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

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

#171

Post by seabrookmx »

stareblinkstare wrote: post #93
honkycat wrote: post #90

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...…

This is an incredibly ignorant, racist, presumably US-centric comment.

Lots of areas (like here in Canada) have well regulated, legal Cannabis businesses. The product even goes through thorough testing procedures [1]. As far as I can tell, it's a very similar setup to alcohol related businesses.

I would love to see a source on this supposed Chinese involvement. This sounds like some early 1900's opium den stereotyping to me.

[1]: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021PSSG0050-001115

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

#172

Post by abacadaba »

pvarangot wrote: post #152
pipthepixie wrote: post #92

What about common nootropics people take to get into 'programmer flow', like nicotine, lions mane, choline, caffeine, theanine, etc Surely they're more effective than cannabis, which typically makes everything feel great, but in a sober frame of mind, and on hindsight, seem trivial and over-hyped when sober. I've tried various nootropic 'blends' (stacks) over the years and they've all been great. Cannabis has its use…

I read there's some research on Lion's mane, and there's a lot about caffeine and theanine but none of this are magic productivity pills. Like it's not that the concentration and productivity effects are obvious and reproducible among all humans. Caffeine has the "keep you awake thing" that cocaine also has and it's pretty reproducible but in most studies I've read about caffeine and L-theanine the flowy non-jittery…

after seeing some fresh lion's mane at [fancy supermarket] for the first time, I'm convinced it's reputation is just because it looks and feels soft and squishy like a brain.

still take some of course, yolo

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

#173

Post by TrippinTraveler »

criticaltinker wrote: post #112
TrippinTraveler wrote: post #58

Anecdotal but I'm a "programmer" at BigTech™ and smoke all day every day, and at this point I can't tell if it helps me or hinders me, but when you smoke all the time, most of these stories you are hearing about in the comments don't happen. At this point in my life, it's just a little "pick me up". It's by no means a micro dose as I probably smoke a gram or 2 a day. But when you live high it's a different kind of be…

Yeah the body quickly develops a tolerance when cannabis is used chronically. In stoner culture people talk about taking “T” breaks for this reason. Other people switch strains to try mitigating the effect. Smoking a gram or two would be enough to get a newbie high as hell for the entire day. For chronic users it’s more like a cup of coffee that wakes you up for the day. And in that respect, many chronic stoners are…

Haha ya I haven't taken a T break in years, but you are right that when I did and I finally smoked again, it was like remembering why I smoke in the first place. I am at a point in my life where I have kinda stopped trying to have self control in this regard and just made it part of my life. I'm 36 now and had never smoked weed until a trip to Amsterdam when I was 25. I get something from smoking, but it's muted for sure now-a-days with my tolerance, and I need to smoke the strong stuff.

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

#174

Post by thewarrior »

frank_nitti wrote: post #170
noah_buddy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes exactly.

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

#175

Post by gime_tree_fiddy »

GordonS wrote: post #153
neveradmitmyid wrote: post #135

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…

Have you considered d switching to vaping? It's so much more efficient that you'd likely only use 1/2 oz, or maybe even 1/3 oz.

The efficiency, the dosage limitation and convenience is amazing, and its been a a few months when I smoked a joint. But I still find the joint to be better experience, not sure why, maybe the trace amounts of CBD.

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

#177

Post by thewarrior »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #134
thewarrior wrote: post #94

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…

> highly productive mathematicians like Paul Erdos I think Paul Erdos' stimulant usage has been blown out of proportion. According to his biography, he took "10 to 20 milligrams of Benzedrine or Ritalin" ( https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/ho... ) which is, believe it or not, lower than a lot of people's commonly prescribed ADHD doses today. Erdos also published a lot of his best works before…

“ Colleagues worried that Erdős might have become addicted. In 1979, he accepted a $500 bet from his friend Ronald Graham. Graham challenged Erdős to abstain from speed for 30 days. Erdős met the challenge, but his output sank dramatically. Erdős felt the progress of mathematics had been held up by a stupid wager. In an article by Paul Hoffman published in November 1987, Atlantic Monthly profiled Erdős and discussed his Benzedrine habit. Erdős liked the article, “…except for one thing…You shouldn’t have mentioned the stuff about Benzedrine. It’s not that you got it wrong. It’s just that I don’t want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics to think that they have to take drugs to succeed.”

The truth is far more nuanced. Like I said no one will openly admit to this as it sets a risky example for others.

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

#178

Post by stevenjgarner »

I would proffer that the recruitment bias for this survey renders its results dangerous. I would proffer further that programmers at large do no use cannabis and the "true" conclusion for such a study might well be the exact opposite of the authors.

The recuitment basis for the survey is not random and is only amongst a very small subset of candidates the authors considered "ethically permitted" (specifically from GitHub, the University of Michigan and social media). So probably few enterprise programmers and few non-US participants, etc.. In other words not the majority of programmers.

"We now present indirect evidence that our participants, while not a random sample, are similar in many ways to previous random samples or studies. A true random sample would not have been ethically permitted, but we gain confidence in our results’ generalizability by contextualizing participants’ gender, age, and employment. ... our study population by recruitment pool (e.g., how they were contacted to participate in this study)... from GitHub ... from the university ... and social media" - page 4, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.09365.pdf

A more meaningful lead-in survey would have been to ask programmers from all sources if they are subject to any form of drug-testing.

Perhaps they should have selected a less clickbaity title for their study:

A Survey of [Ethically Permitted USA] Programmers' Cannabis Usage, Perception, and Motivation

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

#179

Post by cik2e »

criticaltinker wrote: post #126
TrippinTraveler wrote: post #104

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.

It takes weeks after I stop smoking weed for me to start remembering my dreams again. I don't doubt that there are other effects on sleep from acute smoking around bed time. But for me, the loss of REM sleep is definitely mainly a function of cannabanoid tolerance.

After many years of on and off heavy smoking, I would say that the best best practice is actually not smoking weed every day. I think there are some amazing benefits to weed, but for me they all but disappear with enough tolerance.

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

#180

Post by uberduper »

datavirtue wrote: post #156
MissionInfl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if you have heard this before but you may have ADHD or something similar. I found myself in a similar pattern of using cannabis to motivate myself to do the more boring tasks that inevitably come up being a full time software engineer and after several months of therapy was diagnosed with ADHD. FWIW, I find that if I have a boring task and attempt to use cannabis to power through it, half of the time I complete…

I tried getting help for ADHD years ago but found it very difficult to get help for an adult that is high functioning. I'm pretty sure I have it but all the diagnostics focus on young children. The office where I had evaluations was loaded with whacked out kids. They just don't see it as a problem compared to those kids and the diagnosis is heavily focused on childhood behavior and excludes adults. The doctor, who I…

Talk to your primary care physician. Let them know you're struggling to focus and it's impacting your ability to function at work. Get a referral to a counselor and do a telemed appointment. Answer the handful of questions (truthfully). It's not like there's a series of tests for ADHD. It's just behaviors that are common to people with it.
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