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Comment by QAPereo | Hacker News Reader

This kind of thing always seems a lot more magical in hindsight, but then, I wasn't there, and maybe it really was amazing. Most of the time though, when people get heavily into a drugs or drugs for a while, it tends to get a bit squalid. I'm not talking about a shooting gallery or a crack den or anything, but when you're not really "here" most of the time, "worldly" concerns seem to slip by the wayside.

Maybe Billy had enough money and servants that it just didn't matter though.

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You sure? Do you actually have experience with such matters?

Try hitting up some music festivals for counterexamples.

Like Glastonbury? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/glastonbury/11701423/Glas...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/glastonbury-field...

What makes the news is hardly the most typical experiences. Come on, you know how reporters butcher anything in tech, I'm sure.

To be fair, tech is full of relatively unfamiliar and complicated language and concepts (at least for the average Journalism major). While I won't deny the sensationalist nature of the coverage (it is the British press after all), I do think it's still generally fair.

> While I won't deny the sensationalist nature of the coverage (it is the British press after all), I do think it's still generally fair.

It's not, it's a consequence of the politization of the event. The conservative press is directly hostile because of the openly liberal stance the festival takes. The coverage in e.g. The Guardian [1] is substantially different.

I've been there this year, the event is incredible - it's very impressive to see how well everything works and how well people from very different backgrounds, with different tastes, different ages etc. just get along and have fun. The quality of the acts and organization is very very high.

While the garbage photos are true, there are more than 200K people there for 5 days, then they all leave at once! It has nothing to do with drugs, imagine a city emptying out all at once.

I think they're referring to media incompetence and biases in general rather than the difficulty of subjects. For example, if you follow conservative news, you'd think that pride parades were naked men playing with dildos and humping each other rather than huge corporate and sanitized events with only a minority of that. (the news always focuses on what is the most salient and buzz-generating aspect of things, such as making outlandish claims in tech about AI) See also the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel....

I've never been to a festival that wasn't a mix of neon strippers and crusty dreadheads leaving all manner of chip wrappers and plastic cups on an increasingly sticky ground.

Now, granted, lots of great music and good times, but the whole "lot of people doing drugs for long periods makes a mess" feels... very accurate.

Try cleaning up after some music festivals for counter-counterexamples.

QApereo is absolutely correct. Partying for a week or two at a music festival is completely different than living in/around a house of semi-functioning hardcore drug users for months on end. Primarily because the music festival ends before the fun and crazy atmosphere devolves into a dull blanket of paranoid self loathing.

People sober up when there's a defined end date, but it still takes camp leads and the threat of penalties to get everything packed out properly.

Mate, have you ever been to a festival? I've been to 12, both in Australia and abroad with a mix of single and multi-day events. I'm yet to see a festival that maintains any level of regard for 'worldly concerns'.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disqualify any weird hippy forest raves though.

Every music festival that's been around for more than one time usually has an army of sober working people cleaning up, organizing, and otherwise taking care of everyone's basic needs.

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