America has a drinking problem • Hacker News Board

Re: America has a drinking problem

#871

Post by astrange » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #769

capableweb wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of the things you've listed sounds like diversity, it sounds like inequality. Why is half the country without proper education while the other ones are in the best research institutions in the world? And what does the people are those institutions spend their time on, if it's not helping the other half reaching the same position as themselves? The social experiment seems to be about how extreme you can really…

>The social experiment seems to be about how extreme you can really make inequality before people starts to riot. Well, the answer to that is obvious: people have long since started to riot, just about almost anything except economic inequality and exploitation.

That's because most people don't really care about those things. If you're poor and all your friends are poor you don't have greater expectations, nor is it really a problem since you can organize your society around it.

What starts revolutions is disappointed elites - like if you promise your children good jobs and then they don't get them. Another kind is "revolution of rising expectations" where they do start getting good jobs and it causes them to expect even better ones faster than they get them.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#872

Post by astrange » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

hallway_monitor wrote: post #705

capableweb wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of the things you've listed sounds like diversity, it sounds like inequality. Why is half the country without proper education while the other ones are in the best research institutions in the world? And what does the people are those institutions spend their time on, if it's not helping the other half reaching the same position as themselves? The social experiment seems to be about how extreme you can really…

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.

> 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.

Giving people money gives them better jobs by increasing their negotiating power. Also, it lets them be your customer, which is important if you want to sell things to them!

"Skill training" doesn't work, it was bad economics from the people who mismanaged the 2010 recession recovery. They just claimed people "didn't have skills" as the reason we didn't recover fast enough and unemployment was too high.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#873

Post by tastyfreeze » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #863

tastyfreeze wrote: post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any person in the US can improve their lot in life. Nobody said it is easy. Success is hard work with a measure of luck. But, it is absolutely possible to go from living on the streets to living in a mansion in a lifetime. How is that not equal opportunity?

I cannot stop myself but flip this around - how can you possibly call this an equal opportunity? It's like having a race where some people start 100m behind others and saying "well if they try hard enough, they can still win! The race itself is fair after all!" >>Success is hard work with a measure of luck. Of course ,but the American system is 1) ignoring that some people started at a much worse position in life and…

Yes, everybody has a different starting point. That is life. Some families have the benefit of their ancestors working their asses off to pass something on to their heirs. That doesn't mean you cry foul and try to destroy the track or rig the race in your favor. You do the same as those people's ancestors. You work your ass off to pass something on to your heirs.

Everybody can do this. That is equal opportunity.

There is no promise in the rights granted to you that you will have 18 houses, a private jet, a yacht, and maybe an island or two. You are promised the ability to do as you wish to try to achieve your goals in life.

Yes, we should fix economic issues so people do not get destroyed by an accident. That is a separate issue and has no bearing on equality of opportunity.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#874

Post by astrange » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

epicureanideal wrote: post #864

muskox2 wrote: post #859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source on the statistics? I'm curious.

The honest statistics show that it’s about 50/50 male and female initiated violence. See Murray Strauss’s 30 Years Denying the Evidence. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233717660_Thirty_Ye... It’s just that some groups find the honest research inconvenient so they try, largely successfully, to suppress it. The suppression behavior on certain sides of issues has been discussed by plenty of reputable people, i…

Most published research results are false, so it's not a good idea to believe individual papers whether or not they appear to be correct. It's not the purpose of publishing them either.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#875

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

namdnay wrote: post #92

r00fus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who doesn't drink more than 2-3 per week and have in the past been in the 2-3 per day category, perhaps it's related to age and/or kids. When kids were tots, I couldn't afford the time to socialize, and now I'm older, consumption has dietary/sleep impacts and I can't afford that too much. Also weirdly I simply don't enjoy the buzz as much.

I think having children limits serious partying, but what do you drink when you’re eating your evening meals? Only water? Maybe it’s a southern European thing, but I can’t imagine eating a heavy meal without the acidity of a red wine, for example.

I usually have an espresso for that + water. If only because I find the wine people annoying and so I refuse to learn how wine pairing works.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#876

Post by astrange » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

s5300 wrote: post #8

jhickok wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a lot but I know lots of people in rural areas with extreme poverty (grew up in one of the poorest counties in the midwest) where this sort of drinking was commonplace. They drink as soon as they wake up and don't stop until they fall asleep. Anecdotal I know but certainly believable for me.

Yeah, I'm from the poorest county in my state and 10+ beers a day is honestly absolutely nothing to quite a decent part of the population out here.

In the US drinking actually goes up with income and poorer people tend to not drink at all - but more of the ones who do are alcoholics.

This is possibly the reason why studies say "moderate drinking can be healthy".

Re: America has a drinking problem

#877

Post by astrange » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

stryan wrote: post #532

kenneth wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannabis is in no way healthier than alcohol. It's hard to quantify the damages done by one vs. the other; but there are very serious social and psychological downsides to regular cannabis use.

Cannabis is absolutely healthier then alcohol by the sheer fact that it can not kill you.

It can kill you though. It raises blood pressure and in some people this causes heart attacks.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#878

Post by netizen-936824 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #842

ABCLAW wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this really addresses the core issue, being that experimentation is used as an excuse to not apply the results of the experiments after they've been performed. I don't think the idea is that experimentation is de facto bad. It's the use of experimentation as a tool to avoid implementation following experimentation that's being decried.

I think you are correct, but also think that’s why Jefferson deliberately rooted the virtue of experimentation in our ability to use reason to interpret the results. If someone is acting in bad faith, the fault is not in the experimental process but rather their faculty in interpreting the results. We wouldn’t throw out experimentation in science just because a researcher was biased in their result. The OP seems to b…

You are correct, however my point was that when we see bad faith acting people will continue to use the same descriptive language of it being an "experiment" when there are active, known harms

Re: America has a drinking problem

#879

Post by Cybotron5000 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #842

ABCLAW wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this really addresses the core issue, being that experimentation is used as an excuse to not apply the results of the experiments after they've been performed. I don't think the idea is that experimentation is de facto bad. It's the use of experimentation as a tool to avoid implementation following experimentation that's being decried.

I think you are correct, but also think that’s why Jefferson deliberately rooted the virtue of experimentation in our ability to use reason to interpret the results. If someone is acting in bad faith, the fault is not in the experimental process but rather their faculty in interpreting the results. We wouldn’t throw out experimentation in science just because a researcher was biased in their result. The OP seems to b…

Too right. What’s the alternative? Living in a stagnant dictatorship governed by caprice and bllsht? Making sure your citizens remain ignorant and downtrodden? Jefferson is undeniably problematic by our standards and judged by the standards of his time, but he had a way with words (and was pretty handy at some other stuff too!). He tried to do some good in the world from his position of privilege, through the lens of the world as he saw it… There are many ideas and actions of his that I disagree strongly with, but I can allow that he got some stuff very right and expressed his thoughts and ideas extremely eloquently.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#880

Post by gambiting » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

tastyfreeze wrote: post #873

gambiting wrote: post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot stop myself but flip this around - how can you possibly call this an equal opportunity? It's like having a race where some people start 100m behind others and saying "well if they try hard enough, they can still win! The race itself is fair after all!" >>Success is hard work with a measure of luck. Of course ,but the American system is 1) ignoring that some people started at a much worse position in life and…

Yes, everybody has a different starting point. That is life. Some families have the benefit of their ancestors working their asses off to pass something on to their heirs. That doesn't mean you cry foul and try to destroy the track or rig the race in your favor. You do the same as those people's ancestors. You work your ass off to pass something on to your heirs. Everybody can do this. That is equal opportunity. Ther…

It strikes me as similar to the approach displayed by American conservatives - the belief that there is a natural order to the society, and that's just how life is. Some people inherit insane amount of wealth, and that's fine, their ancestors worked really hard so they clearly deserve it. Poor people are poor because they don't work hard enough, or simply because they don't deserve anything else.

But hey. As long as we tell each other that with enough willpower they could just work extra hard and achieve all of those things that some other people get for free? It's all good.

And I'm not even against personal wealth. I'm not even against inheritance. I'm advocating for making sure everyone has equal opportunity through education, through safety in healthcare, through social policies that don't put you in crippling poverty if you fall on bad times. I don't believe in this whole "just work harder" adage, because I know sometimes working hard is not enough, especially not when facing institutionalised discrimination and lack of opportunities through no fault of your own.

>>Yes, we should fix economic issues so people do not get destroyed by an accident. That is a separate issue and has no bearing on equality of opportunity.

That's a social policy, not economic issue. And of course it affects your opportunities, if you get into medical debt due to an accident you don't have a whole bunch of opportunities that people without debt have, at no fault of your own. That is not a problem of economics to fix, it's a problem of the society to decide that maybe medical debt just shouldn't be a thing at all, which will put all citizens on an equal footing straight away. Or we can pretend everyone is 100% responsible for what happens to them and carry on as normal.