America has a drinking problem • Hacker News Board

Re: America has a drinking problem

#821

Post by golergka » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

kesselvon wrote: post #778

golergka wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is bigger in terms of area, just two times smaller in terms of population, but 10 times more uniform, at least. You wouldn't be able to tell apart two typical provincial Russian towns from the opposite sides of the country. So, no, just the size itself doesn't seem like a complete explanation for this.

U.S. divisions at this point run largely rural versus urban. Russia has the same thing - folks in Moscow live completely different lives than those in a backwoods provincial town. If anything, Russia and the U.S. are pretty similar in terms of regional and cultural tensions.

> folks in Moscow live completely different lives than those in a backwoods provincial town

Not really. I live in Moscow, and financially I have a very different life from someone in a small town. But in terms of the culture and people around, the difference is not that big.

Here's a random youtube vlog about a small russian town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOwW5wdIt_w It's on the opposite edge of the country, and yet, I would only be able to tell it apart from Moscow's residential neighbourhoods by how tall the buildings, built from the same panels, in the same design series, are.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#822

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #545

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…

>we also have a very painful past and present that makes us acutely aware of our inability to socialize. What are you talking about?

[deleted]

Re: America has a drinking problem

#823

Post by 1123581321 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

NateEag wrote: post #818

1123581321 wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don’t suppose there is any scenario in which you would give human observation credit. Regarding sufficient sample size, a person in that scenario would achieve it in weeks, or perhaps a year, assuming variance in types of visitors over the seasons.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#824

Post by unishark » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

ericbarrett wrote: post #781

golergka wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is bigger in terms of area, just two times smaller in terms of population, but 10 times more uniform, at least. You wouldn't be able to tell apart two typical provincial Russian towns from the opposite sides of the country. So, no, just the size itself doesn't seem like a complete explanation for this.

The vast majority of Russia is taiga and tundra, no? Like Canada, the land is vast but the population clusters heavily to one side. https://i.redd.it/v9rdedhje4i31.png Whereas the U.S. has two heavily populated coasts and much of its land is arable, at temperate latitudes (at least with irrigation—setting aside water issues).

The gulf coast may have a higher population than the west coast depending where the line is. So three heavily populated coasts. Supposedly something like 2/3 of the population lives in the 100 mile border zone.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#825

Post by arthur-st » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #805

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental moral basis of the US is that some people are born better than others. If you have money, you're one of the chosen ones. The more money the better, without end. The losers who don't have money are not your problem. If they were as superior as you are they'd sort themselves out and have money too. But they don't, and of course that just proves how inferior they are. It's absolutely an 18th century aris…

This simply doesn't match the facts. For example, the United States ranks near the top of the World Giving Index, which certainly wouldn't happen if "the losers who don't have money are not your problem". Importantly, this is a man-on-the-street level index, not a government spending index, meaning it more or less assesses the charitable attitudes of the people in various countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worl…

Other countries have more functional social safety networks, so lesser emphasis is put on individual charity to compensate for environmental failings. To give you an anecdotal example, where I’m from American way of going about charity is often perceived as a form of virtue signalling/paying off your sins.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#826

Post by Me1000 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

kesselvon wrote: post #778

golergka wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is bigger in terms of area, just two times smaller in terms of population, but 10 times more uniform, at least. You wouldn't be able to tell apart two typical provincial Russian towns from the opposite sides of the country. So, no, just the size itself doesn't seem like a complete explanation for this.

U.S. divisions at this point run largely rural versus urban. Russia has the same thing - folks in Moscow live completely different lives than those in a backwoods provincial town. If anything, Russia and the U.S. are pretty similar in terms of regional and cultural tensions.

>U.S. divisions at this point run largely rural versus urban.

I think you're trying to point out actual points of cultural tension, which I'd argue are largely superficial and mostly political. But I think OP was trying to say that the US is culturally diverse based on geography. And I think OP is right, the culture of Atlanta is very different than the culture of NYC which is very different than the culture of San Francisco or LA.

Similarly the culture of Montana or Wyoming is very different than the culture of the rural south.

I grew up in what most people would consider the rural south (a small town in Kentucky), and even the difference between various regions in the south are pretty stark... Just take for example this article; Kentucky, know for their bourbon, and I grew up in a dry county (couldn't sell alcohol at all). Prohibition laws stuck around decades after federal prohibition ended for largely religious reasons.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#827

Post by smileysteve » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

tmm wrote: post #30

I’ve never been much of a drinker, generally preferring soda, sports drinks, or sweet tea to stay hydrated. In my experience, this is unusual. My friends, relatives, etc. all exclusively drink beer when doing yard work, home improvement projects, or hobbies like working on cars. When I’m at the marina, I’m the only one not drinking beer while working on their boat. Maybe all of these people stick exclusively to water…

> However, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the group drinking a six pack of 90-calorie light beer over the course of a day is healthier than people like me drinking a six pack of Dr. Pepper in the same timeframe

Dr. Pepper is tasty, but it and Coke are dependent on Phosphoric Acid to be able to deliver that much sugar to you. This along to caffeine mean it's dehydrating you and robbing you of nutrients, not hydrating you. It's really best if you can limit this to a single or find a replacement (Kroger has a seltzer with the Dr. flavor that satisfies my addiction nicely)

Ignoring the alcohol, the first near beer or light beer actually helps hydrate you and provides nutrients.

But the quantity of either is what quickly becomes the problem (2nd hand anecdote). Many alcoholics start with with the 1 beer a day after work which turns into a 12 pack a day after work (as suggested by this top 10%). And once an addict develops a tolerance to beer, they escalate in the top 10% rapidly; that vodka soda become an evening thing, then a morning an evening thing.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#828

Post by smileysteve » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #113

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the group drinking a six pack of 90-calorie light beer over the course of a day is healthier than people like me drinking a six pack of Dr. Pepper in the same timeframe. Cirrhosis on one hand, diabetes on the other. Pick your poison, I guess. Most people choose neither option. Drinking a 6-pack of beer every day and drinking a 6-pack of sugary sodas every day are not n…

TFA states that top 10% is at least equivalent 2 bottles/wine per day, which is more than your 6-pack, closer to a 12-pack. 10% is not outliers. edit to avoid confusion: this wasn't an average, this was the bottom of the 10% decile. So clearly there are bigger drinkers out there, but 10% is a lot of minimum 10-drink-a-day people.

a 6 pack a day of an addictive substance that the users quickly develop a tolerance to often develops to a 12 pack and eventually a 24 pack.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#829

Post by tastyfreeze » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

Aken wrote: post #774

quotemstr wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America, everyone has the same chance already, at least to a close approximation. It's just not logically valid to look at unequal outcomes and conclude that not everyone had the same chance, but that's what half this thread is doing. Whatever the US is doing, it works for producing prosperity and innovation. Whatever the EU is doing doesn't work to produce that. Sure, people there are comfortable, but should comf…

>> Whatever the US is doing, it works for producing prosperity and innovation. For some, at the expense of others.

That is simply not true. One person's success does not take away opportunity from others.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#830

Post by stephencanon » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

potatoman22 wrote: post #758

stephencanon wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that "nationalist" is the more accurate term for this behavior. There's nothing patriotic about it.

To be a nationalist is to be a patriot.

Orwell said it well: "By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power."