I have to wonder if the author's judgement is too heavily impaired by his own lived experience as someone with the chops rise to a position of success. He claim

I have to wonder if the author's judgement is too heavily impaired by his own lived experience as someone with the chops rise to a position of success. He claims in the prologue to be a responsible recreational heroin user. Sustaining this without sliding into an ever-worsening spiral of addition would require an immense amount of willpower. And as someone with a PhD in neuroscience and a tenured position at an Ivy League institution, he clearly has plenty of personal willpower. The typical person doesn't have that sort of willpower.