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Comment by acyou | Hacker News Reader

If we think that everyone else is the problem, it usually means that we are the real problem.

Not sure how someone can be reliant on substance abuse and still find room to criticize others, and think they are the one who "gets it".

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I have these ambivalent feelings toward it. I worked in public sector digitalisation for a decade during the “transition” where alcohol went from being normalised to banned in the work place. This was obviously a good thing for soooo many reasons, but one of the unintended side effects could have been an impact on decision making.

Now this is, very, very, anecdotal, I have no research to back it up and I’m sure a million other factors had an impact as well. But along side the ban of alcohol we also seemed to lose the ability to make decisions and simply get things done. Upper management and political leadership became much more risk aware and we lost the “bang in the table, I’ve had enough of this talk, let’s just get it done” decisions. When I later moved into the green energy industry, in an investment bank that turns investor money into profit by building/buying+renovating solar plants and eventually selling them. I saw this “let’s just get this done” attitude again, once again coupled with rampant alcohol consumption.

I think it would be interesting to see if there was any research on the impact substances have on “just getting shit done”, but I’m in digitalisation and I’m never going to do it. I do personally think the work place is a little more boring with the puritan take on substances, but on the flip side, you don’t have to look into many statistics to see how the ban have helped soooo many people to not ruin their lives.

I read a study once that regular alcohol consumption has a negative impact on long-term planning/decision-making (or on the part of your brain typically associated with that?)

So it's interesting to look at your comment through that lens, because at least in my eyes they seem to align.

A lot of times the quality of a decision is less important than the decision gets made and a course set. When work begins, the real problems start making themselves apparent and you can change direction. But I've seen so many companies that spend months to years going back and forth trying to ensure they make the Correct Decision. By the time they decide, their competition has made the wrong decision and corrected back to something that achieves what they wanted. I could see how alcohol use, even if it leads to worse overall decisions long term, could kick the project into motion which leads to better results.

> In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

The fact that you used the words "substance abuse" as the framing implies that you're not arguing in good faith. Not all use is abuse.

Users of drugs are not necessarily abusing drugs nor are they necessarily reliant. I wouldn’t go so far as to say you don’t “get it”, but your assumptions here certainly don’t indicate open-mindedness.

HN truly is becoming worse off, as can be seen from comments here like yours.

Take nearly any traditional way of thinking and realize that in order to have changed it, it began with such commentary like this article .

The fact you call it “substance abuse” is indicative of the problem the article is describing.

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