7 ms·

Well, "impaired meta-consciousness" is the problem. It's a fact of human life that when drinking, a person reaches a point where they are no longer able to make

Well, "impaired meta-consciousness" is the problem. It's a fact of human life that when drinking, a person reaches a point where they are no longer able to make rational judgments. Not only about their actions but also about the level of impairment they are experiencing. This is why drunks are dangerous - after X drinks they look at their car and think "I've got this" when in fact they are so drunk they don't know what they have anymore.

Crito 13y ago
I've been drunk enough to loose consciousness my fair share of times, but I have never been drunk enough to do something like get behind the wheel of a car. If that point of drunkenness exists for me, it exists beyond the "alcohol poisoning, facedown on the floor" point. Alcohol is often used as an excuse for poor behavior, but in practice with most people it does not have the power to induce most of the behavior that has ever been attributed to it. For example, I might run my mouth and be inconsiderate of other peoples feelings when too drunk, but when I am drunk, I don't start fist fights. The difference? Being inconsiderate of the feelings of others is something that I sometimes want to do but hold back on while sober; starting fistfights is never something that crosses my mind while sober. For most people, alcohol does not turn them into a different person. It distorts aspects of who they are, blowing some out of proportion, but it doesn't completely replace their set of priorities and desires with ones alien to them. This is almost certainly not this persons first time driving while drunk. Almost certainly, this person has driven drunk before, sobered up afterwards and realized what the did, and then did little to nothing to prevent it from happening again. A person who drives while drunk is a person with a carefree attitude towards drunk driving even when they sober.
- justin66 13y ago
  > I've been drunk enough to loose consciousness my fair share of times, but I have never been drunk enough to do something like get behind the wheel of a car. If that point of drunkenness exists for me, it exists beyond the "alcohol poisoning, facedown on the floor" point. One wonders what experimental technique you used to make this determination, if the driver of that car felt the same way, how valuable our judgments about our own behavior while drinking can possibly be, and so on. You've outlined a belief that acknowledges the horror of what alcohol can bring about but allows you to keep drinking a lot anyhow. And it allows you to think of yourself as completely different than the guy who just killed those people. I'll just float the idea - as a fellow consumer of alcohol and not somebody interested in judging - that you might unconsciously be a little too easy on yourself here, and your drinking might actually put the rest of the world at risk to some degree. (not to mention our erroneous human tendency to think of criminals as a completely different species as ourselves, which can also lead to some questionable ideas)
- dllthomas 13y ago
  My experience has been similar to yours, but I am not confident that there isn't enough variation in human cognition and physiology that wouldn't still wind up with a lot of drunk drivers if every instance of driving drunk was as described above. This is not inconsistent with the notion that the predominance of effects of drinking on personality/behavior have more of a social basis than a chemical one (as studies have suggested, IIRC).
  - Crito 13y ago
    Oh, I definitely think that there are people for who might tend to drive drunk after drinking. I'm just saying that "but I made the decision to drive drunk while drunk" doesn't get any sympathy from me. Even if that sort of behavior while drunk caught them completely off guard the first time it happened (which I think is very unlikely, though not impossible), they later made the decision while sober to drink again. The made that decision while sober and with the knowledge that when drunk, they do things like drive drunk. Edit: Brief responses, since my commenting appears to be limited at the moment: justin66: I am not like the person that did this. I do not steal cars. I don't drive while drunk. I don't flee the police when pulled over. I would never flee on foot after crashing into other cars and people. People who drive while drunk typically do it frequently. I never have. Codhisattva: "meta-consciousness impairment occurs well before losing consciousness from alcohol poisoning." I am not saying that I have never been impaired. I am saying that despite being impaired many times, I have never been impaired in such a way that I had any desire to drive while drunk, or any delusions about my ability to do so. unclebucknasty: "Yet, you are questioning the judgment of someone who, instead of repeatedly drinking himself into a potential coma, stops somewhere short of that and decides he can operate a vehicle." You bet your ass I am. I may have endangered my life while having a little to much fun in college, but I never drove while drunk, and I never killed anybody. "Well, that's the thing: the grandparent is judging people who drive drunk repeatedly, while he himself repeatedly drinks to the point of losing consciousness. I just don't see the difference." I'm going to go with the most obvious difference being body-count. That is obvious right? Furthermore, don't worry for my health. As I have mentioned on HN in the recent past, my current drinking is down to 4-6 nights a month. I am drawing on my experience drinking, not currently struggling with drinking. I take exception to your implication that drunk driving is some sort of inevitable phenomenon that people who drink to the point of drunkenness are powerless to avoid through anything but luck. Drunk driving only happens if you allow it to happen. If you drive drunk, it isn't because of alcohol, it is because of you. There is nobody and no thing to blame but yourself.
- elipsey 13y ago
  I agree with Codhisattva that in many cases people who are very drunk are not in control of their behavior. Moreover, an alcoholic is, by definition, not able to control his behavior. I have heard first hand accounts from self identified alcoholics of such situations, some of which resulted in a death that the person in question could not even remember. I don't mean to suggest that this is an excuse; in the stories that I refer to, the guilty parties said they were sorry, and went to prison. Of course a person could be a jerk and a drunk. This guy was driving drunk in a stolen car from the next town over -- it seems like there might have been some opportunities to exercise sober judgment somewhere along the way. My point is that the fact that you or I believe that we can control our behavior when drunk, or that drinking does not alter our essential character (e.g. "people only do things when drunk that they wanted to do anyway) does not imply that the same is true for everyone unless you don't believe in alcoholism. I think that not believing in alcoholism because you aren't an alcoholic is harmful.
  - Crito 13y ago
    I believe in alcoholism. I believe that anybody can develop a dependence on alcohol. I do not believe that alcohol categorically has the power to make anybody drive drunk. I don't accept "I was drunk" as an excuse for anything, unless you were unknowingly drugged.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      I might include "and it was my very first experience with alcohol" as a situation where it is a weak excuse.
    - elipsey 13y ago
      Gotcha. Not calling it an excuse. Maybe anyone can become dependent, but not everyone _does_. I think our model of behavior ought to include the recognition that in some cases people are unable to refrain from drinking even though they know, in the abstract, that something terrible is likely to happen sooner or later. Acknowledging that alcoholism is not an excuse doesn't change the fact that some people are apparently undeterred from driving drunk by potential legal sanction. I too would hope that such people just wouldn't drink, but this seems insufficient. I admit that I haven't proposed a solution, I just think it's an interesting problem. So, having established blame, what next? Ignition interlocks seem like a stop gap. I few months ago I watched a guy come out of a bar, and ask his friend to blow in the breathalyzer installed in his truck. No shit. A solution that is not strictly technical might be called for, but I'm not sure what a social solution looks like. It seems like people in general are kind of bad at safely operating cars, and drunk people are just even worse. I fantasize that self driving cars. They would never get drunk, or distracted or sleepy or have road rage. Maybe someday driving your own car will seems reckless, pun fully intended.
- Codhisattva 13y ago
  For humans (and I suspect yourself included) meta-consciousness impairment occurs well before losing consciousness from alcohol poisoning. Part of the impairment is your complete unknowing of it happening. It's cognitively a blind spot, so to speak.

Crito 13y ago

I've been drunk enough to loose consciousness my fair share of times, but I have never been drunk enough to do something like get behind the wheel of a car. If that point of drunkenness exists for me, it exists beyond the "alcohol poisoning, facedown on the floor" point. Alcohol is often used as an excuse for poor behavior, but in practice with most people it does not have the power to induce most of the behavior that has ever been attributed to it. For example, I might run my mouth and be inconsiderate of other peoples feelings when too drunk, but when I am drunk, I don't start fist fights. The difference? Being inconsiderate of the feelings of others is something that I sometimes want to do but hold back on while sober; starting fistfights is never something that crosses my mind while sober. For most people, alcohol does not turn them into a different person. It distorts aspects of who they are, blowing some out of proportion, but it doesn't completely replace their set of priorities and desires with ones alien to them. This is almost certainly not this persons first time driving while drunk. Almost certainly, this person has driven drunk before, sobered up afterwards and realized what the did, and then did little to nothing to prevent it from happening again. A person who drives while drunk is a person with a carefree attitude towards drunk driving even when they sober.

justin66 13y ago
> I've been drunk enough to loose consciousness my fair share of times, but I have never been drunk enough to do something like get behind the wheel of a car. If that point of drunkenness exists for me, it exists beyond the "alcohol poisoning, facedown on the floor" point. One wonders what experimental technique you used to make this determination, if the driver of that car felt the same way, how valuable our judgments about our own behavior while drinking can possibly be, and so on. You've outlined a belief that acknowledges the horror of what alcohol can bring about but allows you to keep drinking a lot anyhow. And it allows you to think of yourself as completely different than the guy who just killed those people. I'll just float the idea - as a fellow consumer of alcohol and not somebody interested in judging - that you might unconsciously be a little too easy on yourself here, and your drinking might actually put the rest of the world at risk to some degree. (not to mention our erroneous human tendency to think of criminals as a completely different species as ourselves, which can also lead to some questionable ideas)
dllthomas 13y ago
My experience has been similar to yours, but I am not confident that there isn't enough variation in human cognition and physiology that wouldn't still wind up with a lot of drunk drivers if every instance of driving drunk was as described above. This is not inconsistent with the notion that the predominance of effects of drinking on personality/behavior have more of a social basis than a chemical one (as studies have suggested, IIRC).
- Crito 13y ago
  Oh, I definitely think that there are people for who might tend to drive drunk after drinking. I'm just saying that "but I made the decision to drive drunk while drunk" doesn't get any sympathy from me. Even if that sort of behavior while drunk caught them completely off guard the first time it happened (which I think is very unlikely, though not impossible), they later made the decision while sober to drink again. The made that decision while sober and with the knowledge that when drunk, they do things like drive drunk. Edit: Brief responses, since my commenting appears to be limited at the moment: justin66: I am not like the person that did this. I do not steal cars. I don't drive while drunk. I don't flee the police when pulled over. I would never flee on foot after crashing into other cars and people. People who drive while drunk typically do it frequently. I never have. Codhisattva: "meta-consciousness impairment occurs well before losing consciousness from alcohol poisoning." I am not saying that I have never been impaired. I am saying that despite being impaired many times, I have never been impaired in such a way that I had any desire to drive while drunk, or any delusions about my ability to do so. unclebucknasty: "Yet, you are questioning the judgment of someone who, instead of repeatedly drinking himself into a potential coma, stops somewhere short of that and decides he can operate a vehicle." You bet your ass I am. I may have endangered my life while having a little to much fun in college, but I never drove while drunk, and I never killed anybody. "Well, that's the thing: the grandparent is judging people who drive drunk repeatedly, while he himself repeatedly drinks to the point of losing consciousness. I just don't see the difference." I'm going to go with the most obvious difference being body-count. That is obvious right? Furthermore, don't worry for my health. As I have mentioned on HN in the recent past, my current drinking is down to 4-6 nights a month. I am drawing on my experience drinking, not currently struggling with drinking. I take exception to your implication that drunk driving is some sort of inevitable phenomenon that people who drink to the point of drunkenness are powerless to avoid through anything but luck. Drunk driving only happens if you allow it to happen. If you drive drunk, it isn't because of alcohol, it is because of you. There is nobody and no thing to blame but yourself.
elipsey 13y ago
I agree with Codhisattva that in many cases people who are very drunk are not in control of their behavior. Moreover, an alcoholic is, by definition, not able to control his behavior. I have heard first hand accounts from self identified alcoholics of such situations, some of which resulted in a death that the person in question could not even remember. I don't mean to suggest that this is an excuse; in the stories that I refer to, the guilty parties said they were sorry, and went to prison. Of course a person could be a jerk and a drunk. This guy was driving drunk in a stolen car from the next town over -- it seems like there might have been some opportunities to exercise sober judgment somewhere along the way. My point is that the fact that you or I believe that we can control our behavior when drunk, or that drinking does not alter our essential character (e.g. "people only do things when drunk that they wanted to do anyway) does not imply that the same is true for everyone unless you don't believe in alcoholism. I think that not believing in alcoholism because you aren't an alcoholic is harmful.
- Crito 13y ago
  I believe in alcoholism. I believe that anybody can develop a dependence on alcohol. I do not believe that alcohol categorically has the power to make anybody drive drunk. I don't accept "I was drunk" as an excuse for anything, unless you were unknowingly drugged.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    I might include "and it was my very first experience with alcohol" as a situation where it is a weak excuse.
  - elipsey 13y ago
    Gotcha. Not calling it an excuse. Maybe anyone can become dependent, but not everyone _does_. I think our model of behavior ought to include the recognition that in some cases people are unable to refrain from drinking even though they know, in the abstract, that something terrible is likely to happen sooner or later. Acknowledging that alcoholism is not an excuse doesn't change the fact that some people are apparently undeterred from driving drunk by potential legal sanction. I too would hope that such people just wouldn't drink, but this seems insufficient. I admit that I haven't proposed a solution, I just think it's an interesting problem. So, having established blame, what next? Ignition interlocks seem like a stop gap. I few months ago I watched a guy come out of a bar, and ask his friend to blow in the breathalyzer installed in his truck. No shit. A solution that is not strictly technical might be called for, but I'm not sure what a social solution looks like. It seems like people in general are kind of bad at safely operating cars, and drunk people are just even worse. I fantasize that self driving cars. They would never get drunk, or distracted or sleepy or have road rage. Maybe someday driving your own car will seems reckless, pun fully intended.
Codhisattva 13y ago
For humans (and I suspect yourself included) meta-consciousness impairment occurs well before losing consciousness from alcohol poisoning. Part of the impairment is your complete unknowing of it happening. It's cognitively a blind spot, so to speak.