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“If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the d

“If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.” ― Herodotus

zelphirkalt 6y ago
That's such a little neat trick, it's great. Sometimes I think that some civilizations back then had figured out more about how to be a society at least in some respects, than we have today.
- amirmaleki 6y ago
  Maybe we just rely too much on what we have achieved scientifically, and we have to embrace our guts and live out lives more freely.
  - zelphirkalt 6y ago
    We definitely rely on technological advances a lot. It might mask our social development status. To go further, I would say, that there is a mismatch between how much we advance technologically / scientifically and how much we advance with regard to how we live together in a society. There are so many things going wrong, which one might think have no place in these times, but reveal the savage greed of humanity. Surely in the past there was probably even more stuff going wrong, but today those things are catalyzed by globalization and technological means. Our greed in the small can affect the whole planet. Basically, I am not sure we are ready, in terms of social advancement, to responsibly handle the technology. By that I am not talking about this person or that person specifically, but about us as societies, democracies, and other forms.
    - admax88q 6y ago
      Its also quite possible were just looking at the past through rose coloured lenses. When reading about how past civilizations live you only read the condensed version, the highlights. Whereas when loving modern times every little flaw and problem is visible, you spend 24 hours a day living it, not just 10 minute on highlights.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      The past was horrifically miserable where people starved to death, died from infections, lost babies in childbirth, etc.
      - dllthomas 6y ago
        Whereas in the present, all of those things happen at much lower rates (with reasonable choice of denominator).
      - zelphirkalt 6y ago
        Not all of the things you mention seem necessarily connected to how people act in a society. Probably most of what you mention is the result of not having modern medicine and modern technology and knowledge. The point I made is not about those. I am not saying, that the past were happy times. It is about how we behave with regard to each other in the society and how that did not change as much as technology and scientific advancement has been achieved. For example we are destroying the planet right now. This was not possible hundreds of years ago. We did not have neither the technology nor the number of people to do it. -- Are we advanced enough in social and/or ethical matters, caring about the third world countries, our children and future generations and how they life on this planet, to stop the disaster? Future will tell, but damage is being done right now, which we should not be doing.
  - astral303 6y ago
    Yes, our gut is our second brain, it’s the subconscious. To dismiss one’s instincts is irrational. Our bodies developed fine-tuned monitoring and alerting systems (our instincts). To ignore your gut is to ignore your hard-earned experience. Trust your gut. The scientific reason for why it’s telling you that will be explained later.
    - DFHippie 6y ago
      This depends on the nature of the decision. If it's whether or not to vaccinate or insulate your attic you probably are better off trusting your brain. Many of the problems we face today are due to people spurning eggheaded decision making.
      - astral303 6y ago
        Yes, I agree that you should also not dismiss the brain when making decisions. This is widely assumed to be the desired, appropriate behavior. (Whereas dismissing your gut is widely regarded as the right thing to do, which is actually a wrong thing to do and is an avoidable bad decision.) However, I think you underestimate the brain thinking that the anti-vaxxers are making—-believe me, they have done hardheaded rationalization of their beliefs. Egg-headed decisions come from bad brain thinking, not from trusting your gut.
      - astral303 6y ago
        Here’s a familiar bit of egg-headed decision making, to prove to you it is the brain that’s the problem, not the gut. Ask the grunts/troops/anyone who is actually writing code: how do you really feel? Most feel in their gut things got too complex and bad decisions are being made. If these engineers only actually listened to their gut, they would be pushing back hard to get complexity reigned in, to get back to a much cleaner architecture. But for a myriad of reasons, such as not wanting to appear clueless in a fast changing tech world, the engineers stay silent. The rationalization is a very brain activity. Do a reality check on yourself. What feels have you been rationalizing or dismissing? Take a look by observing—what kind of feeling is it? Where is it in your body? (A lump in your throat, tightness in your stomach?) Observe what it is. Don’t explain it away or it will stop being observable. Once you observe, you will learn new information, which will then inform your subsequent decisions.
- est31 6y ago
  I feel so too, but note that there is a survivorship bias. Consider you have 5 thousand years of societies trying out various forms of living together. Which forms will survive today in the stories? The ones someone felt interesting enough to preserve. Same goes for buildings. There used to be pretty of ugly buildings in the old times as well, they just got demolished and replaced by other buildings, while the beautiful buildings were not demolished.
taneq 6y ago
“Write drunk, edit sober.” - apparently not Hemingway
Solstinox 6y ago
It’s fun to do this across a variety of basic states. Drunk vs. Sober Tired vs. Awake Hungry vs. Satiated Amazing how dramatically each changes your perspective.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
loceng 6y ago
This to me sounds like it's a mechanism to cause one's mind to open up more, perhaps useful if one is dependant on alcohol to access a more open mind state and critical thinking, however alcohol is a depressant and so it will actually depress thinking; I suppose it's possible there is insight to be gained by contrasting the more depressed state with the normal baseline.
- FatDrunknStupid 6y ago
  Some truth in everything though. Different is different everywhere. My fave quote 'All generalizations are BS including this one'.
searchableguy 6y ago
I haven't observed the same in India. Most people prefer to go home after they finish work with 15 minute of conversation with their co-workers. I would guess only young people and startup mandate a social drinking event here. It also differs from states since some have ban on alcohol consumption or see it in negative light.
- jasonv 6y ago
  > I have a big aversion to eating with others since childhood Is this like, "I don't like parties.." or something else? Genuinely curious.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
m463 6y ago
Decision #32 for strategic purchase of more alcohol considered and approved for adoption. Except for Tequila, which is to be banned from the province forever.

zelphirkalt 6y ago

That's such a little neat trick, it's great. Sometimes I think that some civilizations back then had figured out more about how to be a society at least in some respects, than we have today.

amirmaleki 6y ago
Maybe we just rely too much on what we have achieved scientifically, and we have to embrace our guts and live out lives more freely.
- zelphirkalt 6y ago
  We definitely rely on technological advances a lot. It might mask our social development status. To go further, I would say, that there is a mismatch between how much we advance technologically / scientifically and how much we advance with regard to how we live together in a society. There are so many things going wrong, which one might think have no place in these times, but reveal the savage greed of humanity. Surely in the past there was probably even more stuff going wrong, but today those things are catalyzed by globalization and technological means. Our greed in the small can affect the whole planet. Basically, I am not sure we are ready, in terms of social advancement, to responsibly handle the technology. By that I am not talking about this person or that person specifically, but about us as societies, democracies, and other forms.
  - admax88q 6y ago
    Its also quite possible were just looking at the past through rose coloured lenses. When reading about how past civilizations live you only read the condensed version, the highlights. Whereas when loving modern times every little flaw and problem is visible, you spend 24 hours a day living it, not just 10 minute on highlights.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    The past was horrifically miserable where people starved to death, died from infections, lost babies in childbirth, etc.
    - dllthomas 6y ago
      Whereas in the present, all of those things happen at much lower rates (with reasonable choice of denominator).
    - zelphirkalt 6y ago
      Not all of the things you mention seem necessarily connected to how people act in a society. Probably most of what you mention is the result of not having modern medicine and modern technology and knowledge. The point I made is not about those. I am not saying, that the past were happy times. It is about how we behave with regard to each other in the society and how that did not change as much as technology and scientific advancement has been achieved. For example we are destroying the planet right now. This was not possible hundreds of years ago. We did not have neither the technology nor the number of people to do it. -- Are we advanced enough in social and/or ethical matters, caring about the third world countries, our children and future generations and how they life on this planet, to stop the disaster? Future will tell, but damage is being done right now, which we should not be doing.
- astral303 6y ago
  Yes, our gut is our second brain, it’s the subconscious. To dismiss one’s instincts is irrational. Our bodies developed fine-tuned monitoring and alerting systems (our instincts). To ignore your gut is to ignore your hard-earned experience. Trust your gut. The scientific reason for why it’s telling you that will be explained later.
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    This depends on the nature of the decision. If it's whether or not to vaccinate or insulate your attic you probably are better off trusting your brain. Many of the problems we face today are due to people spurning eggheaded decision making.
    - astral303 6y ago
      Yes, I agree that you should also not dismiss the brain when making decisions. This is widely assumed to be the desired, appropriate behavior. (Whereas dismissing your gut is widely regarded as the right thing to do, which is actually a wrong thing to do and is an avoidable bad decision.) However, I think you underestimate the brain thinking that the anti-vaxxers are making—-believe me, they have done hardheaded rationalization of their beliefs. Egg-headed decisions come from bad brain thinking, not from trusting your gut.
    - astral303 6y ago
      Here’s a familiar bit of egg-headed decision making, to prove to you it is the brain that’s the problem, not the gut. Ask the grunts/troops/anyone who is actually writing code: how do you really feel? Most feel in their gut things got too complex and bad decisions are being made. If these engineers only actually listened to their gut, they would be pushing back hard to get complexity reigned in, to get back to a much cleaner architecture. But for a myriad of reasons, such as not wanting to appear clueless in a fast changing tech world, the engineers stay silent. The rationalization is a very brain activity. Do a reality check on yourself. What feels have you been rationalizing or dismissing? Take a look by observing—what kind of feeling is it? Where is it in your body? (A lump in your throat, tightness in your stomach?) Observe what it is. Don’t explain it away or it will stop being observable. Once you observe, you will learn new information, which will then inform your subsequent decisions.
est31 6y ago
I feel so too, but note that there is a survivorship bias. Consider you have 5 thousand years of societies trying out various forms of living together. Which forms will survive today in the stories? The ones someone felt interesting enough to preserve. Same goes for buildings. There used to be pretty of ugly buildings in the old times as well, they just got demolished and replaced by other buildings, while the beautiful buildings were not demolished.

taneq 6y ago

“Write drunk, edit sober.” - apparently not Hemingway

Solstinox 6y ago

It’s fun to do this across a variety of basic states. Drunk vs. Sober Tired vs. Awake Hungry vs. Satiated Amazing how dramatically each changes your perspective.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

loceng 6y ago

This to me sounds like it's a mechanism to cause one's mind to open up more, perhaps useful if one is dependant on alcohol to access a more open mind state and critical thinking, however alcohol is a depressant and so it will actually depress thinking; I suppose it's possible there is insight to be gained by contrasting the more depressed state with the normal baseline.

FatDrunknStupid 6y ago
Some truth in everything though. Different is different everywhere. My fave quote 'All generalizations are BS including this one'.

searchableguy 6y ago

I haven't observed the same in India. Most people prefer to go home after they finish work with 15 minute of conversation with their co-workers. I would guess only young people and startup mandate a social drinking event here. It also differs from states since some have ban on alcohol consumption or see it in negative light.

jasonv 6y ago
> I have a big aversion to eating with others since childhood Is this like, "I don't like parties.." or something else? Genuinely curious.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

m463 6y ago

Decision #32 for strategic purchase of more alcohol considered and approved for adoption. Except for Tequila, which is to be banned from the province forever.