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Comment by malf | Hacker News Reader

> common sense

75% of people surveyed drink coffee every day?

Everybody breathes 70% of nitrogen mixture. Nitrogen at elevated pressures has narcoleptic effect. It's common sense that even at atmospheric pressure nitrogen also has some narcoleptic effect. That is in fact true, as breathing helium mixture at atmospheric pressure improves reaction times.

People don't necessarily do what common sense would say if they have to do something else for other reasons.

Caffeine doesn't stimulate you, it just makes you unaware of how tired you are. You are still tired with many of the downsides of being tired like the negative impact on learning. People who drink coffee routinely have to do it to mask how tiring their lives are.

I dunno. I drink coffee because I like to get up in the morning, grind the beans with my hand grinder, boil the water in the kettle, and put everything together in the French press. It's a transition moment that I take for myself from bedtime to day time. I like to have it after lunch to transition from lunch time where I am typically reading a novel back to work where I'm sitting and writing codes. I like to have a coffee at the coffee shop on the weekend because I can go for a walk with my gf and talk about random shit or plan a holiday or something. I'm not convinced my life is especially tiring except for all the drama I seem to create for myself inside my own head. That's a bit tiring. And so far, coffee seems to offer no respite to that self imposed exhaustion.

It’s also delicious, aside from the psychoactive effects. Good coffee, that is.

Decaf is exactly the same.

I'm going to have to argue that point. The best decaf is just ok. Typical decaf is pretty noticeably bad.

I go on decaf stints occasionally, and not opposed to it. I'm grateful it exists. But you do pay for it in taste.

I wonder how it fares in double blind comparisons.

Maybe you can tell, maybe not?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/decaf-vs-regular-coffee-taste...

You can do all that with decaf beans. Besides turning something into quaint ritual doesn't alter purely biological impact in any way. You could describe in very close terms lighting a joint every day after coming back home. Or drinking a beer, but it doesn't make you any less high or drunk.

Caffeine strongly dysregulates nervous system and sleep patterns. Surprising thing for many people is that after stopping caffeine a lot of nervous drama inside your head might simply fade away.

I love my coffee too and would never give it up. But if you know some smokers they will say the exact same thing about their smoking addiction.

“I don’t really smoke for the nicotine; I enjoy rolling the cigarette, the sensation of holding the cigarette, it gives me something to do with my hands, I like to get fresh air, it’s a social activity, etc.” The human mind is extremely good at rationalizing addiction.

Interesting interview with a award winning barista and coffee entrepreneur that says that caffeine ingestion is something that you should be mindful about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqNrJNhcf5g

Hey, i wasn't aware of nitrogen's narcotic effects. That led me down to this hilarious madness: "Hydreliox is an exotic breathing gas mixture of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydreliox

Still, comparing breathing air with drinking coffee is one hell of a bad analogy. Ironically you did succeed in showing the ambiguity of common sense by your own lack thereof.

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