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Comment by IshKebab | Hacker News Reader

> at any level

This is nonsense advice. Would you take the advice of someone who recommended never driving because any level of driving risks death? That's obviously stupid. Or it should be anyway though I suspect some pendants will try to argue it. If you're one of those people what about never going outside? The sun's deadly rays might give you cancer and there's no safe level of sunlight!!

Risks are about trade-offs. If the American Cancer Society wants to be helpful and actually listened to they need to provide practical actionable advice, not this cop-out.

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The belief that moderate consumption alcohol isn't just harmless, but in fact beneficial to your health, is extremely widespread in my personal experience. It's past time to change that if the science disagrees.

And you're right, risks are all about trade-offs and how you implement that advice into your own life is entirely up to you. Crucially, they're not making recommendations to make anyone feel better about their harmful decisions, they're making them to help people make informed decisions.

Driving cars and riding in cars tend to have large benefits whereas alcohol does not.

Alcohol can have large benefits for helping people to bond and socialize. The article itself pointed this out. Of course people can socialize without alcohol. But I think it's plausible to argue that alcohol in moderation can improve and deepen the experience.

OK good point, but MDMA is much better for that according to many comment here on HN over the years.

Also if I go drinking with someone I don't know well, the risk of their becoming violent is quite high.

Many drugs promote socialization. To the point that you have to question the distinction between drugs and food/drink. Take sugar. It's often the focus of social gatherings. But the bad effects of sugar arguably outweigh those of alcohol, given the epidemics of diabetes and obesity.

Alcohol happens to have 10,000 years of cultural tradition behind it. Plus, it pairs well with food.

>Also if I go drinking with someone I don't know well, the risk of their becoming violent is quite high

In what kind of society or social circles is this true? Here it's common to socialize and meet strangers over a drink or two, and the risks of their becoming violent is near zero.

> MDMA is much better for that according to many comment here on HN over the years.

Maybe but it's also much harder to obtain due to being illegal.

> the risk of their becoming violent is quite high.

Jesus who are you going drinking with??? That's not normal.

>On average, roughly 40% of inmates who are incarcerated for violent offenses were under the influence of alcohol during the time of their crime.

https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/alcohol/crimes/

Correlation does not imply causation.

You need to do a basic statistics course.

> On average, roughly 100% of inmates who are incarcerated for violent offences have two arms.

Arghhh! Quick, cut one of everyone's arms off!

Pick a random person at a random moment in time. What is the probability that the person is under the influence of alcohol? No more than 3% is my guess, but some of my debate opponents might disagree, so let's appease them and say 6%. Keeping on randomly choosing (person, time) pairs, taking note of whether the person you pick is engaging in any violence. Ignore any violence done by anyone other then the person you randomly picked. 40% of the violence you note occurs during the 6% of the time the person you picked is under the influence of alcohol.

Like someone here writes, correlation does not imply causation, but correlation is evidence of causation, and that is a strong correlation. Specifically, if the person you picked is under the influence, he or she is 10.4 times more likely to be engaging in an act of violence than if he or she is not.

People can bond and socialize over other things, including tea and coffee. We see this in cultures that do not use alcohol.

Maybe it's not your cup of tea/wine, but I think most of the population would strongly disagree with you there!

Source?

Do you want a source for my assertion that there are benefits to getting from where you are to where you want to be using cars?

"Randomized placebo-controlled study of the benefits of personal mobility", Stravro and Chunk, 1999.

>Do you want a source for my assertion that there are benefits to getting from where you are to where you want to be using cars?

Have those made-up sources included externalities, from air and noise pollution, to city planning, commutes, lifestyle changes - include pressure and stress added to the individual by the extra speed of going places?

Have they asked those pesky "walk and/or take the public transport" Europeans living in suitable cities, if they prefer their way?

I wish they would be more clear about how bad drinking is otherwise everyone tends to see it the same.

A friend of mine wouldn’t eat non-organic blueberries because he heard they suck up tons of pesticides so ate more eggs and sausage instead for breakfast.

Is the magnitude of health benefit of going from 2 drinks a day to 1 drink a day equivalent to or 1/20th the benefit of an average American walking an additional 20 minutes per day?

I don’t have the source with me now but I read that in my example above, it would save about 650 lives a year compared to 175k+ due to overall alcohol use.

> Risks are about trade-offs. If the American Cancer Society wants to be helpful and actually listened to they need to provide practical actionable advice, not this cop-out.

I feel like the medical community is slowly starting to finally realize that they can't force patients to minmax their lives. Why would I live a long life that isn't enjoyable?

I'm sorry if you feel the ACS is trying to force you to do something just by making a recommendation. Feeling a bit fragile, are you?

Of course I am fragile, I'm just a single individual thrown into the society of 8 billion people, what are you expecting

I'm expecting you to not confuse someone informing you with someone forcing you.

I mean, they are very different, unless you have the will of a wet noodle.

Wet noodle slides effortlessly into you. What do you do?

I think we learned in 2020-2021 that if the medical community doesn't put out an extremely strong statement about something, the general public won't take it seriously at all.

When the ACS recommends avoiding alcohol consumption at any level, they don't think people are actually going to suddenly quit drinking. They're just trying to convince that guy who drinks two six-packs a night to cut down to one six-pack a night.

Or, they've run the numbers, looked at the biology, and concluded the cost/benefit of drinking at any level doesn't favor drinking.

Tell it how it is.

No cigarettes either. But it's OK to go camping and live in a cloud of smoke for days. I wonder how many cigarettes a day equals being in a big campground with fires everywhere for 2 days is?

An AQI of 250 plus is equivalent to 7 cigarettes a day:

https://woods.stanford.edu/news/health-impacts-wildfire-smok....

It depends how much time you spend outside? I’m just thinking back to my days in Beijing when 250 PPI was not a bad day.

The parent commenter was referring to camping, therefore all day.

What about an AQI of ~1500? Yeah, we lived through that here 4 years ago during the fires here in Oregon, while waiting to find out if we’d told to evac.

Once the AQI exceeds 300 or so, I would run an air purifier at home (keeping the windows closed) and wear an N95 mask whenever I venture outdoors.

Air filtration works very well for smoke (and other particulates).

"Daddy, what is 'whataboutism'?"

Presumably the risk with cigarettes is addiction, whereas that is less of an issue with alcohol because alcohol is significantly less addictive than nicotine.

Alcohol is more addictive than nicotine. The "advantage" of nicotine is that it creates a physical dependence more readily at smaller doses, but alcohol is psychologically pervasive. To the point where entire cultures have gone to war over it throughout history.

Ugh I knew there would be someone who tried to push this ludicrous claim.

Obviously we are talking about physical addiction, not some cultural nonsense.

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