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It was the healthy part of cigarettes, too. Remember leaving a bar for a smoke? Cue ritual social exchange.

elevaet 4y ago
Yeah it's a good point, although it does seem like the dangers of smoking are worse than drinking. I'd like to see an analysis of the risk vs. reward of drinking that factors in social effects. It would be really hard to do a good job of though, because the social effects are not linear, and you could always argue that a drinker could do something else that's social instead. Maybe smoking even comes out ahead with moderation and the right context. Precolumbian americans seemed to use tobacco in a fairly safe and socially beneficial way.
- pengaru 4y ago
  Except drinking often makes people smoke, and/or engage in other unhealthy activities they otherwise don't do when sober.
  - elevaet 4y ago
    True. It's a really complex thing to look at, totally idiosyncratic and affected by societal norms as well.
technion 4y ago
I remember when it was the healthy part of the your career - effectively getting a meeting with the C Suite because you went out with them for a smoke. (I've never smoked but I clearly remember this as an advantage for colleagues)
- mercer 4y ago
  It was a major storyline in Friends as well.
Teever 4y ago
Very good point, but one exception is that alcohol consumption has been a thing across many cultures for literally thousands of years. I thing that it is important to eliminate peer pressure related binge drinking in teens and young adults but ultimately I think being drunk is practically a rite of passage for most people in the world at this point and that this isn't a bad thing. We'll probably end up making some Star Trek type synthahol before we eliminate occasional alcohol consumption and I bet that something like 95+% population consumption of lab grown meat will happen before similar figures happen for alcohol.
- elevaet 4y ago
  There already are plenty of alternative "alcohols" many of which apparently have cleaner/less toxic metabolic paths (in humans). People experiment with them and you can read about them on various forums. From what I've read most of them dont taste that good, or are expensive, hard to come by etc and theres no clear upgrade.

Yeah it's a good point, although it does seem like the dangers of smoking are worse than drinking. I'd like to see an analysis of the risk vs. reward of drinking that factors in social effects. It would be really hard to do a good job of though, because the social effects are not linear, and you could always argue that a drinker could do something else that's social instead. Maybe smoking even comes out ahead with moderation and the right context. Precolumbian americans seemed to use tobacco in a fairly safe and socially beneficial way.

pengaru 4y ago
Except drinking often makes people smoke, and/or engage in other unhealthy activities they otherwise don't do when sober.
- elevaet 4y ago
  True. It's a really complex thing to look at, totally idiosyncratic and affected by societal norms as well.

technion 4y ago

I remember when it was the healthy part of the your career - effectively getting a meeting with the C Suite because you went out with them for a smoke. (I've never smoked but I clearly remember this as an advantage for colleagues)

mercer 4y ago
It was a major storyline in Friends as well.

Teever 4y ago

Very good point, but one exception is that alcohol consumption has been a thing across many cultures for literally thousands of years. I thing that it is important to eliminate peer pressure related binge drinking in teens and young adults but ultimately I think being drunk is practically a rite of passage for most people in the world at this point and that this isn't a bad thing. We'll probably end up making some Star Trek type synthahol before we eliminate occasional alcohol consumption and I bet that something like 95+% population consumption of lab grown meat will happen before similar figures happen for alcohol.

elevaet 4y ago
There already are plenty of alternative "alcohols" many of which apparently have cleaner/less toxic metabolic paths (in humans). People experiment with them and you can read about them on various forums. From what I've read most of them dont taste that good, or are expensive, hard to come by etc and theres no clear upgrade.