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"I don't trust anyone who doesn't drink" is a politically incorrect but still pretty common sentiment. Edit: I think I'm getting some "shoot the messenger" dow

• deleted 12y ago
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  • onewaystreet 12y ago
    You're making a lot of assumptions. There are a lot of people that just don't like the taste of alcohol. (Specifically beer).
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    • saraid216 12y ago
      This is my case, and it's actually frustrating for me. I'm not interested enough to force myself to acclimate, the way most people would have done in college due to peer pressure. So I'm stuck with either being the entertaining freak when coworkers go out for a beer, or being anti-social. The irony of being a freakish social outcast amidst a group of nerds is not lost on me.
      • mattgreenrocks 12y ago
        I started on cocktails and eventually found craft beer I like. It takes time. But, yeah, I've been the non drinker. People don't know what to do with you, and they get annoyed. They project things onto you (like judgment), and don't even try to understand your motivations. It sucks. Groupthink is powerful and pervasive, and nerds have no problem adopting it if it suits them.
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  • rdtsc 12y ago
    > I'd have nothing but respect, but this is not what these people are about. Presumably if they or their family members have struggled with alcoholism they wouldn't tell some stranger at a tech conference about it right after finishing talking about the latest trends in REST-ful API design. Imagine the exchange. * "-Yeah hateoas is totally not worth it, we tried it and it was just a pain to implement without seeing any benefits" * "-Let me get buy you a beer" * "-Nah, my father was an alcoholic who beat my mom and me growing up, he then left and killed himself. So yeah, I'll just pass". * "-......<silence>....Yeah, cool, I'll just move over there to meet some friends. Nice talking to you." Sometimes you won't know the true reason, you'll just hear a socially acceptable light cover. So don't always assume they are just prudish and conservative. And well, actually there are a lot of people who just don't enjoy drinking. You know like there are some that don't enjoy pizza. They just don't. They like hamburgers better, always.
  • dethstar 12y ago
    As someone who drinks but gets to meet a lot of 'straight edge' people since I get involved in the punk scene and have been for quite a while. You'll be surprised how interesting, adventurous and far from conservative some of these people who don't drink or do drugs are. In fact some of these people would argue that is you the one that's boring, the one that needs of external ideas because you can not come up with them your own, or that you're not brave enough to go in adventures or doing what you call take a risk if it wasn't for the booze/drugs. Here's some lyrics from "Straight Edge" by Minor Threat * I'm a person just like you But I've got better things to do Than sit around and fuck my head Hang out with the living dead Snort white shit up my nose Pass out at the shows I don't even think about speed That's something I just don't need
  • ddellacosta 12y ago
    If someone told me they used to be an alcoholic and completely quit alcohol, I'd have nothing but respect, but this is not what these people are about. What is the problem with people deciding not to drink for philosophical, religious, psychological or other reasons? While I embrace the philosophy "try anything once," I have a number of friends who don't drink for a variety of reasons and it doesn't impede my ability to enjoy their company or respect them as people. Their motivations are different from mine, and that's okay.
    • hrktb 12y ago
      At this point it's like beating a dead horse, but it's so strange to trust people having an history of severe alcohol abuse in the past, but distrust people that would preemptively stop themself from drinking knowing they'd go the wrong way.
  • hvs 12y ago
    Wow. You are an idiot.
    • dang 12y ago
      Please don't. Comments like this have no place on HN, regardless of how idiotic someone else's may be. We ban people for this kind of thing when they don't have a history as a positive contributor. Your history seems excellent, though, so hopefully the favored penalty here—extremely mild admonishment—will do the trick. On another note, I'm happy to report that many users flagged this comment. That is a good use of comment flagging. (When you think a comment has no place on HN, you can flag it by clicking on "link" to go to the item page for that comment, and then "flag". We monitor those flags and take action based on them.)
      • hvs 12y ago
        I appreciate this and your response. I think I was having a bad day at the time. Regardless, I agree that my comment was unhelpful and didn't add to the discussion.
  • freditup 12y ago
    Being conservative with alcohol doesn't reasonably imply being conservative with everything else in life. Plus, alcohol does have many realistic potential dangers - so being somewhat cautious is appropriate.
  • cheetos 12y ago
    Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Do you not see the issue with using a single data point about a person to judge them as closed-minded? Do you not see how that in itself is much more closed-minded? I smoke pot every day. I've tried any natural hallucinogen I can find, multiple times. I'm a raging liberal. I'm a part-time cook that almost certainly could talk and cook circles around you when it comes to cuisine. I promise you I'm very adventurous. But I often refuse alcohol during the week, and almost always in professional settings. Why? 1. Alcohol makes me excessively nauseous 2. Alcohol makes me excessively tired 3. Being nauseous and tired ruins my day 4. I don't like the implication that in order to be part of a professional setting I should be expected to drink alcohol And that's it. None of the nonsense reasons you included above. Hopefully at your next conference you'll lose the entitled attitude, realize you know nothing about these people, and try to talk to them whether they drink or not. Or hopefully they'll just be able to avoid you and enjoy a conservation with someone who has a real understanding of people.
  • PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    One of the best coders it's ever been my pleasure to work with is a strict teetotaler and is, in every respect, the opposite of your stupid stereotypes. You accuse others of being "conservative" and then you proudly mistrust anyone who isn't just like you. Do you see the irony? I'm a moderate drinker myself, BTW, before you start thinking you're being dogpiled by prohibitionists. I try to judge people on their ability and character, not irrelevant window-dressing.
• PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  > "I don't trust anyone who doesn't drink" is a politically incorrect but still a pretty common sentiment. It's not "politically incorrect." It's just kinda dumb.
  • ajuc 12y ago
    In communist Poland there was a proverb "Who doesn't drink - is the UB (Polish KGB) agent".
• ivank 12y ago
  The deleted comment with a lot of replies was: > I go to IT/comp-sci conferences and often meet people who don't drink, ever. These people won't have a single glass of wine or beer. I had to ask myself why. If someone told me they used to be an alcoholic and completely quit alcohol, I'd have nothing but respect, but this is not what these people are about. > They'll claim they don't like the effects of alcohol, but the truth is they think drinking is unprofessional. They're afraid of losing control, of looking foolish. To me, this symbolizes conservatism. These are people who are not adventurous. They won't try some unknown dish on the restaurant menu, they won't want to go to a restaurant from a culture they're unfamiliar with. They might think shellfish are disgusting and weird. They'll want to go to some chain restaurant and have a steak with fries. > I don't like these people. Why? Because they're unadventurous people, who have most likely never tried pot even once in their life. They don't like new ideas. They're afraid that one drink will make their life deviate ever so slightly from the usual boring predictability they crave. If you present them with some new idea, they'll give you nothing but doubt, a long list of reasons why your idea is risky and might not work, and thus isn't worth trying. You shouldn't be developing your own programming language, Java does everything you need, it's Turing Complete. Fuck these people.
  • nfoz 12y ago
    I never drink but have spent the vast majority of my free time for more than a year writing a programming language. lol :)
  • vbuterin 12y ago
    I'm not a steak-and-fries person at all (or even a sandwich-and-salad or rice-and-veggie person, which I've internalized as my own safe defaults); I go out and have unfamiliar dishes quite often. If I want to do something amazing and interesting I visit a new country or go on a 20km walk. And I've invented two programming languages as well :) However, I avoid alcohol specifically because it's just not something that I see myself needing in my life, and with the secondary goal of legitimizing nonconformism and pursuit of one's own values in general. I actually see drinking as a more "boring" choice than not drinking.
  • dfc 12y ago
• sliverstorm 12y ago
  Political correctness really has little bearing on how I evaluate a statement. PC doesn't mean it is right, non-PC doesn't mean it is wrong.
  • IvyMike 12y ago
    I mentioned it because I think there a lot of people who might agree with the statement but are self-aware enough to realize they shouldn't say it out loud.
  • grlhgr420 12y ago
    'pc' is invariably shorthand for 'im gonna get self righteous about my right to be an asshole'
    • sliverstorm 12y ago
      I don't follow. Are you trying to insult me?
      • grlhgr420 12y ago
        it wasn't aimed at you but it's nearly always directly transcribable that way. i have a grudge against the term 'pc' -- i understand that it typically refers to an archetype of a ~hyper-offensible liberal that lives in seattle~ or something but it's nearly always invoked against people who have genuine reason to have grievances with the language and implications used. i won't go into detail because it frankly doesn't matter, but that is the case here with me.
        • sliverstorm 12y ago
          Is there a preferred shorthand?
• dfc 12y ago
  I do not agree with the statement and I am curious what your point was when you added "I maintain a lot of people feel this way"? Racism is politically incorrect and also a common sentiment.
  • IvyMike 12y ago
    Would you downvote someone who said "racism is a common sentiment"? If you said that and were subsequently downvoted, would you still maintain that a lot of people feel that way? That's what I mean.
• michaelochurch 12y ago
  "I don't trust anyone who doesn't drink" is a politically incorrect but still a pretty common sentiment. It is. It's one of those archaic masculinity expectations that hangs around. "Real men" are supposed to eat red meat, be promiscuous (until 30 or so), and be experienced with liquor. Men who don't enjoy getting hammered are seem as "off", unhealthy, or aloof. We might hate that it is this way, but mainstream business culture (which has successfully colonized the Valley, making that ecosystem a Disneyfied farce of entrepreneurship having little to do wtih true technology) is still heavily invested in gender roles and "real men" nonsense. Being a nondrinker is a pretty serious professional handicap because, ultimately, people give professional favor (promotions, good projects) based on personal affinities that can be hacked with chemistry (specifically, ethanol) but rarely (certainly not reliably) with hard work.
  • ElComradio 12y ago
    This is really interesting to me, the idea that the valley is infested with typical alpha male pursuits. The popular concept is a skinny jean wearing hipster tapping away at a coffee shop. They may get hammered on craft beer but I have never heard that associated with proving masculinity.
    • enjo 12y ago
      Maybe that was true in some distant past, but in my time in the startup world (about 16 years) it's never really been true. It's actually the thing I think Mike Judge has really nailed in "Silicone Valley" on HBO. He tells the story from the perspective of a bunch of nerds being thrust into the broader culture of the Valley. The culture of "drink ups" and beer on tap in the office. The reality of the Valley has much more in common with my fraternity house in college than anything else really. That's not to say that the hardworking hacker doesn't exist. They absolutely do! They are the ones everyone else in the Valley is taking advantage of.
      • nostrademons 12y ago
        Or founding WhatsApp...