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Comment by ilaksh | Hacker News Reader

I love my caffeine. But caffeine is an addictive, highly profitable substance. So advertising it and trying to promote it as somehow having real health benefits is widespread.

I would not be surprised if routine consumption of caffeine was at least mildly detrimental to health.

I think some drugs have managed to gain a special place in our society . Advertising and lobbying warps our perception of these drugs.

I even saw a comment in this thread suggesting that if caffeine has a prolonged affect on you, then you have some unique genetics and it's essentially your problem, not the drug. Similar to the narrative about alcohol. It's interesting to compare that attitude to the way illegal drugs that can't advertise or lobby are viewed.

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> highly profitable substance

Yes and no. I've been a fan of caffeine pills for years. They are very cheap, readily available (portable), and most importantly to me offer completely consistent dosing. With caffeine pills I'm able to ensure I stay below the FDA recommended maximum daily intake of 400 mg (worst case). Another fun bonus - when a physician asks you what your caffeine intake is and you respond in milligrams they look at you funny.

Otherwise I completely agree with you. Every time I'm at an airport, etc I marvel at how many caffeine addicts are standing in line at Starbucks for however long ready to drop $10 (or whatever it costs) for a beverage with a completely unknown and highly variable dose of what is fundamentally a drug. Doubly so for variations that have other negative things like adulterations and calories.

Caffeine is a drug and should be treated as such. If you were taking any other drug (over the counter or RX) would anyone tolerate "today it's 100 mg, tomorrow it's 400 mg"?

caffeine pills are awesome for the reasons you described, but I do find that coffee "feels" different as a result of the Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (probably). coffee feels more pushy and dirty - more peripheral nervous system stimulation

My wife uses caffeine pills on occasion but I prefer energy drinks most mornings alongside something like toast. Obviously more expensive but the drink has a slower come-up (likely due to the extra water and food). Whenever I do take pills instead, I'm in a rush so I'm not drinking more water than necessary and definitely not eating anything. I like the Celsius drink mixes since I can put one in my water bottle and dose slowly over the course of the morning but they aren't that much cheaper than buying a case of cans. Coffee is definitely the cheapest energy drink available and I suppose instant coffee is probably the quickest and cheapest. I like coffee but I'm not a huge coffee drinker. I would love to be able to buy a jar of instant energy drink of a inoffensive flavor and be able to toss a couple scoops in my bottle. I've tried to do this with caffeine pills but the caffeine powder doesn't mix well with cold water.

I completely understand what you mean by intake over time.

Caffeine pills are more like take a pill, wait X minutes, and then get the sensation of “oh, there it is” as it all “hits” at once.

There are more expensive time release variants but I don’t have much experience with them.

I just take the 200mg tabs, crack them into quarters and take the bits over time.

A quarter tab with a glass of cold water should hit slower than the same amount of caffeine pre-dissolved in an espresso. Likely matches up with a quickly downed coffee.

From time to time, I put a tab in a sodastream seltzer/sodawater (and wow does it make the bubbles release!)

> I like the Celsius drink mixes since I can put one in my water bottle and dose slowly over the course of the morning but they aren't that much cheaper than buying a case of cans.

In addition to your caffeine, you get a “healthy” dose of synthetic sugar (aka Sucralose) [1] and other crap added by the drink company to market it as “healthy”

Personally, I can’t stand those drinks. Every “0 calorie, 0 sugar” drink is nearly identical in ingredients. Some use different forms of synthetic sugar. The taste is off putting.

Sure, there _might_ not be a glycemic spike but at what cost that has not been studied?

- what’s the impact to gut microbiome?

- what’s the impact to other human physiology? (Increased cancer risk?)

I’ll take my risk with real sugar and just limit the consumption to very sparingly.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37256996/

> caffeine addicts are standing in line at Starbucks

Have you considered that those people queuing outside Starbucks might be drinking coffee because they enjoy the whole experience? Caffeine pills are an absurdity to me because I only drink coffee for the taste. Why suffer the unwanted effects of a drug without the enjoyment that it’s supposed to come with?

i think you are bitting the dust of getting used to the taste of a drug, just like people who drink wine, beer etc.

these are literally toxic & you get a natural avoidance response the 1° time you try, with very rare cases of acceptance without repulse

I never understood the acquired taste thing. If I don’t like the taste the first time I try something then there won’t be a second time. Why acquire a taste for something you didn’t originally like?

For coffee, for me personally: because it wasn't that hard to acquire. It took me like 2 cups of black coffee to get used to the bitterness, and the rest of the flavor is delicious.

Sometimes the first time you try something the new experience can be overwhelming. You can focus on a specific part of an experience, for example the bitterness of a drink and quickly decide you don't like it. It can also be that the first time you try something you are in a bad mood or negatively predisposed towards something, eg. your parents may have said something tastes bad while growing up and you haven't tried it yourself.

Multiple tries of something can lead to different experiences by tweaking different factors.

In the end, some things we just don't like, but one try is not necessarily a good sample.

I’m specifically talking about taste and not experiences in general. I don’t like the taste of something I don’t try it again. I haven’t found it limiting and as I said I don’t understand people drinking coffee enough to acquire a taste for it. I know people do this and they end up liking coffee. I just don’t understand that mentality though. It’s not for me but clearly is for some people.

Brains find familiar things comforting and "good". Brains can also find brand new things, especially experiences that have nothing in common with anything we've encountered in the past, as "bad".

This applies to almost everything. Music is a good example, someone who has only grown up listening to folk music will likely find death metal incredibly hard to listen to, but they may find folk metal a little bit relatable.

Same goes for art, when the classical artists first came out with super realistic portraits, many people found them ugly and repulsive, because they were so different than what came before. Then when things got more abstract, the same reaction occurred.

This is also why people may not like a new song until they have heard it a bunch of times, then it can become one of their favorites! It lights up the "I know this thing" pathways in the brain.

Well food is the same. People from cultures that don't eat cheese are not likely to enjoy a super stinky cheese to start with, but you can likely give them a mozzarella or a super mild Brie and they'll be fine with it (possibly after trying it a few times). Then after their brain gets used to "this is brie cheese, and it is pretty good" they may end up enjoying a slightly more aged/funkier brie cheese, and after a few years down that path they can be eating a wide variety of soft cheeses.

This is why trying food again is worthwhile.

As it pertains to food and drink I don’t agree with or understand repeatedly trying something I don’t like. It’s good that you find that it works for you but it doesn’t for me. Cabbage makes me vomit. I don’t like it and will never again knowingly try it. Once was enough.

> As it pertains to food and drink I don’t agree with or understand repeatedly trying something I don’t like

Let me give an example.

My wife used to hate lamb. An American style lamb roast[1] was atrocious to her.

Then one day at a friends house we had super thin cut highly seasoned grilled cumin lamb. It is a completely different taste than a lamb roast. She liked it.

So after a few times of having that dish, that she was open to trying some other lamb dishes, but always highly seasoned and cut into small chunks. These other dishes she did not like before, but now she found that she did.

Her brain had adopted the idea that "small pieces of highly seasoned lamb taste good".

> I don’t like it and will never again knowingly try it.

There is plenty of horrible cabbage out there. Like, awful stuff that I would not want to eat.

But a Korean kimchi cabbage is a lot different than a Vietnamese pickled cabbage which is a lot different than sauerkraut which is a lot different that cabbage fried in bacon fat.

Seriously if you are a person who likes bacon, try some thin sliced cabbage fried in bacon fat. I know people who hate sauerkraut, but who love crispy fried cabbage.

It also depends on the type of cabbage, and there are lots of types. Different types of cabbage are as different as grapefruits are to oranges, if someone hates grapefruit they should still give oranges a try. And if someone hates lemon juice they should still try orange popsicles! (and maybe that person hates all citrus fruits equally, but they won't know until they try more than 1!)

But I also have food that I just cannot eat w/o puking it right back out. Mushrooms are my weakness, but only certain types of mushrooms. Pretty much every type of mushroom used in western cuisine makes me sick, but I am fine eating enoki mushrooms or wood ear mushrooms, and I'm glad I gave both a try despite my vomiting reaction to button/portobello mushrooms!

[1] TBF American style lamb roasts are a waste of a perfectly good lamb.

I used to be this way, but then I realized two flawed assumptions. Both related to each other:

1. Some % of the time, my first experience will not be like the others.

2. I will not be the same person the next time I try something.

If your strategy works for you and you don't feel limited, that's great! Many people do feel limited if they only ate things they liked the first time. I am very happy that I eat bell peppers, onions, yoghurt, coffee, and (less happy due to calories) beer. If I only ate what I liked when I first tried it as a kid, I would be eating a lot of cheese pizza, candy, soda, and ice cream.

If people lived by that there would be a lot of adults who never want to eat anything other than chicken nuggets and mac 'n cheese.

For me, the biggest example is sushi. I didn't like it all the first time mostly because of the texture of the raw fish. Eating it with somebody who knew a lot about it changed everything for me. Now going to a great sushi restaurant is one of my very favorite things to do.

I really disliked beer until I was about 25 years old. I kept occasionally trying it, maybe because my girlfriend liked beer, and one day, to my surprise, found a particular beer I really liked. Trying new craft beers is now a bit of a passion, and have had over 250 different beers (I avoid buying repeats [unless extremely good] or a multipack)

I wonder how long my son would have survived on an exclusive McDonalds french fry diet.

Probably to 53: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/24/entertainment/morgan-spurlock...

I doubt your son did not like the taste of any other foods beside McDonalds french fries. I don’t understand your point.

You're absolutely right, there was also apple juice as a fallback.

Maybe it's cheaper or has health benefits?

It’s like asking ‘why practice an instrument you can’t already play?’.

If you only try each thing once and give up, you’ll get stuck in a local flavour maximum.

Basically, what I’m saying is: it’s perfectly possible that the best experiences you can have are those that require a certain amount of less-pleasant experiences preceding them. You can stick with the medium-level experiences and you’ll never try anything bad twice, but you’ll also never discover things that might change your life.

Preparation of a dish, varietals, and many other things (such as setting, accompaniments, etc) can impact taste.

Just because you don’t like something one time doesn’t mean you wouldn’t in the future. You’d miss out on many great experiences this way.

I got into fermented foods to improve my health, and quite a few of these are acquired tastes for me (and surely also for lots of other people). Milk kefir, water kefir, kombucha, tempeh, koji, natto, these things challenge the taste palate of someone who grew up in the Western world without exposure to fermented foods (e.g. a strong sourness to foods and drinks). I grew to appreciate and in some cases love them because I know what they do for my health. Nowadays I regularly crave fermented foods, but when I started taking them I had to force myself to get accustomed to them.

Coffee is one of my very favorite things in the whole world and I don't ever remember a time where I didn't like it. Right from the start I've always preferred it black - no flavors or dairy.

Alcohol is a little different. Beer I loved from my first sip when I was probably 5 or 6. Whisky, gin, vodka, etc... I mostly didn't like until I learned a little bit more about the drinks and the flavors that alcohol can carry (it's why cooking with alcohol can be amazing).

My life with vegetables is similar. As a kid I thought there was nothing more vile than broccoli and brussel sprouts. I thought tomatoes were gross and grapefruit was pure poison. As an adult, I've learned to love all that stuff.

Palates change.

i remember once @ my great grandad house taking half a cup of wine around my 7 y/o; didn't tasted awful at all but i was expecting Fanta Grape Soda and i was thirsty...

but yeah, palate differs when you grow up; now if it's because social influence or effects from the substance, i dunno? but on taste & food (which for me it's different than a toxic substance); bitter/sour is rarely pleasurable for first timers and i can't deny that i'm in love with right after starting to ferment my stuff :)

It's genetic.. kids prefer sweet things that are high calorie since they are growing. Also bitter things tend to be poisonous in the evolutionary sense.. As you age you lose taste buds that don't regenerate, probably as an adaptive trait to discover new food sources.

> Have you considered that those people queuing outside Starbucks might be drinking coffee because they enjoy the whole experience?

Not the OP, but to respond to your question I think that Starbucks is actually hitting its customers with a triple-whammy of caffeine, sugar, and fat that most brains can't resist addiction to. Are you sure they actually enjoy Starbucks coffee and not its addictive components?

> Are you sure they actually enjoy Starbucks coffee and not its addictive components?

That's the same thing. Enjoying the components of something is basically the definition of enjoying something.

Not OP but I generally only order black coffee when I go to Starbucks, so yes.

It's that triple-whammy plus the comfort of consuming the spell that Starbucks has woven for their customers.

I think for a lot of people buying a "special" coffee/thing at Starbucks squeezes that "I'm treating myself" gland just right.

Are you implying that every Starbucks customer is buying a frappechino?

Was a bit surprised to see that Cold Drinks Now Represent 75 Percent of Starbucks’ Sales. I am guessing most of these cold drinks contains an huge amount of sugar and other sweeteners.

Are they ordering decaf?

Yes, sometimes.

Many people enjoy both the effects and the taste/experience of drinking coffee.

It is my understanding that decaf coffee is typically made from poor quality beans, because consumers typically expect decaf to cost as much as regular coffee even though the decaffeination process means an additional cost.

For decades I only drank decaf and only in the past few years I have replaced my morning cup with regular coffee because it's so much easier (and cheaper!) to find good beans.

In other words, there are good reasons to consume caffeinated coffee besides an addiction to caffeine.

I make coffee at home and I always have decaf beans on hand. Sometimes I just want to:

a) Go through a process of making espresso (yay coffee toys^Wtools)

b) Just want to drink some coffee because of its taste

I eye-ball how much caffeine I consume and cut-off myself waaaay before the guideline and 10 hours before target bedtime. Given that caffeine half life is about 5 hours it works out perfectly. However, if still want coffee due to any of the reasons above - I make decaff.

Overly competitive people over-optimizing everything. Why waste the time drinking a cup of coffee when you could just swallow a pill? The only enjoyment these people get are from beating others. They're not capable of appreciating a cup of coffee, or they think they're too busy to.

One of them is reading this comment right now and thinking about adding "appreciate coffee" to their calendar.

This seems too defensive/aggressive. The pill guy made his case very well I think, he wanted the benefits of caffeine in a consistent dosage and pills fit that purpose. His motivation is inherently different from someone who wants to enjoy a cup of coffee, but having a different goal doesn't mean your goal is better or worse than someone else's. Nobody's "beating" anyone, and "these people" certainly don't only get enjoyment from beating others.

I agree with you about the experience, but nobody who really likes coffee goes to Starbuck for the taste:-). They are really addicted

At the airport though it's not hard to believe Starbucks might actually be the best option.

we used to take a 10m walk to a SB just to gtfo the office, to have a walk after the hour+ commute, to people watch, and to BS with the coworkers. it just also happened to be a great source of hot sugar that went well with the baileys. addiction to having a mental break from the stresses, yes, but in no way addicted to the caffine (nor sugar)

It might be true that they're addicted to caffeine, but it's likely also true that they're addicted to Starbucks

Well with a place like Starbucks, they might be addicted to the sugar.

You do have a point there.

Starbucks is only a little worse than boutique coffee shops in my experience, but they are fast, conveniently located, open earlier, open later, pay their employees well (for a coffee shop) and pay for their employees' educations.

Their coffee is significantly worse tasting (especially if you drink it black, as I often do). With milk it’s perfectly acceptable, especially if you go for their ‘blonde’ roast.

I totally agree about opening times! Starbucks is often the only place open after 5 or so.

If I get coffee, it's cold brew with almond milk, which tastes pretty different, or espresso drinks, like lattes or cappuccinos.

I think true coffee lovers like decaf (lets them drink more coffee)

hard to get good decaf though, it seems to me like trying to buy diet donuts.

Decaf that tastes like caf would be great. Unfortunately it seems to be impossible. Or at least I haven’t found it yet. The standard processes used to remove the caffeine seem to also remove enough of the other compounds to make it noticeably more watery and thin.

It’s possible, but very difficult.

The problem isn’t really the removal of compounds, as far as I can tell, but moreso the change to the bean composition itself. Because the porosity increases so much roasting the decaf beans is much more difficult. Additionally, beans grind differently due to their porosity and brittleness.

Basically, this means both the roaster and the grinder of the beans (and preparer of the coffee) need to change their behaviors slightly.

Then, at the end of it, the coffee stales much faster so it’ll go bad faster.

Interesting. I do need to try some more decaf from roasters who know what they’re doing…

I roast everything myself so I can’t really comment on roasters, but I’d suggest looking for Swiss water processed decaf. Tends to cost more… but I think there’s an associated prestige that makes people care more about the bean quality if you pay for expensive processing.

Caffeine tastes bitter. This is why decaf has to taste different. If you start with a naturally bitter coffee then you can make decaf taste more like what people expect coffee to be. This is my theory on why Starbucks decaf tastes as good as it does.

This is Hackernews. Do things because you enjoy them? How can you enjoy life if you don't measure, optimize, and min-max every little thing, and write a little Rust program to track all the data you can post to Show HN? All food is fuel, nothing more, don't treat it as some experience to be savored.

A bit of an exaggerated contrarian comment, sure.

But at the same time sometimes it is a little bit like that - some might like the consistency of caffeine pills, they sure were helpful for me. Others just won't like the taste of coffee that much, I know that I usually go for something with lactose free milk and sugar, otherwise it's a bit unpalatable and too bitter. I don't necessarily have a good taste in coffee anyways, the instant stuff is good enough for me.

Similarly, I'd like to replace maybe 10-20% of my food intake or something with powdered fibre and protein (or something else) to hopefully feel a little less hungry without resorting to high calorie options, because right now I'm getting fat and the hunger I feel is straight up stronger than my willpower at times. Vegetables alone or other healthy snacks do absolutely nothing for that, sucks to have to deal with that. Years ago I had no problem with "starving" myself when needed and maintaining whatever weight felt good, now I no longer have that ability as much.

On the other hand, calling people who enjoy the taste or the experience of getting a fancy drink "caffeine addicts" is unkind and we'd do perfectly fine without belittling others. If they like their fancy drinks, that's cool!

Well, I don’t actually like the taste of coffee and really drink it because of the caffeine effect.

I started drinking coffee at 26 because I got so tired after lunch that I almost passed out on my keyboard at work. This disappeared with the coffee intake. After years (I’m 42) I still don’t like the taste and don’t drink it at night or on weekends/holidays.

OT: I used to get that too until I switched to keto. I used to have tuna mayo sandwiches for lunch. Then I cut out the sandwich (I.e. bread) and just had tuna mayo and no longer got that after lunch low and stayed fuller for longer. It was quite amazing to me that I was fuller from eating less. You don't need to go full keto but try cutting out high GI carbs at lunch and see if it makes a difference.

You also get fuller eating less as you age.

If you like the taste, just drink decaf. There's really no reason to ingest caffeine if you just like coffee.

Also chicory is pretty good. I thought I hated it because the few times I tasted it it was just cheap industrial chicory.

In fact, once you find a nice quality brand, it’s actually a delicious coffee replacement.

Not really the same taste (but a nice one too) but it sounds like the likeliness of the color and of the bitterness does the job of tricking my brain into considering it’s the same thing, at least "emotionally".

Now I just like them both and I can swap them when I want.

It's possible that your taste for coffee developed at least partially because it contains dopaminergic narcotic inside. "He doesn't like cocaine, he just likes the smell" (from the song Too much Yayo by The Streets).

That's how drugs work, they throw a kind of spell on you, so that, from your trippy perspective, you think that you're not addicted.

This is my opinion about caffeine pills too. Cheap, convenient, effective, and safer against overdose than coffee (in one hand, a box of pills is probably lethal amount, but in the other hand, at least for me, it is much easier to control the amount of caffeine using pills, than using coffee).

At work, I drink coffee, decaf, black.

If I'm going to a coffee shop to drop $7, it's not because I'm an addict, it's because I want to splurge on a sweet dessert.

I also sometimes buy ice cream at the grocery, for the same reason.

I'm assuming you eat nothing but bread and water, unadulterated by anything that makes food delicious.

Caffeine pills. Woah... so I guess I knew they existed but didn't actually know what their purpose was, but what you say about consistency is totally on the mark. I measure everything in my coffee process, and I'm lucky in Melbourne that so many cafes do too, but yes - I avoid most cafes that look like they have average and dark beans because of the wild inconsistencies and most certantly burned taste.

So do you take them to maintain alertness as anyone else would with coffee, to boost nootropics, or none of the above? Sorry for being nosey but this is interesting to me, because if I'm away from my machine and going to an unknown place then I take my portable handheld espresso machine and already ground beans, but a simple tablet sounds WAY more convenient!!

most people at starbucks are addicted to sugar and not caffeine

I, like many others, drink a considerable amount of coffee for the taste. I typically drink decaf so it is difficult to ascribe the habit to addiction.

I must be the real sucker. I've stood in line at the cafe just to get steamed milk!

You’re missing out on the phytochemicals that contribute to the positive effects of drinking tea or coffee. You’re getting all the bad (and good) of chronic caffeine stimulation, with none of the plant medicine benefits that tea and coffee drinkers receive.

>If you were taking any other drug (over the counter or RX) would anyone tolerate "today it's 100 mg, tomorrow it's 400 mg"?

afaik melatonin. Not super happy about it but it is what it is, giving it up has a high cost too.

> caffeine addicts are standing in line at Starbucks

I believe Starbucks is selling sugar under the guise of caffeine.

If you buy caffeine pills as a stimulant, you are no better than those "addicts" at Starbucks at the airport.

I like coffee because it's a warm beverage, it tastes nice and of course there is the added benefit of the caffeine in the morning. That's about it.

There's no way I would be getting close to 400mg of caffeine and doing so by pills is something I marvel at.

I would say the majority of people drinking a normal cup of coffee (standard latte) a couple of times a day aren't getting anywhere near 400mg of caffeine. One shot of espresso is lucky to have 80mg of caffeine in it.

"... I marvel at how many caffeine addicts are standing in line at Starbucks for however long ready to drop $10 (or whatever it costs) for a beverage with a completely unknown and highly variable dose of what is fundamentally a drug ..."

You mean, sugar ?

A vast majority of the "coffee" drinkers you witness are consuming something that is indistinguishable from an ice-cream sunday.

Would that they were just consuming caffeine ... they would be much, much better off.

Anecdotal: I gave up my caffeine when it got the point that I was consuming 3-4 cups a day to combat persistent sleep deprivation and I noticed my stomach no longer would cooperate with it. Immediately, I began having dreams again which I hadn't had in years and didn't notice when they disappeared. I had bad headaches that tapered off after about 2-3 months. I awake usually refreshed, and my sleep patterns are much more regular, my body no longer can deal with less than 7 hours of sleep and will complain to me if I try to get away with less. My experience was ultimately that caffeine kept me awake but not at my cognitive best. I think it only worked before because I was younger and I'm now middle-aged. My stomach, brain, and body are better without a doubt. I still have small glasses of tea every once in a while when I really miss a hot drink and a pick me up. Hope this helps anyone else considering.

Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions. If caffeine was involved in nearly all violent crime like alcohol is, we would think differently of it.

I would claim that for regular users of caffeine, it merely restores function to a baseline level.

While I don’t have hard evidence to support the idea, I believe this is highly variable between individuals.

I’m not a heavy coffee drinker, but I do have a cup in the mornings some time between 6:30-8:00. This makes it easy to stop as needed; there are some days where I skip it out of necessity (too busy), and occasionally I’ll go a weekend without it just to keep my tolerance in check. During these periods, I never experience adverse effects.

The main benefit I glean from coffee is not feeling awake, but notably improved ability to focus. In my experience, my baseline ability is just not as good; there’s no “bounce back” after extended periods of going without, it just stays somewhere between bad and average indefinitely.

I strongly suspect this manifests more in folks that consistently intake > 100mg per day. I used to regularly intake 200mg total across ~2 beverages (mostly because I just enjoyed the flavor), and suffered mild headaches if I skipped my schedule. I know others that start their day with 200mg in a single, quad shot beverage.

Everybody is different.

3 years ago I took a summer and then autumn off of caffeine; my intent was to quit and only use caffeine in "times of need". This would be an on-brand thing for me to do as a person, and something I wanted pretty bad. But after 4 full months without touching any caffeine, my mood/energy levels never returned or even really rebounded any further than they did after the first month. I'm just a different person with caffeine, even after I'm addicted/habituated/develop tolerance. Notably I have a lot more energy, and I'm not a high energy person to start with. This energy allows me to better take care of myself, exercise, and be social, all things that I struggle with in its absence.

From experience, I can function fine without caffeine, even under an acute withdrawal scenario. In fact, some of my greatest achievements were done without caffeine for one reason or another. Not having caffeine just makes those things more miserable in the moment, at least for me.

Possessing the GG variant of COMT rs4680 gene might explain this. Conversely, AA types might get overstimulated and irritable.

This makes me so tempted to get one of those whole genome tests. I had issues with anxiety from age 20 to 38. I was a regular drinker of coffee between the age 20 to 38. About a month after quitting I was finally able to yawn properly like I remember I was able to when I was young. Coffee overstimulates me I figure.

All stimulants enhance some functions to some degree, so that is a poor metric of value. Cocaine, for example, temporarily boosts intelligence, but consuming cocaine is not recommended.

Does cocaine temporarily boost intelligence? I thought it boosted the feeling of being intelligent.

It does. Intelligence is the capacity for learning potential and cocaine boosts the ability to retain and process learned sensory matter, even when sleepy. That is really the greatest appeal of that drug. Again, I strongly do not recommend reliance on any stimulants, especially powerful ones like cocaine.

Interesting can you cite a source?

I found this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2096405/ which shows a consistent improvement in tests, but the performance increase was only 4%. I'd be willing to guess that the improvement would be higher when sleepy/fatigued (up to a point!) since it would increase the alertness of the user, but I have never seen anything that suggests cocaine boosts the ability to retain information.

Anecdata here, but I met a person in university in the 90s who claimed:

1) they had access to really, really pure cocaine, and

2) they used it to study for tests.

If I recall correctly, they were only using cocaine for the studying, not the test taking, and that they had good recall on tests.

> Does cocaine temporarily boost intelligence? I thought it boosted the feeling of being intelligent.

For people who lack confidence or an ego, this may very well be the same thing.

Just the urge to prove myself got me far in life. Sometimes I clearly struggle more than others, especially when surrounded by extremely smart people at university, but at the end of the day I've gotten much further than those who capitulated at the very beginning, claiming they're not smart enough.

At this point I've taught things considered hard to a fair number of people, and those who give up for no objective reason at all vastly outnumber those who really (probably) can't do it. You can tell someone "it will probably take you twenty hours to understand this", and they'll still throw their hands in the air after one hour and declare they can't do it or just silently quit.

Being a quitter is as bad as being stupid. Worse, because it's also a waste.

So maybe instead of doing drugs, try to scrounge up some arrogance, confidence, pride, whatever it takes to make you hang in there.

There is a lot of wisdom in this comment. So many of the world’s most ‘accomplished’ people at first appear to have been born special and to be fundamentally different from the rest of us but usually aren’t; they simply got on with it and then persisted long enough to have great success. They didn’t let the little voice in their head that says they’re not as good as the others win — either because they consciously chose to fight it, or because they were lucky to be born without it at all. To that extent, some of us are born fundamentally special.

It’s so incredibly true that even if you tell someone something’s hard and it’ll take a while to get they’re still likely to give up too early and feel inferior for not ‘getting it’. This is why almost everyone (at least in the western world) thinks they “can’t do math”.

I've long believed most people can learn most things if they're willing (and able) to make the effort and have the right resources available to them.

When I left university, I started a job writing Android apps that required high-performance and low-level stuff, at the start I couldn't imagine it ever being "easy", I struggled at first to understand it all, and often wondered if I'd ever be good at it; but over time as I learned more and more of it, it got easier, then a few short years later I was a team lead, teaching others.

10+ years before this, as a child, I couldn't imagine understanding how to compile a driver for Linux and the dependencies and so on, I was tinkering with distros and reverse engineering/cracking software as a young teen, fast forward to now, I run Linux exclusively, write software targeting it exclusively and teach others as team lead (different company, different team, different role, different software, no longer client-side)

These are just two major examples that have affected my every day life, both of these things put me through immense frustration and took years to develop to "expert".

There have been others, but my take away was that I've done it before, I can always do it again, it gets a bit harder and a bit slower with age, but I've more experience underpinning anything I do try to learn (tech or otherwise) and am better at learning.

For me, it was all about proving myself, mostly to myself, and being unwilling to fail. These days, I pick and choose what it is if I don't believe I have the time or resources (or desire) to succeed, we don't have to be good at everything, just whats important; the aforementioned skills pay my bills, allow me and my family to live comfortably, etc. I could learn to play the piano (I still might), but I don't _need_ to.

While this is true for many people, and most of the people you'd interact with on HN or, possibly in your daily life, it is not true for all people.

High IQ correlations with life outcomes are usually pretty weak, but low IQ correlations with undesirable outcomes are very strong - I think smart people systematically underestimate how limiting it is to be not-smart.

No but increases focus

I remember having a look for papers relating to performance on cognitive tasks and caffeine, and not being able to find any high-quality studies that showed an improvement. Could you provide a source?

Cocaine would be interesting too, although I've never searched for papers about it.

I heard investment bankers rely on it from the 90s. How addictive it is?

Cocaine is less addictive than sugar and opium, but it is still considered highly addictive. I don't know how addictive.

A lot.

And what's "funny" for bankers is that the return on investment is clearly negative. It degrades your cognitive function over time, your nose if it is used by that route, your relations, etc

like every psychostimulant (caffeine as well and roughly to the same extent), short term low dose use has some positive cognitive impact, but it goes down with repeated use and/or increased doses.

in the end not really worth it if your objective is cognitive enhancement (and not talking about the societal impact in the zones of production, which at least with coffee you can control a little)

in my experience, not very addictive at all. But at the same time, I didn't have easy access to it, and I was already heavily addicted to amphetamines at the time, so maybe my experience isn't typical. But I was able to do some, wait a few days, do some more, etc. With amphetamines, If I had them, I was taking em all day every day.

Also when you do the math on what a coke habit costs to maintain, its mind boggling. I think that in and of its self prevents a lot of would-be coke heads from establishing a habit.

I’m curious, what do amphetamines feel like to you that makes them addictive?

For several months I took (extended release) dextroamphetamine and later lisdexamfetamine, because I was having a mental health crisis from a lifelong ignorance of ADHD(inattentive type), autism, and what was probably some sort of covid induced severe depression. This was in addition to Wellbutrin.

While I’ve not found them useful in regards to the ADHD, the amphetamines seemed to be highly effective antidepressants in my case.

The very first day I started, I felt something that wasn’t really euphoria, but more like a sense of wellbeing after months of daily spirals of passive suicidal ideation that would last for hours. But after that first day I basically felt no effects, other than not having depression. I didn’t feel good, I simply didn’t feel involuntarily bad anymore.

Other effects -I was able to find a small degree of self satisfaction after working out (with a trainer, or it would not have happened), rather than it being 100% suck during and after, with the only motivation being intellectual. It should be noted that working out had no observable benefit towards my depression. -I was somewhat more chatty if I had lapsed taking the pills and had started again. -I think it somewhat negatively affected late evening drowsiness and energy levels during the day (made me more prone to wanting naps around noon)

Eventually whatever was causing my underlying depression seemed to resolve, so I simply ceased taking the medications since there was simply no reason to continue. There is no desire to take my remaining pills, it’s just nice to have a tool known and available should I get another depression flare up. A blended mocha is far more tempting.

So I’m curious what amphetamine addiction feels like, what do they do for you that pulls at you?

When I take them, anything I do feels insanely gratifying. Its just euphoric. Like as soon as they kick in I feel like im on a big drop on a rollercoaster.

It goes away quick though, and gets replaced by a cadre of horrible side effects, which makes me just want more. They also make my mind race with ideas which excites me. They are never good and never go anywhere but the racing thoughts are thrilling.

Honestly cant describe why I was so impulsive with them. Like I knew they made me feel horrible on a longer time scale but I still ate them like m&ms.

No that explains it really well, thank you. While that exact sort of experience is alien to me (my capacity for happiness or excitement is generally very muted), thanks to analogous enough experiences I can definitely see how that could become uncontrollable if people have them at hand.

If someone gave me 2 pounds of gummi bears that were secretly caffeinated, I could see doing something similar to myself.

> Alcohol reduces functions, caffeine clearly enhances functions.

In occasional users this might be true, but is it true in regular users? Anecdotally, I hear far more people complaining about being completely unable to function (and I've often recognized that they're perceptibly out of it) until they've had their next cup of coffee than I have heard people talk about getting great productivity gains from it.

I don't use caffeine regularly in part to keep it available for when I really need it, and I have never once felt like I was lower functioning than my coworkers as a result—on the contrary, my energy levels seem to be far more stable throughout the workday.

> I hear far more people complaining about being completely unable to function (and I've often recognized that they're perceptibly out of it) until they've had their next cup of coffee than I have heard people talk about getting great productivity gains from it.

Unable to function == 0 productivity. How is getting over that not effecting productivity gains?

It depends on if some significant chunk of the population naturally can't function on a regular basis and caffeine solves that or if caffeine withdrawals cause someone to be unable to function until they get the next dose.

If it's withdrawals then caffeine is creating the problem that it later solves, which means that consuming it regularly is not a net productivity gain over not using or using rarely.

Caffeine doesn't enhance any function, it simply masks tiredness in the short term, at the cost of reduced quality of sleep.

The question is, does caffeine "clearly enhance" cognitive functions long-term.

Actually caffeine is a well known and widely studied performance enhancing drug, for example in endurance sports

If you haven’t done long-haul driving, you might think caffeine doesn’t enhance any function.

"cost of reduced quality of sleep" - very dependent on dosage and timing.

It is not clear that a boost to speed is always an enhancement. Really deep expression and learning often involves slowing down.

relevant: https://xkcd.com/323/

I think it is a matter of perception.

For example, lots of DUI type accidents are blamed on alcohol, but it might actually be sleep deprivation that is the most fundamental cause of the accident.

In a similar way, I wonder if similar sleep-related accidents or incidents could more properly have caffeine as a root cause (after it has worn off)

Spinach is also mildly detrimental to health. (Oxylates) Doesn’t mean you should think that it’s bad for you unless you have a problem with kidney stones.

Both black coffee and tea have several well documented health benefits.

Even caffeine in isolation can probably have benefits when used correctly.

People do joke about being dangerous without their morning coffee, but I have yet to see a coffee addict breaking into vehicles to score their morning fix. Also I have never had to worry someone is going to mug my loved ones to get some quick cash for a double-double. And have you ever heard of someone who skips important appointments because they stayed out getting high on caffeine instead

Pretending caffeine is as detrimental to our society as e.g. fentanyl is prime intellectual dishonesty.

> Pretending caffeine is as detrimental to our society as e.g. fentanyl is prime intellectual dishonesty.

These are your words, not OP's. OP isn't claiming that caffeine is as bad as any other drug. They're claiming that it, like other drugs, is likely to have negative health effects that outweigh positive ones and that it's interesting that it gets a special place in our culture while other drugs get banned and shunned.

Nothing in that claim says that caffeine is as bad as the worst illegal drugs.

> They're claiming that it, like other drugs, is likely to have negative health effects that outweigh positive ones

That alone is a strong and unsupported statement. Drugs frequently involve tradeoffs, but saying the negative out weighs the positive is not the same thing.

Only drugs that have artificially high prices caused by having no legal source lead to addicts committing crime to find their habit. Caffeine and alcohol are cheap and easily available.

With all due respect, I wouldn't commit any crimes if caffeine was suddenly illegal. I'd have headaches for a few days and that'd be it.

With all due respect, I've heard the exact same thing from a number of folks taking Opioids after surgery. They were right, fortunately, and navigated their withdrawal symptoms without incident.

I'm sure you're right too, but it's not a particularly convincing argument. I've definitely seen behaviors that horrify me from some of the caffeine addicts in my life. I bet caffeine prohibition would lead to a rise in domestic disputes, for starters, followed by Starbucks speakeasys and coffee cartels.

Comparing opioids to caffeine is also not a particularly convincing argument... Is your comment satire?

Withdraw from caffeine is not the same as opioids

A Starbucks speakeasy sounds awesome actually.

This is what the drug war has done to our minds.

People would absolutely be burglarizing homes to feed their caffeine habit if caffeine wasn't dirt cheap due to the free market. If it were legal to produce meth your local meth-head would not be raiding your house for copper because it would be cheap enough that his minimum wage job could support his habit.'

And frankly I've showed up to important events absolutely fucking geeked on caffeine, feeling like complete dogshit, but because caffeine use is normalized no one bats an eye.

Drug war bad, but I'm not sure these drugs can be equated so simply. Caffeine has a mild euphoric effect but not nearly as much as meth. Both caffeine users and meth users are prone to hyper-focused behavior loops - e.g. super meticulous house cleaning. But meth is so much more euphoric that the behaviors don't have to be intrinsically rewarding at all. For many people, when you feel that high, doing pretty much anything is rewarding. That's why you get weird behaviors on meth like people pulling out their hairs one by one, or completely disassembling a working TV.

Those behaviors are not conducive to holding down most jobs. If our society did more work educating and supporting people in productively integrating their use of drugs into a functional lifestyle, maybe it would be less of a problem. Certainly there are some ways people could use meth that are positive. But I still think there's something about meth that makes it more likely to ruin lives than caffeine.

I agree, but Id say theyre part of the same continuum rather than fundamentally different.

It feels like the strength and type of withdrawal symptoms for each substance plays a big role here.

I've only ever been addicted to caffeine and cigarettes and while my withdrawal symptoms were terrible (almost-disabling headaches, anxiety, etc) I don't think they were ever so bad that it would make me violent.

As opposed to people I knew that were addicted to cocaine and meth which would go absolutely crazy for their next fix. In the particular case of the person that was addicted to cocaine, money was not an issue and would still become violent when the fix was not available, so I don't think it's necessarily a function of price or access to it.

Of course, my sample size is very small but given that I also know a ton of people that quit cigarettes and caffeine without becoming violent, I would say withdrawal symptoms are probably a strong component on how violent people get.

>People would absolutely be burglarizing homes to feed their caffeine habit if caffeine wasn't dirt cheap due to the free market.

I'm about as caffeinated as most anyone else I know, and I would not. There are times where just putting on a pot of coffee is too much work for me to make my daily fix and I lazily skip it for the day.

I do get withdrawal headaches and probably behave a bit differently, but even then sometimes I don't make the effort to get it. I've been at conference and hotels where the only options were so badly made I skipped it for days and just took the headache.

I have to agree when my coworkers and I are chugging energy drinks from before work till the afternoon. I finally quit that level of intake because of panic attacks (still have 1-2 cups of coffee occasionally).

240mg of caffeine for breakfast! Certainly!

This really hit home when I started swapping caffeine out for Adderall on work days. Literal amphetamines have a more mild effect on me than a strong coffee.

I agree, reasonable amphetamine dose is easier on me than too much tea and coffee.

It's interesting that coffee (black) is essentially perfect (mostly pros, few or no cons) yet there is a small crowd bent on demonizing it.

>Advertising and lobbying warps our perception of these drugs.

More like, our own preference and enjoyment of the drugs compared to their detriments constructs our perception of these drugs.

Coffee, alcohol, pain killers, etc. These are all drugs that give the user enjoyment with very little down sides. This means that society has reserved a place for them.

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