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Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

Some of my most cherished memories are those where I was out drinking wine and having really good food with my wife and friends.

When people were telling stories about Jesus, the central figure of their religion, one of the miracles they told of was him turning water into wine. This is held up as one of the most important stories in their entire moral system.

When the pyramids were being built, the builders were paid in beer.

People have been drinking, and enjoying the effects of drinking, for thousands of years, and "do not drink to excess" is a lesson the Greeks told us with their own myths and stories.

Be cautious of over drinking, however perhaps also be cautious of under drinking as well. These are not new revelations.

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I agree, these articles are ridiculous. If you have alcoholism in your family -- dont drink. If you're overweight because drinking causes you to eat shitty food and not exercise -- stop drinking. If you have anxiety because of drinking -- stop drinking. If drinking makes you an asshole and is causing relationship problems (I know a lot of people in this category) -- stop drinking.

If you like to go out on the weeks and drink 8 beers with your friends, all the more power to you. People have been drinking since time immemorial, it's part of who we are as human.

Life is too short to "dot every i and cross every t".

You might be dead tomorrow.

>If you like to go out on the weeks and drink 8 beers with your friends, all the more power to you. People have been drinking since time immemorial, it's part of who we are as human.

This just isn't true at all and it's probably offensive to large groups of people who view alcohol drinking (with pretty good reason) as a vice.

Abstaining from alcohol is also a praised act since time immemorial. Trying to keep one's mind and body free from intoxicants is also a noble goal and is something that is part of us as human, AND it is what distinguishes us from animals (animals in general don't abstain from things out of sheer willpower, but human beings in general do, be it dieting, teetotaling, etc.).

Life is also too short for you to accelerate your end voluntarily by drinking 8 drinks in one night in rapid succession.

This is the only part of modern social life where it's okay to tell people to do risky and dangerous behaviors which endanger the public. Excessive drunkenness is a public health problem. This past year should have made us keen to the fact that many actions we take for granted have consequences on others

This just isn't the truth. "Free from intoxicants" might be noble for some, but on the other hand, different sorts of intoxicants have been used for religion for a very, very long time. Folks have used this stuff for a very long time - not just alcohol. Folks to this day espouse the benefits of things like LSD and MDMA: pot/hash can be used to good effect.

Not to mention that folks bond over such experiences. Drinking 8 drinks in a night isn't necessarily dangerous, depending on the strength of the alcohol - no one said it was rapid either, nor unsafe. Just like you an do LSD or mushrooms and not be unsafe.

And there is just no way to know if animals abstain from things out of sheer willpower: We simply cannot communicate with animals on a level to give us that understanding. Animals DO seem to partake of mind-altering substances, though. (catnip, anyone?).

We tell folks to drive every day, and driving is a risky and dangerous behavior which easily endangers the public, by teh way.

1) If I want to accelerate my end voluntarily, that is my prerogative.

2) You have no evidence that drinking 8 beers in one sitting once a week will cause (1). Send me lots of studies that link excessive alcohol consumption to esophageal cancer, I will send you lots of studies that show the opposite.

3) Not everyone drinks excessively and partakes in "risky and dangerous behaviors which endanger the public" (this is a ridiculous assumption you're making). I do not drink and drive. I live in a city where I can walk home. etc. 99% percent of the time I actually am at home with friends, even pre-covid.

Quote frankly... I don't even binge drink that often, but I will defend anyone's right to do so, without judgement.

quite*

noble is very subjective. I'm sure some religions(judio-christian) might see it as noble, but that is far from the only view point, before or since those religions

The article is about Americans increasingly binge drinking alone though? How is it ridiculous to talk about this problem?

Because as long as I am not breaking the law, my drinking habits don't affect your life!

Sadly many people's private drinking habits have affected my life, both directly and indirectly.

The history of human's connection to alcohol extends even further.

One of the anthropological theories is that it was a core reason for humans to take up agriculture in the first place and to domesticate certain grains.

And, the genetic mutation that allows us to process it in the first place (an enzyme in the liver to break it down much more easily than before) that we received in our lineage millions of years ago allowed us to descend from the trees to the ground. It was a key enabler to our expansion where rotting, fermented fruit sitting on the ground became an enabling calorie source!

> When the pyramids were being built, the builders were paid in beer.

Yeah, because water used to be much harder to sanitize, and “beer” (thick, lumpy, mildly alcoholic – think fermented porridge) is basically liquid bread. Doing manual labor all day takes a lot of calories, and cereals are much cheaper than alternative foods. It’s hardly a healthy diet though.

Keeping peasants drunk enough to be pliable is a side benefit much appreciated by the lords of just about every feudal/plantation economy throughout history.

> because water used to be much harder to sanitize

They actually addressed this in the article, but sanitizing water is as simple as boiling it which is much less involved than the process of making beer.

I’m no expert on ancient Mesopotamian/Egyptian theories of disease, but my understanding is that people knew that water with even a bit of alcohol was significantly less likely to get you sick than river water, and drinking beer was (in part) an intentional countermeasure.

Beyond that, in an ancient context you can’t indefinitely store your boiled water and expect it to stay uncontaminated. If you are on a construction site, boiling all of your drinking water every day before use sounds a lot less convenient than just storing beer. Moreover, if laborers were all drinking water they would still need to eat something.

> sanitizing water is as simple as boiling It may be simple but it takes a lot of energy to boil & you can't store it. They didn't have the convenience of electric kettles.

This is horrible advice.

Just because something has been done a certain way for a long time does not mean it's something we should continue. In a lot of cases it just means we didn't have the knowledge that it was so bad for you. And that's exactly where alcohol fits in. We know alcohol is bad for us in just about every way. So there's really no such thing as "under drinking".

Cigarettes. Cocaine. Tanning. Not wearing seat belts. Not wearing helmets. Beating kids as punishment. Bloodletting. X-rays. I mean the list is just endless.

Folks should do as they please. I'm not suggesting everyone needs to stop drinking or anything. But to suggest that "perhaps also be cautious of under drinking as well" is just downright wrong.

Seriously, the traditionalist argument is poor. You know what else humans have done for thousands of years? Slavery. And it also has many "religious" ties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery

A more charitable interpretation of what I wrote would be to understand that I was tying drinking to the happy memories I have with my wife. This was the first sentence of the post you are replying to.

So in this case “under drinking” could be interpreted as a metaphor for being overly cautious and missing out on something enjoyable. Life is dangerous. Snowboarding, going on a road trip, swimming in the ocean, petting a dog, eating street food, traveling. These are all dangerous things that kill people every year. I stand by the statement that we should be cautious of anything prescribing that we avoid these activities completely.

If anything your comment just reinforces how much of a problem it is, and how deeply it is engrained in society. If sugary processed foods had been developed 5000 years ago, would you be saying the same about those today?

You are associating alcohol == good times, which if you want to do so is fine (we are adults, we have free will), but know that you can have good times without alcohol as well. They aren't mutually inclusive.

There are a few other threads where people say similar things. If you need to have alcohol to have good times, then you do actually have a drinking problem. If you can't imagine going out with friends without drinking, then you do actually have a drinking problem. If you can't imagine eating a meal without drinking, then you do actually have a drinking problem.

I think the biggest problem the western societies have today is: Finding problems everywhere.

Ok, i am from germany, so i assume my views on alcohol probably differ a lot from the view most americans have. Here, it is totally fine for a 16 year old to buy and drink wine or beer. It is totally unproblematic if you enjoy a few beers with your friends in the park... and the alcohol ban in public some cities acted caused turmoil short of a full blown riots.

What i want to say is: Why do we allways need to find "the hair in the soup"?

Yes, it may be unhealthy... but so are other things, and i think a perfectly healthy life would be terrible boring.

I'm from The Netherlands. I won't throw a fit to get anyone to stop drinking. But it's pretty obvious that drinking, even one beer per day, on a societal scale leads to more obesity, more sickness, more violence etc. And the accompanying healthcare, police etc. spending.

Again, drink if you want. It's allowed. But don't pretend that it is unproblematic/healthy/natural/without consequences.

Just admit (or at least do not deny) that by drinking, you're making an (indirect) withdrawal from the community fund. Just like people who drive a car, people who hunt for fun, people who smoke etc.

That is what i want to say: Everything has consequeces! Nothing good comes without the bad, you will have to "pay a price" for everything... even when the "price" is a less enjoyed life ;-)

What really bothers me is that it seems that the western culture is (at least from my perspective) striving to become a totally clean, political correct, vegan, moral and abstinent society. Something like the society in "Demoliton Man". I really, really dont want to life in such an society...

It depends. Sure, we cannot be perfect. But not being racist has no downsides. Not drinking has no downsides. Same for several other of our vices.

So if there's no downside...why don't we stop?

That's where you're wrong : it does have downsides.

Alcohol is a social lubricant, and consuming alcohol with people is a great way to bond, and form communities.

It's not the only way to bond, but it does provide help regarding sociability, especially for shy/introvert people.

Our short life would be less interesting without the occasional glass of wine while overlooking a beautiful mountain vineyard.

I went my whole life not enjoying being social. Drinking allows me to be social when I want to be. I don't really see that as a problem. Socializing is just not something I have ever enjoyed sober.

I think you’re engaging in the exact sort of binary thinking that is the problem.

I’m saying: many people have enjoyed the effects of socializing and drinking alcohol for thousands of years. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to demonize it since it seems to have demonstrated its utility.

You somehow read that as: “I need alcohol to have fun”.

Your reading is wrong.

> "do not drink to excess" is a lesson the Greeks told us with their own myths and stories.

Thank goodness the Roman's brought new light to Bacchus who shows us that excessive temperance is always punished more severally than excessive indulgence.

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