this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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I haven’t read it all yet, but so far he doesn’t seem to recognise the diminishing returns of increasing focus. It took about a year of it before I realised I was regretting things I’d spent days on because I was too focus blocked.
It’s an aspect of medicated adhd that always makes me feel like I’m in simulated focus. Last thing I would expect to be beneficial to someone with healthy ability to stay on task.
That drug science webpage that PJ Coffey linked above notes that:
They're specifically referring to recreational amphetamine use here, I think. Needing to use a substance just to make you feel normal? Needing to use higher and higher doses of the same substance to feel the same effect? Aren't those the classic symptoms of addiction, and the drivers of the negative behaviours people associate with addiction?
I might be anhedonic because I've been using methylphenidate for ADHD since 1992, but I've always been somewhat anhedonic. To paraphrase Maria Bamford "Some people really love life. I've always been on the fence." The question "what do you do for fun" has always been a bit difficult for me.
Of course it's also hard to find pleasure in many things if you can't stay with them long enough for the pleasure to really develop.
It's interesting but maybe my original message was a bit vague. I shouldn't say anything about my adderall experiences without clearly stating that it was my experience. I've never felt like the medicine had a hold on me. I moved to France 7 years ago and it's not legal here, so I've used less potent alternatives without issue.
My main point was that the desired outcome when I agreed to take the first prescription was focus and it certainly delivered that. For me, it delivered something that feels like a binary interpretation of what focus is. It's on or off, and when it's on it can't be turned off. Which is very different from my interpretation of evolutionary focus which does a great job of filtering for distractions worth paying attention to.
With that in mind, my indicator for usage being problematic would be if it were frequently taken without a clear need to get something done.