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One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

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Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#51

Post by baddox »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #47
ianferrel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rational actor would be twice as deterred if you kept the risk of punishment the same and doubled the severity. But actual people don't respond that way. They respond to the risk rather than the expected punishment.

The problem with this is everyone's definition of Rational Actor is arbitrary in what incentives it excludes or includes. Talking about what a Rational Actor would do makes about as much sense as claiming your opinion is fully objective.

In my opinion, the version of rationality that has the most relevance to economic analysis (and should really be the primary definition of the term in economics) is bounded rationality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#52

Post by anigbrowl »

jessaustin wrote: post #49
anigbrowl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually allowed in some states. There's doesn't seem to be any particular pattern to which states allow it and which don't, eg stereotypically liberal California has the same ultra-strict requirements as stereotypically conservative Kentucky. Here's a neat summary of the different exceptions to the 21-year minimum age rule, broken out by state. http://drinkingage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...

3. for religious purposes in 26 states Haha, I guess all the Catholic churches in the other 24 states will get raided next time they have a First Communion. This is just one example of how unreliable these sorts of comparisons are.

Not necessarily. When I was growing up in Catholic Ireland we used to eat the communion wafer but only the priest drank the wine - more because it would have been impractical to serve to hundreds of people than any other reason, but also partly from hygiene considerations. I asked our priest about it once (I was an alter boy) and his response was that it was just too much hassle and they were glad to abandon the practice. Back then churches used to be packed 4 times a day on Sundays so I can see how it would be a headache. I used to get hand cramps from holding the little metal plate under people's chins to prevent the communion wafer falling on the floor.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#53

Post by qq66 »

math0ne wrote: post #22
robrenaud wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not hand out serious prison time for first-time drunk drivers? It would increase road safety so much. Research suggests that you might be wrong. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/twitter-politics-drunken-... > Key quote: “Harsher sanctions to drinking and driving may generate no marginal deterrent effect if drivers’ perceived risks of receiving the punishments are low. Therefore, rather than escalating sanctio…

This is a purely anecdotal response but I live in Texas now and come from Canada where the punishments for drunk driving are very severe. In short I am absolutely floored by the casual nature of drunk driving here, across all segments of society compared to Canada. In Canada my very alternative friends to whom casual law breaking like illegal drinking and drugs would be nothing, would almost universally never conside…

You can do your part by reporting each incident that you can. Call 911 and give them the make and model, license plate number, starting location, and likely direction of travel for each drunk driver that you can.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#54

Post by Mithaldu »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #20

The solution to this is to start drinking beers with your kids at age 10. This way drinking will be the most uncool thing ever, and they'll grow up to be teetotalers. Seriously though, we need a culture change. You can't tell them they can never drink, then turn them loose in another city by themselves and expect it to not be taken to extremes. That's pretty dumb.

Hi, Germany here, it worked on me.

Parents gave me beer when i was a kid around 10, shit tasted awful and bitter.

Didn't start drinking again until i discovered british ciders and belgian beers at the age of ~28, but that's still a "once a quarter" thing.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#55

Post by cafard »

anigbrowl wrote: post #52
jessaustin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. for religious purposes in 26 states Haha, I guess all the Catholic churches in the other 24 states will get raided next time they have a First Communion. This is just one example of how unreliable these sorts of comparisons are.

Not necessarily. When I was growing up in Catholic Ireland we used to eat the communion wafer but only the priest drank the wine - more because it would have been impractical to serve to hundreds of people than any other reason, but also partly from hygiene considerations. I asked our priest about it once (I was an alter boy) and his response was that it was just too much hassle and they were glad to abandon the prac…

Between the Council of Trent and about 1970, the Roman Catholic laity took communion in one kind only, and the chalice was reserved to the priests.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#56

Post by cafard »

Until the beginning of the 1980s, 18-year-olds could drink at least beer in most states. In New York they could drink hard liquor, in Colorado 3.2 beer, for example. Then the Reagan Administration decided that stopping under-21 drinking would reduce traffic deaths as much as mandatory airbags. States that did not raise the drinking age would lose highway funds. By the mid-1980s, the drinking age was 21 pretty much everywhere.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#57

Post by anigbrowl »

cafard wrote: post #55
anigbrowl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. When I was growing up in Catholic Ireland we used to eat the communion wafer but only the priest drank the wine - more because it would have been impractical to serve to hundreds of people than any other reason, but also partly from hygiene considerations. I asked our priest about it once (I was an alter boy) and his response was that it was just too much hassle and they were glad to abandon the prac…

Between the Council of Trent and about 1970, the Roman Catholic laity took communion in one kind only, and the chalice was reserved to the priests.

Interesting! They kept that up for a long time afterwards in Ireland, at least to the late 1980s (which was when I stopped going to church). I've occasionally been to a Catholic church in the US (weddings, funerals although I'm an atheist now) and it was quite disorienting to be offered the wine at Communion.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#58

Post by jessaustin »

praneshp wrote: post #50
jessaustin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one enforce such a suspension, without resorting to prison? (I suspect someone will mention "fines/monetary penalties", but that's rather begging the question.)

Taking away the driver's license is how it is enforced, I think. So if you are stopped, you get a ticket/arrested for driving without a valid license.

Yes, and when you don't pay your fine and drive without a license, and society decides it cares because children, you go to prison. This is what I meant. Now you're in prison, the overall rate of drunk driving is unaffected, and America is still the prison champion of the history of Earth, which was the point of the thread.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#59

Post by jessaustin »

anigbrowl wrote: post #57
cafard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the Council of Trent and about 1970, the Roman Catholic laity took communion in one kind only, and the chalice was reserved to the priests.

Interesting! They kept that up for a long time afterwards in Ireland, at least to the late 1980s (which was when I stopped going to church). I've occasionally been to a Catholic church in the US (weddings, funerals although I'm an atheist now) and it was quite disorienting to be offered the wine at Communion.

I'm similarly apostate, and I'm quite sure you're not welcome in the communion line as an atheist.
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