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There are zero citations in this article. It appears the author imagined these ideas about dopamine and addiction and then wrote a blog post with zero scientifi
by 3g9mnr 13y ago
There are zero citations in this article. It appears the author imagined these ideas about dopamine and addiction and then wrote a blog post with zero scientific credibility.
Did I miss something? There is no research here, just a flight of fancy. We shouldn't discuss or upvote such garbage.
- aschearer 13y agoI came to say the same thing. I was expecting the article to discuss research mapping out how pathways in the brain changed as people learned to program. Instead I got a bunch of unsubstantiated claims and speculation.
- wes-exp 13y agoIndeed. Author is clearly pathologizing non-pathological behavior. Real addiction is defined by severe life consequences: jail, death, destroyed relationships. Describing an employee who struggles to do boring tasks and focuses on fun ones as a troubled "addict" is just severely, incredibly stupid.
- mtdewcmu 13y agoThis article sounds a lot like a couple of Paul Graham's essays. Come to think of it, a lot of stuff that shows up on HN sounds like Paul Graham. For instance, repeating how important it is to work on "hard problems," pretentious blather about "hackers" and master programmers... Do you suppose that they are emulating Paul Graham, or is there a cult of people that think alike, and PG is one of them...? For the record -- if PG is reading -- I enjoyed your essays on the first reading, but seeing the exact same ideas keep repeating in posts is kind of weird...