Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

What Adderall is about is:

- helping with executive dysfunction for people who suffer from it.

- allowing people with ADHD like me to function. To do the things that everyone else does, things that we want to do and need to do, but can't do because of the way our brains are wired.

- increasing the lifespan of ADHD people who don't get help. Women with ADHD die about 9 years younger than those without ADHD [1].

- making our lives less painful, since every small task incurs pain, resulting in 3x depression rates [2] and alarmingly high suicidal ideation rates (50% of ADHD adults [3]).

Please, please, educate yourself about ADHD and medication for it before writing something like this title.

No, Aldous Huxley didn't. "predict" Adderall.

To understand more, I've put together a resource which, I hope, will be easy enough to digest. Here's my experience of getting prescribed Adderall for my ADHD:

https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Medication

If I have attention deficit and I could write it, I hope you (and the author of the text we're discussing) could spare some attention to it before talking about Adderall, amphetamines, and other stimulants prescribed for ADHD.

Thank you in advance.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/23/nx...

[2] https://add.org/adhd-and-depression/

[3] https://crownviewpsych.com/blog/adhd-increased-risk-suicide-...

What specifically are you talking about here? It appears to me that your comment is an expression of vibe with zero information content.

There's no dichotomy between treating symptoms and cause even when the cause is treatable (which isn't the case with ADHD; it's a neurotype, with differences showing on brain scan levels) — and that's setting aside the discussion of whether it's something we need to "treat" in the first place.

We still have painkillers for people who need them while they are getting treatment.

We still have meds for runny noses, we still have Tylenol for fever, even though these are merely symptoms.

We still have pills for allergies.

And on that note: the symptoms (such as fever and allergic reactions) can and do kill people.

Please reconsider your comment.

I am not responding further for your sake, but for the sake of those who read this thread.

> taking speed makes anyone more productive, not just those with adhd.

Speed (methamphetamine) has the same relationship to Adderall (dextroamphetamines) as methanol does to ethanol; a difference in methyl group.

Ethanol (aka alcohol) is commonly used for recreational purposes.

If you think Adderall is the same thing as "speed", I hope you wouldn't mind drinking a glass of methanol to prove the point that chemically similar substances have similar effects.

> modern western society exhibits a plethora of conditions that are likely to result in the manifestation of adhd behaviours in non adhd individuals

Which is why the diagnostic criteria for ADHD require a lifelong manifestation of ADHD symptoms.

Notice how you say behaviors, not symptoms or traits, i.e. how people act, and not how they feel, which difficulties they face, what cost they bear, and so on.

The behavior of an ADHD individual might be no different from one without ADHD. We can be on time, for example.

It is just immensely more difficult for us, just like it's difficult for someone with a broken leg that didn't quite heal to walk.

And yes, anyone can bump their toe on a table leg and experience pain for a while. That doesn't mean that people with broken legs don't exist.

>a brain scan is not part of the diagnostic criteria for labelling adhd.

It isn't, because we have cheaper and more reliable ways.

The difference is there though.

> you would have to provide a convincing argument that doping up the populace is objectively the best path forward - to me it seems that this is not the best path forward, rather one that serves to minimize societal friction.

Believing that "doping up the populace" is what's taking place is a delusion that I can't address in the same way that I can't address the belief that the Loch Ness monster caused the 2019 Coronavirus pandemic.

Unfortunately, your worldview seem to be as strongly detached from reality as you are convinced about the veracity of your unshakable beliefs.

But again, if you sincerely believe people taking Adderall are taking speed, you really could save a lot on booze by drinking methanol instead.

Do let us know how that goes.