Hacker News Reader

Comment by jvican | Hacker News Reader

I think nobody would argue drinking a lot of alcohol, or substantial alcohol, is detrimental for health.

The question being argued is whether drinking a small amount of alcohol is detrimental to your health. This is a different matter altogether.

We, humans, have been drinking alcohol for millenia. I'm skeptical to the idea that a small amount, say, a glass of wine for lunch every day or so, can harm us, especially for active individuals. There has been a natural selection process for us to adapt.

I believe what Taleb is doing here is of great public value, and I commend him for that.

View on HN

I spent some time working with CBT for alcohol use disorder, mainly treating "active individuals". I've heard your line of reasoning many times. No level of alcohol consumption is considered risk free from a scientific point of view, at least the view of the senior researchers and professors I worked quite closely with.

So, I don't think this is providing "great public value", on the contrary I would suggest spending time with the research and treatment of the many individuals starting out thinking that "a glass of wine for lunch every day or so" can't "harm us".

From a certain point on we must start being adults again and become aware that some health risks are worth the price when it comes to drinking a glass or two of wine/beer every-once in a while. Because wine/beer have helped us become more of a social animal over the millennia, i.e. have helped us become humans, and suddenly reversing that for the sake of, I don't know, 6 months-a year of prolonged living in their late 70s - the 80s is not worth it.

With that said, I'm fully aware that excessive alcohol intake (i.e. alcoholism) has been destroying lives for millennia, too, but that's what life is, we can't turn it into this aseptic thing where every risk is accounted for.

> No level of alcohol consumption is considered risk free from a scientific point of view

From scientific point of view life leads to death in 100% of cases.

I love the sock puppet throwaway account trolling here.

There are risks getting out of bed in the morning, but there are greater risks NOT getting out of bed in the morning.

Risk is apparently a very difficult subject.

I love you too.

I almost completely stopped drinking because it hurts my surfing performance, and surfing so so much nicer then drinking, so it was a good trade off.

But I’m curious nonetheless, can you give some examples of those risks? I keep seeing people mentioning them, but haven’t seen many well informed reasonings

Medical risks are the most commonly mentioned, for instance, alcohol is a major risk for cancer and, in some regions, has overtaken smoking as a leading risk factor. But in my personal experience, the most damaging consequences of alcohol use (disorder) are its negative effects on relationships with spouses, children, other relatives, and friends. It doesn't only affect the person willing to take the risk, but also others.

What a puritanical response. By your argument, anything that could be abused is verboten. Feel free to live (and argue that way). I'll do the opposite. I'll trust to documented, well researched data rather than someone's "Trust me bro" reasoning.

I think your base assumption is flawed: just because we've been drinking alcohol for millennia doesn't mean it's safe or good for us. Natural selection doesn't magically fix everything; there needs to be some sort of selection pressure, and "dying a little bit younger" is likely not enough to weed out people who don't get the "alcohol is good for you" genetic mutations. Especially when people who drink only a moderate amount of alcohol still overwhelmingly live through and past reproductive age.

Whether or not a drinker is an "active individual" may not affect the damage (or non-damage) alcohol does; there's no reason to assume that changes anything.

I like a drink here and there as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to pretend there's zero harm.

No, no. You got this backwards. You and others arguing your point have to find solid evidence that small alcohol quantities have that “risk” or “harm”.

In absence of evidence, it’s a better default to think that it’s not harmful as explained by my arguments above. I’m not arguing selection pressure is a strong argument in favor of no harm, I’m arguing that it's a better argument in absence of strong evidence saying otherwise.

The linked document explains how there’s not such thing as strong evidence in habit of the small alcohol quantities are harmful hypothesis. Making papers and running studies is hard, they depend on small sample sizes and statistical analysis that more often than not is flawed.

There is no evidence either small quantities of tobacco or most drugs harm you either.

People that want to drink will find excuses to do so.

Maybe — I haven't looked at the evidence.

But, alcohol is something that has been present in our ancestral environment (e.g. fermented fruits). If anyone's telling me, our bodies didn't learn to at least tolerate small amounts of it without any major side effects, I'm going to be asking a lot of follow-up questions.

I think it's much easier to argue this case than, say, tobacco or "drugs", which are arguably more recent inventions, depending on your exact definition of drug.

Same logic applies to heavy metal like lead and others. Also cyanide and arsenic. And so on. We still actively avoid them. Just because we can tolerate them via various process does not mean it wouldn't be better to avoid them altogether and minimise exposure.

One could argue that small exposure to these metals is what caused us our body to develop defenses against them. If you remove the "small" exposure, you remove the cure, so to speak. Similar to how small quantities of cyanide create an adaptation in your body, but a slightly bigger one would kill you. Minimizing exposure can be net negative for us, as humans, and four our future children.

Smoked meat has been a staple of human diet for millenia.

It's cancerous.

Which "drugs"?

The problem with highly addictive things is people do not stop at small quantities.

If alcohol was invented today, people would be like "no way we allow a juice that makes you happy, stupid, aggressive and endangers yourself and others and has high addictive levels".

If alcoholic drinks were invented today they would probably taste about as good as junk food so there would be no loss. Can you imagine any business promoting a product that requires years to sitting in precise storage!?

Lots of things we eat and drink and use would be illegal if invented now. Refined sugar, many herbs. Even rice can contain arsenic, as can some root vegetables. Maybe even electricity - something that is easily fatal, and can start fires?

I'd agree, but alcohol isn't necessarily highly addictive. The addiction depends on the dose quantity and frequency. I'm talking, a beer or wine, not necessarily liquor. I mean, let's look at the real word: for every alcoholic addict, there must be _at least_ one person that casually drinks one drink a week or two.

I agree. To clarify I do jot mean alcohol is highly addictive but that highly addictive drugs are more harmful than alcohol because of the difficulty of moderation. Most people I know drink alcohol but have no problem not having it for a few days, and usually drink reasonable amounts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com