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Re:Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster by BriggyDwiggs42 on Monday October 07, 2024 @01:44PM (#41768725)
Same question applies perfectly to caffeine. I might just be justifying my addiction, but it’s possible this is still worthwhile as it allows one to manually select when they want to expend their mental energy, overriding the normally semirandom fluctuations brought on by exhaustion, mood, etc.
Re:Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster by cedilla on Monday October 07, 2024 @02:14PM (#41769115)
A big difference is that caffeine isn't addictive. It may seem like it, and you do get a few headaches when you quit cold turkey, but you just don't get the intense graving you get with addictions.
Re:Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster by chimeracoder on Monday October 07, 2024 @02:16PM (#41769137)
> A big difference is that caffeine isn't addictive. It may seem like it, and you do get a few headaches when you quit cold turkey, but you just don't get the intense graving you get with addictions.

I'm curious what definition of "addiction" you're using to arrive at the conclusion that caffeine isn't addictive.

Re:Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster by lokar on Monday October 07, 2024 @02:53PM (#41769572)
Isn’t the standard definition that you continue to use the drug despite it causing serious negative problems in your life?
Re:Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster by chimeracoder on Monday October 07, 2024 @03:13PM (#41769831)
> Isn’t the standard definition that you continue to use the drug despite it causing serious negative problems in your life?

There's no one standard definition of "addiction", and most concise definitions (one or two lines) are extremely fragile and break down when you try to apply them in any meaningful context.

By this definition you're putting forth, caffeine certainly could be addictive, as could any substance - and in fact, nearly any behavior, which is why professionals generally frown upon using this measure definitionally, because it leads to pseudoscientific terms like "X addiction", for absurd values of X.

Re:Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster by debo_ on Monday October 07, 2024 @04:24PM (#41770631)
There are tools for measuring the level of dependence and addiction for different substances (like the severity of dependence scale.)

You may also be interested in studies on caffeine dependence, like: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3777290/

> Numerous controlled laboratory investigations reviewed in this article show that caffeine produces behavioral and physiological effects similar to other drugs of dependence. Moreover, several recent clinical studies indicate that caffeine dependence is a clinically meaningful disorder that affects a nontrivial proportion of caffeine users.

Re:Silicon Valley, the New Lobbying Monster by BriggyDwiggs42 on Tuesday October 08, 2024 @03:53PM (#41781169)
I think you’d be surprised. When i quit coffee cold turkey, I was basically out of commission for a week. Mentally I felt and functioned as though I was running a heavy fever, I could never feel full, and I felt exhausted and ready to sleep the moment I woke up. The headaches were constant and agonizing for about a whole week, easily worse than a migraine, and I had weird mood swings where I’d suddenly feel very anxious or sad out of nowhere. The difference is I was probably drinking 300mg a day or so.