Aldous Huxley predicts Adderall and champions alternative therapies

Yes, there’s certainly research involved in getting an existing drug approved for a new condition. That’s not development.

> not for helping everyone else get a boost of "mental efficiency" (and particularly, without adverse consequences).

While that’s not what Adderall was recently approved for, that and dieting were the primary purposes driving stimulant development (and also the development of Adderall/Obetrol specifically).

The suggestion that Adderall would only benefit folks with ADHD diagnoses is also fundamentally weird, given that ADHD is not a specific identifiable condition. We can’t scan a brain and identify whether or not that brain belongs to an individual with ADHD, so an ADHD diagnosis is necessarily subjective and not objective.

OK, I concede that point then. That's the information I intended to communicate.

>The suggestion that Adderall would only benefit folks with ADHD diagnoses is also fundamentally weird

Sure, let me rephrase.

There is, as we both agree, research performed to establish that Adderall is something that can help with ADHD symptoms (...and obesity).

There's plentiful data that demonstrates its effectiveness for some people with ADHD in that regard. And appetite loss is a well-known effect.

But there's no research done to establish that Adderall would work the way Huxley describes the hypothetical drug: giving anyone a boost in "mental efficiency", without adverse consequences to health otherwise.

To the contrary, we have extensive data and research that demonstrates Adderall doesn't work that way.

Particularly, for folks without ADHD, mental efficiency is likely to decrease when they take Adderall [1].

It gives them the feeling of being productive, though...

...which only exacerbates the problem.

Quote [2]:

What Adderall clearly does extremely well is make people think they are doing better — and to feel good while they’re doing it. “Adderall might not be a cognitive enhancement drug, but a ‘drive’ drug,” says Anjan Chatterjee, a professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school. Farah explains, “[Stimulants] make boring work seem more interesting, so they increase your motivation to work, energy for work, and that’s not nothing — that’s really helpful . . . Unfortunately, it also gets into the realm of feel-good drugs, and that means the risk of dependence is quite high.” Yet when I ask Farah exactly how addictive Adderall and other stimulant medications are, she tells me that there is currently no good answer. “Nobody has really looked at these drugs used as work enhancers and what the dependence risk there is,” she said.

"Nobody has really looked at these drugs used as work enhancers" is what I intended to communicate when I said that "this is not what Adderall was developed for".

When somebody did look (the study [1] came out years later), they found that a drug that wasn't for improving mental efficiency does not, in fact, improve mental efficiency.

The mistaken belief that Adderall is akin to Huxley's fantasy pill, which the author of the article perpetuates, is harming everyone.

As I said before, Adderall is for treating executive dysfunction: not being able to do things which you can do, should do, want to do, have the time and resources to do, but can't start doing because Brain Says No.

Adderall won't make anyone smarter. It'll make stupid people be stupid faster and with more enthusiasm.

That's not what Huxley talked about.

The headline, put simply, is a dangerous lie.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adderall-ritalin-adhd-decreases...

[2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/caseyschwartzauthor/add...

The whole idea here is that current evidence suggests that we are almost certainly currently filing a variety of disparate conditions under “ADHD” because we have no good way to determine what “ADHD” actually is.

I would hazard to suggest that it can make many people much more productive though. This topic has been studied extensively since before anyone cared about ADHD, and the answer is broadly “yes, for some tasks”.

> Nobody has really looked at these drugs used as work enhancers

I would strongly disagree with this bit, this was one of the primary purposes people have studied stimulants for. They’ve been successfully used for this in the past and continue to be used anriun the world, especially by various militaries.

Anyway, unfortunately I can’t comment here on personal experience given that I have been twice diagnosed and once undiagnosed with ADHD. Adderall makes me more productive and more prone to tunnel vision, but certainly not smarter.

The historical and continued use by various militaries of stimulants seems to suggest that at least many very highly motivated big spenders seem to expect the same to apply to the general population.

That suggestion is disproved by the research I linked, particularly when it comes to mental tasks.

>the answer is broadly “yes, for some tasks

For mindless tasks, like long-haul driving, where staying awake is pretty much all that's required ? Sure.

Anything else, citation needed.

>The historical and continued use by various militaries of stimulants seems to suggest that at least many very highly motivated big spenders seem to expect the same to apply to the general population.

Military use is more commonly to increase stamina (e.g. for pilots on 48 hour bombing missions), not efficiency.

And military scenarios simply don't transfer to civilian life.

Staying awake without sleep when you're a bomber pilot is a matter of life and death, so adverse health consequences and even decrease in mental capacity can be tolerated, because being dumb and awake is better than being smart and asleep in that context.

...to an extent. Until you end up shooting some Canadians dead [1].

Which is why the "historical" use by militaries is not continuous. It's been abandoned by militaries that tried it; particularly by the USAF after that incident.

As for use by the military in general, note that the average lifespan of a Russian soldier on the front line in the Ukraine war is measured in hours[2].

That's a very different context than anyone talking here is facing. And one where the ability to stay alert matters more than anything else.

That doesn't translate to efficient or productive in any normal sense. A solider is waiting most of the time. Then something happens, fast. Any delay in reaction, and you're dead.

We can discuss the effectiveness of amphetamines in such scenarios, but that has nothing to do with Huxley's description (or productivity, efficiency, etc).

As I said in my top comment: Adderall is for helping people act without delay. This translates well to military use.

Sometimes.

A delay would've saved those Canadians.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/04/afghanistan.ri...

[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/average-life-expectancy-front-lin...

This currently describes most tasks humans do.

I certainly won’t go and suggest that taking stimulants for long-haul driving is a good idea, unless of course you’re in a war zone and lives depend on it. But stimulants do improve performance in these tasks for the vast majority of people. While the side effects probably aren’t worth it for the society as a whole, they probably are on an individual level for e.g. a cab driver who is able to work more hours and pay his rent. That’s of course not a desirable state of affairs, but it is real.

A software developer grinding out a boring project could also greatly benefit, while being much less risky than the cabbie on stimulants.

In the end I believe there are many people without ADHD living in situations where Adderall could meaningfully improve their lives, making it easier to grind through hours of mindless work. Someone living paycheck to paycheck could pick up a few extra hours and significantly improve their financial situation and overall wellbeing.

Should anyone take Adderall in the hopes that it’ll make them smarter? No.

Nothing to add, except dreaming of a utopian society where the grind wouldn't exist.