Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by brokenkebaby 1064 days ago
It's guaranteed to be false for the simple fact of human organism adaptability to caffeine. You certainly feel increased alertness after a cup of coffee, so subjectively it may feel very empowering. But if you're a long-time caffeine consumer your baseline (no caffeine alertness) goes down, and in the long run coffee just brings you up to the same level non-consumers have for free. So let's not fool ourselves, coffee is primaryly for pleasure, it doesn't make any miracles for productivity
2 comments
ars 1063 days ago
To me it seems like it's more about control: Before coffee you are tired and sleep well, then "flip a switch" (drink coffee) and you are alert and ready for the day. And you can do this even if perhaps you didn't sleep well, or not enough, or you just take a while to wake up, because otherwise you are not productive for a while.

Yes, the baseline is unchanged - but it's controlled and on demand.

link
da39a3ee 1064 days ago
> But if you're a long-time caffeine consumer your baseline (no caffeine alertness) goes down, and in the long run coffee just brings you up to the same level non-consumers have for free

Citation? It sounds a lot like that's something that you find convenient to believe, perhaps because you gave up coffee and you want to tell yourself you did something good for yourself.

Coffee is essential for my productivity, not for pleasure.

link
brokenkebaby 1063 days ago
Yes, please: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23108937/

>Coffee is essential for my productivity, not for pleasure.

For sure it is (for the reasons I described above). As for pleasure: I don't know, maybe you are the one who hates its smell, and taste, and just takes it as a medecine. It's not impossible, but it would make you an outlier.

Btw, I do consume caffeine, nicotine, and sometimes alcohol. I'm just conscious nothing of those gives me a superpower. Even though they can give a subjective feeling of superpower sometimes.

link
daddylongstroke 1064 days ago
There was just a study published which proposed to show amphetamines of all kinds, actually decreased productivity, and significantly delayed time-to-resolution of cognitive problem solving tests...it also did show the people on the amphetamines vastly overestimate their productivity "boost" from the drugs. Obviously, devil's in the details.
link