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Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

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Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#191

Post by notepad0x90 »

hazmazlaz wrote: post #171
notepad0x90 wrote: post #110

amphetamines feel a lot like people putting NO2 on their cars, or overclocking their computers. You might just fine in the end, but the likelihood of wear & tear catching up to you increases. It should be treated just like any other medicine, don't use it unless you really have to, and expect adverse effect (known or unknown).

It's a good thing that human bodies are not analogous to cars then. The research on these chemicals does not align with your metaphor.

i picked cars at random, it could be any machine. I picked overclocking computers as well, maybe that is easier for you to relate the concepts.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#192

Post by alterom »

superice wrote: post #121
Aeglaecia wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i understand your perspective viscerally and as such i understand the push back ... the argument is that there is nothing wrong with someone labelled 'adhd' , rather that the modern western system both a) does not handle adhd behaviour properly and b) exhibits conditions where non-adhd individuals exhibit adhd behaviour ... when taking into account that speed will motivate anybody (both adhd and non adhd) , and that…

Even if you were 100% correct and the world is broken, fully causing ADHD as a disorder: Please fix the world FIRST and only once proven ADHD is caused by what once was the shape of western society and no longer applies, THEN you get to take the metaphorical wheelchair away. The alternative is that you prevent millions of people in managing their disability while asking them to bet on your view of the world AND on ou…

> Even if you were 100% correct and the world is broken, fully causing ADHD as a disorder: Please fix the world FIRST and only once proven ADHD is caused by what once was the shape of western society and no longer applies, THEN you get to take the metaphorical wheelchair away. [...] You're just not presenting an attractive deal to anyone.

Thanks for writing this succinct counterpoint!

The argument of the commenter you're responding to reminds me of the "ADHD is a superpower!” vibe, which I perceive as toxic positivity, but couldn't rebuke quite as clearly [1].

"There's nothing wrong with you, it's literally the entire human society that's broken" has the same implication ("don't take meds, you're nOt bRoKeN”).

Of course it's the environment that causes our symptoms. Just like cold weather makes one feel cold.

It'd be rather silly to argue that winter clothes should be abandoned, that they exist only to make money for clothing manufacturers.

Some of us live in cold places. We need winter clothes. And we don't make the weather.

[1] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Superpower

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#193

Post by ggm »

mistersquid wrote: post #133
ggm wrote: post #74

"predicts" must be a variant of standard english which projects the past tense into the present tense because .. reasons? He predicted. Absent an Ouija board, he isn't predicting any more.

> "predicts" must be a variant of standard english which projects the past tense into the present tense because .. reasons? Literary criticism and philosophy cast actions in and from recorded media in the "eternal present" (a term of art that should yield search results). So, if Huxley (contemporary tense) wrote about a drug that resembles Adderall then a sentence cast in the eternal present would express "Huxley _wr…

I think this may ultimately be a cultural issue. American documentary style of presentation increasingly uses the present tense to describe things in the past.

I am more used to historians with horn rimmed glasses and badly fitting tweed jackets talking in the past tense about past times so when they reflect on it's impact in the present time they can use present tense about past acts correctly.

"German Troops conduct a false flag against Poland as a result of which the British issue a final demand, the echoes of which continue to the present day" is really not better than "The German troops conducted a false flag against Poland as a result of which the British issued a final demand, the echoes of which continue to the present day" when it comes down to it.

And it leads to awkward sentences like "At the time, FDR believes that he can keep the war away from America, but Japan attacks pearl harbour and he has no choice but to declare war" when the use of "Believed" and "could" and "attacked" and "had" make it clear we, the owners of backwards looking syntax and historical documents, realise this all happened a very long time ago and can keep a hold of the sequencing.

I must say matches on "the eternal present" are a giant bag of mystical wank, no disrespect to yourself intended. Perhaps you get better responses than I do but my top returns were flooded with mindfulness and cod philosophy and christianity.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#194

Post by unparagoned »

latentsea wrote: post #79
itishappy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title is perhaps a bit unfortunate. I don't believe this is specifically about ADHD. Adderall is a stimulant with the effects Huxley predicted. It also happens to treat ADHD. I believe it's being used here in the former capacity.

The thing is, when you have ADHD and you take stimulants you don't feel any sort of high or however it makes people with normally functioning dopamine receptors feel, you just feel normal.

That’s just a myth. Studies show that the drugs increase focus in everyone regardless of disease state. Surveys show that people with adhd take higher doses to get high as well.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#195

Post by unparagoned »

alterom wrote: post #66
itishappy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title is perhaps a bit unfortunate. I don't believe this is specifically about ADHD. Adderall is a stimulant with the effects Huxley predicted. It also happens to treat ADHD. I believe it's being used here in the former capacity.

>Adderall is a stimulant with the effects Huxley predicted. That's exactly my point: it is NOT. Not for the people Adderall is prescribed to and was developed for . See: https://romankogan.net/adhd#Medication >I don't believe this is specifically about ADHD. There's nothing to believe in here. Adderall is a drug that's specifically about ADHD . It's a stimulant that helps people with ADHD overcome executive dysfuncti…

Paul Erdős Proves you wrong.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#196

Post by gishh »

devmor wrote: post #63

Why does a space engineering lecturer believe he has novel thoughts on ADHD treatment inspired by an author from a medical era he didn’t bother to do cursory research of?

Why does person with $job_title feel like they can write with authority on $subject_not_related_to_job_title?

Is that your question?

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#197

Post by itishappy »

alterom wrote: post #102
itishappy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I still feel a bit high. Particularly when I start taking them after a hiatus. Or up the dose. Anyway, here's what Huxley's had to say: > ... I have talked to pharmacologists about this matter, and a number of them say that it’s probably quite possible that it may be possible to, by pharmacological means, which will do no harm to the organism as a whole, to increase the span of attention, to increase the powers o…

Interesting if that it works for you that way. "Upping the dose" of Adderall makes me sleepy. In fact, I take a little before going to bed if I'm feeling restless. Midnight coffee is a thing for me. I don't have a problem with attention span (ADHD isn't about short attention spans, after all), and stimulants do nothing for that. Power of concentration? That's where ADHD people excel when that hyperfocus locks in. Tha…

Oh, I get both for sure. Roughly 15 minutes of speedy-go-fast, then I get sleepy (but not tired) an hour later, the ability to focus throughout lasting roughly 3-4hrs. Coffee does the same thing, but with a lot more sleepy (kinda tired) and less focus. I should mention I'm on Ritalin, which may explain the speedy-go-fast.

The main effect for me is a decrease in inexplicable mental barriers. Things that were hard suddenly aren't. Same brain, different output. I dunno man, I call that an increase in mental efficiency.

I love the action point metaphor. Much better than the spoons I've heard before.

How do you differentiate attention span and concentration?

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#198

Post by Aeglaecia »

throwuxiytayq wrote: post #184
Aeglaecia wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you took an adhd cunt and threw him in the bush he would be fine ... but if you threw him into a cookie cutter hyper capitalist no-hope no-wife no-friends no-third-space doomscroll-to-death sealed box , that man wouldn't be fine! the man in question never changed , only his environment did. ergo , societal amphetamines are about as supportive as me handing you a set of crutches after i broke your legs. but trying…

I said settle down, ok?

i mean it was funny the first time but you have to put some extra sauce on the bait if you want more bites , to be clear i never told anyone to settle i said i hope things settle around them because i believe adhd behaviours can be produced by chaotic environments

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#199

Post by meeq »

modo_mario wrote: post #146
raducu wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're right that, for people with ADHD and related disorders, stimulant medication sort of just adjusts their baselines so they can pay attention like a "normal" person. I have ADHD and take metylphenidate(I've tried many kinds of stimulants as well) -- and the NO2 analogy is an imperfect but better analogy than saying stimulants simply adjusts the baseline of people with ADHD to function like "normal" persons. I…

I've had similar experiences to you. I never can quite get that normalcy. I now just take rilatin but it is finnicky. Getting enough sleep and eating the right amount of the right stuff just before ingesting is extremely important so I don't even take it all that much even tho i struggle. I wonder if you tried lisdexamfetamine? I can't get it prescribed easily here since it's not covered the way the alternatives are…

Not the OP, but I‘ve had a rather bad experience with methylphenidate (ritalin) where it made me way more awkward around people, and increased my obsessive tendencies. It did help with focus, but the effects were very short-lived. It also obliterated my hunger and once the effects wore off, it left me feeling semi-depressed until the end of the day.

Once I got prescribed lisdexamphetamine, my life turned around almost instantaneously. While it doesn‘t really get rid of my ADHD, it does help tremendously. The everlasting brainfog isn‘t as debilitating anymore. When I get excited about something I actually tend to follow through. I still battle with my obsessive tendencies — like getting stuck at setting up the perfect project tooling stack or spending way too much time on planning and research instead of just getting to work — but these are not so much related to ADHD.

On lisdexamphetamine, I am more social, my appetite is better, when I actually commit to something, I tend to stick to it for much longer, and I have also picked up a bunch of healthy habits. For example I exercise almost every day now.

If you someday get a chance to switch to lisdex, do it. It’s much smoother, longer-lasting, with fewer side effects. But honestly, anything is better than ritalin in my book.

Re: Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

#200

Post by Aeglaecia »

superice wrote: post #121
Aeglaecia wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i understand your perspective viscerally and as such i understand the push back ... the argument is that there is nothing wrong with someone labelled 'adhd' , rather that the modern western system both a) does not handle adhd behaviour properly and b) exhibits conditions where non-adhd individuals exhibit adhd behaviour ... when taking into account that speed will motivate anybody (both adhd and non adhd) , and that…

Even if you were 100% correct and the world is broken, fully causing ADHD as a disorder: Please fix the world FIRST and only once proven ADHD is caused by what once was the shape of western society and no longer applies, THEN you get to take the metaphorical wheelchair away. The alternative is that you prevent millions of people in managing their disability while asking them to bet on your view of the world AND on ou…

yeah my point is that the western society should be changed and i dont know why you think that i think that speed should be taken away entirely but i dont think that
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