I drink, therefore I can | Hacker News Reader

I drink, therefore I can

prospect-magazine.co.uk

51 pointstheoneill15 comments

"Drowning your sorrows is always an option, but could there be creativity in the bottom of that glass too? Unsurprisingly, several researchers have endeavoured to find out. After all, many of the most creative pursuits - jazz, for instance, and poetry - are associated with heavy boozing. Alas, not just one but several separate studies have come to the same conclusion: drinking alcohol does not make you more creative, it just makes you feel that you are, which, as everyone knows, is the next best thing."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227073.200-raise-a-g...

Also is it just me, or does that article piss anyone else on fundamental level. I'm quite a heavy drinker but suggesting alcohol is inducive to creativity is completely irresponsible. Do a quick Google and you'll find plenty of studies countering this point. I think having an understanding of the detrimental effects of alcohol is vitally important to using it responsibility. That article uses the exact kind of vague pseudo-science language and logic that can fool most people into believing it's correct. It should be the writer's responsibility to check these facts. Someone should be holding him responsible.

I don't know how Philip Hunter got his job as a "science journalist", but I'm pretty sure he didn't study any science to get there.

grumble grumble I must be getting old. I've never argued on the anti-drug side before.

There a millions of people who get high every day, but there's still only one Jimi Hendrix.

The Ballmer Peak is real.

For the two of you who don't know what that is.

http://xkcd.com/323/

Hands up: how many other people were coming here just to make that comment?

I've experimented with drinking for creativity in programming.

I occasionally get a good idea out of it but mostly just leads to confusing disjointed code. The difficulty lies in getting the level of intoxication right.

For those looking to try it, my recommendation would be to find an issue you can't solve sober. Make a copy that it doesn't matter if you destroy (you likely will). Then try and solve it while intoxicated.

> Make a copy that it doesn't matter if you destroy

git checkout -b icanhasdrink

It could also be that slightly-old-of-touch-with-reality people tend to drink, and also tend to be more creative in general. 552.

Churchill might seem an exception, but he suffered from depression (the "black dog"), and received heads of state while he was smoking a cigar in the bathtub. He also said "And you madam are ugly. But in the morning I shall be sober". One of my favourite guys.

I have never known a single person in my life that drinks to get "creative". I know people that are alcoholics. One old friend just gets morose. Another is a freaking violent, unstable asshole that I try increasingly to stay away from.

I can drink a little, or a lot, or none. I'm lucky that I can occasionally enjoy drinking without it "needing" it. Smoking is the vice that I can't seem to stop.

There is nothing good that comes out of being an alcoholic. It doesn't make you more creative of loosen your inner poetic homonculus. My brother is a recovering alcoholic. For years he was the biggest ass I have ever known. He stopped drinking completely about 10 years ago and while he still can be an all around jerk, the family loves having him around now and I've actually been building a real relationship with him after 20 years.

To counter your anecdotes - I know 4 "serious" musicians, ie people who regularly write and record music. 3 of them drink, especially when working. 2 of them I would consider total alcoholics. There are none of the negative effects you mention.

However - personal anecdotes such as these are irrelevant to the core truth of the matter. The fact is, a lot of people do drink, and by whatever means, it enhances the creativity of some of them. That you don't happen to know anyone of this type doesn't mean they don't exist. The article did say that such behaviour only seems visible in ~10-15% of the population.

Anyway it's not like they "drink to get creative", it's more like they're in the mood for creating things when they're slight/somewhat/heavily intoxicated, which is a lot of the time.

Personal anecdotes are a person's local data set. Its why statistics are needed, by putting lots of personal data sets together we get around this he-said/she-said bs. Essentially what I mean is that the term "personal anecdotes" is often used as a way to summarily dismiss someone's accounts.

Personal anecdotes are very much at the core of this matter. Dismissing someone's extensive personal experiences about the effects of alcoholism on their friends and families is not irrelevant.

My brother: recovering alcoholic, dry for 10 years. His father: lifelong alcoholic, died too young from an accident caused by being drunk at the time. Had lost his leg years ago in an accident. Uncle and his wife: alcoholics, not recovering. NOT the life of the party at family reunions. Good friend: known over 10 years, he drinks like a fish. Gets extremely sad at times and I worry about him, a lot. Another friend that I was seeing/dating for a while: sweet girl when she doesn't drink. However, 90% of the time she's a violent, unpredictable raging tornado of whiskey.

So while I'm glad that you know four quote "serious musicians" for whom drinking helps, I'll stick with my personal anecdotes of drinking ruining people's lives and causing them to die earlier than they should have. I'm just glad I have my brother around now.

Hey, I wasn't trying to downplay your personal experiences. They do sound harrowing and I'm sure they've shaped your opinions, perhaps rightly so.

I was simply trying to point out that neither your nor my single data points mean much in the grand equation.

You seemed to be trying to deny that alcohol can ever have this positive effect on people. I merely wanted to counter your data point with one of my own, and remind you that not only are our experiences insignificant in the final reckoning, but that the are plenty of well-evidenced cases in contradiction to what I perceived to be your thesis.

Anyway, nothing personal, and I really hope it all works out better for you and yours.

You've said nothing that disproves anything in the article. You are fallaciously reversing the logic: they don't say or imply that all drinkers are more creative. They say that some people are more creative when drinking. Many great artists have been known to be drinkers. Many people have thought themselves great artists when they were in fact just great drinkers. You may argue that nothing in favor of drinking is worth the possible cost, but you are not doing that very effectively at the moment.

Steve Yegge turns wine into blog entries.

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