361–370 of 642 posts
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I will do that. Forgive me, I'm new to HN. When I click on your handle, I don't see an email. Do I find it somewhere else?
Didn't know it wasn't shown, I've added to the about section of my profile. Long history with dope, happy to share if it'll help you. edit : I'm a senior software engineer
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For all the same reasons it's used in tech--to enhance productivity? are junior faculty and post docs overworked or are the hours required of them kind of insane too?
I'm a junior academic, recently a postdoc, and I saw a little bit of ADHD stimulant use among peers, and the increasing popularity of modafanil. Basically just due to publication pressure; in my field assistant professors at a top flight university have to write not one but two peer reviewed books to get tenure. Others go in an orthogonal direction and get obsessed with intense exercise routines, also with the aim of…
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I'm a junior academic, recently a postdoc, and I saw a little bit of ADHD stimulant use among peers, and the increasing popularity of modafanil. Basically just due to publication pressure; in my field assistant professors at a top flight university have to write not one but two peer reviewed books to get tenure. Others go in an orthogonal direction and get obsessed with intense exercise routines, also with the aim of…
I am not trying in anyway to contribute to prohibition (and history shows it doesn't work anyway). But I'll keep your warning in mind, sincerely. And I'll track down Carl Hart. Thanks.
Drug abuse is not a big issue in SV in general. There are a few general themes: 1) Some startups have a heavy-drinking bro-y environment. 2) Weed is common outside of work (in all of SF) 3) As part of the burning man culture a lot of people will occasionally let loose all weekend with molly, LSD, shrooms, and anything else you’d expect at BM 4) Some people will use adderall/modanfil to stay productive during work. 5)…
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My understanding from my American friends and partner is that it's exactly the same in the USA. Students, software developers, people in finance - for all of them stimulants are normal. I think most people aren't really concerned about being safe - the assumption is that because everyone else is doing it and nobody is getting hurt, it's safe. Which is mostly true (the jury is still out on the long term effects, but f…
Addy / Vyvanse seem to be the doctor's choice (as well as college kids') so it is generally just more available and seen as safer than straight street speed. Similarly, coke is also much cheaper / readily available in the US compared to Europe. I don't / have never opened up to coworkers about drug use/abuse but among my high earning friends, I'd say its a small group that uses it frequently and a large group that us…
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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
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Microdosing LSD and taking adderall are going to have completely different effects. That’s a pretty apples to oranges comparison. I can’t imagine how any dose of LSD would ever increase productivity, but adderalls benefits as a stimulant are pretty well documented - you will be able to stay up and focused longer, although as you noted you may end up paying for it in other ways.
As someone who has both microdosed LSD and taken smal amts ( Note: to have an effective microdose you have to take a small amount. Anyway, for 98% of people microdosing won’t help productivity in the long run. Edit: just to preempt the obvious questions, I’m talking about oral methamphetamine, I’ve never smoked it. Orally, d-meth is just objectively better than amphetamine (okay, that’s subjective, but the peripheral…
Modafinil is surprisingly popular in the nootropics communities. Most people I know have tried piracetam (and other *racetams). I think everyone in tech settles on supplements eventually -- choline, tyrosine, and 5htp. I've had a surprising number of people recommend L-Theanine to me to "take the edge off" stimulants. If someone is willing to take drugs in the tech sector, they tend to be experimental about it, slowl…
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> 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…
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,…
As an aside, drug use was extremely common among indigenous peoples all across the world. I don't even think this naturalism fallacy supports these particular claims.