America has a drinking problem • Hacker News Board

Re: America has a drinking problem

#811

Post by ben7799 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #710

hallway_monitor wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom creates inequality. The freedom to excel comes with the freedom to do poorly at the game. Why should everyone be in the same position? They didn't put in the same effort. We do give away a lot of welfare to people who are doing poorly. It might be more effective to stop giving people money and use it instead to create programs to provide better jobs and skill training.

> Freedom creates inequality. The freedom to excel comes with the freedom to do poorly at the game. Why should everyone be in the same position? They didn't put in the same effort. I really dont think the difference is just in "effort". If I inherit money I did not put in effort, but I am getting super ahead. The luck plays role too. Plus, how much additional advantage I can get from being already little bit ahead is…

Not sure if you grew up in the US, but a lot of people in the US make a conscious decision it's not worth it to work hard earlier in life to have a better outcome later in life.

I grew up in Massachusetts, one of the most educated states, but I grew up around a lot of the kids in my town and surrounding towns who were "on the wrong side of the tracks" and I had many conversations with peers around middle school where they clearly indicated they had already decided it was not going to be worth it to work hard in high school and that there was little point in going to college. All of that was too much hard work and there was little point of it for them, their perception was that it was just too much easier to just go towards menial and low paying jobs just because it was easier today. Working hard in high school would just be too much of a detriment to enjoying a carefree teenage experience.

Now is that the fault of early education and/or parents for not making them understand the value of work today for a better outcome down the road? Who knows. But this is a prevalent mindset for a lot of people who grow up in the US.

This was such a pervasive thing my parents had to intervene and send me to a Catholic school. That mindset was completely absent at that school and it snapped me out of things just about instantaneously because the mindset there was 100% that hard work now is worth it.

To put it in context of the article a lot of that carefree teenage experience would have been going to parties and getting drunk.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#812

Post by lazyamerican » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

stadium wrote: post #784

cycomanic wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP specifically said compared to regions of similar size. You only talk about variations in the US, have you lived outside? The variations that you talk about, you can find in Germany alone which is the size of a medium size US state. The variations across Europe (I can't speak for India) are on a completely different level. If you put a random person into two different states in the US and two different countrie…

OP also conflated regions and countries. I read it as they were comparing US, EU, and India as a whole. Also curious where their perspective came from. My point is that the presence or absence of cultural variation in one place does not equate to a lack thereof in another. Just because someone hasn't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Culture isn't based on comparison, it's something in its own right

I didn’t “conflate” anything with anything. I said regions - the eu and us are similarly sized (geographic and population) regions with a single currency, free trade and freedom of movement. The fact that we call one a “country” is irrelevant.

I also used the example of India.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#813

Post by lazyamerican » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #645

cycomanic wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP specifically said compared to regions of similar size. You only talk about variations in the US, have you lived outside? The variations that you talk about, you can find in Germany alone which is the size of a medium size US state. The variations across Europe (I can't speak for India) are on a completely different level. If you put a random person into two different states in the US and two different countrie…

> Europe for an hour and ask them after which differ more, I would bet serious money they will always pick the two European countries. Only because of superficial things like language. When it comes to politics and the role of government, Europe is pretty consistent. Barring language and architecture, this makes cities all effectively the same pattern (high density, trains, buses, expensive per sq foot). The gulf bet…

Superficial things like “language”? I honestly can’t tell if you’re trolling.

The us has two political parties for 350 million people. That’s your example of cultural diversity?

Fascinating.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#814

Post by notsureaboutpg » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #738

notsureaboutpg wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you like to go out on the weeks and drink 8 beers with your friends, all the more power to you. People have been drinking since time immemorial, it's part of who we are as human. This just isn't true at all and it's probably offensive to large groups of people who view alcohol drinking (with pretty good reason) as a vice. Abstaining from alcohol is also a praised act since time immemorial. Trying to keep one's mi…

1) If I want to accelerate my end voluntarily, that is my prerogative. 2) You have no evidence that drinking 8 beers in one sitting once a week will cause (1). Send me lots of studies that link excessive alcohol consumption to esophageal cancer, I will send you lots of studies that show the opposite. 3) Not everyone drinks excessively and partakes in "risky and dangerous behaviors which endanger the public" (this is…

You will accelerate other people's ends as well, statistically, if you continue to get drunk. Drunkenness is related to so many car crashes, brawls, and other crimes. It's prevalence in society affects everyone else and you are selfishly doing it to the detriment of others.

Real people do not work like "I only drink 8 beers in one sitting once a week every week". In reality, the fact that you binge drink at all, makes you more likely to binge drink when special occasions arise, and this is exactly the reason there's a huge uptick in drunk driving accidents and deaths every holiday on the calendar in countries with large drinking populations. Those people involved in those incidents probably also don't drink to excess every day but rather they drink to excess on occasion and on this occasion they went too far.

Drinking and driving isn't the only dangerous behavior that alcohol consumption makes more likely, it impairs your decision-making skills, it is heavily linked to domestic and public violence, etc.

Drunk driving happens not because people are idiots but because situations press on them until they have very few options and driving while a little intoxicated (what an intoxicated perceives as "a little" is a lot more than a normal person does) is one of the only options left. If you get put in that kind of situation, we all have to suffer for it, not you. Drunk drivers usually kill others and rarely die in crashes.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#815

Post by Diederich » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

gmadsen wrote: post #783

Diederich wrote: post #203

Most of my male genetic relatives have/had a history of alcohol abuse, so I decided from an early age that the best approach was to not drink any alcohol at all, and I held to that until about nine years ago. Long research has indicated that one cup of red wine per day has measurable health benefits, so I started to drink one cup, like medicine, immediately before bed. After doing that for a few weeks, I came home fr…

It was chilling, because you ascertained that some latent genetic alcoholism made you pour a glass of wine subconsciously ? I do this with tea and coffee all the time, so I guess I don't see the connection, but probably better to be safe

> some latent genetic alcoholism

That's my thinking. As I said in another comment, I really hate the taste of wine, so I wasn't drinking it for taste enjoyment.

> probably better to be safe

Yup!

Re: America has a drinking problem

#816

Post by brewdad » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

renlo wrote: post #484

Sophistifunk wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, I'm clearly not talking about camping. I'm talking about parks in the suburbs and cities. Secondly, "having a wine with my wife" is treated very differently from "having some beers with my fellow twenty-somethings," without needing to bring in the extra baggage that would be included if those twenty-somethings happen to be black. I'm sure I can drink a wine in the park with my wife too, now that I'm old. Doe…

People in the US drink in the parks, the suburbs and the cities, especially in the evenings. The care and discretion one needs to take is proportional to how much free time the cops in the area have and circumstance / setting. You can drink openly at the beach. If in a small town park, you'd want to either have the alcohol in an unmarked bottle, a soda can, or a brown paper bag. In the cities the cops are typically c…

But that goes back to the original point. In cultures where drinking is accepted, you don't have to put your alcohol in a paper bag or hide in an unmarked container. You buy it and drink it however you want so long as you aren't bothering others.

In the US, you have to be sneaky about it and you're always one bored cop away from trouble.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#817

Post by NateEag » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

cedilla wrote: post #765

NateEag wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to generalize correctly about a population of three hundred million. That's especially true when doing it based on personal experience.

I don't think the difference between a country of 125 million and 300 million is very meaningful in that regard.

I don't think it's easy to generalize about Japan's population either.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#818

Post by NateEag » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #751

NateEag wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to generalize correctly about a population of three hundred million. That's especially true when doing it based on personal experience.

Hawaii is a place where that might be fairly said, though. Setting aside island natives, Hawaii attracts a lot of people. The reasons for wanting to visit and preceding life situations vary quite a bit. The result is you do meet a lot of characters, at least on the big island.

I bet Hawaiians working in tourism meet a lot more people than I do. Maybe as many as two hundred a day (granted, only for a few minutes at those volumes).

If you manage to do that five days a week for thirty years, you meet 1.4 million people, or 0.4% of the US population.

Obviously in most cases you'd have no idea about how smart most of these people are. You'd probably remember the ones who did especially dumb or especially smart things in the three minutes you interacted with them, which doesn't actually tell you much about how smart they are. It's even worse for that than a puzzle-trivia interview.

I think my point stands, even for a Hawaiian in tourism.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#819

Post by twodave » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

banannaise wrote: post #802

twodave wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure there are, but those require someone to be assaulted to enforce them. If they can short-circuit the process during the "drinking in public" preamble to the assault then one might say violence was prevented instead of punished. The perpetrator ends up with a lighter sentence (DIP not nearly as frowned upon as violent crimes) and the would-be-victims aren't even involved.

Pre-crime! Just have the police harass the people most likely to commit crimes, then put them in jail for increasingly long times as their criminal record gets progressively longer. At least you understand that a lot of American policing is deliberately abusing poor people and minorities who aren't doing anything wrong, under the assumption that later they'll do something wrong.

What I understand is that talk like this is unnecessary and inflammatory.

I haven't seen evidence to suggest that "a lot" of American policing involves officers abusing their power. It definitely happens and, when it does, needs to be dealt with.

I have known and worked alongside enough law enforcement and emergency workers to know they're too in fear for their own lives most days to be making unnecessary trouble. Their top priority is to de-escalate situations and make it home to their families. It literally takes one wrong assumption or letting down of the guard in a bad situation to end up dead, so while I do sympathize with _anyone_ who has been wronged by authority, I can't support blanket statements like the above.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#820

Post by nszceta » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

nick__m wrote: post #479

nszceta wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amphetamine-like drugs are used as pills or capsules, powder, or fluid, and can be ingested orally, smoked, insufflated, or injected intravenously. They cause euphoria but tolerance develops rapidly. Clinically evident effects of the two drugs are nearly indistinguishable, but methamphetamine appears to be a more potent stimulant. Amphetamine and methamphetamine induce euphoria, increased energy, alertness and libido…

Yes, the dose makes the poison and yes medicl amphetamines are sometimes abused but the literature you cited¹ isn't really about the medical use of amphetamines. Those papers are about the abuse of amphetamines. From my experience with Vyvanse I find that amphetamines have a dose response function with linear and exponential steps. 15mg is barely perceptible, 30mg is like a coffee without the anxiety but it last 8 ho…

You can't avoid capillary vasoconstriction at any dose and that's what makes your teeth rot and gums go bad. Nothing you can do about that. I've used Adderall and Vyvanse many many years ago for "ADHD" as well. Bad breath and increased gum issues made me stop well before any damage occurred.