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A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

arxiv.org

161–170 of 269 posts

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#161

> Such cannabis usage, however, is in conflict with anti-drug poli- cies currently enacted for many software engineering jobs: 29% of our sample reported they had taken a drug test for a programming- related job, a hiring practice that may limit developer application pools. What? 29% ... seriously? That's outrageous.

A really really large number of programmers work for places like government contrators, banks, and insurance companies - the types of places that have blanket drug policies for all employees. There's probably a lot more companies that have such policies but they aren't enforced (unless something bad happens requiring it) because insurance gives discounts for having the policy, but thye will lose employees if they start enforcing it in a serious way.

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#162
I'm a programmer (cto these days) and a skateboarder (kind of c'os age is not just a a number) and I've always been in awe of people who smoke weed and are able to engage in either activity and yet I do have friends capable of such. This is not a lie :-) I've seen it with my own eyes. What amazes me is how good they are at it. If, by contrast, I did same I would end up hurt or fired :-)

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not funding drug lords. I avoid illegal drugs for this reason. I hate to break it to you... [Edit: it's best if I expand this comment. The people who currently sell "legal" weed whitewashed illegal operations and coordinated it with lawmakers to put them at the top. Chinese, oddly enough, play a big part at this, since we're on an anti-China bend right now it might be useful to know. This whole legal drug thing...…

Can you expand on this a bit more? I've never heard about this. Are you saying when I go down to my local dispensary that it's owned by China? Or that the local bud is not actually local?

A large portion of the grow ops are owned by Chinese groups. This is "common knowledge" in circles where people want to grow weed as a business, at scale, and scope out their competitors. This is their competition. The small local growers are not a competition anymore than your mom and pop business is competition to Amazon.

People find this surprising, but they've never stopped to ask themselves where did all that weed and infrastructure to grow it suddenly spring up from the moment it was legalized.

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#164
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet to see someone fun and intelligent when Iim sober and they are high on cannabis I've gotta ask: how do you know you haven't yet? Not everyone who is high loves to announce it to the world.

You can usually tell from the smell

That was more true prior to legalization. Now with edibles and cartridges and vaporizers you might never know if the person you're talking to is zooted to Mars or not.

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, hopefully I am being honest with myself. I think weed can be very different for different people. Also it's not really mentioned here but Sativa and Indica strains also can make a difference as well as the THC % and method of consumption. I vape half a bowl from my Pax 3, I am in Canada so it's legal and we have THC % labels, I typically go for 25%+ which is not the "cheap stuff". I'd say if someone smoked my…

Not going to bed stoned should be a recommended best practice in my opinion, especially given all the research supporting the fact that sleep is impaired by Cannabis much the same way as alcohol. So many people claim that Cannabis helps them sleep but the science just doesn’t support that idea.

Citations? From what I know cannabis can give you really good "deep sleep." Which is just as good as REM sleep.

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#166

I've been a heavy, 1 oz. of Indica a week smoker for decades, while being an extremely productive lead and principal software engineer on dozens of highly visible tech products. I am part of a heavy smoking, high tech collective of startup and career research individuals from companies people use everyday. I start my day with a combination of THC and caffeine, which folds into a deep work and research focus lasting t…

Do you also smoke tobacco or vape nicotine juice?

Maybe you know me, you can check my profile, I've been in the "in" side of like... three? or maybe four? of this super-secret techie psychedelic ultra select clubs even involving VPs of unicorns and directors of tech companies and most of the heavy indica smokers also smoke nicotine like, a lot. Weed and tobacco are a very different thing as just smoking weed, on some cultures that smoke weed heavily like Rastas that's the more common method, like in a spliff or a blunt.

If you don't vape nicotine can I out of curiosity ask about your other super-secret habits? Because in my super secret extracurricular experience in this circles multiple time per year LSD trips and occasional cocaine binges are not unusual and both LSD and cocaine probably effect glutamate receptors in ways that I theorize help with the brain fog or fatigue that for some people regular weed use causes.

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, hopefully I am being honest with myself. I think weed can be very different for different people. Also it's not really mentioned here but Sativa and Indica strains also can make a difference as well as the THC % and method of consumption. I vape half a bowl from my Pax 3, I am in Canada so it's legal and we have THC % labels, I typically go for 25%+ which is not the "cheap stuff". I'd say if someone smoked my…

Not going to bed stoned should be a recommended best practice in my opinion, especially given all the research supporting the fact that sleep is impaired by Cannabis much the same way as alcohol. So many people claim that Cannabis helps them sleep but the science just doesn’t support that idea.

I definitely agree that cannabinoids mess the sleep processes, but without cannabinoids at night (even during periods when I'm not adapted to them) I wake up easily 6+ times during the night just to urinate. Its a horrible experience that's easily solved with cannabinoids, but there are likely other solutions to whatever is actually causing the problem. I do stop or slow my water intake a while before bed but this doesn't seem to matter.

Also it should be noted that this is not the primary reason for my cannabinoid use.

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#168

I love smoking weed. I smoke pretty much every day. Just a little bit, a puff on the vape pen to get my groove going after work. I find it USELESS for problem solving or productivity, but hey: I don't need to be productive 24 hours a day. I just want something to take the edge off while I play a strategy game or fart around on a game prototype. I NEVER do it during work or when I have to drive. I started smoking weed…

> not funding drug lords. I avoid illegal drugs for this reason. I hate to break it to you... [Edit: it's best if I expand this comment. The people who currently sell "legal" weed whitewashed illegal operations and coordinated it with lawmakers to put them at the top. Chinese, oddly enough, play a big part at this, since we're on an anti-China bend right now it might be useful to know. This whole legal drug thing...…

I hate to break it to you, but OP could be in Canada, where weed is legal and has developed grow ops where cannabis grown and sold locally...

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#169

I've been a heavy, 1 oz. of Indica a week smoker for decades, while being an extremely productive lead and principal software engineer on dozens of highly visible tech products. I am part of a heavy smoking, high tech collective of startup and career research individuals from companies people use everyday. I start my day with a combination of THC and caffeine, which folds into a deep work and research focus lasting t…

Sounds like a cool group, where do you meet? :-) Need the deets. Also I am a Sativa man myself, but caffeine indeed, gotta stack those chemicals.

Re: A Survey of Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that people thinking that mind altering substances cannot be a useful tool should keep an open mind about it and let those people who are getting real results out of it keep doing their thing. And yes these people do exist. They are not going to be too open about it because of how taboo it is. It’s well known that many of the greatest rock bands, highly productive mathematicians like Paul Erdos and comedians…

Paul Erdos took uppers, specifically Ritalin and caffeine, IIRC. Carlin was pretty vocal about the majorly negative impacts of drug abuse on his life and even went to rehab. Prior discussion on Erdos, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2497420

Carlin made a very clear exception for marijuana for his creative work.

https://youtu.be/nCGGWeD_EJk?t=6m50s

I understand the comment thread you are responding to is lumping many psychoactive substances together, but the authors of the posted study were careful to distinguish this.

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