[robbedpeter]

Or maybe just let people find whatever mental state they prefer, and if their work output is sufficient to justify their salary, fuck right off with telling other adults that they must remain sober at all times.

Set rational expectations. The on call people need to remain sober, as well as anyone operating or maintaining critical infrastructure or machinery. If you're dealing with the public, you should probably be mostly sober. If you're doing data entry requiring precision, you probably shouldn't be doing 5 grams of mushrooms, but a few beers or a little weed might get you in the zone and make the work enjoyable.

If someone produces excellent output while a little drunk or high, or maybe they like to trip for inspiration, or they take a second Adderall to plow through a project, that should be a decision up to the worker and their doctor.

Set behavioral expectations for respectful workplaces, but let's not pretend that a sober, unaltered state of mind is the one and only appropriate condition for all work situations. Fetishizing sobriety and stigmatizing altered states are anti-human ideas.

I've worked at high level isp positions and many of the top engineers - CCIE level - were working while high as fuck. They did excellent work, but could get a case of the giggles at silly things. Management knew and would ignore it unless someone behaved inappropriately. Altering your state of mind is not a sin - behaving badly is not an inevitable consequence of drug use. Drug use is not always behaving badly.

[luckman212]

Yeah sorry, no thanks. Software is buggy enough already. How about the guy working on that new autopilot navigation system for Boeing? Smoke all you want on your own time, but I prefer the engineers keep their faculties intact.

[quantified]

This is the crux. I wonder how much this is part of the WFH preference. Some people have tasks and a mental constitution for which cannabis is perfectly fine. Other people have the same tasks, but won’t perform up to par when buzzed. They may not be able to tell, the inner and external experiences are different. And there is work for which you really shouldn’t even take the chance.

Need everybody to be responsible enough to know where they stand. If you’re underpaid/underappreciated, that’s one thing. If you’re well-paid or appreciated you really should be bringing your best.

Given the effects of ADHD and anxiety meds on children, “sobriety” hasn’t really been fully fetishized in a while. If you don’t think so, take one of your kid’s meds and see what you think.

[rayiner]

> Fetishizing sobriety and stigmatizing altered states are anti-human ideas.

The exact opposite is true. There’s nothing “human” about using substances to “alter” your natural state.

[tptacek]

You mean besides the fact that we've been doing it since the dawn of the species?

[rayiner]

And? What makes it “human.” I use a ton of coffee to alter my mental state—I’m not going to glamorize it as being more “human.”

[LocalH]

Some think that use of psychoactive substances were key to humans becoming "humans" and developing the capability for higher reasoning. What makes it not "human" to alter your mental state?

[tptacek]

It's hard for me to imagine a definition for the adjectival "human" that doesn't boil down to "stuff we've been doing consistently since the dawn of the species". You're wrong: intoxication is essentially, intrinsically human; it's one of the most human things you could come up with.

That doesn't make it good, or mean we can't prohibit it; I can think of other human things that we can't reasonably tolerate. But your specific argument was weird, and faulty.

[lupire]

Tool use one of the key distinguishing characteristics of humans.

[pen2l]

By and large substances that alter human consciousness have been frowned upon since the dawn of civilization. Religions tend to tell you to avoid them (Islam expressly forbids all mind-altering substances, Christianity and Judaism say ok to alcohol but only within limits of sobriety).

In current times it seems especially prudent to resist openness to marijuana lest it serve as a gateway to harder drugs. Because, we are sort of going through an opioid crisis of epic proportions: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm

When I'm driving home from work, I have to pass a certain intersection which is filled with folks on hard drugs, and sometimes they're very brave in that they like to walk into oncoming traffic while barely alert, you have to basically be _super_ careful and ready to brake hard in an instant to make sure you don't kill them, and that really irritates me. And I can't help but think that this is the result of the recent openness to drugs, including by our libertarian-inclined peers in the tech sector. Somehow or other the comedians and edgelord warriors won this one, and everyone thinks marijuana is cool, even when the science is out on its harm: long-term usage causes memory and general cognition impairment, usage by adolescents and pre-teens results in even more serious and lasting damage.

It kind of makes me want to pull all of my hair out when you have streets like this in every other large city it seems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y What a shameful and irresponsible thing to do, to be defending recreational drugs in any manner at this point.

[tptacek]

Alcohol is fundamental to mainstream Christianity. It's a central part of the story of Christ. Which is no surprise, since the faith comes from the region and culture that invented brewing. For Catholics, imbibing is almost a sacramental requirement (you can skip the chalice if you want now; I'm not sure if that was always the case pre-V2; consecration of wine, though, is I think an actual requirement).

[dctoedt]

> you can skip the chalice if you want now; I'm not sure if that was always the case pre-V2

IIRC from childhood, before Vatican II only the priest drank the consecrated wine; the congregation received the bread only.

In the Episcopal Church, all hands get both bread and wine — indeed, when the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Article 30 of the C of E's Thirty Nine Articles of Religion (1571, and still in the Book of Common Prayer) included the following: "The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people: for both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike." [0]

[0] https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/109014/Thirty-Nine-A...

[tsol]

I mean Mormons don't drink-- wine appears in the Bible but imbibing isn't exactly integral to the belief system

[psyc]

That's because "integral" would be understating it. Catholics consider the Eucharist the most important sacrament, at the very center of Christian life. Quite seriously the one sacrament to rule them all and bind them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_theology

(I'm well aware that getting buzzed is not by extension at the center of Christian life. The above comment was simply too ironic not to respond to.)

[tptacek]

Which kind of makes my point for me, given how idiosyncratic Mormonism is. Meanwhile: imbibing is, in fact, integral to the belief system of what might be a plurality of Christians (Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans).

Add Judaism to the roster as well; wine is an integral part of the Seder.

[mickotron]

You’re looking at history through a very Western lens. In other cultures, some substances were ritualistic and culturally important.

[rayiner]

Or an East Asian lens: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgvienna/eng/ljzg/zfbps/t127411.... ("The Chinese government believes that drugs are a worldwide public hazard confronting the whole of mankind, and drug control is an imminent and common responsibility incumbent to international society.")

Or a South Asian lens: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-drugs/banglade... ("Bangladesh sets death penalty for drug offences in draft law")

Or an African lens: https://fileserver.idpc.net/library/Drug-laws-in-West-Africa... ("In Nigeria, the death penalty for drug-related offenses was replaced by life imprisonment in 1986.")

[mickotron]

Either way, the comment I replied to tried represent a whole of humanity stance on something, since the dawn of civilisation, that is clearly false.

We can both come up with examples to suit our viewpoint. I didn’t say that person was wrong. I just said that person was being selective.

[robbedpeter]

Embracing the full range of experience available to you, and using tools to achieve those states is intrinsically human. There's nothing superior or desirable about not using chemical tools to alter your state, and it's silly to think that way. Teetotalling is masochism.

You might not like changing from your baseline, but maybe you don't like blue or purple and prefer red cars. You don't have to like everything, and not everything has to be to your taste.

[rayiner]

> Embracing the full range of experience available to you, and using tools to achieve those states is intrinsically human.

No that's a very post 1960s European/American thing. For most of the rest of the world, it's all about doing what you're supposed to do.

[browserman]

The idea that there is one "thing you are supposed to do" that defines human experience is ironically a pretty modern reactionary mindset. They were smoking cannabis in ancient Scythia - it's "what you were supposed to do".

[rayiner]

Tell me where in the Bible or Quran it tells you to “embrace the full range of experiences?” Let’s throw anything Confucius wrote for good measure.

[browserman]

How on earth do any of those texts have any ability to inform our idea of 'what it is to be human' compared to the actual weight of evidence of what humans have been doing since the dawn of history? What a bizarre non-sequitur!