One of the things that frustrates me with many of these "X causes Y number of <consequence>" types of arguments is that they rarely provide for any sort of cont

One of the things that frustrates me with many of these "X causes Y number of <consequence>" types of arguments is that they rarely provide for any sort of control on the negative case. To your point, what would the numbers look like without alcohol? Perhaps there is a decrease in birth rate as people make more judicious choices? Perhaps people move to other, less healthy intoxicants? Perhaps suicide rate increases because people are less able to blow off steam and occasionally get stupid? Who knows? What we do know is that humans are genetically adapted to consuming ethanol, have been doing it for thousands of years [1], and seem to have a pretty fun time doing it. > It really feels like we’re experiencing a rebirth of puritanism Sometimes it seems like the issue is even broader to me. There seems to be a strange obsession recently with getting rid of anything that's generally enjoyable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer#:~:text=A%203%2C900%2Dyear%2Dold%20Sumerian,using%20barley%20and%20other%20grains https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer#:~:text=A%20....