Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

angadh.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 222 posts

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#51

Post by _yb2s »

Aeglaecia wrote: post #37
logicprog wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is nonsense, it makes perfect sense to treat symptoms when it works and lessens those symptoms. Most of medicine works that way- our understanding of biology is primitive, and we often cannot identify or treat underlining causes.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#52

Post by alterom »

angadh wrote: post #25
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.

[flagged]

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#53

Post by sillywabbit »

angadh wrote: post #25
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.

I read your piece. Your title is clickbait, and you know it.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#54

Post by sqircles »

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 an adult with ADHD and have never been able to get past the side effects that I have to drugs such as amphetamines and SSRIs. I was prescribed Modafinil for a short period for "Shift Work Disorder" when I worked shift work as a Stationary Engineer and it was glorious in regard to my ADHD symptoms with effectively zero side effects. I wish the US would expand its usage.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#55

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

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

Considering the soldiers were already extremely high risk for lead poisoning, might have been low on the list of concerns.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#56

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

Melatonic wrote: post #30
gwbas1c wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think he was inspired by Valium and other benzos. They put people into a docile, low-anxiety state, and they were popular around the time the book was written.

That's also more-or-less consistent with the implied literary reference to the Lotus Eaters, who I think are usually imagined as opium users. Opioids are different but are also downers that reduce anxiety.

Benzos later featured significantly in one of Adam Curtis' film-essays -- maybe Century of the Self, maybe another one. I'd view those films as being in a similar spirit to Brave New World.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#57

Post by nradov »

sqircles wrote: post #54
ux266478 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an adult with ADHD and have never been able to get past the side effects that I have to drugs such as amphetamines and SSRIs. I was prescribed Modafinil for a short period for "Shift Work Disorder" when I worked shift work as a Stationary Engineer and it was glorious in regard to my ADHD symptoms with effectively zero side effects. I wish the US would expand its usage.

Modafinil is only a Schedule IV controlled substance so it's usually possible to find a doctor who will prescribe off label if you want it. (This isn't medical advice.)

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#58

Post by baxtr »

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…

There were also reports about widespread use of captagon during the attacks of October 7th 2023.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#59

Post by greekrich92 »

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…

Fair enough, but I have read Island, The Doors of Perception, and BNW, and none of those books described using uppers or anything about efficiency. Island was psychedelics (fantastic book in my opinion).

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#60

Post by loeg »

sqircles wrote: post #54
ux266478 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an adult with ADHD and have never been able to get past the side effects that I have to drugs such as amphetamines and SSRIs. I was prescribed Modafinil for a short period for "Shift Work Disorder" when I worked shift work as a Stationary Engineer and it was glorious in regard to my ADHD symptoms with effectively zero side effects. I wish the US would expand its usage.

Adrafinil is straight up unregulated in the US and is metabolized to modafinil in the body if you want to, you know, expand its usage personally.
Post reply on HN