Of course this is not the same, statistically, but one thing I have done in the past is to find the most ridiculously expensive property in an area, look up the tax records online, and then google the owners. It takes a bit of work, but the picture that emerges is quite interesting.
For example, I live in the Seattle area, and I know where the mega-wealthy enclaves are here. Who owns the biggest mansions? Microsoft executives, members of the Nordstrom family, members of the construction family who built the Space Needle, people connected with Daniel's Broiler, some guy who invented a new kind of eyeglasses, a congressman's ex-wife, a woman who grew and sold her IT consulting firm, a guy who built a successful condo listing website, doctors, the founder of an investment firm, a commercial real estate developer... In short, it was mainly key players in big local businesses, entrepreneurs, and a small handful of physicians.
I imagine if one did this for NYC, the picture would look predictably different.
I relate very strongly to everything you say here. I've been diagnosed, hospitalized, and medicated on 3 separate occasions for major depression. In every case, I believed then and still believe that it was avoidable, and mostly situationally caused, regardless of the fact that it does eventually manifest as a severely disrupted and debilitating brain-state that could be characterized as a medium-term illness.
I am frequently exasperated by the discussions on HN. I think that the now-popular model of depression as an illness is better than the old-fashioned model of depression as The Blues, but I also think the newer model is still ignorant and harmful in new and different ways. EDIT: The view of depression as a medical condition may be a handy lens for allowing hospitals to deal with emergencies effectively, but for the suffering individual, it is woefully incomplete and even downright misguided. After dealing with it in my own life for 15 years, I've become convinced that Depression is a biopsychosocial [1][2] constellation of interacting phenomena involving bi-directional feedback between one's mind and one's life. And everyone experiences this feedback loop, even if it does not lead everyone into depression.
I've found it far, far more productive in my own life to analyse and try to improve the underlying causes, as opposed to medicating and _identifying_ with what I view as a temporary disorder, more similar to the flu than to a chronic disease. (Clarification: I support the use of medication to help with the "bottom of the trough" stage - that is, the temporary, crippling, chemical brain disorder phase. I am extremely suspicious of indefinite reliance on it, but I cannot rule out the possibility that some individual cases are so severe that long-term medication is the rational choice.)
I would add to your list that in this community, our ambitions are extremely high relative to most normal people. With very high ambition comes the likelihood of strong disappointment. I also find that being smarter than most people is a deep rabbit hole that makes a lot of social, professional, and authority-related interactions very weird. I think it's sad that it's so taboo here to talk about that issue in particular.
I wish more people would focus more on the nitty-gritty practical causes, like you do in your third paragraph. Despite my encounters with depression, I have spent the vast majority of my life being happy, active, social, fulfilled, unmedicated, and in every meaningful sense not depressed at all. I attribute this to a mix of choices about how I life my life, along with a fair amount of good luck. After all, we cannot control everything in life. There are gatekeepers. I've gotten jobs that led to incredible opportunities, relationships, and friendships. What if me or the interviewer had had an off day? What if they'd chosen someone else to interview me that I didn't hit it off with? A doctor can't address things like that - things that have huge impact. (A therapist can, sort of. I am a fan of CBT.)
Microsoft has some wildly successful products, like Windows, Office, XBOX, SharePoint, SQL Server, etc. That's great. But they also employ well upwards of 100,000 people (including 'contingent' staff). It does not take that many people to ship those products. Not even close.
So they productively employ some fraction of those people (I'd guess, conservatively, less than half), and they pseudo-productively distract the rest with poorly managed fool's errands. And don't think it's a case of "you don't know until you try" - in most cases, everybody knows. General Managers will seize on any misguided idea with enough plausible deniability in order to build their fiefdoms.
It's like a bizarre kind of welfare system for the upper middle class. A few people do amazing work and ship great products. For the majority, the most significant thing they accomplished was passing the hiring gauntlet. But they all get to live in big houses and drive BMWs.
An institution can work on the whole, but still be grossly inefficient.
"see things that aren't real" is a very poor characterization of the psychedelic experience. One attempt at describing a small part of its many aspects: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2498783
I think this is the sort of thing one is meant to consider and reflect upon, not the sort of thing one subjects to Standard Internet Argument Protocol.
Evidence for what? The effects produced or how society would change if the effects (in change of thinking) was prevalent in all the members of the society?
Fundamentally, the clinical definition of "hallucination" does not apply to 90% of the effects of psychedelic drugs. "Perceptual disturbances" would be the correct term.
A hallucination is the perception of something that is not there at all, and it generally means that the thing is sincerely perceived as real.
Psychedelic experiences typically fulfil neither of these criteria.
Many people genuinely believe that when they take these substances they are communing with the universe, with god(s), aliens, ancestors, or the deep levels of their own subconscious.
To call such experiences mere "hallucinations" or "perceptual disturbances" is both reductionist and dismissive.
To tell someone to their face that their experiences amounted to nothing more than perceptual disturbances would be at best rude, and at worst cruel, agreed.
However I think it's appropriate vocabulary when attempting objective analysis of neurological/psychological phenomena. Reductionism is an inevitable and valid criticism of any such analysis.
(When I said "real" in this instance I was referring to the physical existence of objects perceived, your ability to reach out and touch them. I wasn't trying to make a value judgement about the validity or authenticity of anyones subjective experiences.)
"I think it's appropriate vocabulary when attempting objective analysis of neurological/psychological phenomena"
Without getting in to a deep conversation on objectivity, neurology, and psychology, I'll just say that I don't think these issues are so clear cut as to allow anyone to definitively say that he's on the side of truth and the phenomena he describes are "nothing but X", whatever that "X" may be.
"When I said "real" in this instance I was referring to the physical existence of objects perceived, your ability to reach out and touch them."
There are plenty of things that, even according to the "scientific" world view, purportedly exist and yet can't be touched or directly percieved, such as x-rays and atoms.
Pot, LSD, and mushrooms, for starters. Except for expansive and distorted definitions of the word "addictive", and except for that one friend everyone seems to have who couldn't handle their acid.
What do the views of the majority have to do with my moral compass? Drugs in particular are a case where the benefits tend to be personal and individual. I don't expect most people to get it, especially given how many people are conservative, religious, or just believe whatever they have been brought up to believe. When I'm deciding what is right and wrong, the law is generally the last thing on my mind.
edit: As for "what's with the rash of...", I think there is a significant subset of hackers that are very interested in the workings of their brains, since we have typically been dependent on and defined by what our brains are capable of since childhood. In turn, there is a very powerful affinity between many of those who are fascinated with the brain, and psychedelic drugs.
I'm very positive on LSD in general, but even to me, "a year of regular LSD use", or any kind of "regular" use sounds extreme and dangerous. I guess I take it for granted that something so intense should be approached with a great deal of respect and caution. I do find it odd that people naturally "get" this for things like driving a car, hang-gliding, back-country skiing, skateboarding, parkour.... but often shut down mentally when the subject is illegal drugs.
I would also strongly advise against regular use of LSD.
I think LSD trips are highly influenced by your state of mind and intention towards the trip. Sometimes I've tripped looking for a spiritual event or revelations, and they often show up (in some form or another). Other times I've done it more 'just for fun' and there hasn't been as much revelation in it.
LSD has been one of the most profound experiences of my life. I now reserve it for special occasions, and combine a bit of ceremony to it. It's a powerful substance, so treat it with the weight it deserves.
Yeah, if 'regular use' is more than once a week for a year, that's a lot of LSD. Psychosis might not be the causal element there, a shitload of lsd might be the causal element.
Your first sentence and last sentence are contradictory. Additionally, the information you linked to could be a typo but it actually says that "This means that you should be able to dose the same quantity of acid again to achieve similar effects."
I don't personally use LSD, but I believe this information to be correct: "There is a short period of tolerance after use. Using LSD two days in a row is likely to lead to a diminished experience the second day, though spaced 3 or more days apart, this effect is nearly non-existent." (via http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_basics.shtml) Yes, using it two days in a row will result in a less powerful effect the second day but most people wouldn't attempt it that soon anyways (I'd assume).
I only point this out as this thread makes LSD seem like a wonder drug and I'd want new users to get the correct information.
Wow, I left the original statement there because I thought it was a week. Corrected with a citation and got slaughtered. Don't mess with HN's LSD, huh!
Hope you find it odd that people regularly smoke cigarettes as well. Because the point is not whether a drug is made legal or not by your congress of the moment, but whether the benefits of it outweight the health danger.
People smoke cigarettes primarily because they are profoundly addictive, both chemically and psychologically. That confounds ordinary risk/reward analysis, and so I think it is a red herring here.
Also, the "Hope you..." phrasing makes your comment come off as a bit sneering/condescending, just FYI.
When I am reading HN, it's almost always during time outside the office in the smoking area, or in front of my house, smoking a cigarette, like now.
I would certainly agree that nicotine is profoundly addictive, and the cigarette as a delivery system equally so. It reduces anxiety (especially useful to smooth the effects of caffeine), acts as an apetite suppressant (long nights hacking can be interrupted by a five-minute smoke break rather than a thirty-minute food break), and is a mild stimulant. One issue here, though, is that as you become addicted, most of the anxiety you calm with cigarettes is caused by withdrawal symptoms or even fear of withdrawal symptoms, like headaches, hand tremors, dizziness, blurred vision, all very unpleasant. The pavlovian response is pretty strong: inhaling cigarette smoke gets you the effects within seconds. In the case of withdrawal symptoms, you have this discomfort, and it is relieved almost instantly after you inhale. People with anxiety disorders or depression have a strong tendency to self-medicate with nicotine.
Psychologically, it's nice to have something to do with your hands while standing around outside waiting. Like time in the shower, sometimes I have my best ideas outside smoking, thinking about nothing in particular. And an excuse to get up from the computer and go out for a little while is great, too. There are social benefits as well, if you live in a neighborhood or work at a company where there are people coming and going, happy to converse outside.
So the addiction goes fairly deep, and is often not understood by non-smokers. The fact that you see, in almost any major metropolitan environment, homeless people smoking is a pretty good indicator. Personally, there are times when I have opted to smoke rather than eat or sleep, and it is confounding but there's a deep urge anyway, as if my body were telling me that I "needed" to smoke, in the same way that it tells me I need to eat or sleep.
I've made a number of attempts to quit, and have found the nicotine patches to be the most useful method. (I have a couple of boxes of them at home, waiting for Monday to roll around.)
Per the Wikipedia page it looks interesting, although I've been almost successful with the patch in the past, and know essentially what to expect. I had used the gum (the gratification wasn't quite instant enough) and the "e-cigarettes" (nicotine vaporizers) before with neither working for very long. I had also tried (ill-advisedly) Adderall, which is supposed to calm nicotine cravings for some. (It really only made me giddy and scatter-brained. A very fun drug that made me almost entirely useless.) Should my next attempt work out the same as my previous ones, I'll definitely look into Chantix.
What's been working for me over the past year is Swedish snus. It has definitely broken me of the 20 year addiction to the process of smoking cigarettes. It's amazing how much of the addiction was to everything about smoking other than nicotine. Snus is a borefest. Avoid any of the American snuses (Camel/Marlboro), it'll turn you off to the idea before you get started because they're sweet and gross and barely have any nicotine. I recommend the "General" white portion and/or mint, and the mini-portions are unnoticeable.
Easy to reduce on because you know exactly how many milligrams you're taking (like methadone or something) because of Swedish labelling rules. I'm hoping to be off snus within the next three or four months, but there's no big hurry because it's pretty cheap and very safe in comparison to other tobacco products.
Internet ordering directly from Sweden is easy, and some of the fancier US tobacco shops are starting to carry it - so you might get lucky.
I'm grateful fairly frequently that I never went beyond sampling cigarettes as a kid. So a bit by chance, I don't smoke now, and I'm sure as hell not going to start as an adult.
It's just profoundly clear to me (from your comments, from similar discussions with lots of other smokers) that there's no going back to a pre-smoking life. Life after quitting smoking (or any other deeply-rooted addition, I suspect) is not at all the same as a life where you never started; that bridge is burned.
Well, once you're off, the benefits start to pile up quickly. Food tastes better, you don't cough up strangely colored things early in the morning, your lungs don't burn, etc. It's still an incredibly difficult addiction to quit, much moreso than I expected before I started smoking. When not smoking, I do tend to miss all of the benefits, especially the extra time to think, but I've in the past replaced it with taking brief walks to get some coffee or tea.
I think most smokers start at a young age; if you're not a smoker by age 25, there is little chance of you becoming one after that. This is why a lot of cigarette advertising is subliminally targeted at young folks.
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