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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

#231

Post by phyller »

tjansen wrote: post #59

Wow, this discussion is mindblowing. Working in software dev for 20 years, in Germany, and I have never seen any developer taking any stimulants. But maybe this is because only my first job was at a young startup, and I quickly learned that working 24/7 just isn't for me and I need a more stable environment. Today, the way whalesalad and others describe the effect of Adderall sounds interesting to me, but I would nev…

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 :)

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

#232

Post by gascan »

thebiglebrewski wrote: post #149
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/…

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.

Caffeine certainly is a good, tame example. It's chemical effect is basically to block your brain from fatigue signals, perhaps analogous to anesthetic that blocks pain signals. It doesn't actually prevent fatigue, just as anesthetic doesn't actually prevent injury or damage. You are still burning through energy and accumulating sleep debt like anyone else.

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

#233

Post by tomc1985 »

throwitaway42 wrote: post #212

From the Midwest originally. I moved to the Bay Area in the mid-2000s for work right out of college. As a young teen, I had gotten most drug use and experimentation out of my system. Marijuana and LSD were my mainstays then. In my later teens called it quits when I realized grades matter. Fast-forward to moving to Bay Area, I was astounded by the level of cavalier toking up, dosing, or snorting that folks my age and…

Trust me there is much more drug use in Berlin than you saw. The dance music underground there is just as drug-addled as the burner scene here, maybe just not as inundated with tech workers

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

#234

Post by tryitnow »

Drug use is not a problem in my circle of friends - I have friends who have done LSD, molly, coke, and countless others. They're all productive and mostly well-adjusted. This is mostly a Burning Man, techie set, there are also a fair number of qualified mental health professionals.

Honestly, I don't think a book on white-collar drug use is a good idea - it's too broad a topic.

I would either focus it on unproblematic (and possibly beneficial) drug use or drug abuse - those are too radically different phenomenon, to conflate the two will definitely undermine your credibility.

Based on your past work it looks like you're targeting drug abuse, so I would just stay focused on that, especially what factors differentiate it from general drug use by responsible, informed people.

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

#235

Post by jacquesm »

whalesalad wrote: post #228
jacquesm wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. That person ought to be in jail. A CEO is definitely not in charge of the pharmacy, anything of this kind should be prescribed by your doctor.

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 not acceptable.

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

#236

Post by orangehour »

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?

I'm in my last semester of college as a Computer Science student. I know a ridiculously large number of people who use adderall or vyvanse to gain a competitive edge.

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

#237

Post by chesimov »

Eilene wrote: post #52
whalesalad wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went cold turkey because I did not like the fact that I needed the drug to go about my day. I also started to get into crossfit/fitness and the really high dose stimulants made intense exercise feel like it was taxing my body way more than it should have. I wanted to achieve everything naturally. I knew going off the drug would slow me down, but I was willing to trade general health and well-being for a drop in pro…

Do you ever feel like everyone around you is doing some substance to make them work faster or better, and that you'll somehow fall behind or be at a professional disadvantage if yo don't?

My anecdote: In undergraduate engineering, a lot of the people around me were on ritalin. I never felt disadvantaged because I felt it didn't give anyone a clear advantage in the hardest subjects like mathematics or nonlinear control. From what I saw, it didn't seem to improve intelligence that much; rather it helped the distractable people to not get distracted from studying for example.

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

#238

Post by zqfm »

I've been doing software development in a small midwestern town for ~10 years. Most people drink coffee, but only a handful that I've known take other stimulants. In my (completely anecdotal) experience, the people who drink coffee or take drugs feel dependent on them for performance, but don't actually perform better or worse than those who don't.

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

#239

Post by woah »

whalesalad wrote: post #205
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…

I can totally see where you are coming from, but I hope you aren't directing your comments towards what I said above. I actually felt pretty vulnerable submitting my comment (as opposed to being someone who loves to talk about myself) It seems to be resonating with others now, so that feeling has warn off, but initially I was a little concerned to open up and be so candid in a public forum. Also, I did not intend to…

Not trying to be negative about you, sorry. I actually was prescribed stimulants as a child for ADD, and still take modafinil very occasionally.

My comment was more directed towards some of the sensationalist articles you see about stimulant use sometimes where I always get the impression that the journalist talked to one guy who talked their ear off and gave them a bunch of juicy exaggerated quotes.

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

#240

Post by Myrmornis »

SF Bay Area: Are you worried that it’s a bit tone deaf to be writing a book on drug use among well-paid programmers and other tech sector workers when they are living among a sea of homeless people living in squalor under bridges with high levels of heroin and alcohol abuse and mental illness?
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