“The 200mg enhanced problem solving significantly, but had no effect on creative thinking,” said Zabelina. “It also didn’t make it worse, so keep drinking your coffee; it won’t interfere with these abilities.”

So not really I guess

You are missing Balzac’s point. He is saying that it makes boring people more productive; not more interesting.

Balzac famously (apocryphally, perhaps?) known for drinking 50 cups of coffee a day!

This part resonated with me:

> When you have reached the point of consuming this kind of coffee, then become exhausted and decide that you really must have more, even though you make it of the finest ingredients and take it perfectly fresh, you will fall into horrible sweats, suffer feebleness of the nerves, and undergo episodes of severe drowsiness.

I definitely get extremely drowsy any time after 5 pm when I have gotten into the habit of drinking plenty of coffee per day

I styled/modeled roast.io pricing page after Balzac and a few other famous coffee drinkers: https://www.roast.io/pricing

Creative! Good work.

Cringe

Indeed. Balzac was famous for drinking many cups of coffee and working overnight.

He died aged 50 of heart attack.

Balzac, you're breaking my heart. How dare you...

I love coffee. Thanks for sharing.

pretty much true for any stimulant in my experience.

Not...

Ah, in your experience. I missed that, initially.

I meant to write "Not khat," which gives me the best inspiration ever (and a crash that lasts days when I get off of it).

But you wouldn’t know if you were boring to other people would you?

Ridiculous, anyone would find my meticulous collection of geological specimens fascinating!

What part of the world are you in where khat is a thing?

Presumably middle east or north/eastern africa.

Then again I'm sure there are plenty of SV hipster types who might be big on it. "forget microdosing, khat is the new path to rockstar programming flow states"

Lol, do you have to be a hipster to try exotic drugs?

Is anyone afraid that microdosing might become the next must, if you want to be competitive in the programming fields of industry?

Microdosing is mostly hype. I know many people who've tried microdosing. Does it give you a 5% edge? Maybe... but sometimes it distracts and subtracts 5%.

It is not NZT from the movie Limitless, despite media hype.

As a productivity drug, amphetamines far outclass psychedelics.

> As a productivity drug, amphetamines far outclass psychedelics.

They're not mutually exclusive, I'm sure there's significant overlap between the adderall and microdosing crowds.

If you mean the substituted amphetamines which have serotonergic activity (DOB and such) then sure, amphetamines and psychedelics aren't mutually exclusive, but those are very rare drugs especially in the modern day.

No, because any benefits it might have are not big enough to be dealbreakers.

Programming, unlike sport, isn't about one winner taking all. At least not on the level of individual programming skill.

For something to be a must, it has to have a real constant effect for the majority of people. Thankfully microdosing doesn't fall into that category.

No, I think it's a bit ridiculous to assume that everyone would be microdosing or that it provides such a massive competitive edge such that the drawbacks of microdosing are outweighed.

What are the drawbacks? Nobody seems to talk about drawbacks.

Too much personal introspection and autobiographical thinking. Tangential thoughts not relevant to the task at hand. Lack of linear focus. That kind of thing.

does not sound like 'micro' dosing to me

I bet people are just a little more weird microdosing psychedelics. Like, come on if it impacts your ability to create novel things, then you are going to create novel conversation topics and some of those are going to be fucking weird. I love acid for personal development but I am not sure if I could handle this reality.

I'm happy you posted this.