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Comment by ehPReth | Hacker News Reader

I want to go back to that era.. imagine not having to think as much. Imagine being more.. free.

Maybe people were permanently drunk because the daily reality was hard, booze made it more bearable. As a parent, I think of those parents with 7 kids, 4 of which would before reaching adulthood. Add terrible working condition, medicine being of much help, basic necessities like food, clothing eating most of your revenue, not much free time, etc. I would want to be tipsy often.

I would not like going to such an era. Also, beer is kinda pasteurized, safe water to drink.

If you didn't know, pasteurization is a specific process of preserving food by heating it to a certain temperature. Not sure if there's a good substitute for that word in the way you're using it though (technically alcohol is distilled, but it's not distilled water like one would normally think of it. it's not really "purified" either. hmm)

ah shit, I should have looked up if beer itself is pasteurized. So-and-so Pasteur himself invented the process for beer and ale specifically (albeit around 1870, so before then I would be right)

as they say in Mexico, save water drink beer.

Imagine food costing 10x more in constant units of money, having articles of clothing take a months wage, etc.

Humans are really good at getting used to things. There's a chance that even with a life that's worse on paper compared to modern life you end up happier.

Think about it this way. We are living in an era that will eventually be thought of as a time where people couldn't imagine how we lived.

Thats any era, honestly.

While I think we might have too much choice now, I think moving back to a 1600 level of choice (and inequality spread) would make me miserable personally. Also, I like not dying at 35 (am over 35 now).

Take heart - you most likely would have died before the age of five. If you survived past that, you were likely to make it well past 35. Historically high childhood mortality is what pulls down average life expectancy.

That sounds wonderful. I already wear the same outfit all the time.

Try being an alcoholic for a few years. You might think differently about it whenever you (hopefully) get back to sobriety.

Yah, it’s not so glamorous when you wake up in your own vomit like I did yesterday, with no memory of throwing up.

I learned to sleep on my stomach a while ago

Wasn't a heavy drinker by a long shot but still decided to quit nearly 3 years ago.

Solid decision. I'm 50 now, I certainly feel better overall now than then. If I'm tired in the morning it's only because I went to bed too late and/or lifted (too?) heavy the day before.

Well there’s alcoholic and functional alcoholic. There are actually functional heroin users too, but it’s taboo to mention it because one hit and you’re dead according to the media.

The binary "functional" vs "non-functional" is not a good way to understand such a complex thing. I don't care where on the spectrum you lie, if you're drinking substantial amounts of alcohol daily (this isn't necessarily the definition of alcoholic) then your normal activities and well-being are getting seriously affected.

You could use a similar comparison for suffering in general (chronic illness, chronic pain, etc.) Some may appear more functional than others while in such conditions. Just because you're functional with chronic pain, doesn't mean you aren't hurting and that your life would be very different without that suffering.

Edit: Spelling

Personal take: I think medicine has historically been about categorizing symptoms, patterns etc into diseases (adhd for example). I'm not condoning or encouraging or saying "go do heroin if it works for you" etc but... a problem for you may not be a problem for me - and its all relative to the individual. I've lived in Boston and Wisconsin and I couldn't stop laughing when I read how many drinks/week are considered to be alcoholic considering how ritual it is for a lot of folks in those areas.

I'm well on my way.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. I can tell you that I remember the era of people having drinks at lunch as a matter of routine. As a lifelong teetotaler I never saw that it helped anything, however. Except I suppose releasing inhibitions. But I have to admit I generally don’t enjoy people when they’re in that state.

Also I always enjoyed my jobs. I was perfectly happy to talk about work during lunch hour. And booze didn’t improve the discourse any.

We’re getting scammed. I really don’t think people worked as much

Before the Industrial Revolution they certainly weren't, as the weather wouldn't have permitted them, at least in Europe. Not that much work to be done outside the house during winter-time, outside bringing some wood from a forrest nearby and maybe a little hunting.

Once people began leaving the peasant life for the factory life (many of them because they were forced to) things changed for the worse in that respect.

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