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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

#31

Post by phantasmish »

Melatonic wrote: post #29
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

The link (including the transcript of Huxley’s lecture) doesn’t seem to be about Soma, unless I’m missing something. Huxley produced a lot of work outside of Brave New World, lots of it concerned with drugs and altered states of consciousness (so much so that personally I don’t think I’ve done enough drugs to understand his perspective, as I find him distinctly, and almost uniquely among such high-profile authors that I’ve tried, unreadable)

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#32

Post by Melatonic »

phantasmish wrote: post #31
Melatonic wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The link (including the transcript of Huxley’s lecture) doesn’t seem to be about Soma, unless I’m missing something. Huxley produced a lot of work outside of Brave New World, lots of it concerned with drugs and altered states of consciousness (so much so that personally I don’t think I’ve done enough drugs to understand his perspective, as I find him distinctly, and almost uniquely among such high-profile authors tha…

Guess more of us should have read the link more carefully..... oops !

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#33

Post by diob »

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…

Yes, that image is so funny, because it really is the difference between me being able to make a meal for myself vs needing something immediate.

It also helped do wonders for my anxiety, which I previously treated with sertaline.

I'm not the hyperactive sort of individual who has ADHD so I didn't get diagnosed until late in life, around a year or so ago, I'm just the "Inattentive" type.

But finally I can take my meds, and do things that other people do without feeling like it's mental torture. And I can also remember to do important things, like my taxes, on time!

It's so weird comparing my days on it to off it, when I happen to run out. I start getting a backlog of little things that my brain decided it couldn't take one minute to knock out.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#34

Post by rozal »

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…

[dead]

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#35

Post by angadh »

phantasmish wrote: post #31
Melatonic wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The link (including the transcript of Huxley’s lecture) doesn’t seem to be about Soma, unless I’m missing something. Huxley produced a lot of work outside of Brave New World, lots of it concerned with drugs and altered states of consciousness (so much so that personally I don’t think I’ve done enough drugs to understand his perspective, as I find him distinctly, and almost uniquely among such high-profile authors tha…

You are vey correct—the talk and link have nothing to do with Soma.

I can only presume, based on timing of the talk being 1960, that his thoughts here link to mescaline and the practical utopia he talks of in Island, whose inhabitants make use of a local psychedelic. So whatever he must have said here had more to do with his later perspectives than his feelings around the island.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#36

Post by alterom »

diob wrote: post #33
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…

Yes, that image is so funny, because it really is the difference between me being able to make a meal for myself vs needing something immediate. It also helped do wonders for my anxiety, which I previously treated with sertaline. I'm not the hyperactive sort of individual who has ADHD so I didn't get diagnosed until late in life, around a year or so ago, I'm just the "Inattentive" type. But finally I can take my meds…

I could second every word of what you just said (as you already know after reading that page, of course).

Just wanted to reiterate it for anyone who's reading this thread.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#37

Post by Aeglaecia »

logicprog wrote: post #27
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.

I'd argue that it is nonsense to treat symptoms instead of the cause (of an issue) , but actually doing just that is quite intellectual when a bunch of money stands to be made

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#38

Post by DANmode »

Melatonic wrote: post #28
consumer451 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So…not that different.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#39

Post by tetris11 »

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.

> In 1919, the Japanese discovered a more potent version of the drug — methamphetamine. The new drug was a crystalline powder soluble in water. In this form, it can be smoked, injected, snorted or taken orally. Users get an intense but brief high when they inject or smoke the drug, but if it's snorted or taken orally by capsule, the high lasts longer.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#40

Post by mattgreenrocks »

Melatonic wrote: post #29
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

So kind of like our social media feeds then?
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