4 ms·

They still have a point. Alcohol use is intertwined with human history for thousands of years at least. People have been drinking for a while, and we generally

by 9dev 1y ago

They still have a point. Alcohol use is intertwined with human history for thousands of years at least. People have been drinking for a while, and we generally seem to handle it just fine.

readthenotes1 1y ago
You don't know any alcoholics? The ones in my life seem set out to spoil not only theirs, but anyone who dares care for them. A doctor told me that ~10% of people who drink become alcoholics. That's too prevalent to say we " generally seem to handle it just fine"
- jrflowers 1y ago
  What other things with a 90% success rate do you avoid? It is perfectly valid to say “I’ve seen bad stuff with alcohol and chosen to not partake”, and it is also kind of deeply weird to say “I don’t engage in anything with a <90% success rate” and then not give any other examples.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
ycombinete 1y ago
Yes, a fallacy is a reason to dismiss an argument, not necessarily the conclusion; it is a very good reason to doubt a conclusion though. My parent's formulation can be used with other drugs in cases that are still reasonable. For example: 1. Many smokers I know have lived to old age. 2. Therefore "I'm not particularly interested in theories about how my heath demands" not smoking cigarettes. It also makes an implicit assumption that living for a long time is both necessary and sufficient to describe a healthy person. Alcohol abuse is can have a negative impact quality of life as well as the length of the life (this comes from mental and physical health effects). So you could live a very long life with alcohol induced depression/anxiety/diabetes etc. The last part definitely applies as well to your own statement that we generally seem to handle it just fine. It's interesting to see what happens to communities who don't have thousands of years of history with alcohol when it's introduced. For example the Native American population, or the coloured population of south africa. Europeans and other groups who have had much longer exposure to alcohol do seem to handle it better, but possibly just because the people who couldn't handle it were selected out of our respective gene pools. But, even then, not really. There's a very good documentary about drinking in the UK called Drinkers Like Me, that really shows the hidden cost of alcohol on the health of people in the UK [0]. There are many other things we've done okay with for long periods of time, like lead plumbing (which we used for about 2 thousand years!), which definitely had long term negative effects on us. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8SvnmNo48A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8SvnmNo48A

by 9dev 1y ago

They still have a point. Alcohol use is intertwined with human history for thousands of years at least. People have been drinking for a while, and we generally seem to handle it just fine.

readthenotes1 1y ago

You don't know any alcoholics? The ones in my life seem set out to spoil not only theirs, but anyone who dares care for them. A doctor told me that ~10% of people who drink become alcoholics. That's too prevalent to say we " generally seem to handle it just fine"

jrflowers 1y ago
What other things with a 90% success rate do you avoid? It is perfectly valid to say “I’ve seen bad stuff with alcohol and chosen to not partake”, and it is also kind of deeply weird to say “I don’t engage in anything with a <90% success rate” and then not give any other examples.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

ycombinete 1y ago

Yes, a fallacy is a reason to dismiss an argument, not necessarily the conclusion; it is a very good reason to doubt a conclusion though. My parent's formulation can be used with other drugs in cases that are still reasonable. For example: 1. Many smokers I know have lived to old age. 2. Therefore "I'm not particularly interested in theories about how my heath demands" not smoking cigarettes. It also makes an implicit assumption that living for a long time is both necessary and sufficient to describe a healthy person. Alcohol abuse is can have a negative impact quality of life as well as the length of the life (this comes from mental and physical health effects). So you could live a very long life with alcohol induced depression/anxiety/diabetes etc. The last part definitely applies as well to your own statement that we generally seem to handle it just fine. It's interesting to see what happens to communities who don't have thousands of years of history with alcohol when it's introduced. For example the Native American population, or the coloured population of south africa. Europeans and other groups who have had much longer exposure to alcohol do seem to handle it better, but possibly just because the people who couldn't handle it were selected out of our respective gene pools. But, even then, not really. There's a very good documentary about drinking in the UK called Drinkers Like Me, that really shows the hidden cost of alcohol on the health of people in the UK [0]. There are many other things we've done okay with for long periods of time, like lead plumbing (which we used for about 2 thousand years!), which definitely had long term negative effects on us. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8SvnmNo48A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8SvnmNo48A