Our Culture of Exclusion (or, why I'm not at JSConf this year)

The OP seems to have a real chip on his shoulder about drinking. About half of what the OP said was him putting words in people's mouths (see: "Y U NO DRINK" for an example). This is coming from someone who is also a non-drinker, and who is from a culture in which drinking is almost the only social activity (I'm from Ireland).

That actually puts him in the same company as the brogrammers, who think that drinking is somehow makes their group special. The OP looks at drunken antics and thinks "those idiots" (emphasis on "those"), while they think "we're so cool" (emphasis on "we").

Compare to how I perceive most drinkers: people who want to have a conversation, and use alcohol to provide both the venue and a small social lubricant. Having been to a few github meetups in SF, they're largely sober affairs - I haven't observed much alcoholism or drunkenness. Conferences are a bit worse, but that's because people start drinking earlier.

It's not hard to enjoy these conferences, even as a non-drinker. Geeks chatting to geeks about geekery. Yes it happens in the pub; yes most people are drinking; yes some people have an unhealthy attitude to drinking - but that's life. I would suggest the OP tries again: roll your eyes at those bragging about drinking, ignore the guys slurring their words, and have good geeky conversation with the other 90% (a number which obviously diminishes the longer the event goes on).

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately for you, lots of people drink. It's not just a programmer thing. It's one of the most prominent ways people socialize. Not programmers, people.

I'm sorry that you feel uncomfortable going to conferences because of the drinking, but unfortunately, it's something you should probably learn to accept. You can move cities, change careers, do whatever you want, but unfortunately, you're going to find that people socialize via drinking just about everywhere.

I feel the same way at conferences, and I actually do drink, though I never binge drink.

But, that's not why I came to the conference. I can drink at home.

I think you're fighting a losing battle, though, because the demographic that is generally involved in programming is essentially the same (with a slight tendency to nerdy and aspie) as the demographic of bros, and going to a conference is like a paid vacation for people who like programming (and aren't too intensely on call) - hence party time. Think state college spring break.

I think social awkwardness has an effect, too. I'd venture to say that the computer obsessed tend to more socially awkward, and alcohol offers a crutch when attempting to consciously network.

I think the tech bloggers need to harden the fuck up. The whining is too much to bear.

A note from Hitchens:

“Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,' as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.”

Its sad when someone introduces you to a new community, telling you how much they love to drink. Then when you reply that you don't drink, said person tells you .. you know actually I don't drink either.

First up, very few of these parties are advertised as a place to taste alcohol. They are advertised as get wasted as much as possible cause its cool. And its pretty much every conference I go to.

But at any rate, I think the "original" purpose was the same as why people drink when they are back at home: To reduce anxiety and to make it easier for people to get to know each other. I think that is a worthy goal since to me the main purpose of conferences are to network, the talks come second.

But I know the same deal from sports tournaments where its also play hard on saturday, get drunk on saturday evening, play hard on sunday. I just sick around as long as there is someone not drunk to talk to, or the DJ doesn't suck so that I can dance. So it goes.

I also recently wrote on my Facebook page, that this is yet another form of excluding people. Especially if the only non alcoholic drink is water and pineapple juice. But yeah the difference is that nobody has seriously (well jokingly they have) implied that I am a worse programmer because I don't drink, where as it appears to happen still way too often that women are assumed to be booth babes or n00bs.

But getting smashed also has the tendency that people do stupid things and when a bunch of guys feel like they totally own a place in numbers while being totally drunk they might also start thinking they can "own" that female geek hacker. So yeah maybe there is where we get back to the sexism debate.

What's next, "I feel excluded because I'm a naturist"? The author seems to be uncomfortable with drinking and seems to be projecting his discomfort on the people at these conferences. I go to social functions all the time where other people are drinking and I'm not — sometimes it's awkward, sometimes it's great fun anyway (honestly, that's true of dry events too). If that's not his bag, cool, but it's hard to find an actionable suggestion in this post beyond "I think everyone should be like me and not drink." This is not really comparable to creating a hostile environment where women feel objectified or looked down upon.

Excellent points all around Ryan. Thanks for bringing this up. The binge drinking that is almost mandatory at most conferences I attend these days is exclusive and annoying.

I don't, however, think that you need to stop attending conferences because of it. Rest assured there will always be someone else there like you that will have interesting things to talk about and will be sober.

Now that you have let others know that you definitely won't be drinking, you may actually be inviting others who feel the same way to seek you out at conferences because it's more fun to hang with like-minded people.

Alcohol is not the main problem. The lack of professionalism that the attendees have is. You can have a drink or two and still have meaningful conversations, but getting sloshed is just stupid. If you want to get trashed, why waste the money on a conference ticket?

Even those of us who are almost professional conference goers get tired of this stuff eventually. I know I far prefer having a couple of awesome programmers over my house for a great conversation. Just did that this morning, actually, when the folks behind FluidInfo came over. No beers were consumed.

What Ryan should do is focus on hackathons and other, smaller, places where code actually gets written, shared, and discussed. There are plenty of those every week. At least there are in places like San Francisco. Every week or so there's a Node.js hackathon in our office at Rackspace. Generally folks have a choice of whether to stick around for beers after a long day, and even when the beers came out, at about 6 p.m. during dinner, it wasn't anything like a SXSW drinking fest.

Some other feedback:

1. Conferences are awful places to have real, deep, conversations. Why? There's an opportunity cost to spending any time with any specific person. Heck, you can be talking to someone very interesting, like Bram Cohen, who wrote Bittorrent and then Eric Ries walks by and you lose interest in Bram all of a sudden. It's far better to see if you can get Bram together at your house, or in a hackathon, where there's only 40 other programmers than hang out at some party with 200 other cool people you want to meet.

2. When you're in a noisy situation, like at a party (even one without alcohol, they do happen, but rarely) it's just not a great place to have a conversation. I remember being at one Techcrunch party and I couldn't even talk to the developers there. Why? I couldn't hear them and they were two feet away. So, I started drinking and smiling. Horrid for actually discussing anything important. I stopped going to those too, my time is better spent sitting down with someone in a quiet place and actually learning something.

Parties, to me, are only about one thing now: collecting business cards and making plans for meeting later on. That's what I did at SXSW. I had breakfast with the guy who runs Al Jazeera and it was magical. That's what made the parties worth it.

Interesting article, thanks. I live in France, where it is forbidden to have alcoholic beverages at work, so I'm a bit surprised reading your description of the situation in the US. Same thing for the events I've attended (Linux Expo, RMLL, XP Days, EuroPython...), where it certainly was possible to get a beer (generally not for free), but no drinking parties were organized (or I was not aware of them). So maybe you should consider moving on the other side of the Atlantic where you could possibly feel more at ease :-)

-- Gurney (https://twitter.com/#!/gurneyalex)

Ryan,

You make a good point, but as others have noted, it's not right to single out programmers. You are falling victim to a logical fallacy for lack of sufficient data.

Casual, uninformed attitudes towards over-drinking, and over-indulgence in general, are a problem for society and individuals, but it's a subtle problem. One which, I'm afraid, your blunt instrument will not help much in addressing. I fear you've only succeeded in alienating a lot of people who will not be able to apply the proper filters to your arguments, or your approach.

Cultural and social behaviors are complex. Take the human brain, already astoundlingly sophisticated, and then mix it up with 10^(3|6|9)'s of others in a multi-dimensional loosely coupled, feedback-rich system. How do you influence such a system? Short answer: you don't, at least not unilaterally or deterministically.

A better approach to condemning something you don't like is to offer an alternative that you do, and attract like-minded people. This is how the world changes. Leave others to continue their destructive and habitual behaviors; it's their right/privilege.

I guarantee that their are thousands of of programmers who would happily take a break from inebriated venting sessions to participate in something more productive or inspirational. But on the other hand, most good programmers already spend all day doing that.

The challenge is to combine mental stimulation with something non-intellectual, something which creates a relaxing, atmospher, as opposed to something tense and stressful. Generally, alcohol or other depressants are the most time-efficient technique for relaxing, hence it's popularity. But also, booze is designed to be tasty, and bars are designed to be relaxing and fun. The fact that people over-indulge is just a classic example of another logical phallacy: if A is good, more of A is always better. But the concept of proper proportions is abstract and subtle

Most young men under twenty-five have incompletely developed brains. Since they drive the industry in many ways, they simply can't act on the insights you're trying to share, even if they understand them abstractly. The power of socialization instincts and hormones are too powerful.

So my advice to you is to find a select group of more astute and self-aware programmers who know what you're about, and go drinking with them, since they will be more restrained and more interested in intellectual exploration, and less in trying to prove their ability to hold their liquor.

Not sure if I'd paint it so black and white, I think in general I have been in many of these things as well.

On both ends – I guess more on the 'I'm getting a drink' one because I agree that after a while there is no reason to stay sober anymore, because everyone else is on their way already. It's either that or go home, which I do frequently as well. But it very much depends on the kind of people I am with – in many cases it's not just colleagues or people I find interesting in terms of technological background: they are my actual friends (not Facebook-friends).

And despite getting smashed I've still had a lot of interesting conversations and discussions with people in the same setting. I don't want to call anyone out which is why I won't name names, but I think all (three) conferences I attended last year had an "open bar" at some point and it was still worth while.

One was an amazing weekend of great talks, conversations, food and drinks.

And I don't regret going to any of these either. For starters, I can stop whenever I want and go back to my hotel or go home. I can still stay around and not drink anything and chat with others all night if I want to. Or do the opposite and have a drink with them.

I personally caught myself pondering about how you keep a level of professionalism – e.g. when you see your work mates (and/or superiors) drunk all the time, how do you keep the respect around?

We hired a lot of people in the last two years and while it's good to be friends with everyone you work with, I think there is a gray area of how far you want to go. There is work and after-work and in the end, some people manage it and others do not. For myself, I just decided to not shift into last gear when I go out with them and that means I can still have a good time and even have a drink if I want to. Got that much self-control (or maybe just fear of the next day).

I'm not sure I agree on a ban for alcohol from conferences. I can see where you're coming from and I'd like to think people should consume within reason, but I'm sure that doesn't really work out at all. At least for the majority. In the end it's always freedom of choice.

I give you that though: Maybe drinks should not be free so people don't get wasted right on. Whoever sponsors them could also sponsor something else, or something more worth while.

Re: Brogrammers

I don't think that drinking has anything to do with the brogrammer trend. Drinking was around before the brogrammer trend and it's going to be around after. The author states that drinking might be the cause of the brogrammer trend but the offers nothing to support that claim and does not elaborate further.

Nobody is discussing drinking as a cause of this because it's not.

It's hard to argue with the points of the author's article. It's very easy, however, to argue with a simplistic misunderstanding of the author's article. Basically, if you think this is about not liking drinking, you are wrong (in my opinion). If, on the other hand, you think this is about exclusion, and tailoring fora for a particular demographic, and then failing to acknowledge that tailoring, then you are correct (in my opinion). The author goes to great lengths to illustrate his point, and then somehow that escapes many of these commentators. That's unfortunate, because that failure detracts from the more fruitful dialogue that could be occurring. Will more reading help? No idea. Will more comments help? I have no idea. Maybe the author's article will resonate with enough people who can make a difference that things will improve.

The comparison to sexism is pretty offensive to me (even though you try to minimize it early in the article, yet bring it up again via a link at the end). You're privileged to have the option to just not go to the party after the conference - women don't get to just "not be women".

He needs to lighten up! All day long I stare at screens solving problems. A beer often serves as a great way to relax and de-stress. His abhorrence of alcohol is perfectly within his rights, but he shouldn't act self righteous and judge others. The post reads almost like a temperance movement column from 1917 and is equally ridiculous.

There's also a big difference between a beer in the company fridge (like Pivotal, ZocDoc, iCouch, DPL, etc,) and doing keg stands next to the pairing stations. The absolutism of the blog was my biggest complaint. Moderation has a place between the extreme of binge lunacy and strict teetotaling.

I've met a bunch of people who don't drink, but are perfectly able to socialize in those situations. It seems to me you're bothered by those few who can't handle liquor, and making a huge generalization about people who drink. No worries, it seems to be a common mistake in those rants. But I have to disagree with the title of your post: You're not being excluded by people who drink. You're excluding yourself.

I've noticed the prevalence of alcohol in the tech workplace has increased in the last few decades. In the 80s, in Silicon Valley, a Friday beer bash was not unusual, but it wasn't every Friday, and alcohol wasn't offered at other times. Back then, for me as a young person, that seemed very cool and generous. It was definitely not routine among employers generally.

Lately, I've been to lots of meetups at tech companies in SF, and beer on tap seems to be freely available at all times at every location I've visited. In some cases, the tap is right smack in the middle of the main work area.

I have no problem at all with people who use alcohol or other drugs responsibly, but it's hard to see how providing alcohol in the workplace is skillful or wise. Possibly you're promoting camaraderie, but at what cost to clarity and wholesome connection and the long term of health of employees?

It would be interesting to do a study and determine whether freely available alcohol increases productivity or other measures of employee or customer well-being, and whether it and has any health effects. I'm thinking it has to be a net negative, but I'd like to see real data.

Times have changed on campus too. At nearly all colloquia I attend, there are snacks and beverages. I don't remember that ever being offered when I was a student in the 70s - no free food then.

So, we seem to be living in an increasingly generous world. People naturally want to give and that impulse is finding new expression. Food and drink are routinely offered. I expect free housing will be soon be offered in some places. Open source software is readily available. Knowledge on the web is freely offered. This is great! It's changing everything! The pitfall is that we're also being generous in ways that may work to undermine our collective well being.

The only requirement I have for these things is that the after event drinks are held at a place where you don't have to raise your voice to have a conversation. Most pubs are satisfactory for that purpose.

I've never seen anyone get completely hammered at these things, but I don't stay until the wee hours either. I think the fact that your networking at an event in your profession should temper you a bit, and from what I've seen, it does for most people. You don't want to make yourself out to be an ass that can't hold it together. That, in my mind, is the difference between having nice conversation over a few drinks and "binge drinking." Binge drinkers are there to get blackout drunk as fast as possible, not to meet new folks and have interesting conversation.

Having said that, I don't think I've ever actually witnessed binge drinking at a tech event.

As a rule, I try to keep things to one drink an hour. Any more than that and I start getting buzzed and quality of conversation falls off a bit.

I don't have a good time/don't get as much as I could out of some conferences because of this issue. Due to a medical condition I have a sensitivity to chemicals. Just smelling alcohol (or cigarette smoke, detergents, cleaning products, ...) makes me ill. It's not something that I--as some of the commenters here have advised--can learn to accept.

I put my thoughts on the post and folks reaction to it from twitter on my blog at http://kewlniss.com/

Summary: As with everything, moderation is the key. Anything to excess is bad – including coding non stop and constantly thinking about work. That is excess and it isn’t healthy and I constantly do it.

I understand his position completely and I can get behind his message - tone down the alco-centric messaging. That could have been a single tweet and not this long diatribe.

What I don't understand is the patronizing hyperbole.

The bit that irks me the most is the insinuation that this is an incubator for "brogrammers" and that because people like to go out for a drink with people they see maybe once a year they're "douchey" and like "wall street bankers"? Dude. Way off base, condescending, and border-line offensive.

Who knows how much overlap exists between these two groups but I'd like to point out that it was programmers who were sending Steve Klabnik's poor ailing father birthday cards. I'd probably guess that a few of those people are going out for a beer (or two, or 5) after the next ruby-related conference AND they're not "douchey".

I don't go to too many conferences but I have been to a couple of hackathons and meet ups in NYC. Before I became a programmer I worked in a lot of nightclubs. And maybe its just a matter of scale from what I've seen before but I don't see drinking being that big in the programming community. I'm a non drinker and even when I worked in the clubs I never felt pressured to drink.There have been plenty of times when I'm the only one drinking Pepsi while everyone else has a rum and coke.

If you have an issue with people getting sloppy drunk at conferences, I can see that being a problem. But if you're just talking about moderate drinking after the conferences or work to unwind then just go, don't drink, and have fun. I doubt very many people will be judging you.

I don't get it. Do people give you shit for not drinking when you go to events? I've never had any problem when I decide I don't feel like drinking that day. You say you don't want to tell people what to do, but you want them to stop drinking?

Fair point, but I doubt it will change anything. Why not throw your own hackfests during the conferences for those who don't want to go out drinking. Perhaps many that go out are only doing it for lack of something better to do.

I'm not really a conference-goer but I thought the parties were kind of the point. I'll go see someone famous like http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/musings.html out of sheer tourist curiosity, but if you're just some guy, I'd rather read what you have to say (and unlimited followups) at my leisure than sit through the lecture format. A dry meet&greet could work, but only if there's a critical mass of interesting people who are equally comfortable doing that while sober (i.e., not using a buzz to damp social anxiety).

Maybe it doesn't matter, but I didn't see anywhere in the article why Ryan chooses not to drink. Obviously, his own choice with what to choose to put in his body. But I have definitely wondered about the influence of the culture on those who don't drink for cultural or religious reasons (e.g. Muslim, Mormon) Are we losing talented people who don't want to be part of that aspect of the culture?

Protip: on nights when I choose not to drink, I usually drink club soda with a bunch of lime wedges (like 3-4). I love the taste of it, it looks like a gin and tonic or vodka and soda and no one ever asks.

Great points. I often am dismayed that conferences and user groups seem more like frat parties than a profession attempting to further itself. And we wonder why progress plods.

Beer is lame. There should be more of an emphasis on weed and psychedelics. Hey, it worked for Carl Sagan!

I wrote this mobile web app in node.js http://www.beveragelog.com/ So that you can audit your abstinence, record your responsible drinking, or boast about your binge drinking.

Drinking is better than playing werewolf.

I have some sympathy for the article writer. S/he was perhaps a bit hyperbolic.

I'd suggest just taking business cards to the parties; meet people, swap cards, get a few details, and then leave when it gets too much. That's really the only use you'll get from them. But at least you've made the introduction and a follow-up email a few days later will get some results.

Excessive drinking is a problem. In the UK we have a concept of "Units of alcohol" to try to help people understand how much alcohol they drink. Men should have no more than 3 or 4 units per day. (women no more than 2 or 3. (Current advice is none at all while pregnant, but that's based on a precautionary principle because the safe limit isn't known, rather than known harm at 1 unit per week.)) They also recommend some drink free days each week, and strongly suggest that units cannot be "saved up" to use later in the week. (EG: Drink free monday through thursday then fockin' blindo friday and saturday.) One unit of alcohol used to be a pub measure of spirits, or half a pint of beer, or a small glass of wine. Because alcohol strength has increased beer and wine are often more than one unit in a pub measure.

One unit is 125 ml of wine at 8% Alcohol by Volume. Most wine is sold in 150 ml or 175 ml (for a small glass) and 250 ml for a large glass. Most wine is at least 10% ABV, but 12% is not uncommon.

This nice chart shows 250 ml at 12%ABV is 3 units. One large glass a day is skirting the safe drinking limits.

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Units_of_alcohol_char...)

It's easy to see that people drinking a couple of glasses of wine in the evenings after work do not see themselves as having a problem with alcohol. Add in extra social time drinking and some people get very high levels of alcohol.

It really is a problem in the UK.

This article mentions someone drinking a remarkable amount:

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15997695)

But these articles mention much more reasonable drinking is also a problem:

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16869618)

(Very annoyingly they say things like "triples the risk of mouth cancer" which is meaningless to most people.)

And this article recommends some time to recover after heavy drinking:

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15415713)

This article has some suggestions about binge drinking in the UK. We have weird pubs - vertical drinking environments - where seating is limited, music is noisy, food isn't served. All these things increase the amount that people drink. While it's technically illegal to serve someone who is drunk I've never ever seen anyone refused alcohol, and I have seen many people barely able to ask for the drink being served.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16466646)

this article really takes the fun out of funduk

I go to conf after-parties and I barely drink at all any more, due to a health problem. Nobody has ever given me shit, and I enjoyed myself just as much as ever. I originally worried that people were going to seem obnoxious when they were drunk and I was sober, but it was an unfounded fear. I can count on one hand the times I've thought "wow, that's a sloppy drunk."

Sounds to me like the author is trying hard to conjure up a problem.

Oh dear me looks like the OP desnt get out much if he think programmers drink a lot he shold hang out out with Civil engineers or Squaddies or goto a Political conference where you know your feeling your age when you can't stay in the bar till 4 go back to you room write three speaches and win your motions.

bye then.

Drink what I want, not what you want.

OP gives up drinking, decides the rest of his industry has to as well. I'll get right on that.