Humans are literally Jack of All Trades. The big evolutionary advantage of brain power is that it lets animals adapt to new things in a single lifetime, rather than having to evolve adaptations to it over generations, and humans primary evolutionary advantage is our massive generalized brain power.
Capitalism says to specialize, human nature says to be a jack of all trades.
I assume this community will disagree strongly, but ADHD honestly does not seem like an actual disorder (as in, an objective detriment, and one that evolution would select against in the long term), so much as just our brains not being particularly suited to capitalism and capitalists gas lighting the masses into thinking that’s abnormal.
Some guy wrote a book about this but basically it’s hunters (in the Hunter-Gatherer sense) stuck in a farmers world.
SO back when humans primarily hunted and were nomadic, prior to the advent of agriculture and sedentary farming (where seasonal planning and forecasting was required), a lot of required traits for survival: high-vigilance, impulsivity, and novel-seeking - were what made great hunters and survivalists.
People with ADHD just have the wrong OS for this era or more like they are peak human (Windows XP) and current humans are bloated Windows 11… it’s evolutionary enshittification.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
I often wonder if we’re supposed to be as smart as we are, like in general. I see some people and think “what a fucking moron” but like put them next to basically any other animal on the planet and they’re doing alright.
I mean ~80% of the world’s population takes stimulants daily in the form of caffeine. Childhood ADHD rates are now at ~12%, and the testing criteria for ADHD revolves largely around whether it negatively impacts your life.
If everyone else is increasingly taking stimulants for it and you’re not, then you’re more likely to feel negatively impacted since you’ll stand out, which is likely to increase the diagnosis rate further.
I don’t think it’s unlikely that we see a world where like half the population has an ADHD diagnosis, and/or the treatment for ADHD (i.e. more effective stimulants then caffeine), become over the counter.
I assume this community will disagree strongly, but ADHD honestly does not seem like an actual disorder…
Not fitting into Capitalism has nothing to do with common ADHD traits such as lack of emotional regulation, time blindness, and our tendency towards risky behaviors.
So yeah, I do strongly disagree with your attempt to blame the negative aspects of ADHD on an economic system…because it’s bullshit.
I could be anything from an Mesopotamian King to a rider in the Mongol horde to a Medieval Peasant and my brain would still have the same damn problems.
Not fitting into Capitalism has nothing to do with common ADHD traits such as lack of emotional regulation, time blindness, and our tendency towards risky behaviors.
All of those traits generally make you a less predictable and harder to manage worker. Capitalism absolutely cares about those traits very significantly.
I could be anything from an Mesopotamian King to a rider in the Mongol horde to a Medieval Peasant and my brain would still have the same damn problems.
This is literally impossible to say. Your brain would still work similarly, but it would have been shaped by entirely different stimuli and environment, so it would not be working the same. It’s also entirely possible that those tendencies are beneficial in different historical contexts. Other systems like feudalism may also similarly view ADHD as a detriment, but that doesn’t mean that every system / context does.
Or the ever popular extension of that: I’ve not done it so long that I’m insanely uncomfortable about it and will actively avoid the space in which it is in and do other things (read: nothing) while obsessing about the thing you need to do and the fact that you haven’t done it until you nearly have a nervous breakdown
Putting off yardwork untill your lawnmower can no longer handle the density of plant matter. And then just calling the area a wild flower field, or pollinator haven or some other excuse for just not touching it.
Humans are literally Jack of All Trades. The big evolutionary advantage of brain power is that it lets animals adapt to new things in a single lifetime, rather than having to evolve adaptations to it over generations, and humans primary evolutionary advantage is our massive generalized brain power.
Capitalism says to specialize, human nature says to be a jack of all trades.
I assume this community will disagree strongly, but ADHD honestly does not seem like an actual disorder (as in, an objective detriment, and one that evolution would select against in the long term), so much as just our brains not being particularly suited to capitalism and capitalists gas lighting the masses into thinking that’s abnormal.
Some guy wrote a book about this but basically it’s hunters (in the Hunter-Gatherer sense) stuck in a farmers world.
SO back when humans primarily hunted and were nomadic, prior to the advent of agriculture and sedentary farming (where seasonal planning and forecasting was required), a lot of required traits for survival: high-vigilance, impulsivity, and novel-seeking - were what made great hunters and survivalists.
People with ADHD just have the wrong OS for this era or more like they are peak human (Windows XP) and current humans are bloated Windows 11… it’s evolutionary enshittification.
I often wonder if we’re supposed to be as smart as we are, like in general. I see some people and think “what a fucking moron” but like put them next to basically any other animal on the planet and they’re doing alright.
Would be a fun movie idea, the creative and adhd people run the world and are seen as normal, instead of the reverse.
I mean ~80% of the world’s population takes stimulants daily in the form of caffeine. Childhood ADHD rates are now at ~12%, and the testing criteria for ADHD revolves largely around whether it negatively impacts your life.
If everyone else is increasingly taking stimulants for it and you’re not, then you’re more likely to feel negatively impacted since you’ll stand out, which is likely to increase the diagnosis rate further.
I don’t think it’s unlikely that we see a world where like half the population has an ADHD diagnosis, and/or the treatment for ADHD (i.e. more effective stimulants then caffeine), become over the counter.
Not fitting into Capitalism has nothing to do with common ADHD traits such as lack of emotional regulation, time blindness, and our tendency towards risky behaviors.
So yeah, I do strongly disagree with your attempt to blame the negative aspects of ADHD on an economic system…because it’s bullshit.
I could be anything from an Mesopotamian King to a rider in the Mongol horde to a Medieval Peasant and my brain would still have the same damn problems.
All of those traits generally make you a less predictable and harder to manage worker. Capitalism absolutely cares about those traits very significantly.
This is literally impossible to say. Your brain would still work similarly, but it would have been shaped by entirely different stimuli and environment, so it would not be working the same. It’s also entirely possible that those tendencies are beneficial in different historical contexts. Other systems like feudalism may also similarly view ADHD as a detriment, but that doesn’t mean that every system / context does.
Person above you likely has never experienced executive disfunction.
I need to do this, I actually want to do this, why am I not doing this?
Or the ever popular extension of that: I’ve not done it so long that I’m insanely uncomfortable about it and will actively avoid the space in which it is in and do other things (read: nothing) while obsessing about the thing you need to do and the fact that you haven’t done it until you nearly have a nervous breakdown
The task: laundry, dishes, sweeping, etc
Putting off yardwork untill your lawnmower can no longer handle the density of plant matter. And then just calling the area a wild flower field, or pollinator haven or some other excuse for just not touching it.