"ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease"

[Philly]

[exploited]

As a disorder, ADHD has both environmental and genetic/structural causes. Diet, parenting techniques, classroom design, these factors interact with the structural differences I've highlighted elsewhere.

Maybe they are an evolutionary adaptation, hell, they have to be. But human programming is overrated. We can and should train ourselves away from our programming, especially when it is causing real trouble in our lives. What are parents supposed to do? Have their kid drop out of public school or simply not learn anything? Quit their jobs and home school? We have to be realistic. The most realistic solution to ADHD is a two-pronged approach, medication and lifestyle changes, and it should be based on actual observations of a child's behavior, in accordance with ICD-10 criteria.

A good parent does what will make their kid succeed in the world as it is, not simply according to the world as they want it to be.

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

[Philly]

[The Dharma Bum]

[exploited]

[The Dharma Bum]

The price of that human potential I spoke of earlier may be higher than we currently realize. If we force the organism into the framework and let selection do it's work we will end up with pliable material that will willingly and ably conform to the rigors of advanced industrial production. That will achieve the planner's desired result of over production to fuel consumerism.

But what about all the wasted talent and abilities that have to be bred out of the organism to do so? Will some humans be able to actualize their genetic prerogative unfettered by the system you say we should conform to? What will that lead to in a 1000 years? A species of humans that retains the ability to act of their own volition and a separate species that will be ok to exploit brutally because they are bred to withstand it?

If this is really a matter of doing what is best for your own genetic progeny you should be willing to resist being in thrall to technology and collective organization to exclusion of individuality, which is what we are talking about when we get down to brass tacks here.

[exploited]

Medicating a disorder isn't necessarily being in thrall to "technology and collective organization," though. That is an ideological imposition on your part.

For instance, my parents are organic farmers that have always made their own way in the world, have never been ones to accept others authority unquestionably, etc. I can't even count the number of times my parents have made valuable contributions to our community, contributions that are authentic and real, that change how local power structures behave. For instance, they led the fight against the privatization of water resources in this area, putting them at odds with corporate and municipal interests alike. Does that strike you as the actions of the type of people to simply dose their kid because they are lazy? They tried everything under the sun before resorting to medication, then got me off them ASAP. That is what it means to be a responsible parent - they balanced their own knowledge and beliefs (medication is largely to be avoided if possible in my family) with the needs of their child.

Ultimately, you have thrown good and bad parents, as well as real and convenient ADHD, under the same bus. That is unfortunate.

[The Dharma Bum]

Individuals, during any given period of time, have to do what they think they have to do given their best judgment at the time to get by. I'm not saying whether or not that I think that these individual outcomes are good or bad in themselves.

However I am highly critical of many aspects of the direction we are taking as a society and I do encourage people to alter things to suit themselves, learn new skills etc. It's more that I am worried that a day will come when individual volition itself will be viewed as a disorder.

The evolution of humanity and the evolution of technology have a strange relationship. Technology existed before the species homo sapiens sapiens did. The earlier hominids had an industrial basis, the Oldowan industry, that was purely instinctive.

So, when considered from that perspective technology has actually altered us to suit its needs as it has itself evolved. What will that process look like when technology with individual self volition develops? Humanity will become nothing more than raw biological material for advanced tech. It's a frightening prospect. It very well could be that technology is a way for an alien consciousness or intelligence to transmit itself across the vast distances of space and our own conscious state as biological organisms is merely a byproduct of a truly advanced technological process started by a species perhaps millions of years ahead of us, evolutionary speaking.