site banner

Friday Fun Thread for March 31, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

According to an askhistorians post, just going off of volume consumed significantly overestimates their alcohol consumption -

Most ancient wines probably had an alcohol content around 15% ... In most cases, however, the wine consumed at social gatherings was probably between two-thirds and three-fourths water, which would have reduced the alcoholic content to about that of modern beer.

Your study is probably cherrypicked / poorly conducted / something, just because it's a cool-sounding popular study about human psychology.

Any amount of alcohol temporarily reduces intelligence and precision in your physical movements - a tiny bit if buzzed, a lot if drunk. Having that all the time seems dumb.

Natural selection has tuned our ability to be glad and bond with others over millenia - it'd be weird if the baseline value was simply too low, and constant intake of fermented grain was ideal. Whatever effect alcohol has on various neurotransmitters would be quite 'easy' to evolve ... but it didn't, and you're going to knock all sorts of useful and functional relationships out of balance by being constantly buzzed.

(OP was a good post though!)

Hm, for the wine AskHistorians post, the liter being undiluted does make the wine's later dilution irrelevant. My mistake.

Searching elsewhere for roman wine consumption, from wikipedia:

Phillips estimates that on average, each member of Rome's urban population (man, woman or child) consumed half a litre of undilute wine per capita daily.[1] Tchernia and Van Limbergen estimate the same average consumption levels per diem, per capita throughout the Greco-Roman world.[9]

"Man, woman, and child" at "half a litre per day" is comparable to 1L/day for an adult man, I think? But following that citation, they took estimated wine production for Rome divided by the Roman population - and my sense is that, combined with the % ethanol of ancient wines, isn't necessarily that accurate. But all accounts seem to agree that alcohol consumption was widespread, to the point that during the Empire drunkenness was an issue.

Does it really, though? For almost all social interactions, the ability to be more earnest, more long-suffering, and less constrained by cognitive ruts is an advantage

If you're drinking alcohol consistently, throughout the day, as the post describes, it'll harm your intelligence and physical capacity for the intellectual or physical work you have to do. Said intelligence and subtlety might also be useful for social interactions - which aren't just a way to bond with the bros, but often involve competition, subtlety, and antagonism. Every part of social interaction is 'cognitive', it doesn't really make sense that a general depressant would aid in social interaction.

Throughout human history, almost every civilization that a Westerner would recognize as a civilization has both relied upon grain and developed some form of ubiquitous alcoholic beverage from it.

Eh, according to wikipedia the high levels of alcohol consumption in Rome only took place during the empire - and the rate of consumption significantly differed - a number (that I didn't check) was 1.8L/day/10 men in egypt.

So, are you just going to completely ignore things like bar fights and other obvious examples of how alcohol consumption often substantially increases men’s propensity to interpersonal violence? “Promoting collective action, good will, and forgiveness between strangers” might be the way that some populations and individuals respond to alcohol consumption, but many others find that it exacerbates violence and dysfunction.

The problem, though, is that what for one man is a moderate amount of drinking might be, for another man, enough to get him drunk enough to be a problem for himself and for others. And it’s not always clear to any particular person what the effects of a particular round of drinking will be; I’ve had outings where I found myself significantly drunker than I expected, because of situationally-contingent factors - what I’d eaten that day, the beginnings of a cold/flu that hadn’t begun to manifest when I woke up that day, etc. - and additionally a great many people are terrible judges of their own current state of intoxication.

We’ve all met plenty of people who, while visibly and obviously intoxicated, insist that they are sober enough to drive, or sober enough to take another shot. Being intoxicated, since it is a euphoric sensation, naturally incentivizes the consumption of more of the intoxicant in order to prolong and amplify that sensation. Sure, very experienced drinkers with a strong sense of their own tolerance - in addition to a strong penchant for self-control - can recognize signs of drunkenness in real-time and abstain from further consumption; I think that you’re significantly over-estimating the percentage of the population that fits that description, and under-estimating the percentage that get drunk without intending to and cause all sorts of problems.

More comments