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wow - you see no difference between coffee and a neural enhancer? this is way off the chart for me here. I have no difficulties seeing authenticity in what I

wow - you see no difference between coffee and a neural enhancer? this is way off the chart for me here. I have no difficulties seeing authenticity in what I do vs. the pill-popping programming regimen (maybe that's why I am getting downvoted here). I would also say it keep me very happy so far. So I wish good luck to those who choose that instead :)

petercooper 16y ago
Perhaps not coffee, but caffeine, the active ingredient, is a "neural enhancer." Wikipedia defines it as a "psychoactive stimulant drug" and says that it "has a generally disinhibitory effect on neural activity." You would have done better to call out the comparison between using drugs and a text editor ;-)
- danielnicollet 16y ago
  hehe - I am getting a coffee chemistry course now! I don't even drink coffee ;-) you would have done much better not replying at all.
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roel_v 16y ago
"I have no difficulties seeing authenticity in what I do vs. the pill-popping programming regimen" Yeah, that's how cognitive dissonance works. Please articulate where the 'authenticity' line is. Plenty of people 'feel' the way you do, but I have yet to meet a single one who can rationally explain their 'feeling'.
- danielnicollet 16y ago
  "Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously." You tell me what's conflicting in my feelings because I'd be curious to know. On the other hand, anyone who feels they need to downvote me because I expressed feeling felt a bit troubled by their revelations about the way they pop pills to improve their programming skills is maybe downvoting me to feel better about themselves, don't you think? I mean if YC's majority opinion is that pill popping is OK, AND/OR that anyone disagreeing should be downvoted, I think I want nothing to do with YC. I surely hope it's not the case. Now tke shots at my karma all you want!
  - roel_v 16y ago
    Well you don't have the uncomfortable feeling, because you rationalize it away by declaring coffee (caffeine) something entirely different from (other_ neural enhancers (in pill form). Cognitive dissonance is, like you say, the uneasy feeling of having two conflicting views at the same time. Your are 'pills are bad' and 'coffee is ok'. (If I may speculate, I'd say the both come from social conditioning, or rather, accepting the mainstream or conventional views on these issues without thinking about them critically. For which nobody can really blame you, I mean if everybody had to second guess every single thing we see every day ('regular' people drinking coffee), we'd get nothing done at all.) Anyway so those are the two views, but when you link them through 'they're both cognitive enhancers', a problem arises. Why is one bad, and the other not? So this is then 'glossed over' or 'smoothed out' by the brain by internalizing a third cognition, namely 'they're not the same'. Note that this third cognition does not have to be elaborated on very much (actually this elaboration is what I asked for, because I don't think any argument in it can hold) to put your mind at ease and 'resolve' the cognitive dissonance. Anyway, my point still stands. I challenge you to explain what is the fundamental difference between taking a chemical in pill form versus taking it in liquid form (this is what it, in my opinion, boils down to). I guess the most obvious argument is going to be that one is man-made and the other 'natural' (which somebody arguing this then usually interprets as "the precursor is readily available in nature, and extensive treatment in the form of drying, grounding, and preparing with hot water is 'pure' enough to all be 'natural".) I won't put any words in your mouth, I'm just pre-empting the usual first response and indicating what I see as weaknesses in that argument ;) Finally, for the record, I didn't downvote you as far as I remember, but your comment did rub me the wrong way. The reason being that it states a very strong opinion or position, but offers nothing to rationally substantiate that opinion. On the contrary, the only attempt at convincing the reader seems to be in a 'proof by assertion' strategy, repeated across multiple posts. Furthermore from your claim that people only downvoted you because you hold a different opinion it seems that you are not very willing to critically examine your own position, nor to put in the effort to really (as in, rationally and in a dialectically sound way) defend it. I hope I'm wrong on this of course, I'm just letting you know how these couple of posts came across to me, hoping that this may help you understand why people reacted to your post the way they did (well, 'people', just 3 really, but still).

petercooper 16y ago

Perhaps not coffee, but caffeine, the active ingredient, is a "neural enhancer." Wikipedia defines it as a "psychoactive stimulant drug" and says that it "has a generally disinhibitory effect on neural activity." You would have done better to call out the comparison between using drugs and a text editor ;-)

danielnicollet 16y ago
hehe - I am getting a coffee chemistry course now! I don't even drink coffee ;-) you would have done much better not replying at all.
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roel_v 16y ago

"I have no difficulties seeing authenticity in what I do vs. the pill-popping programming regimen" Yeah, that's how cognitive dissonance works. Please articulate where the 'authenticity' line is. Plenty of people 'feel' the way you do, but I have yet to meet a single one who can rationally explain their 'feeling'.

danielnicollet 16y ago
"Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously." You tell me what's conflicting in my feelings because I'd be curious to know. On the other hand, anyone who feels they need to downvote me because I expressed feeling felt a bit troubled by their revelations about the way they pop pills to improve their programming skills is maybe downvoting me to feel better about themselves, don't you think? I mean if YC's majority opinion is that pill popping is OK, AND/OR that anyone disagreeing should be downvoted, I think I want nothing to do with YC. I surely hope it's not the case. Now tke shots at my karma all you want!
- roel_v 16y ago
  Well you don't have the uncomfortable feeling, because you rationalize it away by declaring coffee (caffeine) something entirely different from (other_ neural enhancers (in pill form). Cognitive dissonance is, like you say, the uneasy feeling of having two conflicting views at the same time. Your are 'pills are bad' and 'coffee is ok'. (If I may speculate, I'd say the both come from social conditioning, or rather, accepting the mainstream or conventional views on these issues without thinking about them critically. For which nobody can really blame you, I mean if everybody had to second guess every single thing we see every day ('regular' people drinking coffee), we'd get nothing done at all.) Anyway so those are the two views, but when you link them through 'they're both cognitive enhancers', a problem arises. Why is one bad, and the other not? So this is then 'glossed over' or 'smoothed out' by the brain by internalizing a third cognition, namely 'they're not the same'. Note that this third cognition does not have to be elaborated on very much (actually this elaboration is what I asked for, because I don't think any argument in it can hold) to put your mind at ease and 'resolve' the cognitive dissonance. Anyway, my point still stands. I challenge you to explain what is the fundamental difference between taking a chemical in pill form versus taking it in liquid form (this is what it, in my opinion, boils down to). I guess the most obvious argument is going to be that one is man-made and the other 'natural' (which somebody arguing this then usually interprets as "the precursor is readily available in nature, and extensive treatment in the form of drying, grounding, and preparing with hot water is 'pure' enough to all be 'natural".) I won't put any words in your mouth, I'm just pre-empting the usual first response and indicating what I see as weaknesses in that argument ;) Finally, for the record, I didn't downvote you as far as I remember, but your comment did rub me the wrong way. The reason being that it states a very strong opinion or position, but offers nothing to rationally substantiate that opinion. On the contrary, the only attempt at convincing the reader seems to be in a 'proof by assertion' strategy, repeated across multiple posts. Furthermore from your claim that people only downvoted you because you hold a different opinion it seems that you are not very willing to critically examine your own position, nor to put in the effort to really (as in, rationally and in a dialectically sound way) defend it. I hope I'm wrong on this of course, I'm just letting you know how these couple of posts came across to me, hoping that this may help you understand why people reacted to your post the way they did (well, 'people', just 3 really, but still).