Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
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Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#2Substituted amphetamines were already very popular in the 1950s.
Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#3Substituted amphetamines were already very popular in the 1950s.
... and I didn't know about them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substituted_amphetamine
The most famous in that family seems to be meth(amphetamine)
Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#4I read champignons and it kind of fit even better. Adderall (Brave New World) and mushrooms (Island).
Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#5I read champignons and it kind of fit even better. Adderall (Brave New World) and mushrooms (Island).
Soma in BNW is more analogous to MDMA as it's about sedated pleasure, not mental clarity/performance.
Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#6Substituted amphetamines were already very popular in the 1950s.
And had been researched treat symptoms of depression and what would eventually be called ADHD in the 1930's.
Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#7Substituted amphetamines were already very popular in the 1950s.
Methamphetamine was invented in Germany in 1937 and the German military at the time was very quick to adopt its use.
Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#8I read champignons and it kind of fit even better. Adderall (Brave New World) and mushrooms (Island).
Soma in BNW is more analogous to MDMA as it's about sedated pleasure, not mental clarity/performance.
I seem to think marijuana is more about sedated pleasure than MDMA. Granted, it's been about 30 years since I read Brave New World.
Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#9Substituted amphetamines were already very popular in the 1950s.
And had been researched treat symptoms of depression and what would eventually be called ADHD in the 1930's.
Benzedrine (an amphetamine inhaler) was the first antidepressant marketed (although at the time I believe they used the term "psychic energizer" for antidepressants)
Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies
#10This article (and the title alone) is harmful. Adderall is not about increasing mental efficiency.
What Adderall is about is:
- helping with executive dysfunction for people who suffer from it.
- allowing people with ADHD like me to function. To do the things that everyone else does, things that we want to do and need to do, but can't do because of the way our brains are wired.
- increasing the lifespan of ADHD people who don't get help. Women with ADHD die about 9 years younger than those without ADHD [1].
- making our lives less painful, since every small task incurs pain, resulting in 3x depression rates [2] and alarmingly high suicidal ideation rates (50% of ADHD adults [3]).
Please, please, educate yourself about ADHD and medication for it before writing something like this title.
No, Aldous Huxley didn't. "predict" Adderall.
To understand more, I've put together a resource which, I hope, will be easy enough to digest. Here's my experience of getting prescribed Adderall for my ADHD:
https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Medication
If I have attention deficit and I could write it, I hope you (and the author of the text we're discussing) could spare some attention to it before talking about Adderall, amphetamines, and other stimulants prescribed for ADHD.
Thank you in advance.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/23/nx...
[2] https://add.org/adhd-and-depression/
[3] https://crownviewpsych.com/blog/adhd-increased-risk-suicide-...