Why not throw it all out, watch porn and write patches for amaroK all day like I did today?
I can understand when you're pulling a lot of weight for a short time doing incredible things, but continuous pointless activity is a thing I strongly resent.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
If there was a good-enough guarantee against unforeseen side effects, I'd be all over these drugs. I'm non-religious, so in my view, the more I can get done before I bite it the better. If I could remove my need for sleep entirely without side effect, you can bet your ass I will.
> "but continuous pointless activity is a thing I strongly resent."
So... wanking and writing patches is an extremely purposeful activity? More so than studying history or whatever the hell else people do while hopped up on neuroenhancers?
Hobbies are fine but sleep is a very good thing indeed. And having three hobbies at once means low efficiency and mediocre results.
Take e.g. language. Odds are against you. You don't have people speaking that language around all the time. You're not surrounded by texts in that language. You do boring homework and it's like you're carrying water in a sieve.
I learned English by not learning it. I had to read various texts because that's how you program, surf the web and play games, and eventually I could read in English at the same speed as in my native tongue. Recently I tried to learn Korean and it's now on hold. I had a half year of courses and some audio lessons, but I lack discipline and therefore my progress is zero.
As for history: if it's a map of dates to event descriptions then it's a pretty boring thing indeed, and if it's a mental model of how people lived NNN years ago then you can't build it by busy loop studying. You have to think, contemplate and compare a lot. Watching Rome series with your wife gets you more in your long term memory than a bookful of words and also helps your personal life.
Only because you don't have the time to do all of them justice. But imagine if you could create the time.
Sleep is only important in our present state - if there was a way to remove the need for sleep, then it becomes pretty pointless. I would very willingly remove the need to sleep - it's not as if I derive some kind of enjoyment from it besides feeling rested. If I can be rested and ready-to-go without sleep, all the better.
> "You have to think, contemplate and compare a lot. Watching Rome series with your wife gets you more in your long term memory than a bookful of words and also helps your personal life."
Yes, and how much extra contemplation, research, and comparison can you achieve if you took your 7-8 hours of sleep each night and dedicated them to study? What if, instead of going to work in the day time, you work during the night and spend your days going out there and doing feet-on-ground research on a historical topic?
As a coder, the prospect of removing sleep entirely is extremely tantalizing. Much of my work can be done in the middle of the night, and having days completely free opens up limitless opportunities for personal growth.
If you had more time in a day, how is it different from having more days?
Why do you think that you don't contemplate while sleeping or being about to? I do, a lot.
If you would not sleep it means dropping a vital link in your information processing chain.
After reading a list of symptoms, I clearly have it. But it's a part of my I! How would anybody take meds aimed agains a vital part of their self?
Last regular go-to-the-office job I had there was no end to the number of people who would proudly declare how ADD they were. I think it was a roundabout (and ironically commonplace) way to say, "Look at me! I'm so creative."
I finally decide that the way to tell if someone really did have ADD was to note how often they seemed so cheerful about it.
Prescribe meds against it, even.
Have you ever been driving on the highway, and found yourself struggling, I mean really struggling, to pay attention to the damned road, because it was too boring and your brain kept deciding to redirect your attention to everything else on the off chance it was more interesting? Knowing that if you don't pay attention you could die, yet having to fight to look out the windshield?
ADD is not about a lack of attention, it's about inappropriate attention. Sometimes that's a wonderful thing. Sometimes, though, you really do have to pay attention to something even when your brain has other plans.
BTW, schizophrenia and major clinical depression might also be considered "a vital part of [the] self" but not everything you're born with is a 100% good thing.
People taking brain drugs need to weigh the pros and cons.
If you're happy with whatever chemical soup is naturally in your skull, more power to you. Other folks might need some seasoning.
But I am unable to watch movies without company because I will immediately switch tasks, either physically on my PC or mentally, focusing on something else. And I annoy everybody who I watch movies with by commenting things we see because this switch helps to flush temporary boredom.
I didn't lose jobs because I happen to be fairly fit to those.
Version control systems and command line histories help greatly.
When I need to write a sizable chunk of code: I might spend a hour or two surfing the web, but when I finally push myself in I get into the zone that Joel described without much problems.
Bonus points: Being ADHD, I'm able to switch tasks and spend a few minutes doing another task without leaving the zone! Resuming without productivity loss. And I absolutely neverming talking, I can talk and be in the zone at the same time.
Why would you need to be calm and focused at the same time? It's either calm and mind wandering or focused and active, isn't it?
In a quite fucked up society, everything seems to be used to become more fucked up. Perhaps all these activites are just a way to dispel the fear of death, that you have to get the most out of this one life.