A society that runs on stimulants is badly broken | Hacker News Reader

A society that runs on stimulants is badly broken

currentaffairs.org

49 pointspmg10126 comments

Hasn't it been that way for at least a few hundred years? I'm surprised the article didn't mention the OG stimulant, tobacco.

coffee houses (previously a threat to the monarchy) would buckle at their knees in front of the dose in caffiene pills or energy drinks

even tobacco has turned to vaping to deliver more nicotine quicker

Sometimes I wonder if coffee is responsible for modernity.

It literally is. Technologists are all the degenerate intellectual children of Voltaire - who famously drank 40-50 cups of coffee per day.

Probably, by replacing alcohol in places where people gathered during daytime.

Perhaps since the beginning of what we came to call society.

The romans had society. No tobacco or coffee

They were alcoholics, opioid and weed smokers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_abuse_in_ancient_Rom...

Also there’s absolutely no aspect of Rome that I would want to repeat

it was a bunch of pederasty, slavery and overall horrific conditions for almost everybody

Heroin? That was not discovered till acetylation was invented in the 19th century.

no, opium.

They edited the original comment, first they wrote heroin to which I responded.

President ran a child rape cult

First world office workers codependent on sweatshop slavery

...but conditions improved for majority

1 of 3 we did better than the Romans

Even animals will do things like get drunk on fermented fruit. Humans just figured out how to get a regular supply.

I was on a prescribed stimulant for 6 months. It was nice for work, but it ended up with too many side effects that kind of mess with ones head. It tends to "simplify" complex decision making processes and not just for code but for life decisions.

Simplifying decisions can be a positive outcome, just to add balance to your comment.

And I don't disagree!

> It tends to "simplify" complex decision making processes and not just for code but for life decisions.

Improving executive function is literally the point of prescription stimulants.

Rather than endless spirals about whether you should do ___, it just makes everything sound like a great idea to you...for better or for worse.

Cocaine has the same effect, only amplified.

I don't know how we do it. I am much more clearheaded without coffee or anything of the sorts.

Its an addiction, just like a lot of things.

So the article should be about how we are an addicted society to accurately capture the essence. You can be addicted to anything - good or bad or indifferent. And that's definitely the culture...

There's a fine line, as with alcohol. A single cup of tea might feel refreshing. A monster energy drink is going to feel like a fight or flight response. Some people are also more sensitive than others and some are addicted more really than others.

I guess I am a little bias here too - if my caffeine intake goes near 200 mg for the day then I get shaky. I have a friend who can toe the line at 700-800 mg! Which I read the other day that is the 'danger zone'.

I hypothesize that most of the stimulant use is actually due to poor sleep hygiene and jacked circadian rhythms, because of electricity and lighting on-demand.

And trauma, of course.

I do find the economics / work narrative relatively unconvincing. For one workload in the developed world has fallen by about 40-50% over the last 100 years. Consuming stimulants is as popular among call it the 'lazy bum class' (no offense, I grew up in a deadbeat town) as it is among strivers. Coffee goes back five thousand years, Nicotine as far as recorded history, that is 10k+ years.

They've always had recreational or even ritual use, and the health fads against stimulants and cleansing crazes usually come from the work-obsessed than anyone else. So I don't think that we run on stimulants, I'm pretty sure we'd do them regardless.

>> There’s a generational split in those numbers; among the under-35 crowd, it’s 60 percent. The older demographic still prefers coffee, and 66 percent of Americans drink that every day, too.

But, but! Isn't coffee consumption supposed to provide health benefits too? Like "reduced risks of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver conditions, and overall mortality".

Seems odd to lump coffee into the same bucket with energy drinks.

> brutal labor conditions in Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Indonesia, where more and more workers are turning to amphetamines to “work without stopping.”

...

> All of this adds up to one thing: a form of hyper-capitalist imperialism

Does this just not happen, then, in communist Vietnam or Laos?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_drugs

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