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Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

angadh.com

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Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#21

Post by freetime2 »

alterom wrote: post #10

This 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 peo…

It's long, but I listened to this podcast a while back with Peter Attia and Trenna Sutcliffe discussing Autism, ADHD, and Anxiety, and found that it really reduced the stigma I associated with medication for treatment of ADHD. In particular, understanding the risks of not effectively treating ADHD, in comparison with with the potential risks/benefits of the medication. That's not to say that we should only rely on medication - behavioral therapy (with parents involved too) should also play a part.

https://peterattiamd.com/trennasutcliffe/

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#23

Post by ux266478 »

thatoneguy wrote: post #7
gnatman wrote: post #2

Substituted 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.

Everybody who could afford it adopted psychostimulants in WW2. Go pills have been part and parcel since then. Some countries have adopted modafinil, but the US still uses amphetamine.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#24

Post by consumer451 »

ux266478 wrote: post #23
thatoneguy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methamphetamine was invented in Germany in 1937 and the German military at the time was very quick to adopt its use.

Everybody who could afford it adopted psychostimulants in WW2. Go pills have been part and parcel since then. Some countries have adopted modafinil, but the US still uses amphetamine.

I am not sure if that's still the case, but "go pills," Dexedrine, were certainly used in Afghanistan. Here was a horrible potential side-effect:

https://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/friendlyfire/gopills.htm...

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#25

Post by angadh »

alterom wrote: post #10

This 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 peo…

The author of this piece—which I am—is reporting on Huxley’s MIT talk. He predicted a drug that improves mental efficiency/focus. And the talk discusses alternative non-pharmacological approaches.

You are welcome to either actually read my piece or, better, listen to his talk. There is no judgment against the substance but a call for additional approaches to enhance a person.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#26

Post by wmeredith »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #12
brandall10 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soma in BNW is more analogous to MDMA as it's about sedated pleasure, not mental clarity/performance.

mdma is pleasureful but extremely non-sedated

The street drug Ecstasy is MDMA usually mixed with speed. MDMA doesn't have a stimulating effect.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#27

Post by logicprog »

alterom wrote: post #10

This 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 peo…

Thank you so much for this. I'm REALLY tired of anti ADHD medication propaganda, it's anti intellectual nonsense.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#28

Post by Melatonic »

consumer451 wrote: post #18
thatoneguy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methamphetamine was invented in Germany in 1937 and the German military at the time was very quick to adopt its use.

An army of tweakers. I don't think that this aspect of the War and the Holocaust are discussed enough. Certainly no excuse, but it is very interesting. > Chronic Meth users have deficits in memory and executive functioning as well as higher rates of anxiety, depression, and most notably psychosis. [0] In more recent times of horror: > After the fall of the al-Assad regime in Syria, large stockpiles of the illicit dru…

Im sure eventually whatever pills the Germans were taking back then were bad for you but I would imagine smoking huge doses of not so pure street meth is quite a bit different than something created in a lab.

That being said if anyone uses drugs to avoid sleeping for many days straight I would imagine it's quite horrible for your mental health

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#29

Post by Melatonic »

greekrich92 wrote: post #17

Just want to echo someone else's sub-thread: Adderall is not at all similar to Huxley's description of Soma. Soma was about feeling good and not having to think of the evil things that make the BNW society possible, not efficiency.

That's also what I thought - Wasn't Soma more of a way to make people question less and just remain in a blissed out but maybe sort of out of it state at all times ? Seems very different than amphetamines

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#30

Post by Melatonic »

gwbas1c wrote: post #8
brandall10 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say something with the intensity of weed (relatively low) along with the effects of MDMA. Essentially "MDMA lite"

Marijuana often seems to promote thinking "outside the box" which is probably not what the Brave New World people would want for their population

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