America has a drinking problem

Post by acjohnson55 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #492

lemonberry wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite non-alcoholic beverage is equal parts soda water and tonic water, a couple of splashes of orange juice and a few dashes of bitters. Tweak as necessary. At the holidays I like non-alcoholic sparkling apple juice. I also find soda water out of a can to be a good beer replacement on hot days. I think part of this is the sound of opening the can and the carbonation. No idea if any of those will fit your needs…

Yeah, it still feels like "soda", which is what I'm trying to get away from. I've been speaking to a friend about creating something new. My requirements are: - not trying to be alcohol/imitation alcohol - not soda/juice/kombucha - has the "occasion" attitude of alcohol I admit this is probably 90% branding and 10% the drink itself. As I was mentioning to my friend, you probably wouldn't feel strange ordering a redbu…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

machello13 wrote: post #474

TameAntelope wrote: post #261

I'm going to generalize, but the US is more diverse (rank #90 vs #151 for Germany, #169 for France, #111 for Croatia [0]) and we also have a very painful past and present that makes us acutely aware of our inability to socialize. America also has a cultural obsession with self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue which makes "socializing" a bit of a taboo concept, in a weird way. It's a crutch to "need" to be around…

Oh boy I love to read pop psychology on Hacker News. Please continue!

Post by orange_joe » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #135

Article mirrors my experience. For context I'm German, my wife's French and we've got family in Croatia who own a vineyard so I'm used to being around alcohol and people drinking. My first impression when I spent time was in the US was indeed how bipolar drinking is compared to Europe. We probably drink a hell of a lot more in raw terms than the average American does.Two glasses of wine for dinner, another one in the…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

machello13 wrote: post #474

TameAntelope wrote: post #261

I'm going to generalize, but the US is more diverse (rank #90 vs #151 for Germany, #169 for France, #111 for Croatia [0]) and we also have a very painful past and present that makes us acutely aware of our inability to socialize. America also has a cultural obsession with self-reliance/liberty/frontier-as-a-virtue which makes "socializing" a bit of a taboo concept, in a weird way. It's a crutch to "need" to be around…

Oh boy I love to read pop psychology on Hacker News. Please continue!

Post by prawn » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

Tyr42 wrote: post #290

svachalek wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a book about this called the Paradox of Choice. Basically, that we want choices but they make us less happy. There's a related phenomenon, I don't know a name for it, where given a choice between convenience and happiness people will almost always choose convenience, generally without even realizing they've made a choice. Our genes have a deep, deep preference for minimizing energy expenditure.

This happens with video games too. Players hate restrictions, but if they were removed, would get board and stop. For a recent example, look at Valheim. They explicitly block you from using portals to move metal ore, which forces you to use a cart or a boat to move it. Suddenly I was a highway engineer for a few hours and pay more attention to harbour than before and had a blast. Yet there are mods which remove this…