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Comment by humbleferret | Hacker News Reader

A couple of key points that stood out to me:

1. ADHD traits could have been beneficial for exploring new food sources in ancient times. 2. While ADHD is often seen as a disorder today, it might be better suited to different environments.

Intriguing stuff about ADHD traits maybe being helpful in some situations! Makes me rethink how I view ADHD, and chimes with my own experience of folks with ADHD doing really well in certain tasks compared to others. A good reminder to consider different perspectives.

I also learnt that the DRD4/7R gene was linked to ADHD AND risk-taking behaviour.

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ADHD has helped me find success in the modern world by making me fail at things I don't find interesting. This forced me to work on what I find interesting. This is risky.

I can't experimentally verify it, but on the balance I believe I am better off with ADHD than without it. It has also caused me problems because even being slightly outside the norm has high costs in a mechanized economy that values interchangeable parts/people over novelty.

You probably want someone with ADHD to be on guard duty at night: “I’m bored, this is boring, I should go poke Joe with a stick until he wakes up, I’m OMG A TWIG SNAPPED LET’S GO”.

I've always been great at finding items that people lose, 'I Spy' games, stealth games, hunting, etc..

Not sure if there is any merit to it, but I find that because I do not typically fixate on one particular thing, I can easily distracted by anything/everything, thus I can spot differences rather rapidly.

I consider it like a breadth-first search vs. a depth-first search.

This. I've determined that the societal benefit of ADHD is best demonstrated in the hunter role during humans' hunter-gatherer era.

Long runs or hikes to get to the locale / day (or days) long stints of observant concentration resulting in longer than 24H wake/sleep cycles / intense sprints to chase down prey —— all well-suited for the ADHD constitution.

I've thought about it from every angle and it sure adds up to me.

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