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All those physical health effects ignore the other aspect, which is mental health. Alcohol is about self-medication, at the core of human civilization for a lo

All those physical health effects ignore the other aspect, which is mental health. Alcohol is about self-medication, at the core of human civilization for a long, long time. China, India, Egypt so many early examples (https://www.cato.org/commentary/alcohol-caffeine-created-civilization https://www.cato.org/commentary/alcohol-caffeine-created-civ...). How many people would be under more stress, have less relationships without alcohol? It absolutely works as social grease, loosens up nerves and is a very nice way of calming down. I know so much in modern culture is about this weird asceticism, removing anything tasteful, fun, stupid and optimize for longevity - but what's the point to live in total boredom? I like alcohol, it connects across millenia.

mod 5y ago
Pretty tangential, but I think for the first time in history, much of the human population has incentive to optimize for longevity. We seem to be on the cusp of solving aging and dying problems to a massive degree. 200 years ago we knew nothing, in another 50 we might know all we need to achieve immunity to aging. I would bet my net worth that we figure that out in the next 1,000. Anyway I still don't optimize for longevity, but I think it makes sense, at least. I also enjoy that alcohol connects across millenia. Lately I've been trying some things from a Slavic brewery, they brew some ancient mead recipes. One was unchanged since about 1300, according to the label. That's pretty cool. If you want to check it out, the one I have now is a honey apple wine called Ribe Mjod. Same company.
- ZainRiz 5y ago
  Extra tangential: For a lot of human history, many of the elite _thought_ they were close to achieving immortality through unlocking the elixir of life, and that it could be discovered in the next few years. That elixir has changed names, but the concept is still around.
  - tornato7 5y ago
    Something I've thought a lot about: in most fields of study, modern scholars revere the 'old masters' that came centuries before for their genius: think Newton, DaVinci, Socrates, Galileo. However, in medicine, most doctors will tell you that the doctors from 200+ years ago were idiots that did more harm than good. Why is that? Is modern medicine too hubristic? Were the doctors of ages old really that dumb? Is this a trend that will repeat itself in 200 years?
    - pyuser583 5y ago
      I really question the “old master” idea. Especially in art and art history. Most artists (art consumers anyway) are very big on newness and rejecting tradition. Art historians even more so.
    - vlovich123 5y ago
      The first doctor discovered washing hands improved outcomes ~174 years ago & was initially dismissed[1]. It was later confirmed a couple of decades later when germ theory & bactereology[2] was born. Our understanding of how to have successful organ transplants only really took off in the past ~80 years as doctors started to better understand rejection. At the same time, in the 20th century, we got all sorts of new scanners & equipment to visualize the internals of the human body that we've never had before. Finally, the 20th & 21st centuries brought along revolutions in computing, genomics, & pharmacology. So yes, 200 years ago doctors knew a great deal far less than today. I'm sure a doctor 200 years in the future looking back on today will feel similarly. There's still so much we don't know & there's a lot of guesswork involved. I wouldn't say they were idiots but the outcomes were certainly not at levels we'd accept today (just as the outcomes today won't be acceptable 200 years from now). FWIW, the same is true in other disciplines. The 20th century marked a rapid exponential curve in learning. No one really studies any of the masters you note except for maybe Newton & Galileo. The former because the kinematics equations are actually extremely good approximations for Einstein's equations (& also his work on light and lenses remains accurate and foundational to this day). The latter as a warning of the dangers of putting ideology ahead of science and scientific thinking. Galileo's heliocentric model isn't actually used today except as a way to teach kids about the solar system because it's really simple & is good enough at that level (his work on gravity was an important influence for Newton's ideas on the topic). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur
  - danny_codes 5y ago
    Except that this time the elixir isn't powered by magic or fairy tales. Aging is just another biological process. It's controlled by genetics and environment like everything else, and can be manipulated using similar principles. It seems likely (thinking of CRISPR and similar inventions) the rudimentary tools for controlling aging are coming of age. I believe biological immortality is closer than we think.
    - LocalH 5y ago
      I wouldn't actually want to be immortal. I'd imagine that'd get really boring after a few centuries
    - basilgohar 5y ago
      I posit that you've just found the name or class of elixir of our times. I'm not denying that life expectancy can be increased due to advances in science, healthcare, medicine, and lifestyle changes. But there's a difference between extending by a few years or even decades every century or so and immortality. We will discover other aspects that become limiting factors. Aging as "just another biological process" is a drastic oversimplification in my opinion and I think the more accurate statement is our understanding of aging has grown, but I doubt it's complete.
    - jbotz 5y ago
      Sorry to burst your bubble, but aging is not "just another biological process". It isn't even biological... everything ages and decays, even inorganic matter. Even rocks decay into clay. Living biological processes by their nature resist decay, but that's an uphill battle... eventually entropy wins. Errors and waste products accumulate, materials become brittle and fragile, with every year lived the probability of dying before the next increases. Can we help our biology to become more efficient at maintenance and repair? Probably, but not all that much. We are already very long lived. The only complex terrestrial beings that live longer do so by living very slowly... in terms of subjective time experienced, maybe they don't live any longer at all.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - dennis_jeeves 5y ago
    May be those elite are still around...
- rargramble 5y ago
  If you are a cheerleader for "solving" aging / death, are you prepared for forced culls, or being enslaved to the medical industry forever? The earth can only sustain so much life, and we're already running into issues in the west as is.
- malloryerik 5y ago
  > I would bet my net worth that we figure that out in the next 1,000. A safer bet there's never been, at least in the sense that unless life extension advances very soon, your expiration will pre-date your wager's. And yet I do tend to agree, barring a dark age or human extinction event, both very possible.
  - mod 5y ago
    Pretty safe. I guess the way to bet on it is compounding interest, at least in the current world.
mise_en_place 5y ago
I don’t think anyone would ever dispute the mental health benefits, though many people also lose their minds when drinking to excess. The purpose of these studies is to provide guidance to healthcare providers, so they can better assess the risk of their patients drinking habits. The two drink a day meme is something I knew was totally bullshit, but could never really prove. Two of my uncles (one died recently) believed that meme and happily torched both their mental and physical health by drinking to excess. Their healthcare providers didn’t say anything either, until it was much too late, at which point the damage had become very obvious.
- ilaksh 5y ago
  I dispute the "mental health benefits". Alcohol progressively disables parts of the brain. It literally the opposite of a mental health benefit. In fact, it will make problems like depression significantly worse. I believe that the idea that people are to blame for their alcohol problems is totally false and basically a conspiracy by the alcohol advertising industry. The problem is alcohol, not the people consuming it. It naturally induces almost every person to want to drink more alcohol while inhibiting their ability to make good decisions such as about continuing to drink.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    This is true for all problems people face. Ultimately, the genetic lottery predetermines a wide berth of our experience. Our environment determines the rest. If society wants to change behavior it finds deviant or unhealthy, its main tools are science-based interventions and leveraging its ability to manipulate the context within which people live. The perennial issue is finding and designing the right levers to get the results that are wanted. Prohibition didn't work, moralistic pressure doesn't work, education doesn't work. The right incentives need to be discovered, and I think an acceptance that humans have a need for changing their state of mind will lead closer to answers.
- ADSSDA 5y ago
  If you had two uncles who died of alcohol related causes, they were drinking a lot more than 2 drinks a day.
bingohbangoh 5y ago
Alcohol passes the lindy test. (At least for Europeans)
basilgohar 5y ago
I think few people would deny that there are some benefits for some people from alcoholic beverages, but can we really say, with all honesty, that its benefits outweigh its harms? Like most addictive substances, the negative health benefits don't manifest themselves immediately, but often after years or decades, and those who haven't suffered claim all the benefits while the harms loom on the horizon. They change their tune later in life...sometimes. As for the other harms, such as the amplification of violence, the loss of mental faculties – that same "social greasing" is the removal of inhibitions, including those that prevent people from committing certain crimes or harm against other people. How many alcohol-fueled rages would it take to make the equation flip for someone? If the argument is that it is fine as long as it is done responsibly, how do we police that? Will alcohol always be around? Of course. It's something that cannot be avoided, even in societies that have banned it for one reason or another. But to welcome it with all its complications, just because one enjoys it, and closing a blind eye to the harms, is imprudent. And is alcohol truly a good solution as a self-medicant? I think you are spinning that as a net positive, but I highly doubt this is a professional's opinion on that matter, such as a therapist or a doctor. Finally, to equate a negative view of alcohol as "...removing anything tasteful, fun, stupid..." and "...total boredom..." – to be honest, this is reducto ad absurdium, isn't it? If nothing is fun if there's no alcohol, then I think there's a different problem.
- freetinker 5y ago
  Well said. I’ve been noticing that most such things in life are double-edged swords. Alcohol, Instagram, whatever. There is much wisdom in the “middle path”, applicable to much of life. Avoid the sharp edges of the blade, be in the flat middle.
- koilke 5y ago
  Two studies [1],[2] suggest 40% and 25% of certain violent crimes have alcohol involved.It may be difficult to know whether these crimes would have happened without alcohol anyway. Nevertheless, even a slight reduction would certainly be appreciated by the victims and society. And what about inventing other means of social grease? [1] https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ac.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ac.pdf [2] https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/10report/chap01c.pdf https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/10report/chap01c.pdf
phonypc 5y ago
>at the core of human civilization for a long, long time >it connects across millenia Ya, just like all those other great constructs of human civilization: war, slavery... (Obviously alcohol is not as harmful as those examples, just trying to illustrate how that line of thought is flawed.)
- LocalH 5y ago
  I don't think that it's a given that it's less harmful. Less brutal in some situations, certainly.
stormbrew 5y ago
For some people it acts as a social lubricant. For others, usually people with particular difficulties or stresses in their lives, it acts as an amplifier for some of the worst things people can do. A lot of those people also claim they only use it as a social lubricant. Maybe if we could eliminate all the things that make people drink to extreme excess, or drink when it's dangerous, this would be a fun little quirk of the human species but as it is a huge amount of harm is correlated with heavy drinking and I think if you've only ever seen and understood the good side you are a very very lucky person.
- Joker_vD 5y ago
  It's not even a social lubricant! The social lubricant is actually approaching the people and talking with them. All the alcohol does is makes you less scared/restrained of doing that (and less scared/restrained in general, yeah). Well, I can personally confirm that you can just as well train yourself to consciously overcome this specific restraint which is also a rather useful skill in itself. Sure, it takes work and effort but all things that don't "come to you naturally" require that. And if where talking about cases of actual psychic illness, carefully chosen prescription drugs even when imperfect always beat self-treatment with alcohol.
valley-green 5y ago
Same thing with opium. I like opium, it connects across millenia.
netizen-936824 5y ago
Alcohol does not decrease stress, it increases it. Alcohol consumption is a stressor itself.
hda111 5y ago
In my experience it’s the opposite. Alcohol destroys relationships. It’s nonsense to medicate stress with alcohol.

mod 5y ago

Pretty tangential, but I think for the first time in history, much of the human population has incentive to optimize for longevity. We seem to be on the cusp of solving aging and dying problems to a massive degree. 200 years ago we knew nothing, in another 50 we might know all we need to achieve immunity to aging. I would bet my net worth that we figure that out in the next 1,000. Anyway I still don't optimize for longevity, but I think it makes sense, at least. I also enjoy that alcohol connects across millenia. Lately I've been trying some things from a Slavic brewery, they brew some ancient mead recipes. One was unchanged since about 1300, according to the label. That's pretty cool. If you want to check it out, the one I have now is a honey apple wine called Ribe Mjod. Same company.

ZainRiz 5y ago
Extra tangential: For a lot of human history, many of the elite _thought_ they were close to achieving immortality through unlocking the elixir of life, and that it could be discovered in the next few years. That elixir has changed names, but the concept is still around.
- tornato7 5y ago
  Something I've thought a lot about: in most fields of study, modern scholars revere the 'old masters' that came centuries before for their genius: think Newton, DaVinci, Socrates, Galileo. However, in medicine, most doctors will tell you that the doctors from 200+ years ago were idiots that did more harm than good. Why is that? Is modern medicine too hubristic? Were the doctors of ages old really that dumb? Is this a trend that will repeat itself in 200 years?
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    I really question the “old master” idea. Especially in art and art history. Most artists (art consumers anyway) are very big on newness and rejecting tradition. Art historians even more so.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    The first doctor discovered washing hands improved outcomes ~174 years ago & was initially dismissed[1]. It was later confirmed a couple of decades later when germ theory & bactereology[2] was born. Our understanding of how to have successful organ transplants only really took off in the past ~80 years as doctors started to better understand rejection. At the same time, in the 20th century, we got all sorts of new scanners & equipment to visualize the internals of the human body that we've never had before. Finally, the 20th & 21st centuries brought along revolutions in computing, genomics, & pharmacology. So yes, 200 years ago doctors knew a great deal far less than today. I'm sure a doctor 200 years in the future looking back on today will feel similarly. There's still so much we don't know & there's a lot of guesswork involved. I wouldn't say they were idiots but the outcomes were certainly not at levels we'd accept today (just as the outcomes today won't be acceptable 200 years from now). FWIW, the same is true in other disciplines. The 20th century marked a rapid exponential curve in learning. No one really studies any of the masters you note except for maybe Newton & Galileo. The former because the kinematics equations are actually extremely good approximations for Einstein's equations (& also his work on light and lenses remains accurate and foundational to this day). The latter as a warning of the dangers of putting ideology ahead of science and scientific thinking. Galileo's heliocentric model isn't actually used today except as a way to teach kids about the solar system because it's really simple & is good enough at that level (his work on gravity was an important influence for Newton's ideas on the topic). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur
- danny_codes 5y ago
  Except that this time the elixir isn't powered by magic or fairy tales. Aging is just another biological process. It's controlled by genetics and environment like everything else, and can be manipulated using similar principles. It seems likely (thinking of CRISPR and similar inventions) the rudimentary tools for controlling aging are coming of age. I believe biological immortality is closer than we think.
  - LocalH 5y ago
    I wouldn't actually want to be immortal. I'd imagine that'd get really boring after a few centuries
  - basilgohar 5y ago
    I posit that you've just found the name or class of elixir of our times. I'm not denying that life expectancy can be increased due to advances in science, healthcare, medicine, and lifestyle changes. But there's a difference between extending by a few years or even decades every century or so and immortality. We will discover other aspects that become limiting factors. Aging as "just another biological process" is a drastic oversimplification in my opinion and I think the more accurate statement is our understanding of aging has grown, but I doubt it's complete.
  - jbotz 5y ago
    Sorry to burst your bubble, but aging is not "just another biological process". It isn't even biological... everything ages and decays, even inorganic matter. Even rocks decay into clay. Living biological processes by their nature resist decay, but that's an uphill battle... eventually entropy wins. Errors and waste products accumulate, materials become brittle and fragile, with every year lived the probability of dying before the next increases. Can we help our biology to become more efficient at maintenance and repair? Probably, but not all that much. We are already very long lived. The only complex terrestrial beings that live longer do so by living very slowly... in terms of subjective time experienced, maybe they don't live any longer at all.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- dennis_jeeves 5y ago
  May be those elite are still around...
rargramble 5y ago
If you are a cheerleader for "solving" aging / death, are you prepared for forced culls, or being enslaved to the medical industry forever? The earth can only sustain so much life, and we're already running into issues in the west as is.
malloryerik 5y ago
> I would bet my net worth that we figure that out in the next 1,000. A safer bet there's never been, at least in the sense that unless life extension advances very soon, your expiration will pre-date your wager's. And yet I do tend to agree, barring a dark age or human extinction event, both very possible.
- mod 5y ago
  Pretty safe. I guess the way to bet on it is compounding interest, at least in the current world.

mise_en_place 5y ago

I don’t think anyone would ever dispute the mental health benefits, though many people also lose their minds when drinking to excess. The purpose of these studies is to provide guidance to healthcare providers, so they can better assess the risk of their patients drinking habits. The two drink a day meme is something I knew was totally bullshit, but could never really prove. Two of my uncles (one died recently) believed that meme and happily torched both their mental and physical health by drinking to excess. Their healthcare providers didn’t say anything either, until it was much too late, at which point the damage had become very obvious.

ilaksh 5y ago
I dispute the "mental health benefits". Alcohol progressively disables parts of the brain. It literally the opposite of a mental health benefit. In fact, it will make problems like depression significantly worse. I believe that the idea that people are to blame for their alcohol problems is totally false and basically a conspiracy by the alcohol advertising industry. The problem is alcohol, not the people consuming it. It naturally induces almost every person to want to drink more alcohol while inhibiting their ability to make good decisions such as about continuing to drink.
- nefitty 5y ago
  This is true for all problems people face. Ultimately, the genetic lottery predetermines a wide berth of our experience. Our environment determines the rest. If society wants to change behavior it finds deviant or unhealthy, its main tools are science-based interventions and leveraging its ability to manipulate the context within which people live. The perennial issue is finding and designing the right levers to get the results that are wanted. Prohibition didn't work, moralistic pressure doesn't work, education doesn't work. The right incentives need to be discovered, and I think an acceptance that humans have a need for changing their state of mind will lead closer to answers.
ADSSDA 5y ago
If you had two uncles who died of alcohol related causes, they were drinking a lot more than 2 drinks a day.

bingohbangoh 5y ago

Alcohol passes the lindy test. (At least for Europeans)

basilgohar 5y ago

I think few people would deny that there are some benefits for some people from alcoholic beverages, but can we really say, with all honesty, that its benefits outweigh its harms? Like most addictive substances, the negative health benefits don't manifest themselves immediately, but often after years or decades, and those who haven't suffered claim all the benefits while the harms loom on the horizon. They change their tune later in life...sometimes. As for the other harms, such as the amplification of violence, the loss of mental faculties – that same "social greasing" is the removal of inhibitions, including those that prevent people from committing certain crimes or harm against other people. How many alcohol-fueled rages would it take to make the equation flip for someone? If the argument is that it is fine as long as it is done responsibly, how do we police that? Will alcohol always be around? Of course. It's something that cannot be avoided, even in societies that have banned it for one reason or another. But to welcome it with all its complications, just because one enjoys it, and closing a blind eye to the harms, is imprudent. And is alcohol truly a good solution as a self-medicant? I think you are spinning that as a net positive, but I highly doubt this is a professional's opinion on that matter, such as a therapist or a doctor. Finally, to equate a negative view of alcohol as "...removing anything tasteful, fun, stupid..." and "...total boredom..." – to be honest, this is reducto ad absurdium, isn't it? If nothing is fun if there's no alcohol, then I think there's a different problem.

freetinker 5y ago
Well said. I’ve been noticing that most such things in life are double-edged swords. Alcohol, Instagram, whatever. There is much wisdom in the “middle path”, applicable to much of life. Avoid the sharp edges of the blade, be in the flat middle.
koilke 5y ago
Two studies [1],[2] suggest 40% and 25% of certain violent crimes have alcohol involved.It may be difficult to know whether these crimes would have happened without alcohol anyway. Nevertheless, even a slight reduction would certainly be appreciated by the victims and society. And what about inventing other means of social grease? [1] https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ac.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ac.pdf [2] https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/10report/chap01c.pdf https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/10report/chap01c.pdf

phonypc 5y ago

>at the core of human civilization for a long, long time >it connects across millenia Ya, just like all those other great constructs of human civilization: war, slavery... (Obviously alcohol is not as harmful as those examples, just trying to illustrate how that line of thought is flawed.)

LocalH 5y ago
I don't think that it's a given that it's less harmful. Less brutal in some situations, certainly.

stormbrew 5y ago

For some people it acts as a social lubricant. For others, usually people with particular difficulties or stresses in their lives, it acts as an amplifier for some of the worst things people can do. A lot of those people also claim they only use it as a social lubricant. Maybe if we could eliminate all the things that make people drink to extreme excess, or drink when it's dangerous, this would be a fun little quirk of the human species but as it is a huge amount of harm is correlated with heavy drinking and I think if you've only ever seen and understood the good side you are a very very lucky person.

Joker_vD 5y ago
It's not even a social lubricant! The social lubricant is actually approaching the people and talking with them. All the alcohol does is makes you less scared/restrained of doing that (and less scared/restrained in general, yeah). Well, I can personally confirm that you can just as well train yourself to consciously overcome this specific restraint which is also a rather useful skill in itself. Sure, it takes work and effort but all things that don't "come to you naturally" require that. And if where talking about cases of actual psychic illness, carefully chosen prescription drugs even when imperfect always beat self-treatment with alcohol.

valley-green 5y ago

Same thing with opium. I like opium, it connects across millenia.

netizen-936824 5y ago

Alcohol does not decrease stress, it increases it. Alcohol consumption is a stressor itself.

hda111 5y ago

In my experience it’s the opposite. Alcohol destroys relationships. It’s nonsense to medicate stress with alcohol.