it, even after they've had kids etc. most only abuse coffee-- you can tell because the norm is to drink coffee until you're literally red in the face when there is serious work to get done. there are people who abstain, of co…

> a handful of people binge drink to come down

Biologist here, and yep, that was the only real discernible downside to me. Especially when I was new to the drug (Adderall) and didn't know how to time the doses and therefore took them too late in the day, I would get a powerful urge to drink about 3-5 hours after the last dose to come down. However, if you dose early enough in the day you will come down naturally.

Besides the desire to "drink to come down", the other problem is that Adderall will make you feel clearer and more energetic for longer while drinking, making it easier to miss the warning signs that you are approaching (or have passed) the "too much" threshold.

I am not aware of stimulant use being very common among the people I work with, and you are absolutely right that it is easy to tell the symptoms.

Relevant article: https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080409/full/452674a.html

If ~20% of biologists (broadly speaking, and higher in younger cohorts) "have used" a drug to enhance performance, then the number regularly using must be lower, unless there is selection bias in this informal poll, and if there was I would suspect the bias would be towards an overestimate of use, as people interested in the question seem more likely to respond.

Overall, then, I would guess use in these fields is "semi-rare" (maybe 5-10% of the population are regular users).

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#335

Post by darpa_escapee »

ajryan wrote: post #187
Eilene wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made you decide to go cold turkey? (which sounds almost not-doable it's so tough). Did you hit some kind of wall? And would you mind commenting on what you think happens to engineers who don't use some kind of stimulant?

Suddenly ceasing stimulants does not involve nearly as acute or prolonged a withdrawal as opiates. There's no risk of seizures like there is with benzos. Your dopamine receptors will reset their tolerance much quicker than the 6 months I see cited throughout this thread. I have stopped stimulants many times with no more than a 1 week (maybe 10 day max) period of physical dependence symptoms. When people experienced p…

> I think it is usually due to being forced to confront life conditions that were being avoided.

This certainly may be part of it.

However, there are long-term changes in the brain that occur with chronic stimulant use/abuse. I'm looking for the correct number, but I believe it takes about 24 months for the brain to revert to its normal state after stimulant cessation.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#336

Post by humbleMouse »

matte_black wrote: post #208

I’m not convinced that productivity is a virtue for software engineers. I have production code running untouched for over 8 years that was produced in the laziest straight forward way as possible, simply because I didn’t feel like working so hard. Indeed, I delayed writing any code until I came up with an idea of the minimum amount of code I could get away with, then I minimized that some more. I’ve eliminated entire…

This is my favorite comment of the thread. I approach my work with a similar mindset. Deliver more value by simplifying and staying relaxed.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#337

Post by sedachv »

thinkmore wrote: post #70

The #1 and #2 drugs consumed by far in Silicon Valley are simply processed/refined sugars and caffeine. The former via foods of all kinds and sodas, snacks, and the later via coffee and sodas. These are far more dangerous drugs in this sense... even a small child can tell you cocaine is bad for you or that LSD is a “drug”, but no one considers soda and coffee to be drug laced. These are the real gateway drugs, by far…

> The real story is the engineer drinking 8+ cups of black coffee or 10 sodas per day...

Very much agree. Compulsive consumption of sugary/caffeinated beverages is very much an eating disorder. People engage in this at work as a means of coping with stress. There are very harmful side-effects to this behavior: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/...

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#338

Post by taurath »

raphlinus wrote: post #202

I'll add a data point, though it's almost entirely negative. I've been at Google over 10 years and have yet to come across a person using illegal hard drugs. I can think of three people with serious drinking problems. There's been a drinking culture (many offices have beer on tap), but I see that changing, as people are more conscious of the negative effects. A bunch of people use marijuana, but off-hours. I haven't…

My experience is that its more prevalent outside of work hours, but far less prevalent AT work than people talk about during these sorts of conversations.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#339

Post by phyller »

ILikeConemowk wrote: post #316
phyller wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to reply to the comment by Blahah who thinks literally every developer in Germany is high all the time. I think people who do drugs just gravitate to other people that do drugs. For me, the limiting factor on my productivity is not how god-like my mental state is, it's whether I can get the info I need from that guy on the other team or when the project manager will sign off on a needed change :)

I live in Germany and can confirm that almost every German acquaintance I have who are in my age(27 have been here since 22) and work in tech has smoked or actively smokes marijuana. According to them it is "no big deal". Both men and women. I worked at an employer in the Cybersecurity industry, many potheads as well, openly so. At that employer there were around 60 people counting the secretaries. I know, for a fact…

I think in the US people are starting to classify marijuana with alcohol and tobacco. It's not illegal in a lot of states, where I live (in the US) it is legal for recreational use. My understanding was this discussion was about more illicit drug use.

Re: Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector

#340

Post by fucking_tragedy »

Bartweiss wrote: post #185
thebiglebrewski wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds kind of in line with the theory that drugs are kind of a zero-sum game. You got a lot of speed earlier on and achieved a ton, but then paid for it later on. Kind of like a, "no such thing as a free lunch" economic theory, but for drugs! Not to knock you or your methods, just an observation.

> a no such thing as a free lunch theory, but for drugs There's some reason to believe this is literally true - and true in the same sense as the economic rule! In this context, it's been nicknamed the Algernon argument. Gwern (of course) has the canonical writeup.[1] The short version is: "if some chemical change could make us smarter, why wouldn't it already been in place?" Or, framed differently, "why would the br…

Our brains exist as an adaption to allow us to survive long enough to procreate. We did not evolve a brain to work harder, smarter or faster. The fitness function for evolution is not intelligence, it is survival and procreation.

It does not follow that evolution would maximize intelligence or performance.

Human intelligence exists as a by-product of many cumulative adaptions for survival.

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