The problem with having ADHD in a functioning society.

[Deleted member 6380]

This is a edited copy-paste from reddit, but explains the problem with having adhd. Hunter gatheres have been wiped out and genocided in the last 10,000 years, or they adapted and became farmers.

NT = Farmer
ADHD = HG

Gotta throw in here. This basic idea was behind the book "Hunter in a Farmer's World", and is explored in detail there, but... basically it discusses that when hunter-gatherer lifestyles were the only option, AdHD brains do very well. It USED to give an advantage, but the environment has changed, because of the advent of modern cultures.

You are forgetting that agricultural cultures do provide more calories, have more offspring (though have lower infant survival RATES), and are better at organised warfare, slavery, etc than hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherer cultures have been the victims of displacement, depopulation, genocide, and assimilation for 10, 000 years. So HG genes are being systematically removed from the world population..

Reference that ADHD is more than twice as common among extant peoples who had been HG within the last generation or two, such as Indiginous Amazonians and Northern peoples like the inuit, than among those who have been agricultural/industrial for longer.

The point of the theory is EXACTLY that both individuals and groups with lots of ADHD types benefit, IN THE ENVIRONMENT WHERE THEY WERE BORN. The problem in now that we are outvoted culturally by the farmer-brains, and are forced to fit into their mores, attitudes, priorities, and laws, because they have prevailed within the environment they created.

A HG wakes up every day in an environment where there are things he wants to eat and things that want to eat him. If he gets too focused on breakfast, he becomes breakfast. If he can't shift focus quickly to something more interesting, he will lose opportunities, or make himself vulnerable. Decisions are made instantly, impulsively, because the moment matters.

The farmer brain can plant and wait, and aside from war, things will work out. He can do what he's told and expect results. If he innovates, he may benefit the group, and increase its success long-term, but the daily decisions are not life and death. Work ethic matters more than flexibility and lateral thinking.

That's the theory, anyway..the key is to remember that the ENVIRONMENT has changed, out from under the feet of the ADHD hunter-brain, and that It was the Farmer-brains that changed the world, hence the platitude that humans are the only animal to have done that to the extent we have. The ADHD brain could adapt to Iit's environmeny, moment to moment. The farmer-brains just sat down and slowly changed it to fit them, and their children better.

 

[micropenis29]

tldr