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Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

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Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#111

Post by dwighttk »

sdenton4 wrote: post #80
nine_k wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine forms an addiction in a few weeks, and requires increasing doses just to keep you normal . What's good for you are other parts of the coffee bean. I avoid taking caffeine with any regularity, let alone daily. This is why I can get a full kick from a cup when I need it.

Hmm, I've kept a pretty steady dose of coffee across years without needing such an increase over time. A day with zero coffee is, indeed, not fun. But we live in the future and coffee is really available everywhere always. And even if the supply chains crash, it'll be a bad week and then I'll be fine...

Huh. I like a cup of coffee in the morning but I’ve never experienced the “I need a cup of coffee or it’s gonna be a long day” feeling people talk about. (Well now that I think of it I may have thought that a few times (in ~20years) but it was usually after a short night of sleep or something like that.)

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#112

Post by hombre_fatal »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #74
pengaru wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea of performance enhancing drugs making their way into the workplace arena scares me a lot. You say that as if it hasn't already happened, Adderall has been ubiquitous for years. At my last office job we had an intern from out of state miss work abruptly because she couldn't get her Adderall prescription filled, and, I shit you not, skipped work to fly to Nevada to fill her out of state 'script because CA ph…

I've been on adderall since I was 17. I'm 32 now. Almost more of my life has been spent on it than off it. I've been productive in a variety of ways. Some examples are listed on my patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shawwn but I feel silly bragging about comparatively minor accomplishments in ML. But I know for a fact that without adderall, I wouldn't have done a damn thing. I've tried for a few months. Shrugged and we…

I started amphetamine at age 20 and I'm, coincidentally enough, also 32.

I happened to have a good friend on Adderall in university, and he let me try a pill one day.

In one day I went from thinking that I was just a lazy, low-achieving individual that would always zombie through life, that—like my dad said—just didn't have a fire lit under my ass, and I went to realizing I was just a low dose pill away from achieving all I wanted. (I would eventually tell my dad that I did feel like I had a fire lit under my ass before I found amphetamine, I just had felt like it was engulfing me and I couldn't muster to move.)

I live abroad in South America right now and I fly back every three months to refill my script, that's how much it has improved my life. Though I just took a year-long break from the drug.

Btw, I switched from Adderall XR to Vyvanse about half way through my amphetamine career. Definitely was an upgrade: a more gradual curve and ~no come-down.

Anyways, the talk of amphetamine and ADHD (whatever that loosely understood umbrella word includes) is a lot like the talk of opioid painkillers: yes, there's abuse, but the conversation can't just stop there.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#113

Post by emteycz »

psysharp wrote: post #108
emteycz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use stimulants to cope with my ADHD. The problem is that without it my mind - a bright one - goes absolutely blank. It actively refuses to cooperate unless what I want to do is extremely interesting. Without the stimulants I feel like a train cart being taken to a different direction by the rail tracks, pushed or pulled against its will by the train. I was unable to go clean my teeth, eat, or clean my flat; and I d…

> and made me actually me. I've been an addict and dude you sound like an addict

I am an addict, without the stimulants I become a complete mess - I'm absolutely dependent. It's not withdrawal though, I've been absolute mess ever since I can remember, even before school began, and only the stimulants made me less of a mess. I had entire years I spent laying down, decaying - against my will.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#115

Post by hombre_fatal »

aquajet wrote: post #78
xvector wrote: post #6

Only a matter of time before we are expected to take drugs to be better at our jobs.

There's a web comic about something like this: https://www.powernapcomic.com/ . The story is set in a world where the majority of people take a drug that eliminates the need for sleep, but the main character is allergic? to it so suffers a "handicap" for being what we would call normal.

Great one. I was looking for that the other week but could not for the life of me google it, having forgotten its name.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#117

Post by lm28469 »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #21
xvector wrote: post #6

Only a matter of time before we are expected to take drugs to be better at our jobs.

We're all on caffeine already and no one is clutching pearls over it. How is taking harder drugs any different other than in effectiveness?

True, I drink a beer a day so why not snort a line of coke instead, they're both drugs, right ? Or heroin for that matter, they're all the same thing obviously

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#118

Post by bserge »

diegocg wrote: post #103
bserge wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the dozen thoughts present in your head every waking second? How do you recover when you get distracted in the middle of work and can't get right back to it? How do you even do the planning itself when that task is just one of the ten or so that your brain thinks should be done right now?

I have never had ADHD, but I used to have a lot of problems to concentrate on class and while studying. My (perhaps naive) idea about my problem these days is that we just train our brain to be distracted. I have tried to fix it by applying deep work techniques (get rid of distractions, plan what I'm going to do, plan the breaks, make sure to eat/drink, etc). Basically I try to train myself (in a very Pavlovnian way)…

I've tried pretty much everything aside from prescription stimulants (can't get them)... The only things that work is some stuff I can get without prescription (tolerance is a bitch, though) and exercise.

Even after exercising, I feel good but I still can barely concentrate on anything, I have to always bring my attention back "manually", for lack of a better word.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#119

Post by yowlingcat »

billjings wrote: post #106
sillysaurusx wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on adderall since I was 17. I'm 32 now. Almost more of my life has been spent on it than off it. I've been productive in a variety of ways. Some examples are listed on my patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shawwn but I feel silly bragging about comparatively minor accomplishments in ML. But I know for a fact that without adderall, I wouldn't have done a damn thing. I've tried for a few months. Shrugged and we…

But I know for a fact that without adderall, I wouldn't have done a damn thing. I've tried for a few months. Shrugged and went back. There's an underlying assumption here: that the medication either makes things better, or makes things worse. It may have different effects on different axes, but it has those effects while it is active, and they go away once the drug is metabolized. This way of looking at things makes…

> type 2 effects do exist, and that the crossover is something like two years. That means that getting off them requires one to put up with two years of being worse off than one was on the medication.

Very nice, nuanced analysis and sadly one I can relate to almost 100%. It was really hard to let go of it but I had to for the sake of my sanity. The side effects were getting too dramatic and long-term to ignore.

Re: Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]

#120

Post by yowlingcat »

bserge wrote: post #89
emteycz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use stimulants to cope with my ADHD. The problem is that without it my mind - a bright one - goes absolutely blank. It actively refuses to cooperate unless what I want to do is extremely interesting. Without the stimulants I feel like a train cart being taken to a different direction by the rail tracks, pushed or pulled against its will by the train. I was unable to go clean my teeth, eat, or clean my flat; and I d…

Yeah, at the core we're still just animals. Our consciousness just runs inside the brain and tries its best to control the hardware/wetware. Some are more successful at it than others. Personally, I want a refund heh

> Personally, I want a refund heh

You find the right line and I'm right behind you, buddy.

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