81–90 of 236 posts
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Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions. If caffeine was involved in nearly all violent crime like alcohol is, we would think differently of it.
Caffeine doesn't enhance any function, it simply masks tiredness in the short term, at the cost of reduced quality of sleep. The question is, does caffeine "clearly enhance" cognitive functions long-term.
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Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions. If caffeine was involved in nearly all violent crime like alcohol is, we would think differently of it.
I would claim that for regular users of caffeine, it merely restores function to a baseline level.
I’m not a heavy coffee drinker, but I do have a cup in the mornings some time between 6:30-8:00. This makes it easy to stop as needed; there are some days where I skip it out of necessity (too busy), and occasionally I’ll go a weekend without it just to keep my tolerance in check. During these periods, I never experience adverse effects.
The main benefit I glean from coffee is not feeling awake, but notably improved ability to focus. In my experience, my baseline ability is just not as good; there’s no “bounce back” after extended periods of going without, it just stays somewhere between bad and average indefinitely.
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I dunno, ask the people who work at Mondragon. https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/
care to explain?
To illustrate that large-scale freedom, ownership, and autonomy do not result in labor camps, I provided Mondragon as a productive counter-example.
Mondragon is a federation of worker-owned cooperatives that netted €593 million on €11 billion in revenue in 2023, and which did not make use of a forced labor camp or prison system to achieve these results. Instead, they use widely distributed equity ownership and democratic control of the workplace to create a good work environment and a healthy culture.
Since the comment I was replying to did not invest any words in supporting their comparison of worker ownership with a system of forced labor camps, I responded in spirit, inviting them with a minimum of words and effort to investigate possible counter-examples to their mental model.
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> highly profitable substance Yes and no. I've been a fan of caffeine pills for years. They are very cheap, readily available (portable), and most importantly to me offer completely consistent dosing. With caffeine pills I'm able to ensure I stay below the FDA recommended maximum daily intake of 400 mg (worst case). Another fun bonus - when a physician asks you what your caffeine intake is and you respond in milligra…
My wife uses caffeine pills on occasion but I prefer energy drinks most mornings alongside something like toast. Obviously more expensive but the drink has a slower come-up (likely due to the extra water and food). Whenever I do take pills instead, I'm in a rush so I'm not drinking more water than necessary and definitely not eating anything. I like the Celsius drink mixes since I can put one in my water bottle and d…
Caffeine pills are more like take a pill, wait X minutes, and then get the sensation of “oh, there it is” as it all “hits” at once.
There are more expensive time release variants but I don’t have much experience with them.
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People do joke about being dangerous without their morning coffee, but I have yet to see a coffee addict breaking into vehicles to score their morning fix. Also I have never had to worry someone is going to mug my loved ones to get some quick cash for a double-double. And have you ever heard of someone who skips important appointments because they stayed out getting high on caffeine instead Pretending caffeine is as…
This is what the drug war has done to our minds. People would absolutely be burglarizing homes to feed their caffeine habit if caffeine wasn't dirt cheap due to the free market. If it were legal to produce meth your local meth-head would not be raiding your house for copper because it would be cheap enough that his minimum wage job could support his habit.' And frankly I've showed up to important events absolutely fu…
Those behaviors are not conducive to holding down most jobs. If our society did more work educating and supporting people in productively integrating their use of drugs into a functional lifestyle, maybe it would be less of a problem. Certainly there are some ways people could use meth that are positive. But I still think there's something about meth that makes it more likely to ruin lives than caffeine.
I love my caffeine. But caffeine is an addictive, highly profitable substance. So advertising it and trying to promote it as somehow having real health benefits is widespread. I would not be surprised if routine consumption of caffeine was at least mildly detrimental to health. I think some drugs have managed to gain a special place in our society . Advertising and lobbying warps our perception of these drugs. I even…
Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions. If caffeine was involved in nearly all violent crime like alcohol is, we would think differently of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People do joke about being dangerous without their morning coffee, but I have yet to see a coffee addict breaking into vehicles to score their morning fix. Also I have never had to worry someone is going to mug my loved ones to get some quick cash for a double-double. And have you ever heard of someone who skips important appointments because they stayed out getting high on caffeine instead Pretending caffeine is as…
This is what the drug war has done to our minds. People would absolutely be burglarizing homes to feed their caffeine habit if caffeine wasn't dirt cheap due to the free market. If it were legal to produce meth your local meth-head would not be raiding your house for copper because it would be cheap enough that his minimum wage job could support his habit.' And frankly I've showed up to important events absolutely fu…
I've only ever been addicted to caffeine and cigarettes and while my withdrawal symptoms were terrible (almost-disabling headaches, anxiety, etc) I don't think they were ever so bad that it would make me violent.
As opposed to people I knew that were addicted to cocaine and meth which would go absolutely crazy for their next fix. In the particular case of the person that was addicted to cocaine, money was not an issue and would still become violent when the fix was not available, so I don't think it's necessarily a function of price or access to it.
Of course, my sample size is very small but given that I also know a ton of people that quit cigarettes and caffeine without becoming violent, I would say withdrawal symptoms are probably a strong component on how violent people get.
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Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions. If caffeine was involved in nearly all violent crime like alcohol is, we would think differently of it.
Caffeine doesn't enhance any function, it simply masks tiredness in the short term, at the cost of reduced quality of sleep. The question is, does caffeine "clearly enhance" cognitive functions long-term.
Anyone with anxiety or sleep issues should reexamine their caffeine usage. Maybe those problems do not stem from caffeine, but maybe they do. I don't know many people that do not consume caffeine regularly, at least once a day - in such cases, you cannot know whether your anxiety, sleep problems, general tiredness, bad moods, ... are or are not caused by one's caffeine consumption. Some people swear by drinking a sho…
What about those of use who may or may not have ADD and have been using caffine to regulate our mood and focus.... I honestly can't tell at this point if the coffee is helping me focus and I have ADD or if I am just lazy(or depressed) and the coffee is helping get me motivated.
Ill change the last bit -- "or if I am just tired and the coffee solves my cold start problem"
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Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions. If caffeine was involved in nearly all violent crime like alcohol is, we would think differently of it.
> Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions. In occasional users this might be true, but is it true in regular users? Anecdotally, I hear far more people complaining about being completely unable to function (and I've often recognized that they're perceptibly out of it) until they've had their next cup of coffee than I have heard people talk about getting great productivity gains from it. I don't…
Unable to function == 0 productivity. How is getting over that not effecting productivity gains?