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Gmail Creator Joins Facebook Co-Founder, Donates 100K To Legalize Marijuana
- roadnottaken 16y agoAre there any hackers out there that like to code stoned? My marijuana-days never really overlapped with my coding days, but I can't imagine that would be a very good combo. I'm all for legalization tho I no longer partake -- I'm just wondering if it's a regular part of the lifestyle of many successful hackers...
- onewland 16y agoCertainly not me, but a little birdie whispered in my ear that it makes writing boring boilerplate/glue/test code a lot more tolerable.
- sliverstorm 16y agoa carefully regulated light buzz of alcohol is sublime for that.
- JeremyBanks 16y agoI find it isn't as terrible as you'd expect if you're caffeinated at the same time. I think it can be genuinely helpful while initially thinking them out certain things on paper. When I'm actually writing code it sometimes causes me to lose sight of the big picture and to spent forever "perfecting" a function or two. Fun, though not overwhelmingly productive. I wouldn't recommend doing most of your coding high, but if you do so every now and then it might help you think about things in a different way.
- evo_9 16y agoYeah good point on the caffeine. I started taking a Guarana supplement with my morning vitamins; guarana is similar to coffee beans but has a higher concentration of caffeine. So far I've been amazed by how it's working.
- eru 16y agoI've tried being completely sober. ;o)
- jhaglund 16y agocoffee + weed = the hippie speedball
- evo_9 16y agoIt's funny but I'm hesitant to answer this truthfully. I'm not sure if that's because I have aspirations to submit to YC at some point and wonder how PG might view this (and whether it would affect any decision making one way or another). Or if it's just the general concern with unnecessarily putting myself 'out there' somewhat publicly. So yes, I do smoke and code. I don't know if I would say I'm 'stoned' though; I find that if I have just a wee bit I'm more focused and on point. It's similar to when I play music; not for the 'creative release' often claimed (though seldom experienced by me), but rather for this deep-focus aspect.
- chc 16y agoPot's nothing. PG admits to using Lisp while working on his startup. If that's not a controversial productivity hack, I don't know what is.
- pg 16y agoWe certainly don't care, as long as you make things people want.
- waterhouse 16y ago(And if you don't make things people want, then I imagine it's that that PG will care about; he still won't care about the pot smoking.)
- bprater 16y agoAs a person who believes strongly in personal freedoms, thank you for saying this Paul. If someone chooses to consume a drug of their choosing and still create in a way that fulfills them and their customers -- it is a grave injustice to shackle someone, wag a finger and tell them no. You inspire on many fronts.
- farnsworth 16y agoI'm glad to see this comment. It's results and behavior that matter, not chemicals in your urine. If only employers would realize this...
- chc 16y agoI don't smoke, but I know a lot of people find it aids their creativity and ability to focus (in reasonable doses). Those are useful traits for hackers, at least in some tasks. (More designy things would show greater improvement than the mathy parts of the job.)
- sachitgupta 16y agoI'm not a coder; but I had a friend who would often code high or drunk. And in a very competitive CS program; he was very very good.
- icegreentea 16y agoAbout the drunk part, that Ballmer peak XKCD comic? I've found it to be more or less true for mental tasks. When I (and some classmates) have been lightly buzzed, we seem to work better (in certain respects). For example, when solving physics problems, we become much better/faster at coming up with solutions (granted, we'll probably end up making more calculation errors). This led me to doing all my assignments first buzzed, and then recopying them out and rechecking the calculations (my writing is horrible, the recopying was required anyways) later when sober. Of course, when finals rolled around, I had to spend 3 solids days practicing physics while sober again. It was weird.
- jcapote 16y agoMy favorite reply to a HN thread (titled "What are your productivity hacks") was "The right mix of ganja and caffeine"
- brlewis 16y agoI have never used marijuana and never intend to. But things I wouldn't do myself shouldn't necessarily be illegal.
- fady 16y agoOf course! I've been smoking cannabis since I was 16, but now, I only use it when I do front end work (weekends). It allows me to have laser focus for the task at hand, and allows me to forgot about the unimportant things that also need done during the weekend: laundry, cleaning the apt, dishes, etc. "I'm just wondering if it's a regular part of the lifestyle of many successful hackers" I think it does not matter if you're a "successful" hacker or not, it matters if you understand how it effects you and your work, successful or not. I know some that cannot work without it, but I also know some that cannot think straight while stone
- spudlyo 16y agoIn the mid 90s I lived with an MIT educated hacker who was our programming team lead. We worked on a Windows multi-protocol email client that had back ends that talked to AOL, CompuServe, PRODIGY, MCI, etc. My roommate coded nearly all of the back ends, and was responsible for much of the design and architecture of the program, which was for us a fairly big success. Every morning before work, he'd make a pot of the nastiest, strongest coffee you could imagine, pour himself a cup, and drink it with his morning bong hits. He'd then drive myself and our other roommate to work in his beat up Volvo station wagon. Once he got to work he'd shut himself in his office, crank up his stereo (no headphones) and start reading his email.
- f7u12 16y agoMy hero.
- thought_alarm 16y agoWhere is he now?
- spudlyo 16y agoHe moved back to Boston and I lost touch with him. Last I heard he got married, settled down and is still writing code.
- vaporizer 16y agoWell, if I get too high, I find it difficult, but if I'm just a little high, I find it beneficial in that it helps me focus and sometimes helps creativity. I'm currently employed and don't get high on the job, but I code on my side projects high pretty often. But I don't generally get high with the intentions of coding. Usually it's just that I happen to be high and just want to code and make progress on my projects. Often times it's not until I've sobered up a little (but not completely) before I start coding, though. I didn't used to do this when I was younger (I'm 32 now). In college I found that while I could do homework high, it usually resulted in me correcting a bunch of errors the next day, so I reserved pot (and alcohol) for when I was finished with my work. But these days I'm so compelled to work on side projects that having used pot (and sometimes alcohol) earlier in the evening just doesn't stop me from putting in a few hours before bed time. As a side note: I gave up regular usage of caffeine after I got out of college. I found I no longer needed it once I was able to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night instead of 4. But I very occasionally have caffeine and yes, as others have said, pot + caffiene is a good combo.
- kaens 16y agoI find it good for exploratory programming, fiddling around with finding a solution to a difficult problem and coming up with new ideas. There are many coding tasks it's not that great for for me, primarily those that make heavy use of longer-than-short-term memory :P
- yason 16y agoThis just could've been about Python or some other dynamic language.
- kaens 16y agoAnd? It wasn't. I find marijuana to be a useful tool, for the above types of coding, in high-level, low-level, dynamically or statically typed, or whatever languages. It encourages creative and lateral thinking.
- random42 16y agoI hope this is not an "out of context query", but why/how does money affect creation of laws in the US?
- noarchy 16y agoThere is a referendum on the California ballot where the voting population will get to determine whether or not to legalize marijuana. The money that gets donated can be used for advertising, which may be effective in this case.
- dmix 16y agoJust like products, referendums don't market themselves.
- jamesteow 16y agoThis might be useful to read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...
- eli 16y agoThat's not actually really relevant to this particular case, which is a state ballot measure not a national campaign for office.
- borism 16y agoVery much relevant. That ruling meant among other things that political spending amounts cannot be limited.
- sqs 16y agoIt's far more complex than that. Are you talking about political spending by campaigns or by independent groups? By PACs or by corporations/unions? Within 60 days of an election (or 30 days of a primary) or not? Etc.
- hugh3 16y agoPersonally I hate marijuana and everybody who uses it. I openly refuse to have anything to do with people who do. We're born with few enough brain cells as it is, why would you want to kill more of 'em? If Prop 19 passes I'll be looking to leave California ASAP, because there's nothing that makes me angrier than smelling pot smoke.
- Mithrandir 16y agoYou can disagree with legalizing marijuana, and even hate the drug, but don't hate the people who use it. I personally have never used marijuana, nor ever intend to do so, but I don't hate the people who use it because I don't who they are, or why they use marijuana. The ones who do (that I have heard of) use marijuana for medical purposes. Say instead that you dislike (or don't approve of) the abuse of marijuana.
- stingraycharles 16y agoDo you also hate people who voluntarily kill their own brain cells using other means, or in any other ways damage their own body ?
- lukifer 16y agoThere's no argument for marijuana prohibition that does not also apply to alcohol prohibition, and we all know how that turned out. We're wasting billions of taxpayer dollars to prosecute what is at worst a poor personal health decision.
- binomial 16y agoAlcohol has many other disadvantages which are, IMO, worse than just the harm to personal health, though these normally only surface when overused. Can't say the same about marijuana though, and I agree with you about that.
- mfukar 16y agoI'm behind this statement. As another wise man once said, we could also take the warning labels off everything and let our problems solve themselves.
- kristofferR 16y agoDamn, I really hope Prop 19 passes. I'm not even American, but a passage would mark the start of the end of the dreadful war on marijuana around the world. Other states would follow, then Latin America (the former Mexican President said "May God let it pass" about Prop 19), countries in Europe (Netherlands, Spain, Denmark) and slowly it would be legalized around the world. Defeat would be a major setback. I urge all Californians who're reading this to do their absolute best to make it pass in these last vital days. Join the phone banks, make sure all your friends are voting, campaign at universities. It could make a large difference, larger than you probably think.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- dasht 16y agoThis appears to be roughly how prohibition against alcohol ended in the US: first with essentially universal defiance; then with a popular wink-wink-nod-nod "medical alcohol" exemption of sketchy legality; then with faultering enforcement and inconsistent and imperfect legal codes... and finally repeal. (Of course, for MJ the situation should be simpler because no amendment is needed to the US Constitution to end prohibition... merely an act of Congress.)
- borism 16y agoPot was almost legal in Netherlands since 70s, yet very few countries followed suit. What makes California so special that it will make the end of cannabis prohibition viral? I'm highly skeptical.
- kristofferR 16y agoThe feeling about pot has changed a lot in the last 15 years, not just in the US ( http://www.gallup.com/poll/144086/New-High-Americans-Support-Legalizing-Marijuana.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/144086/New-High-Americans-Support... ), but in the rest of the world well. A ton of countries have decriminalized marijuana and other drugs, people are realizing that marijuana isn't the drug of hell it was pitched as and that the war against it has failed. I think it has a lot to do with the internet/information age. Just a couple of years ago the governments could say whatever they wanted and very few people would question their "facts". Now everybody with access to the internet can research the issue themselves.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ojbyrne 16y agoDoesn't this seem kind of late? Election is next Tuesday.
- tlrobinson 16y agoThey just started running ads this week. For issues like this you don't want to start too soon and give the opposition a chance to raise money, produce ads, etc.
- 100k 16y agoI was thinking the same thing. This would have made a lot bigger impact if he'd donated the money 3 months ago. Now the most it can be used for is some last-minute TV ads.
- dasil003 16y agoI already voted in favore of Prop 19 via postal ballot. The way that the American public has been hoodwinked going on a century about the real reasons for marijuana prohibition is really a travesty. Even most of the comments in this thread are focused on the personal freedom aspect; yet the real story of cannabis prohibition is all economic. Nowadays it's prison guard unions and law enforcement that lobby heavily against legalization, but originally it was chemical and other industrial companies that drove the prohibition effort simply because it undercut their markets both on production (pesticides, fertilizers) and utility (synthetic materials). Of course the drug companies lobby against legalization of medical marijuana for parallel reasoning today (marijuana has fewer side effects than most drugs), but I find it deliciously ironic that in this day and age when environmental concerns are rising and hemp is a no-brainer solution for so many obvious problems, that the very population that was demonized in a side-channel PR effort to turn the public against "marijuana" (the Mexican term being used in English propoganda for its sinister connotation), has now become such a political force that they're actually going to get cannabis legalized for drug use purposes first, without any need to dip into the wealth of undeniable industrial uses of hemp; prohibited by proxy in a true crime against humanity.
- metachris 16y agoTechcrunch should add attributions to their images!