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Comment by b7r6 | Hacker News Reader

I've been diagnosed with ADHD 4 times by 4 separate qualified clinicians and stimulant medication undoubtedly makes me more effective, so asked and answered I guess.

But I sort of philosophically struggle with the "disorder" bit of it. I live in a box with a glass wall facing other boxes with glass walls and type into a computer screen any time that I'm not actively going to the gym or doing something outdoors becuase the default thing I do is try to create enough material prosperity to exist.

This seems like something that would have a caveman climbing the walls, which is roughly how I feel about the glass box / computer screen routine when I'm not on ADHD medication.

Is is "neurotypical" to be perfectly at ease spending hours hunched in front of a screen under artifical light in order to eat, or is it "neurotypical" to be fantasizing that the pool cue next to my monitor would fly pretty straight if a lion walked through the door?

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I've long fantasized what the story of "Grog, the hunter-gatherer with ADHD" would look like. It's... not pretty.

- Stepping on a branch while hunting because of a fractal pattern in the nearby tree.

- Get drop-kicked by a puma because they spent too much time looking at the ground while trying not to break a branch while hunting.

- Getting distracted and missing their ability to ambush prey.

- Their spear breaking because of a lack of maintenance.

- Spending weeks trying to improve their spear and forgetting to eat/sleep/drink regularly.

- Poisoning themselves/another because they started glossing over the details while picking mushrooms.

Control over concentration has never been solely a modern day requirement.

I think this is a misclassification of ADHD. Well at least mine. I tend to notice everything and be aware of everything with very little tunnel vision and I think it would work to my advantage if, and humongous if, I also didn't have a fear of any flying insect because I can't tune them out. Almost everything you seem to be describing is a tunnel vision. And almost everything you're describing there is something that I see neurotypical people have issues with that I have to redirect them until them to focus on things that I should have trouble focusing on. But again that's maybe me because I was diagnosed really early and I as a survival mechanism overcompensated my focus in a way because throughout my entire life everyone was telling me I wasn't paying attention when I clearly was so I had to prove it to everyone that I was paying attention to everything all the time.

Also my spear would be really well maintained and that is because I'm trying to improve it when I know there is nothing around and I would want to be ready for when there is a puma around and I would also be excited to try to want to test it to see if the improvements I made on the spear were actually improvements. Lol

I don't know if that would match up with reality. I know several people who have ADHD and are hunters. They seem to find it very easy to focus on the hunt and all of the associated preparation and activities.

Not hunting, but it matches my experience with wildlife photography. I can spend hours carefully stalking animals because it feeds my dopamine imbalance. My distractions aren't random, because my brain is primed to respond to specific sounds and movements in my environment. Compare that to a sterile office where my mind wanders because that stimulation can't be found anywhere.

“Neurotypical” has to do with ability to function at a fundamental level. If neurotypical person is interested in something, they are likely to be fine doing that thing. But they can also chose not to do it.

Someone with ADHD has trouble controlling attention. To be a disorder, this needs to be severe enough to limit you.

There is a significant overlap in behavior with neurotypical and neurodivergent people. What separates them is what is driving that behavior.

I probably have some wiggle room on the details, but the combination of my skills, experience, and the macro economy make me roughly a "knowledge worker". I'm interested as hell in all kinds of things, but if I "choose" not to do the "knowledge worker" thing I'm looking at a tough situation pretty quickly.

I'm sure you mean well by your comment but I'd be more interested in what you think about the broader theme of "knowledge work as a path to high achievement denominated in society's rewards" than whether or not I personally have a bunch of agency about wanting rewards.

I can take a stab at that. :)

If we take the caveman argument at face value, the moment humanity started farming, we diverged for what we were evolved for.

In that time, the labor required for survival declined and more people had time to focus on more than mere survival. This was the start of societies and a class of people who ruled farmers.

Looking at it this way, knowledge work has existed in one form or another for millennia. Anyone who wrote books would qualify. Many of these people worked in organizations far more powerful that the laboring classes.

The Industrial Revolution accelerated this and today, we’re looking at ultimate result of that development.

For myself, I’m happy to participate in society’s benefits. I find knowledge work satisfying.

Besides, in a hunter/gatherer society, I’d have been a shaman, the original knowledge worker. ;)

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