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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

#461

Post by crashoverdrive »

leetcrew wrote: post #360
disiplus wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as somebody diagnosed with adhd at older age and that is taking ritalin (legally) i would say it helps a lot. but im taking less then prescribed because i dont want to be dependent on it. i always wondered it the effect is stronger for somebody without adhd.

> i always wondered it the effect is stronger for somebody without adhd i've wondered this myself. i often hear people say stuff like "people with real adhd can't get high from stims", but i suspect that some of this is just that people want to distance their legitimate use from those tweakers over there. if there's any truth to it, i'd bet it comes down to the way the drug is used. when you take an extended release…

> "people with real adhd can't get high from stims", but i suspect that some of this is just that people want to distance their legitimate use from those tweakers over there.

I don't know if "High" is the right word. I've accidentally taken too much, and it makes me super impatient, which makes me kind of an asshole. I've also taken WAY too much on accident, and it just made me paranoid and think my heart was beating out of my chest.

I will say, being on a normal amount is kind of the best kind of high. Living with ADHD is like drowning, like you have these short moments of coming up for air and being productive, but quickly become distracted for everything else.

Being on the right amount, is like someone finally shut all the extra TVs off in the back of my brain. Like there's no challenge in determining the priority of what needs to be done. I feel human, not anxious, not depressed by my inability to remember where I put my keys 30 seconds ago. and thus, more productive.

Now I don't claim that my experience with ADHD is like another's, but this is my experience.

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

#462

Post by tretonin »

eric_b wrote: post #376
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 p…

If it's proscribed, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. :)

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

#463

Post by samirm »

Hi Eilene, interesting questions, but I don't have anything to share except for a few questions of my own.

Have you done any of these drugs listed in the responses?

Would you ever try any of them and why/ not?

What is your understanding and general ideas on things like addiction, the war on drugs and the typical taboo impression of these substances and culture?

Thanks.

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

#464

Post by uhtred »

whalesalad wrote: post #5

Adderall and Cocaine. I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. I appreciated it because it was great to get the added boost to focus. I eventually worked my way up to taking 30mg of XR daily (legally, doctor prescribed) and it was the most productive I have ever been in my life. I worked 24x7. I was working a normal consulting job while also working on a startup/…

What kind of food do you eat on a "clean" low carb ketogenic diet?

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

#465

Post by btrettel »

oceanghost wrote: post #434
btrettel wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bad companies, really bad ones are setup like this: you have to break the rules to get your job done. Rule breaking seems to be incentivized in many industries. Here are someone else's observations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15894805

Absolutely. Thanks for the link I will explore.

To add another datapoint, I first made this observation as a cyclist. Delivery truck drivers are notorious for blocking bike lanes. I spoke with people at the regional offices of FedEx, UPS, and Amazon Logistics. I recall that UPS and Amazon Logistics said their drivers are not supposed to block the bike lanes. (I can't remember what FedEx said.)

I started talking to the drivers. Often the drivers would park in the bike lane when there was a legal parking spot 50 feet away, and this made no sense to me. The impression I got after speaking to a dozen or so was that seconds matter, and they'd rather risk getting a ticket and save 5 seconds than park legally.

It doesn't help that the delivery companies consider these tickets a cost of doing business. As the saying/article states, "a fine is a price". So, basically, the company explicitly says they don't like bad practice X while also implicitly saying they're okay with bad practice X by paying for it.

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

#466

Post by ergothus »

kelnos wrote: post #352
whalesalad wrote: post #5

Adderall and Cocaine. I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. I appreciated it because it was great to get the added boost to focus. I eventually worked my way up to taking 30mg of XR daily (legally, doctor prescribed) and it was the most productive I have ever been in my life. I worked 24x7. I was working a normal consulting job while also working on a startup/…

> I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. Jesus. If that happened to me, my first stop would be to the board/investors to report it, and my second would be out the door and to a new job. > It's only way to do some of the things that the really successful engineers are doing. You forgo eating, exercise, etc... and spend 110% of your time on working and chasing th…

I won't advocate the abuse of any particular drug, but I will say it's not as simple as trading quality for focus. There is a margin of overhead that comes with poor focus, so sharpening can lead to improved productivity without loss of quality. To a point, after which your comment applies.

I'm saying this not to say "Actually..." but so that no one discounts your valid point just because they have some anecdote where it didn't apply. There is a point where you pay (or at least stop winning), and our understanding of where that point is and how stable it is is very lacking. Likewise, our judgement under the influence of something should not be considered 100% reliable. Neither should our judgement NOT under the influence, but people tend to become zealots when defensive, and fewer people are defensive of being "normal".

I had a friend that I was discussing nootropics with - It's a topic I'm very interested in, but I'm not interested in any notable experimentation because, well, I've only got one brain and our understanding of it is pathetic. His answer was that by experimentation you'd discover what worked. We were definitely coming at it from opposite ends despite similar interests.

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

#467

Post by sizzle »

whalesalad wrote: post #5

Adderall and Cocaine. I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. I appreciated it because it was great to get the added boost to focus. I eventually worked my way up to taking 30mg of XR daily (legally, doctor prescribed) and it was the most productive I have ever been in my life. I worked 24x7. I was working a normal consulting job while also working on a startup/…

You never had full blown ADHD so you literally were getting high off stims and pulling through insane hours. Amps make the ADHD brain feel baseline normal to that of neurotypical brains.

Congrats on kicking the pills.

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

#468

Post by sizzle »

copperx wrote: post #390
leetcrew wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they're more like an energy loan, and you better believe there's interest.

I came to the same conclusion after taking modafinil daily for 5 months. I quit because I was getting completely drained by 7pm. I had to hit the bed as soon as I got home, and then slept for 10-12 hours straight. I did the arithmetic and it wasn't worth it. Supposedly, there isn't such thing as a "modafinil withdrawal," but I was nonfunctional for about 6 weeks after I left it cold turkey. Not only that, but because…

Yikes, are the effects still lingering? Have you returned to baseline energy/focus?

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

#469

Post by cgiles »

Eilene wrote: post #144
geofft wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I... doubt that's true. I imagine there are people who think that this help will help them become top scientists (and maybe we should have a talk about the pressure to succeed etc.). But I suspect that a lot of the actual top scientists are plain good at what they do, and they neither need nor want the effects of drugs in their work. (Which is very different from recreational use, of course, or recreational use turni…

Part of what I'm trying to determine is if that pressure to succeed makes people believe they need something to be competitive. My daughter, for example, sometimes feels like she's at a disadvantage at college because so many of her peers are taking adderall (w/o a prescription) for tests and studying. Is it the same after college, professionally?

IME, in academic biology, the answer is generally no. Personally, I do use, but it isn't a result of competition, but rather a desire to achieve the most I can for a goal I care about. I don't feel pressured in any way to make this decision; if anything, the pressure is slightly in the other direction.

The big trouble with it is that a drug -- any drug -- will alter your perception of the world such that it is difficult to know with absolute confidence whether you are taking the drug for purely rational reasons to further your personal goals...or not.

Amphetamines at least, based on my experience and reading of the literature, improve your ability to do huge amounts of light/easy work at the expense of "deep" thinking. This means that they would be most effective for people who are knee-deep in work that is too easy for them and need to get more throughput. Undergrad is exactly this -- tons of relatively easy work. Professional life is not; quality is in the long term valued over shitty quantity.

I hope your article won't be a complete hatchet job on white-collar drug use -- the reality is very complex. Humans in general, and white-collar workers in particular, are living in environments and doing things extremely different from what humans evolved for. Thus, some of us use drugs to tweak our biology to adapt to the situation. Assuming that these do in fact improve performance -- a very disputable assumption -- this would be a success story for human intelligence and adaptability.

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

#470

Post by Balgair »

philipkglass wrote: post #445
Balgair wrote: post #221

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…

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. This sounds very dubious. Caffeine has only one stereoisomer. And if you mean a st…

Like I said, research is ongoing/needed. Personally, I think it's just a placebo effect, but I'm not in that area of research.
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