4 ms·

Look, western cultures have been using alcohol to promote social bonding for thousands of years. It works.

• mercer 12y ago
  I'm not saying I completely disagree, but we've been doing lots of things for long periods of time that we stopped doing for good reasons. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if drinking large amounts of alcohol becomes 'abnormal' in the not-too-distant future. Don't get me wrong: in my current social circles drinking often and rather heavily is still the de facto social activity, and I enjoy it, albeit less, uh, vigorously than the past. Hangovers have become a bigger issue as I'm getting older. Anyways, some of these same groups also smoke heavily and I've noticed that particular behavior disappearing almost completely in some other groups I interact with. So perhaps alcohol will eventually 'phase out' in a similar way, at least in significant parts of society. Getting 'hammered', even semi-regularly, is very unhealthy and it might not even foster stronger social ties as efficiently as other methods. It's just the easy default, for now, just like other things have been the easy default in the past.