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Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

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Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#131

Post by GuB-42 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #3

When I was a child and teen I was a hyperactive, unstimulated, bored, D- student. Ritalin drastically changed that and I was getting A's and teachers described me as a whole different person. I would too: it made me antisocial and jittery and basically robbed me of my humanity. Since then I've found drug-free strategies to manage my intellectual/social Jekyll and Hyde. The idea of performance enhancing drugs making t…

I wouldn't call Ritalin given to a hyperactive a "performance enhancing drug". It is a treatment for a disease. It would be like calling Tylenol a performance enhancing drug, of course you will perform better without a headache, but Tylenol won't do anything if you don't have headache.

That ADHD drugs are also performance enhancing drugs in healthy individuals is just a coincidence.

As for performance enhancing dugs in the workspace, they have already made their way. The big one is of course, caffeine. Nicotine would be in second place.

And BTW, nice job managing your hyperactivity without drugs.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#133

Post by ikurei »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #21
xvector wrote: post #6

Only a matter of time before we are expected to take drugs to be better at our jobs.

We're all on caffeine already and no one is clutching pearls over it. How is taking harder drugs any different other than in effectiveness?

I've never seen any requirement, or even social pressure, to use caffeine at work. Plenty of people in all offices I've worked at didn't take coffee, or only very ocasionally. It was widespread, but no expected of you.

I wouldn't mind some coleagues taking some drugs, as long as they didn't make them very antisocial or generally bad to be around. But I would very much mind an employer expecting me to take something.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#134

Post by metiscus »

clolege wrote: post #15
metiscus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, my add has been made much better with aggressive weight training. I started doing "Starting Strength" and transitioned into the Texas method but three pretty heavy workouts a week really helps. Normally I feel like I see the world through the narrow end of a funnel. When I get done with a big workout, somehow for the next day or so my brain is chilled out and I can concentrate again. After two days or so I st…

Interesting, I've recently started committing to a hard 10-minute workout each day of the week, and it's been helping me focus through my ADD a lot better too. I feel so much more alive. I've also picked up meditating 10 minutes a day and that's been helping as well, but I don't think as much.

I've got a theory about why it works. Basically you're tiring out parts of your brain when you exercise and activating others. Somehow that regulates the neurotransmitters at the heart of add for a while. If I only lightly exercise, I don't get the same effects. The workout has to be strenuous and I need to feel like I worked both body and mind (finishing that last rep under heavy load takes willpower and concentration).

I bet that HIIT could be as effective as weights for me because the curative part seems to come from exhaustion and exercise of will.

Meditation may or may not be as mentally strenuous, I am not really familiar with it.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#135

Post by HPsquared »

billjings wrote: post #106
sillysaurusx wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on adderall since I was 17. I'm 32 now. Almost more of my life has been spent on it than off it. I've been productive in a variety of ways. Some examples are listed on my patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shawwn but I feel silly bragging about comparatively minor accomplishments in ML. But I know for a fact that without adderall, I wouldn't have done a damn thing. I've tried for a few months. Shrugged and we…

But I know for a fact that without adderall, I wouldn't have done a damn thing. I've tried for a few months. Shrugged and went back. There's an underlying assumption here: that the medication either makes things better, or makes things worse. It may have different effects on different axes, but it has those effects while it is active, and they go away once the drug is metabolized. This way of looking at things makes…

Some "type 2" effects are also positive. For example, getting one's life organised, gaining skills, etc etc.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#136

Post by HPsquared »

piracy1 wrote: post #59
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

When I was a child and teen I was a hyperactive, unstimulated, bored, D- student. Ritalin drastically changed that and I was getting A's and teachers described me as a whole different person. I would too: it made me antisocial and jittery and basically robbed me of my humanity. Since then I've found drug-free strategies to manage my intellectual/social Jekyll and Hyde. The idea of performance enhancing drugs making t…

It's more of a warplace than a work place thought. And ppl have been giving solders drugs forever.

War is mostly work.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#137

Post by datameta »

scns wrote: post #122
bserge wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've come to realize that "I" am just a small part of the brain. A virtual machine running on top of the primitive host. Every single second is a struggle over the who gets control of the hardware, and most of the time the host wins. What "I" want and what the primitive host brain/OS wants are 2 completely different things. Food, shelter, reproduction. That's all it needs. Needless to say, "I" want so much more. Of c…

Jonathan Haidt used the metaphor of rider and elephant in The Happiness Hypothesis (worth the read IMHO): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Hypothesis One commenter on HN once wrote, that meditation helps him more than the stimulants. The ten stages of meditation ( https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/wp-content/uploads/201... ) depicts the mind as an elephant too. It gets distracted by the ape mind (look!…

I would like to heartily second the recommendation of Mind Illuminated. John Yates aka "Culadasa" is a neuroscientist turned buddhist monk who was able to distill those cultural teachings into a context backed by modern science. I must confess I had read only the first chapter thus far but it is what enabled me to follow through with a daily meditation practice for 3 weeks, my longest streak as of yet. I saw great benefit from it (however as is discussed in the book - it may be better if the expectation of results is not the primary driver of one's will to meditate) and I intend to get back to the continued aid of this well written book.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#138

Post by chairmanwow1 »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #112
sillysaurusx wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on adderall since I was 17. I'm 32 now. Almost more of my life has been spent on it than off it. I've been productive in a variety of ways. Some examples are listed on my patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shawwn but I feel silly bragging about comparatively minor accomplishments in ML. But I know for a fact that without adderall, I wouldn't have done a damn thing. I've tried for a few months. Shrugged and we…

I started amphetamine at age 20 and I'm, coincidentally enough, also 32. I happened to have a good friend on Adderall in university, and he let me try a pill one day. In one day I went from thinking that I was just a lazy, low-achieving individual that would always zombie through life, that—like my dad said—just didn't have a fire lit under my ass, and I went to realizing I was just a low dose pill away from achievin…

I agree about Vyvanse. It's a much less intense physical experience and has all the mental benefits afforded by its predecessor.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#139

Post by chairmanwow1 »

Threads like this always make think that I think most of human society has the wrong frame of mind about performance enhancement. I think the "stock" performance of the human brain / body should not be blindly accepted. I want to outgrow my biological limitations and be a more effective version of myself.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#140

Post by chefkoch »

tayo42 wrote: post #63
pmoriarty wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Research was happening but nothing conclusive" I've read that before it was made illegal LSD was the most studied pharmaceutical compound in the world, with literally thousands of papers written on it. There were clearly medical uses, and it was being used medically. Whether the research was "conclusive" is a matter of opinion. Pretty much all of the psychedelic researchers I've read or heard interviews with (which…

I just went to double check my self quickly. It never was an official medicine, therapy with it was still experimental for alcoholism. It was having success but turned into a recreational drug that scared people so it all got banned. The same thing happened with mdma and crack later on. The penalties were excessive and reactionary to recreational use. https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2014/sep... Th…

>The same thing happened with mdma and crack later on.

Why would crack be legal If cocaine was banned 60 years earlier?

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