Our Culture of Exclusion (or, why I'm not at JSConf this year)

I have some sympathy for the article writer. S/he was perhaps a bit hyperbolic.

I'd suggest just taking business cards to the parties; meet people, swap cards, get a few details, and then leave when it gets too much. That's really the only use you'll get from them. But at least you've made the introduction and a follow-up email a few days later will get some results.

Excessive drinking is a problem. In the UK we have a concept of "Units of alcohol" to try to help people understand how much alcohol they drink. Men should have no more than 3 or 4 units per day. (women no more than 2 or 3. (Current advice is none at all while pregnant, but that's based on a precautionary principle because the safe limit isn't known, rather than known harm at 1 unit per week.)) They also recommend some drink free days each week, and strongly suggest that units cannot be "saved up" to use later in the week. (EG: Drink free monday through thursday then fockin' blindo friday and saturday.) One unit of alcohol used to be a pub measure of spirits, or half a pint of beer, or a small glass of wine. Because alcohol strength has increased beer and wine are often more than one unit in a pub measure.

One unit is 125 ml of wine at 8% Alcohol by Volume. Most wine is sold in 150 ml or 175 ml (for a small glass) and 250 ml for a large glass. Most wine is at least 10% ABV, but 12% is not uncommon.

This nice chart shows 250 ml at 12%ABV is 3 units. One large glass a day is skirting the safe drinking limits.

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Units_of_alcohol_char...)

It's easy to see that people drinking a couple of glasses of wine in the evenings after work do not see themselves as having a problem with alcohol. Add in extra social time drinking and some people get very high levels of alcohol.

It really is a problem in the UK.

This article mentions someone drinking a remarkable amount:

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15997695)

But these articles mention much more reasonable drinking is also a problem:

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16869618)

(Very annoyingly they say things like "triples the risk of mouth cancer" which is meaningless to most people.)

And this article recommends some time to recover after heavy drinking:

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15415713)

This article has some suggestions about binge drinking in the UK. We have weird pubs - vertical drinking environments - where seating is limited, music is noisy, food isn't served. All these things increase the amount that people drink. While it's technically illegal to serve someone who is drunk I've never ever seen anyone refused alcohol, and I have seen many people barely able to ask for the drink being served.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16466646)

I don't think guy has problem with drinking...Its about focus. And he is right, people go to these conference just 4 drinking and partying hard. Actual talks just get over shadowed with these booze parties. Its not "necessary" to make them part of culture...It should be optional. Come-on, most part of a 650$ conf ticket is for booze ...isn't it.. ? I think it should be like paid (and discounted..) "buy extra coupon" if u want to booze...

OP gives up drinking, decides the rest of his industry has to as well. I'll get right on that.

No, it isn't. As organizer of http://scaleconf.org/ I can tell you that almost all of the money goes towards venue hire, lunch/coffee/daytime refreshments, internet and AV equipment, and depending on the conference, flying speakers in.

Then, at the end, you've got a couple of thousand dollars left over, and that goes on the bar tab.

Think about how many dollars worth of alcohol you would drink during a two day conference, then drop the amount because there's a lot of buying in bulk and people who don't go to the parties or drink. It doesn't come anywhere near "most part of a $650 conf ticket".

Ryan,

You make a good point, but as others have noted, it's not right to single out programmers. You are falling victim to a logical fallacy for lack of sufficient data.

Casual, uninformed attitudes towards over-drinking, and over-indulgence in general, are a problem for society and individuals, but it's a subtle problem. One which, I'm afraid, your blunt instrument will not help much in addressing. I fear you've only succeeded in alienating a lot of people who will not be able to apply the proper filters to your arguments, or your approach.

Cultural and social behaviors are complex. Take the human brain, already astoundlingly sophisticated, and then mix it up with 10^(3|6|9)'s of others in a multi-dimensional loosely coupled, feedback-rich system. How do you influence such a system? Short answer: you don't, at least not unilaterally or deterministically.

A better approach to condemning something you don't like is to offer an alternative that you do, and attract like-minded people. This is how the world changes. Leave others to continue their destructive and habitual behaviors; it's their right/privilege.

I guarantee that their are thousands of of programmers who would happily take a break from inebriated venting sessions to participate in something more productive or inspirational. But on the other hand, most good programmers already spend all day doing that.

The challenge is to combine mental stimulation with something non-intellectual, something which creates a relaxing, atmospher, as opposed to something tense and stressful. Generally, alcohol or other depressants are the most time-efficient technique for relaxing, hence it's popularity. But also, booze is designed to be tasty, and bars are designed to be relaxing and fun. The fact that people over-indulge is just a classic example of another logical phallacy: if A is good, more of A is always better. But the concept of proper proportions is abstract and subtle

Most young men under twenty-five have incompletely developed brains. Since they drive the industry in many ways, they simply can't act on the insights you're trying to share, even if they understand them abstractly. The power of socialization instincts and hormones are too powerful.

So my advice to you is to find a select group of more astute and self-aware programmers who know what you're about, and go drinking with them, since they will be more restrained and more interested in intellectual exploration, and less in trying to prove their ability to hold their liquor.