How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent • Hacker News Board

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#221

Post by hirvi74 » Thu, Feb 01, 2024, 5:52 AM UTC

sebastiangula wrote: post #216

hirvi74 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the same medicine, but coffee is significantly easier to quit for me. If I take a single day off meds, then I feel it, and that feeling compounds for about a week. The withdrawals, in my opinion, while not particularly painful in a physical sense, and still fucking brutal. I'm on a child's dosage too, which is crazy. Yeah yeah, I know everyone is different and all that, but I can see why this drug is a Schedul…

Physical dependence and addiction is a very different thing. If you’re physically dependent then you’ll just plan accordingly (taper if necessary) and ride it out, but if you’re addicted then you won’t be capable of doing that and 90% (or more) of the attempts will fail because of the behavioral overrides. This can turn something that could be tapered in couple months into multi-year struggle. I’ve learned this the h…

Based on that description, maybe I am addicted lol.

I can technically go without, but what I crave more than the feeling of the meds is the ability to be semi-functional. I do not respond super positively to the meds to begin with, but they are definitely better than nothing... and perhaps sometimes detrimental (focus on the wrong thing).

I always try to take breaks when I can, but life rarely allows for me to do such anymore. On weekends now, I typically just half-dose or take a day off. Seems to be enough to help with the burnout.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#222

Post by sh34r » Fri, Feb 02, 2024, 5:27 AM UTC

hirvi74 wrote: post #195

corobo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No motivation to start cool new projects is not among them... Starting projects isn't the issue (personal experience w/ ADHD) - following through and finishing them is, which is listed in various ways under the inattentive section I've got plenty of new project folders, draft blog posts, plans written down, database schemas, etc - but no shipped results. This is the main issue for me. Starting a project is easy, wo…

The longer I think about it, the more it bothers me. I once had a psych explain to me that the main reason many people treat ADHD, is not for themselves, but because of how others treat them. No where I go there I am, and I will always piss people off.

The social model of disability can be useful, but it has its limits. Unmedicated-me pisses me off too.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#223

Post by sh34r » Fri, Feb 02, 2024, 5:45 AM UTC

toolz wrote: post #193

Rewrap3643 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychs won't prescribe it because it's a wakefulness promoting agent, not a typical stimulant. There's insufficient evidence to prescribe it as a first-line treatment for ADHD. Insurance companies are also unlikely to pay for it in absence of a diagnosed sleep disorder. Methylphenidate is the clinically correct alternative to amphetamines.

So we should first-line treat people with addictive, known long-term harmful medicines rather than try things that have a known long-term safe profile simply because it's understood to be less likely to work? That's just bonkers to me. I'll try every single safe potential treatment before resorting to higher evidenced unsafe treatment. Also this "wakefulness" doesn't mean much. It's much like ADHD doesn't mean much -…

Your argument has several flaws. First, we prescribe drugs based on expected risk and reward. The likelihood of successful treatment absolutely matters. Otherwise, we'd require a trial of a homeopathic placebo for every mental health condition, before prescribing something that's clinically proven to work. Homeopathy is 100% safe, and 100% useless. But hey, sometimes the placebo effect works, right? That manic guy who thinks he can fly? Let's give him sugar pills for a year before lithium, just to be safe! Natural solutions and "alternative medicine" are always best, after all. The stuff that actually works is a last resort only! Just look at Steve Jobs, he's doing so well these days! His cancer was completely cured by his weird diet. /s

Second, you assume there's a significant difference between the risk of amphetamines at low doses and the alternatives -- usually off-label anti-depressants with a slew of nasty side effects. Do you really believe the science is unbiased when the DEA has been meddling in it for decades now? Come on now. These are the people that still insist cannabis is more dangerous than fentanyl. They're thugs, not scientists. Every 1960s housewife in America was microdosing speed in the form of diet pills, and it was mostly fine, until Nixon's alcoholic ass started a war on other drugs that broke everyone's brains. Then on the other end, you have Big Pharma corrupting FDA officials to make their newer, more dangerous, and less effective drugs look better than they really are.

More importantly, you assume there's no risk to delaying treatment. It's no big deal that someone loses a job and their health insurance because the "safer" drug you made them trial first did nothing or made things worse. It's probably already taken you months, if not years, to get the diagnosis and an appointment with a psychiatrist. The status quo probably isn't going great for you. Relationships, school, career, etc are suffering. Oh, not to mention the significantly increased risk of death of dying in a car crash when we're unmedicated. But sure, giving us some shitty placebo for three months, that's totally safer for everyone! Including you, right?

Can you people please stop peddling this anti-intellectual nonsense about a disorder you know absolutely fuck-all about, outside of stigmatizing pop culture memes? You're not a doctor. And get your damn vaccines too, while you're at it.

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#224

Post by peterfirefly » Sat, Feb 03, 2024, 9:22 PM UTC

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #13

e2021 wrote: post #7

This is good advice, but I think it is for people who think they are not smart, but are actually just inexperienced. I feel like someone who was actually not smart would have trouble executing on these steps

A group I've encountered that this could help are those without tenacity. I have smart friends who are hugely into tech who somehow remained unemployable even during the boom times in that industry. I try and try to push them towards opportunities but they argue 'I just have no natural talent for that' and stop before they even get started. Eg. they tried programming for 3 days, still hadn't fully groked it (because…

> 'I just have no natural talent for that'

I thought all my life that I had no talent for video games. I recently installed Doom II (bought for around 2€ on the Microsoft Store) and two weeks later gzDoom.

I did play around a bit with Doom 30 years ago and thought the graphics was nice but I wasn't good at it, was never going to be good at it, and it also wasn't all that interesting.

About a month after the install I'm a fairly decent Doom player. I can complete all the three original Doom episodes (and the first one on Ultraviolence).

Turns out I just never practiced enough -- and I didn't even need much of it!

Re: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent

#225

Post by CRConrad » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 7:53 AM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #91

j7ake wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a concrete example of tech work that a "low IQ person" would not be able to tackle?

"Which Voltage do i need to cut Styrofoam with a resistive wire"

The voltage in your wall sockets is a given, so the question should be "Which resistive wire do I need to best cut Styrofoam with electricity?"