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Comment by crate_barre | Hacker News Reader

I can’t see how you can do anything other than micro-dose cannabis (small hits or low dosage edibles). You just get too high to be productive.

But I’m very interested to see if low dosages help.

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This is maybe pendantic but there are different types of productivity. If I really need to get one thing done, it does no favors to be stoned. But if you just want to learn, experiment, explore, I find it extremely useful in keeping myself patient and receptive.

I learn languages in very much sober place, but learning linux I can be stoned, and maybe it helps?

Also if your in this space at all, you just need to modify Hemingway's advice: commit stoned, but rebase sober!

That’s quite true. I’ve sat through a couple lectures/learning tutorials with some wine and managed fine (was more fun).

Taking the edge off is a strategy that works well in moderation since often procrastination is a phenomenon where fear and anxiety can be inhibiting.

Stigma is one of the reasons experimentation has such a bad rap.

That depends. A lot of people who say you "just get too high" often have a super low tolerance, and they are smoking enough to get shit faced. If you smoke frequently and only do a puff, trust me, not everybody gets as high as you do with your one edible a month. I work at a top tech company smoking before work, it really only relaxes me at this point, however I smoked weed since 14.

I will certainly confess my tolerance sucks, but we are effectively talking about the same end result. To get a useful high, we need just the right functional amount of buzz. The quantity is obviously different for everyone, but the goal is the same.

Anecdotally, I’ve found that when I’m stumped on a section of code, a micro dose, coupled with working on something else, _can_ speed my normal process of “walking away from a problem for a bit.” But yeah, exceeding a small amount just makes me code slower.

edit: originally omitted “something else”

I've had the same experience. It forces me out of that obsessive debugging loop and gets me thinking about something else for a while. Though I'm sure there are plenty of other activities that could accomplish the same thing.

for me, cannabis is only useful for sleep and sometimes blank canvas thinking.

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