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Comment by P_I_Staker | Hacker News Reader

They don't give a safe number of cigarettes, do they? There probably is a number that's minimally harmful, that lowers with age.

Alcohol has numerically similar numbers of cancer cases, and cancer is just one aspect. Now it is less, and we can argue about how widespread the use is ect. However, it cases 1/3 of the cases, heart disease, mental health problems.

Are you a drinker? Especially since quitting, I've noticed a lot of drinkers get incredibly defensive against something that seems very rational and well supported by evidence.

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as a continued social drinker, or more general doer of anything, i've noticed that anyone who no longer does that thing is typically quite vocal and negative towards said thing.

Set aside alcohol for a minute; this article is saying that because the absolute risk of an activity is not zero, the activity is inheriently unsafe. That's not true, not an appropriate strategy for decision making, and most importantly not an effective way to influence behaviours. This is the definition of perfect as the enemy of better.

>> i've noticed that anyone who no longer does that thing is typically quite vocal and negative towards said thing.

Well ya? Is that not self-evident?

See, there's this thing I enjoy very much, but I was forced to stop because of evidence of the negative consequences. Now, since I am a kind person, I can share the knowledge of those negative consequences so may be you could avoid them, too.

Said another way, if I were not negative to said activity that I enjoy, I would still be doing it. And if I were indifferent to the well-being of others, I wouldn't be vocal/share.

Maybe you should just go back to doing it. You're not going to live forever, even if you don't have a couple beers on a Friday night.

I drink maybe 4 drinks total a month. I get where you're going with that though. There is actually data out there on smoking, and having a cigar once in a while isn't really more unsafe than sitting by the camp fire. Your body also recovers itself in most regards rather quickly after chronic smoking (months). I'm not a smoker, and it's better not to smoke because it's super addictive, but having a smoke is like having a drink, not unsafe per say. I'm more worried about sugar than alcohol.

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