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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

#371

Post by chillingeffect »

neveradmitmyid wrote: post #256

There is a population of media developers that are fairly heavy marijuana users. By 'media developer' I mean animation, VFX, games, and other graphics & entertainment related type of software. We tend to be older, having been in graphics and media for 20 to 30 years for most of us pothead graphics junkies. We have bongs and all the typical pot smoking accessories out in the open at our offices, and they are in active…

> We're all people that enter into deep states of flow when stoned, and many of us believe the pot is required to quickly enter flow and then stay there for hours on end as we develop.

Same here. Extremely deep flow state. Anything distracting or urgent is largely ignorable. Rewards from accomplishing things are increased. The problem at hand becomes the main thing. Anxieties, fears and worries are greatly attenuated.

I spend a lot of time meditating, trying to reduce the negatives so I can cope when I'm around normies at my day job. But I get much more done at home alone, vaping.

btw, have you experimented with edibles? Might be easier on your longs than bongs...

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

#372

Post by walrus01 »

woah wrote: post #84

I would be careful of overestimating the amount of stimulant use based on comments and emails here. People who use a lot of stimulants tend to love talking about themselves and often have a belief that anyone successful must be taking stimulants secretly. It plays into the motivation of most stimulant users which is that the stimulants have given them a special cheat code in life. I worked in construction in my young…

Anecdotally: Work in wireless telecom. Tower climbing contractors have shifted to hair tests for drugs because so many applicants try to evade tests, or test positive. They also regularly have issues with people who get their drivers licenses revoked for DUI, to the extent that job postings including "must have current/valid drivers license".

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

#373

Post by opportune »

kretash wrote: post #180

Reading the comments I feel like there are 2 polarized sides that state that everyone they work with uses some sort of stimulant or that they have never encountered it during their career. It's hard to get a sense of how common it is to encounter stimulants in the tech sector from reading this thread.

I really think it's that drug users are very good at recognizing who's "cool" and who's not. I wouldn't be surprised if half the people at my undergrad CS program weren't even aware of the stimulant phenomenon because they just weren't friends with people who did that kind of stuff

There's also a huge age gap in that older people are probably less likely to abuse drugs for maturity/responsibility reasons, and that no 25 year old developer in their right mind would mention their/their friends' drug use to their 40 year old colleague. And older people didn't grow up in during the era where stimulants were being handed out like candy to kids to get them to shut up

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

#374

Post by chillingeffect »

neveradmitmyid wrote: post #256

There is a population of media developers that are fairly heavy marijuana users. By 'media developer' I mean animation, VFX, games, and other graphics & entertainment related type of software. We tend to be older, having been in graphics and media for 20 to 30 years for most of us pothead graphics junkies. We have bongs and all the typical pot smoking accessories out in the open at our offices, and they are in active…

> We're all people that enter into deep states of flow when stoned, and many of us believe the pot is required to quickly enter flow and then stay there for hours on end as we develop.

Same here. Extremely deep flow state. Anything distracting or urgent is largely ignorable. Rewards from accomplishing things are increased. The problem at hand becomes the main thing. Anxieties, fears and worries are greatly attenuated.

I spend a lot of time meditating, trying to reduce the negatives so I can cope when I'm around normies at my day job. But I get much more done at home alone, vaping.

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

#375

Post by walrus01 »

pnathan wrote: post #127

A fair bit of marijuana in the Seattle tech scene. No particularly visible ill effects from what I can tell. I have the notion hallucinogens have been used, but no one admits current use (to me). I would expect the more far out tech scene to be more into hallucinogens than anything else. Cocaine, meth, & opioid use - no idea. Personally, I'd guess opioids are uncommon in tech: foggy heads don't fly. No one I know is…

hallucinogens, sure. There is definitely overlap between the seattle area tech scene (more so people who live in Seattle proper, not people who live in Redmond/Kirkland/Issaquah and have a marriage, a mortgage, 2 kids and a minivan), with tech workers who are also regular Burning Man attendees. At least to the extent that if a curious person wanted to find a source of Psilocibe Cubenses mushrooms, they would know who to ask.

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

#376

Post by eric_b »

woah wrote: post #84

I would be careful of overestimating the amount of stimulant use based on comments and emails here. People who use a lot of stimulants tend to love talking about themselves and often have a belief that anyone successful must be taking stimulants secretly. It plays into the motivation of most stimulant users which is that the stimulants have given them a special cheat code in life. I worked in construction in my young…

To add to this - people often equate energy with productivity. I see a lot of comments saying "it was the most productive I've ever been in my life".

As someone who's been on both sides, I used to believe stimulants granted exceptional focus and productivity as well. After starting my own business and seeing what real focus and productivity look like, I believe stimulants only help when it comes to slogging through proscribed, boring work.

If it's a task that requires creative focus, you are better off getting a lot of sleep and letting your subconscious churn on the problem.

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

#377

Post by emptysongglass »

jacquesm wrote: post #235
whalesalad wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though the entire ethos of my comment suggests that you wanna stay away from this stuff ... occasional/recreational use is not a big deal. He never pushed it on me, it was just something that I could take advantage of on occasion. I don't look back on it and think it was predatory or a big deal or a malicious thing. I definitely don't think he deserves to be in jail or punished.

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…

These moral fiat statements are unhelpful to no one. You simply don’t know the context. In a very flat power structure or a very small company (2 to 3 employees) at the office, social dynamics change dramatically.

Never mind that caffeine is legal yet it’s the shittiest productivity drug I can imagine yet everyone is falling over themselves to serve it to you and get you one while they’re out on break. I’d much prefer people ask me if I’d like a pill of modafinil to the addictive cranky horror that is caffeine.

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

#378

Post by DanBC »

kretash wrote: post #180

Reading the comments I feel like there are 2 polarized sides that state that everyone they work with uses some sort of stimulant or that they have never encountered it during their career. It's hard to get a sense of how common it is to encounter stimulants in the tech sector from reading this thread.

Water testing is now so good you could just gather samples from the sewage line of various companies to do some testing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2516581/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4746787.stm

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z43kk9/the-plan-t...

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

#379

Post by giardini »

7ero wrote: post #279

This isn't me. But there is Paul Erdős, who made great contributions to mathematics. He was known to use amphetamines regularly. He even made a bet with one of his colleagues on his amphetamine use, betting that he could give up amphetamines for a month. In which he ended up subsequently winning but complained that mathematics was set back by one month.

Yes, Paul Erdős apparently was capable of using amphetamines without excess. I don't know how someone would know whether they could prove capable of doing the same.

Also, at the start of World War II the German soldiers took amphetamines. Accounts of the invasion of France describe some unusually daring/reckless and physically daunting tasks that likely, w/o amphetamines, would not have been done. Staying awake for days seemed to be part of the job:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amphetamines+and+invasion+of+Franc...

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

#380

Post by kelnos »

nathan_long wrote: post #34

Glad you're looking into this. As a counterpoint: I've been a developer 10 years. I've worked at a few established businesses, two startups (one U.S. based and one German), and two consultancies. I worked in-person in Charlotte, N.C. and remotely since then. I've never worked in Silicon Valley. One employer had a "play hard" culture, encouraging alcohol (ab)use outside of work. I didn't stay there long. Perhaps I've…

I definitely fall on this side of the scale. I've certainly heard of people using "performance enhancers" in a programming context, and have seen hard drug use at parties (very infrequently), but it was never my thing (hell, I don't even drink coffee), and none of the people I know well and consider solid developers have a drug habit.

I think -- and this cuts both ways -- people into the drug scene naturally gravitate toward others that are also into it, to the point where they think "everyone" does it. I suspect tech's drug problem isn't markedly larger than society's drug problem as a whole; it's perhaps smaller considering knowledge workers get paid based on how well their brains work, and long-term most drugs seem to mess that up.

I'd love to see a concerted effort to study the prevalence of this sort of thing. It's frustrating that I can't validate my expectations here.

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