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Comment by robbick | Hacker News Reader

A brilliant excerpt from the end of the bbc article[0]:

Yet Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge, sounded a note of caution about the findings.

"Given the pleasure presumably associated with moderate drinking, claiming there is no 'safe' level does not seem an argument for abstention," he said.

"There is no safe level of driving, but the government does not recommend that people avoid driving.

"Come to think of it, there is no safe level of living, but nobody would recommend abstention."

[0]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45283401

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"Come to think of it, there is no safe level of living, but nobody would recommend abstention."

I think I have found my new motto :-)

"Never take life too seriously, no one gets out alive."

It's a vaguely amusing line but it doesn't actually make any sense in context.

It's a spiritual generalization of the statement "There is no safe level of driving, but the government does not recommend that people avoid driving." and thus it seems relevant to the context (and does make sense), not as a rational argument, but as a figure of speech to emphasize author's opinion about the subject.

I disagree. It's equivalent to suggesting in a discussion about optimal poker strategies that you shouldn't play poker. In the context of the conversation it's already given that you've decided to play and you want to figure out how to win. Whether discussing driving or drinking it's assumed that you want to live and do so in the way that most optimally achieves your goals. Not playing the game isn't part of the discussion.

Isnt There is no safe level of driving one of the main motivations for self driving cars?

No. Because it doesn't change the fact you're hurtling along faster than nature could ever have prepared you for. Even worse, you're putting your faith in getting to where you want safely into some bored programmer's hands.

I wasn't taking this promise at face value :-)

Only mentioning it as it is being sold to the masses.

No because there is also no safe level of being driven by a self-driving car, yet.

This gave me an interesting idea for a thought experiment (do NOT read this as a recommendation): imagine the (US) government, instead of discouraging drinking, required a mandatory n (4?) drinks/week to healthy adults, and sent out free drink vouchers.

What effects would this policy have on social cohesion (or happiness) among adults? What would the downsides be?

EDIT: yes, obvious downsides are obvious. What I find interesting is the idea of the government providing a small mandate that then creates emergent social change, by virtue of everyone having to do it.

For example, the OP is about "no safe level of alcohol consumption" and recommends a policy change to decrease the recommendation. But what ends does this achieve? What sorts of government policies might encourage people to solve the problems that are making them unhappy? That's the kind of thing I'm trying to figure out.

Some of us would feel nauseous and ill the rest of our lives

Spend time with your friends drinking a soda while they use your vouchers. Everyone wins.

Have you ever actually done that? Its pretty grim. They get more silly and stupid and you don't, and you're looking at the clock and wishing you were someplace else.

Not so much anymore because I've got kids now, but previously yes, as a designated driver. Grim? I suppose it's all perspective. Some people go to a therapist, some people go to the pub together.

Speak for yourself.

When I'm on a strict diet I still enjoy the company of my friends when they're drunk and I'm sober. The only frustrating part is that soda water and diet soda kinda suck.

Come to think of it, when I was younger and worked some Saturday mornings I used to be sober at parties often.

No I never felt that, I LOVE talking to tipsy people, it's usually very fun. It's hard dealing with people drunk-to-the-point-of-black-out because they're unpredictable, rude and too silly to follow a nice conversation. Tipsy people are nowhere near intoxicated enough not to be able to follow a nice conversation, but are intoxicated enough that it adds a bit of spice to the conversation, imho.

Some people would become alcholics. It is that easy for some people.

Followers of the religions which prohibit alcohol drinking would be pissed and may cause social unrest? and USA would not be a secular country anymore?

Edit: typos

Driving to the doctor or hospital, when you need treatment, might on balance be "safe". (You're better off doing so, than not, epidemiologically.)

Perhaps all alcohol consumption is a burden on the body. But having a social life is a positive -- we keep seeing more reporting on the benefits of the latter.

So, where's the balance?

At the same time, I've seen a lot of pretty obviously unbalanced engagement with alcohol. And, it's remained largely segregated from many other drugs -- yes, calling it a drug -- in public perception and policy.

Maybe that will change, for the better.

Drinking and (often, necessary) driving are not comparable, so the commenter could have chosen a better comparison.

Edit: Based on comments in this thread, there are a lot of different perspectives on how comparable these two activities are. I still think there are many significantly "better" examples that could have been given.

They are comparable. They're both activities that come with some risk of death, and both activities that we would like to be able to do.

Many drive because it's required to get to their job and survive economically. I'm not sure the same case could be made for alcohol.

Many drink because just surviving is not enough to live a fulfilling life.

You're probably not wrong on that

What does that have to do with the fact that driving is an activity that carries the risk of death? Necessity is not part of the discussion.

Why do you think it isn’t? People do necessary things because they have to. People do desirable things because they want to. The risk of death can make a difference on whether you choose to do the desirable things, but you don’t have a choice about the necessary things.

Very few people in the west must drive to survive.

Shooting heroin is also an activity that many would like to do. Wouldn't you agree that shooting heroin is more like drinking alcohol than like driving?

"[It] doesn't mean, if you drink on birthdays and Christmas, you're going to die."

Although that statement is true, until we find the Philosopher's Stone. If you do anything, you're going to die... eventually.

Barring some philosophy - life isn't optional, what you consume is.

Fatuous remark by that professor. Drinking doesn't get you to work etc. Its entirely dispensable.

I read (here) that 10% of liquor stores' customers are half the volume. So the lesson probably applies mostly to those 10% who think "one drink a day" is a reasonable thing. The other 90% are risking very little, especially if they do their drinking at home.

> Drinking doesn't get you to work

Speak for yourself.

> Fatuous remark by that professor. Drinking doesn't get you to work etc. Its entirely dispensable.

WTF? Work exists to support a fun life, not the other way around.

The car remark is implying drinking is a useful productive thing like driving. Its not the same kind of thing at all.

If it brings people joy then that's the very essence of being useful and productive.

The idea is that people balance fun vs. risk. Whereas before, we used to think there was benefit in drinking in moderation, we now know that any amount of drinking is detrimental. That changes the optimal portfolio of fun activities for drinkers.

Driving and most activities it supports are so environmentally unsustainable that most driving is arguably of negative value.

Driving may be less dispensable than drinking but it's not like you have to drive, and it's also not like there is no benefit to drinking.

Also, driving is for some not just a practical activity. Perhaps he was specifically referring to driving for pleasure.

The purpose of a person is far, far more than simply to be able to work.

As he said "given the pleasure presumably associated with moderate drinking" he isn't talking about practical needs such as getting to work. Some people drive for pleasure rather than (or, far more commonly, as well as) to serve practical needs.

The same could be said for any leisure activity: I run, study & practise medieval swordsmanship and other history martial arts (and more modern sports wrestling). Other people play football (UK/Europe/...) or hand-egg (US) or other competitive sports, there is horse riding in various forms (all potentially quite dangerous without adequate experience working with the horses), and dancing (the effects of which may be additive with the risks of alcohol!), and many other activities, all of which have no safe amount if you want to 100% remove risk (unless by some complex statistical analysis you prove that the increase in risk for injury/death due to the activity at the participants current age/health is less than the decrease due to the potential health benefits of the activity).

LOL hand-egg did you make that up on the spot or is this honestly what american football is called outside the US?

Heh, I'd never heard the phrase but apparently it goes back a long time: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/handegg

The argument is that people should do less of these things to preserve their health, where people used to believe that drinking some alcohol was beneficial.

Same with hand egg. People used to believe that the fitness and team-building aspects made playing the game beneficial. Now that we know about the certainty of brain injuries, the recommendation is to reduce playing time and prefer other team fitness activities.

> I read (here) that 10% of liquor stores' customers are half the volume.

Restaurants buy from liquor stores...

>So the lesson probably applies mostly to those 10% who think "one drink a day" is a reasonable thing

That 10% are drinking hugely more than one drink a day.

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