101–110 of 120 posts
Soldiers have always been given cocaine and meth to stay awake and alert during battles. Guess their tech backup will have to do with nicotine.
During battles the calculations around health are completely different. Are the Palantir headquarters inside an active war zone?
This reads like an ad.
that said, this is a site run by venture capitalists -- flogging product is a given
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I agree to a point. Although, alcohol (when consumed responsibly) has a social element to it, so companies having a "beers on Friday after 4pm" just feels different than "here's nicotine so you can be more productive and make us more money." They are serving different functions.
Beers on Friday after 4pm is rarely done because management really cares about the employees. It's a type of team building, improves employee morale and humanizes management. All lead to improved productivity in the long term. If my boss gives me a stimulant to be more productive, especially a relatively harmless one like nicotine, I would gladly take it, as I like stimulants and am an adult capable of making decisio…
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What dimension of “addictive” are you anchoring on? Capture rate? Withdrawal severity? Reinforcement strength? Relapse rate after quitting? Nicotine dominates on some of those and not others.
Pretty clear from the responses to OP that most people are quite unaware there is almost two decades of decent research on pure nicotine now, and that, outside of vaping (where hard evidence is mostly lacking, due to the novelty), the purer stuff probably really isn't all that addictive, in the grand scheme of things. In many cases it is hard to even say it is much different than caffeine.
There is like zero messaging out there from anything resembling a health organization that says, "nicotine in purer forms is okay actually." It's an extraordinary claim that nicotine is super addictive only when mixed with other stuff and if you get the pure concentrated drug that actually lessens its pharmacological effects.
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Beers on Friday after 4pm is rarely done because management really cares about the employees. It's a type of team building, improves employee morale and humanizes management. All lead to improved productivity in the long term. If my boss gives me a stimulant to be more productive, especially a relatively harmless one like nicotine, I would gladly take it, as I like stimulants and am an adult capable of making decisio…
That's unnecessarily cynical. I've been in plenty of companies where the staff, managers included, enjoy going for a pint together. I'm in the UK, maybe it's cultural.
OTOH, if you've witnessed how most managers talk about their employees to one another, it's with a cold calculating language. Sure, a manager may feel bad for firing an employee, but first and foremost is the business analysis of whether it makes sense to do so - just pure math and predictions.
Personally, if I was in a management position and an employee asked me for a cigarette, I would happily give it to them. In fact, a few times a week I give a few cigarettes to 1 person who is not my employee, but who I talk to from time to time. I don't gain anything from this and I give them cigarettes because they are on a tight budget.
Also, if I, as a hypothetical manager, realized a lot of my employees would take an offer for free coffee, cigarettes, pure nicotine, beer or another drug, I would give it to them as long as it didn't hurt productivity too much. Of course some drugs like alcohol could hurt short term productivity, but it would make them happier overall, which would have positive long term effects. If asked why I do this, I would say that I'm both giving them out of my good will and to increase productivity, which would be true.
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Utter nonsense. I have replaced my ADHD prescription with nicotine patches, and in my experience I have had worse withdrawals, and greater desire to consume caffeine than either dermal nicotine or dexamfetamine. And I’m only a cup a day kinda guy, and I used to be a heavy smoker for years, so I know how dangerous the stuff can be. If we’re talking about smoking or vaping, or nicotine pouches, sure, but mode of admini…
Utter nonsense Got something other than anecdata? Because a web search returns a list of contrary sources as long as my arm. But, hell, if we are trading stories, I dipped snuff for 30 years and I’ve consumed coffee since middle school. I can go days without coffee, even if I might not be happy about it. Quitting tobacco, OTOH, that was tough, with multiple starts and stops until success.
Here’s from someone that knows what they’re talking about: https://gwern.net/nicotine
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Pretty clear from the responses to OP that most people are quite unaware there is almost two decades of decent research on pure nicotine now, and that, outside of vaping (where hard evidence is mostly lacking, due to the novelty), the purer stuff probably really isn't all that addictive, in the grand scheme of things. In many cases it is hard to even say it is much different than caffeine.
Can you point to said research because everything I can find from any kind of authoritative source is that form doesn't matter and nicotine is strongly addictive in all of them. There is like zero messaging out there from anything resembling a health organization that says, "nicotine in purer forms is okay actually." It's an extraordinary claim that nicotine is super addictive only when mixed with other stuff and if…
The delivery system modulates speed and magnitude of the hit, which affects how rapidly and how strongly dependence forms, but every form produces dependence with sustained use.
There isn’t anyone who is going to say “nicotine in purer forms is okay actually” because there isn’t anyone who is tasked with answering such a broad question.
Also, be careful not to shift the frame. Spivak ranked nicotine with other drugs. You changed the framing to “all are highly addictive.” These are different assertions, and both can be true at the same time. That’s why it’s more important and more interesting to discuss it in terms of addiction subtypes
Seems a good time to link to Gwern's well-researched notes on why nicotine, when consumed in purer forms (e.g. patches, gum), may be pretty useful and not really as harmful nor as addictive as one might think. https://gwern.net/nicotine
Its been a while since I read this post and I don’t have time to reread it but from my experience while it is a useful drug it definitely has addiction and health issues even in more pure forms.
- when quantifying for gum and patches, it is really hard to conclude that these pure forms of nicotine are any different from caffeine in harms / addictiveness
- cigarettes, or even pure tobacco smoked is definitely addictive and bad due to other compounds in play
- chewing tobacco products are likely a lot less worse than smoking, but still probably worse than pure nicotine gum or patches
- data is very unclear on vaping
IMO experience suggests vaping can clearly be highly addictive (see: young adults and teens), and I know personally there is even some minimal research on vaping e.g. THC that shows that vaping might be worse than just smoking cannabis, so vaping definitely warrants caution in general [though vaping THC requires much higher temps and different solvents, and involves different terpenes and other compounds].
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Pretty clear from the responses to OP that most people are quite unaware there is almost two decades of decent research on pure nicotine now, and that, outside of vaping (where hard evidence is mostly lacking, due to the novelty), the purer stuff probably really isn't all that addictive, in the grand scheme of things. In many cases it is hard to even say it is much different than caffeine.
Can you point to said research because everything I can find from any kind of authoritative source is that form doesn't matter and nicotine is strongly addictive in all of them. There is like zero messaging out there from anything resembling a health organization that says, "nicotine in purer forms is okay actually." It's an extraordinary claim that nicotine is super addictive only when mixed with other stuff and if…
Nothing wrong with still being cautious about pure nicotine products though, and I definitely would be cautious about vaping.