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This is important information, but it's also easy to misinterpret, which I've seen a lot of on twitter. That alcohol has different impacts in different culture

This is important information, but it's also easy to misinterpret, which I've seen a lot of on twitter. That alcohol has different impacts in different cultures certainly supports it not having a single "natural" affect on humans. But: 1. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a single "natural" effect inside a single culture. In a culture where alcohol is strongly tied to violence, it may have such an effect regardless of a person aware of that fact or even trying to counteract it. 2. That doesn't mean alcohol doesn't actually have a single "natural" effect on humans - it's possible cultures manage to overcome that effect through effort. (Though, this is certainly less likely than the alternative.)

watwut 8y ago
Both can be true simultaneously. If you being drunk excuses being aggressive, you will have lower incentive to even attempt to control aggressivity while drinking. You will also be more likely to drink before executing plan to be aggressive/violent - to give yourself excuse and reason. If alcohol excuses, you will also drink so that you give yourself social permission to do stuff you know you should now and that would make you look badly if not drunk. In opposite culture, you will not purposfully drink to enable social permission and you will attempt to regulate behavior while drinking. That is independent of whether alcohol actually makes you more aggressive and how much it naturally lowers inhibitions. Even if it does, the culture will affect how much.