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Comment by zarzavat | Hacker News Reader

My favourite quote on the matter:

But claiming there is no ‘safe’ level does not seem an argument for abstention. There is no safe level of driving, but government do not recommend that people avoid driving.

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

https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2...

I understand why they want to dispel the persistent myth that alcohol can be good for you, but do they have to do it by employing their own vacuous statements? Tell people what the extra risk of drinking a daily glass of wine is, then they can make their own mind up on whether to take that risk or not.

Such empty discourse absent of falsifiable statements is more damaging to our society than a glass of wine ever could be.

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> Such empty discourse absent of falsifiable statements is more damaging to our society than a glass of wine ever could be.

Hear, hear.

    Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
    Before we too into the Dust Descend;
    Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
    Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and—sans End!

The textbook I used when I was teaching "Economics of Regulation"[1] emphasizes the fact that trying to drive individual risks to zero (acting, in the process, as if there is never a cost to trying to reduce risk) is a fool's errand.

Viscusi's "Pricing Lives"[2] is a great work. "VSL (value of a statistical life) is the risk-reward trade-off that people make about their health when considering risky job choices." Once you understand that, you understand how one ought to reason about whether one policy is better than another. Once you understand that, you come to the realization that the actual policies implemented bear no resemblance to the policies that ought to have been implemented in light of a rational cost-benefit calculation.

[1]: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/economics-regulation-and-anti...

[2]: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691208596/pr...

This quote is too simplistic to be useful.

There are certain activities that are not harmful but risky (0 harm most of the time and high level of harm rarely) e.g. driving and others that are harmful but not risky e.g. drinking or being exposed to radiation in an X-ray machine.

It is important to draw this distinction in order to not weaken the point you are trying to make.

The main point here is not that drinking is harmful but rather that the individual should decide their own tolerance for harm. The dose and length of exposure matters here since the damage is likely to be cumulative.

With an X-ray machine or flying at high altitudes, we know that the small amount of intermittent radiation that one is exposed to doesn’t outweigh the benefits.

It is up to the individual to decide if they are in a position to make that tradeoff.

With drinking, the difference between thinking low amounts are beneficial and low amounts are harmful could make a huge cumulative difference over time. It seems like a lot of commenters here are missing that essential fact.

> But claiming there is no ‘safe’ level does not seem an argument for abstention. There is no safe level of driving, but government do not recommend that people avoid driving.

False equivalence. Drinking is not necessary for life (and it's harmful as we see here), but driving is required for many people's livelihood.

It's not unreasonable to equate the two. The necessity of driving in western cities is very much a design choice that could reasonably be considered to be a public health crisis. It's not an inherent property of the world.

Have you ever been to an asian city? I can assure you, there are (100s of millions of) people that rely on vehicles/driving for their livelihood.

To equate the necessity of drinking alcohol with that of mobility is absurd.

Actually in Japan you could argue drinking was somewhat required for their livelihood lol it’s different than driving requirements but interesting nonetheless

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ameliemarieintokyo.com/en/nommu...

They can change their culture such that they socialize over tea or something not harmful.

Yet, the government does not recommend against non-essential driving. So yes, you're technically right it's a false equivalence, but one can easily modify the scenario to make it a fair comparison.

Yet, driving has been getting safer and safer with cars that crash better, have monitoring systems, pre collision breaking, etc. This is not possible with drinking.

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