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by matt4077 3163 days ago
That's... a different kind of right and wrong?

To use the parent comment's example: almost everyone will be more willing to dance or sing really badly, or maybe kiss the wrong guy. Only a tiny fraction of people commit crimes under the influence.[0]

But you aren't completely wrong: Criminality just has a very low prevalence, so even if alcohol were to double it, it'd be rare to see. But from my experience it seems to be a very specific effect, making some people rather aggressive, for example, while having absolutely no such effect on others.

The difference just seems to be that some people have traits of aggressiveness, and alcohol stops them from controlling it.

Is that an excuse? Legally, it sometimes is: If you get blot-out drunk and shoot your wife in the head trying to reenact Wilhelm Tell, it's not murder, because no intent.

At that point it all depends on what you could reasonably expect yourself to do when drunk: If this is your third wife and the third Apple you missed, it starts looking quite different.

In this case, it appears Scoble had a history of such behaviour. Not only was he possibly behaving similarly even when sober (see the anecdote from her talk at the beginning), he had the chance of protecting people by avoiding such situations altogether.

[0]...although my singing may qualify [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Vollmer#Death

2 comments

I think you’re mistaken, simply by observing the incredibly high amount of drunk driving that goes on in my city. It’s indicative that alcohol can have very strong effects on inhibition and judgement.
> To use the parent comment's example: almost everyone will be more willing to dance or sing really badly, or maybe kiss the wrong guy. Only a tiny fraction of people commit crimes under the influence.[0]

I'm not sure I agree that 'the influence' does not correlate with criminal behavior, but perhaps you're right.

But even if you're right, I'm convinced that inebriation does correlate strongly with crossing lines. And it's still the case that in many cultures and environments, a lot of sexual misconduct is not considered a crime, but merely 'blurred lines'.

I hope that changing this 'culture' will go a long way towards curbing even the very drunk from some of this (apparently) systemic kind of misconduct.