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

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401–410 of 642 posts

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

#401

I'm a New York-based finance professional (former investment banker turned private equity investor) with a background using a wide variety of drugs, but mostly heroin. Besides heavy drinking and rare cocaine use among younger peers (analysts), I didn't see a lot of substance abuse. I often felt quite alone, especially in using my drugs of choice. I started using heroin right after I graduated high school, and used it…

Off-topic & realize it's a throwaway account, but would be interested in discussing the career-switch with you.

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

#402
post #395

I think it's interesting how some drugs (including very dangerous drugs) are normalised. Alcohol, caffeine, and (with a prescription, and in some cultures, even without) amphetamines[1] are just seen as "fine". People use them dangerously, openly talk about using them, joke about using them, participate and encourage a culture of abusing them, and nobody blinks. An acquaintance of mine ended up in the hospital after…

It's not mysterious. Coffee has been around over 500 years, and modafinil was discovered less than 50 years ago. Most people haven't even heard of modafinil. Plus, coffee tastes good.

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

#403
I personally haven't used any drugs (and started drinking socially only in the past 3 years), but I know some founders (CxO) level using amphetamines almost daily (Adderall from kids' prescriptions or faked shipments from India/Russia) to keep them high performing and focused (US). It also made them more robotic and less compassionate. I haven't seen anyone taking other types of drugs regularly; some smoke cigarettes or weed, but that is becoming acceptable in Europe recently.

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

#404
The usage patterns I've observed in other techies matches suspiciously closely to my own -- which really tends to support the selection bias that many other people have mentioned: drug users tend to be very much birds-of-a-feather, they cluster among their own kind and tend not to notice the other types unless they're being really unsubtle about it.

So with that grain of salt in mind, here's what I've got. The context here is long-term contracting at a wide variety of different offices ranging from button-down big corporate, to tiny angel-funded startups, over a couple decades. All US, mostly outside silicon valley.

Pot: not uncommon, but also not noticeably more or less than the general population as far as I can tell. Most often as a wind-down-after-work thing, very occasionally as a brainstorming tool among the design folks -- never seen this done openly in-office, but on a telecommute day or after hours it wouldn't be too terribly unusual. I did some work with a company in post-legalization Colorado; people there had much the same attitude toward it as in areas where it's still not legal. Which is, increasingly, No Big Deal.

Alcohol: I have the general impression that coders tend to drink slightly less than the general population. With a few exceptions, the ones really hitting the bar hard at the sales meetings and the corporate retreats tended to be from sales and marketing. For what it's worth I know a lot more people who are alcoholics (or former alcoholics) outside the tech industry than I do inside it.

Stimulants: I'm sure there are people using Adderall or the like as a productivity enhancer, but I've never heard anyone discuss it, and have no idea how that usage would compare to the rest of the population. The idea that "everyone has to take adderall to keep up with the rest of the team, it's just so competitive!" is a common thing sounds... odd. (I'm not saying it never happens or doesn't exist. I'm saying that in 20 years of work I've never seen an office that worked that way.) I know of exactly zero coders or designers who use stimulants recreationally. There was one obvious cokehead of a CEO, who was the subject of a fair amount of eye-rolling behind his back; and I've known a few sales guys, investor types, and non-technical managers who were prone to the occasional burst of jitteriness and sniffles, but I've never seen anything like that among the tech people. (I had honestly been under the impression that cocaine had mostly gone out of fashion, until some friends who work in the restaurant industry set me straight. If you want coke, talk to a line cook, apparently.)

Hallucinogens / psychedelics: Not at all uncommon as a "oh yeah I used to do a lot of that back in the day," or, like, "only when I go to burning man / firefly / my pagan festival / etc". Not so much beyond that. Nobody has that kind of free time.

Other: It's difficult for me to imagine downers or opiates being at all compatible with technical work, but perhaps that's just naivety on my part. Prescribed antidepressants are quite common, and have little stigma attached these days. Tobacco smokers are few and far between. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to learn that some of the younger developers are doing ecstasy or whatever counts as club drugs now, but I'm too old to get invited to that sort of party anymore, so have no direct information for you.

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

#405
post #302
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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).

Who the hell would ask their boss for drugs?

I dunno, maybe the CEO was open about using the medication for productivity reasons and both folk had a laid back attitude to the subject?

Point is I'm trying not too read too much into their dynamics and make assumptions based on a short HN comment.

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

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mate is the 'same' as coffee, in that it's just caffeine. There is some research to say that the mate derived caffeine is largely an isomer of caffeine, in that the molecule is shaped differently. This is then used to explain why mate is more potent to users without a habituation to coffee derived caffeine. However, the research is still ongoing and the isomer theory is not yet proved, AFAIK. Likely it's just a place…

Redbulls & other energy drinks have B vitamins and such that synergies with the caffeine to make the energy effect stronger. So even though your drinking 70mg of caffeine in a redbull, it feels a lot stronger. Drinks such as coffee have a ton of caffeine in comparison. A cup of coffee has around ~200mg of caffeine, while yerba mate drinks have around ~70mg: http://guayaki.com/caffeine_meter.html So drinking yerba mat…

Unfortunately, it seems that B vitamins do not 'synergize' with caffeine in an appreciable way, per an article from the LA times in 2008. Caffeine does have a 'negative' effect on circulating B vitamin percentage, but I could only find one study from 2008 about it, and it's not unhealthy. As is, the B vitamins with coffee really only seem to help in the elderly.

That said, yeah, mate is pretty mild in terms of caffeine content.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-skeptic14-2008jul14-stor...

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

#407
post #395

I think it's interesting how some drugs (including very dangerous drugs) are normalised. Alcohol, caffeine, and (with a prescription, and in some cultures, even without) amphetamines[1] are just seen as "fine". People use them dangerously, openly talk about using them, joke about using them, participate and encourage a culture of abusing them, and nobody blinks. An acquaintance of mine ended up in the hospital after…

It's not mysterious. Coffee has been around over 500 years, and modafinil was discovered less than 50 years ago. Most people haven't even heard of modafinil. Plus, coffee tastes good.

Well...

1) We've banned a lot of dangerous drugs that have been around for centuries. Opium has been used since at least 1500 BCE, so over three THOUSAND years.

2) I think coffee tastes awful and can't even stand the smell. So maybe I'm biased. :)

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

#408

I'm a programmer. 22M. And oh boy do I love telling other people about drugs! It started from pure taurine. It made me talkative like coffee and was in white powder form like cocaine. Nowadays, it has come to the point that a friend of mine has started giving me a notice that once I am drunk, I don't shut up about drugs. Last time he said, in a very lightweight manner, that maybe I have a drug problem. Couple weeks l…

For some reason, I can't edit my post, so I'll just self-reply: In the Nordics, none of my peers use drugs.

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

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's what I'm thinking (as I stare at a computer screen for 8 hours...)
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