Comment by Buzaga | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Buzaga | Hacker News Reader

I say we should diagnose more ADD because really this stuff is way good, everybody has it and then people sort of like learn to control it or something! X-men is here folks!

Really, I have no idea what the fuck is ADD since it's symptoms seems to be stuff that everybody has to deal with and the best I can see people coming up with "no but when you have it it's like a LION is trying to eat you and you still can't focus, like, completely not normal"... I wonder, in case it's a legitimate thing, how the fuck have we gotten so far with 20% of brains shipping out with defects!? Amazing.

(I also guess the reason ppl are so proud of it is because this label is laid on them early on as childs, tweens... then they just start wearing it)

(Downvote at will)

My BS armchair psychiatric definition of ADD is that it was useful when our genetic forebears had to be "distracted" every minute or so to be aware of the need to attack or protect themselves or their social units.

It's one of those hypotheses that I don't have the intellectual honesty or rigor to follow up, but it's a simplifying lie that allows me to put it to the back burner. Selfish gene, blah blah.

Well but then diagnosing this equals to making our own nature wrong(or sick) by definition and then it's a paradox... if we need to start synthetically molding our body and cognitive functions that are healthy for the animal we are because it doesn't fit the society we designed and built for us ourselves to live comfortably... well, then something's wrong.

As a species, those of us in the developed world stopped evolving in many ways since the industrial revolution. Traits that increased the probability of reproduction hundreds, thousands, or millions of years ago stopped becoming a competitive advantage.

What you describe is not a paradox. The brain can self-diagnose and regulate the individual. Sometimes it's the introduction of foreign chemicals into the system (food, medication, whatever) and sometimes it is internal restructuring (learning).

I think your armchair biology is not quite right too.

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