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Author
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Topic: why is alcohol legal: the george best/opening hours thread
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Message 42 of 136 (263377)
11-26-2005 5:18 PM
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Reply to: Message 7 by crashfrog
11-24-2005 10:10 PM
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quote:
Why is it that you can take a drug for "anxiety" but not take drugs for boredom?
Drugs that are taken because one is "bored" are the most dangerous type. What you're supposed to do when you are bored is find something to do. And besides, "anxiety" is something that interferes with one's functioning in society. "Boredom" is a product of a lack of imagination. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-26-2005 05:19 PM
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 7 by crashfrog, posted 11-24-2005 10:10 PM | | crashfrog has replied |
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Message 43 of 136 (263380)
11-26-2005 5:27 PM
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Reply to: Message 27 by RAZD
11-25-2005 7:09 PM
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Re: My body & consciousness are my business.
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You can also be just as bad a driver, just as slow on reflexes and just as bad at being aware of what is going on around you if you are extremely tired and not on any drug\substance at all. You could also be, hate to say it, too old. Or just too immature, regardless of actual age.
...or if you are talking on a cell phone. (yes, it really is just as bad as driving while drunk)
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 27 by RAZD, posted 11-25-2005 7:09 PM | | RAZD has not replied |
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Message 44 of 136 (263383)
11-26-2005 5:38 PM
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is it society's problem?
Well, let's pretend that there is a substance that was so addictive to all people that if anyone got a tiny whiff of it, they became 100% addicted to it and needed ever-increasing amounts of it their system 100% of the time or they became violently ill. Can anyone deny that this would present a compelling issue to society, and strict control of this substance might be a good idea? At the very least, it certainly presents a problem to society. Alcohol is not addictive to all people; in fact, most people who drink are not addicted to alcohol. However, there is a substantial and widespread detrimental effect on society due to the consumption of alcohol. To say that alcoholism is "not society's problem" to to take an overly simplistic stance on the issue.
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 46 by jar, posted 11-26-2005 5:46 PM | | nator has not replied |
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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quote:
the reason we have binge drinking in high schools and colleges is because children are raised in a culture of alcohol being this great evil. it's not.
I very much agree, but...
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wine and beer used to be the only drink because water wasn't safe and couldn't be kept.
1) The wine and beer that used to be consumed back then was usually of a much lower alcohol content than is commercially available today. 2) During that time everybody was fuzzy-minded and partially soused a lot of the time.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: ADHD
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bad drivers tend to be flighty, self-centered idiots.
If the insurance tables are right, bad drivers are likely to be young agressive, and testosterone-soaked, or inexperienced teenagers who are just not as skilled as others yet, or elderly people who's skills and awareness have declined. Or they are people who talk on their cell phones while driving. I'm not sure all of those people are flighty. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-26-2005 05:50 PM
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Message 49 of 136 (263389)
11-26-2005 5:53 PM
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Reply to: Message 39 by mick
11-26-2005 3:49 PM
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Re: tough love...
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but when we have figures like "50% of domestic violence in France inolves alcohol use" it looks like there is a problem in more than than the minority of cases.
Well, alcohol lowers inhibitions, so the violence might be coming from someone who is violent anyway. OTOH, you don't really hear of a lot of domestic violence being connected to pot smoking, which tends to make people giggle and feel relaxed.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 39 by mick, posted 11-26-2005 3:49 PM | | mick has not replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 50 by crashfrog, posted 11-26-2005 6:01 PM | | nator has not replied |
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Message 51 of 136 (263392)
11-26-2005 6:14 PM
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Reply to: Message 47 by crashfrog
11-26-2005 5:46 PM
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Are they? Our rules in regards to recreational drugs don't seem to be very consistent, if we use harm as a metric.
Well, I wasn't talking about laws or rules...
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For instance, hundreds (or more) die every year from alcohol poisoning or the physiological toll of years of drinking; marijuana doesn't have those side-effects.
Oh, I agree that this is probably the case, but the unfortunate thing is that we don't have much in the way of research to back this up, as the US won't fund such research. Are there any studies about, say, cancer rates in frequent pot smokers from other countries?
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A fair number of the side-effects of a lot of illegal drugs stem not from the active drug itself but the sundry chemicals that are invariably introduced into the mixture simply because their illegality mandates that they be prepared outside of a safe laboratory setting.
Again, I wasn't really talking about "danger" as in "physically bad for you".
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I've been high on pot, and I've been on Celexa and Welbutrin for depression. I had way worse side-effects from the anti-depressants.
Well, I've never been under the influence of any of those substances, but I know people who have been. Some of them do fine on any of them, some of them really liked pot, and some of them really hated pot.
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Well, why not do drugs? I don't understand why you find that to be a less legitimate activity than, say, an active sport or a good book. Seems like all three of those things accomplish about the same thing, which is to say, nothing.
Books exercise the mind, sport exercises the body. Drugs do neither, for the most part, and can be harmful in the short or long term. Recreational drugs in a social context I can understand. But getting high on something all by oneself, just because one is bored, seems to be sort of pathetic. Look, I understand escapeism, and I understand pure recreation, and I honestly don't really care what people do as long as they don't hurt anyone else. All of this is my personal opinion, really.
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Well, anxiety may simply be too much imagination, it's not clear to me that anxiety is any more pathogenic or appropriately treated with pharmacology than boredom is.
I think anxiety is more than that. I think anxiety is linked to obsessive behavir and thought, which is different from just having a good or vivid or active imagination. Indeed, a lot of what people with anxiety disorders report is replaying terrible events from their lives over and over in their minds to the exlusion of other things, which seems like the opposite of imagination to me.
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Boredom can interfere with your functioning in society, too.
But getting high all the time when you are bored is probably not going to make you less bored in the long run. Temporary inebriation is no substitute for a stimulating life that is full of intellectual, emotional, and physical exercise and challenge. I know several pot heads. They are generally stalled people, either in their professional lives, or their emotional lives, or in their relationships, or their maturity.
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I guess what I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to perscribe drugs for one fake problem and not another. And what do you suppose those anti-anxiety drugs make you feel like? Probably relaxed, good, open to trying new things, maybe a little gregarious - in other words, exactly like being high. Because they make you high.
No, that's not what people tell me those drugs make you feel like. People tell me that those drugs made them feel like their old selves again. Of course, I can get a boost like that after a great customer compliment at work, after a great talk with a friend, after sex, and I very often feel like that after a workout at the gym. That's why getting exercise is prescribed to people for anxiety and depression. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-26-2005 06:19 PM
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 47 by crashfrog, posted 11-26-2005 5:46 PM | | crashfrog has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 52 by crashfrog, posted 11-26-2005 6:44 PM | | nator has not replied |
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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I found this, though
link In summary, anecdotal and statistical evidence reveal a heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. If the strength of the brew was quite weak, however, the effects would be minimal. Determining the strength of the alcoholic beverages consumed in the past is difficult if not impossible. To begin with wine, the maximum amount of alcohol possible is generally 15%. During the fermentation process yeast converts the sugar of the grape into alcohol; the yeast organism dies above concentrations of 15%. Grapes grown in southern Europe contain more sugar and the wine consequently more alcohol because of the warmth, while grapes grown further north contain less sugar and the wine consequently less alcohol, but in general modern European wines contain between 8 and 10% alcohol. To place this in perspective, the alcoholic content of Australian wines ranges between 11 and 13%. Because so much can go wrong in the fermentation process, some historians have argued that the primitive techniques of the past would have resulted in wines of lower alcoholic content. For example, one historian assumes that the wine consumed by the peasants of Languedoc had an alcoholic content of 5%, making it comparable to modern beer. The strength of ale and beer is likewise difficult to determine. Today so-called ale usually has a higher alcoholic content than beer, but in the past the difference between ale and beer was the addition of hops. Ale was brewed mainly from barley, but also from wheat, oats, and millet. The resulting brew was usually sweet, had a consistency akin to soup, and kept for only several days. Beginning in the fifteenth century, some English brewers started to add hops, an import from the Low Countries, to their ale. The result was a drink that was bitter, kept longer, and was called beer; it could also be stronger because hops helped complete the brewing process. Some of the recipes for both beer and ale indicate a resulting product that would be stronger than any ale or beer consumed today. On the other hand, while the brewing of ale and beer is less complicated than the fermentation of wine, incomplete fermentation and inadequate temperatures could result in a drink that did not have as high a level of alcohol as indicated by the ingredients. By the seventeenth century, however, English brewers had mastered the processes, and they could offer to their costumers three different grades of beer, that is, with three different levels of alcohol, double beer, middle beer, and small beer. Brewers also vied with each other to produce the strongest beer, leading to complaints by moralists and officials concerned with public order. My impression is that the levels of alcohol in both wine and ale or beer would be somewhat lower than modern levels, but not significantly lower, and perhaps not lower at all when considering beer from the seventeenth century. One possible exception to this is the ale of medieval England, which could have been quite weak in comparison to modern beer and beer from the seventeenth century. The main reason why I think that the brew was not piss weak is the widespread reports of drunkenness.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: ADHD
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no. insurance tables only reflect people who get into massively damaging and fatal accidents. they don't report fender benders. bad drivers get into fender benders. inexperienced drivers get killed.
do a study on minor accidents and see what you get.
I am afraid that you are wrong. As indicated below, filing an insurance claim (which one would do if once got into a fender bender, or were the cause of a fender bender), getting a ticket, and having a driving history of any accidents will affect your insurance rates. I couldn't find any insurance information which indicated that they didn't take allaccidents into consideration. Maybe you can provide some?
link Several other factors impact auto insurance rates. You'll probably pay less if any of the following apply: Your previous driving record does not include tickets, accidents and claims. Your home address is outside an urban area where more accidents and thefts are likely to happen. Your credit rating is high. You are older than 25. You are female. You are married. You own a make and model vehicle not prone to theft, or driven at higher speeds. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-27-2005 09:17 AM
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: I found this, though
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which is so different from the widespread reports of drunkenness now...
...which is in direct contradiction to your notion that people back then had "greater tolerance" levels and supports my previous claim that most people were partially soused all the time. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-27-2005 03:03 PM
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: ADHD
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insurance companies seek to protect themselves from very costly accidents. see the male and high speeds? yeah. those tend to result in very damaging and costly accidents. they don't care too much about fender benders because they tend to be less costly than the premiums paid by consumers.
Not really. I currently pay $900/year in car insurance. Let's say I get into an accident in which my insurance company has to pay for both my damage and the other person's damage. It can easily get into the thousands of dollars, easily much more than $900. Since most accidents would seem to fall between the "minor fender bender" and the "huge, catastophic and fatal", I would think that insurance companies would want to focus on tho
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yes, all accidents will make your rates increase,
Right. ALL accidents, citations, and tickets will make your rates go up. This is in contrast to what you said before, which was that insurance companies don't even include information on anything other than huge, catastrophic accidencts.
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but notice they give discounts to women who tend to be more likely to have minor accidents because they're too busy doing the myriad other things in the car instead of driving like makeup and 'parenting' and such.
No. Women have fewer accidents overall because they tend to not take as many risks as males.
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this is still symptomatic of bad driving. good drivers can get into catastrophic accidents. good drivers don't tend to get into minor accidents.
OK, time to do some work and back up your claim with some stats or reliable info.
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: I found this, though
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no not really. if no more people were drunk then than are drunk now
Can you please demonstrate that this is the case? It would also be a good idea for us to determine which "then" we are talking about. I'll let you define that, if you like.
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that there are more things to drink than wine,
But people used to ferment everything at home, especially beer, back then, so even though more is available now, one never was without it back then because you made it yourself.
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then it stands to reason that at least some people had increased tolerances.
Also, it is likely, and there is scholarly opinion that a lot of people spent much of the day, every day, drunk.
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further, your use of words like soused demonstrates your normative preferences and that i cannot prove you wrong because you will present every argument to show me that drinking is bad and i'm a heathen. congrats fundie.
Nice try at an ad hominem to try to get out of backing up your claims. I have never been speaking of anything other than historical fact in our discussion. My using the word "soused" indicates nothing at all about my personal views. I could use the word "intoxicated" or "drunk" from now on if you prefer. Now come on, why not try to back up the claims you have been stating so confidently?
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: ADHD
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scientists trust nature and i trust my own two eyes.
No, scientists do not "trust nature". They study nature. Scientists trust the scientific method to help them see nature far, far clearer than "their own two eyes" ever could. Your own hunches and suppositions and anecdotal evidence are extremely likely to be riddled with personal biases, unwarranted conclusions and assumptions, and logical errors. That's why the scientific method exists and why it's much better at determining reality that you, or me, or any other individual; I don't have to take your word for things that you believe or think to be true based only upon your tiny, limited, error-prone, bised recollection of your experiences. And before you throw a hissy fit about me saying you are biased and error-prone, I will state up front that we are ALL error prone and biased by virtue of being human. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-28-2005 08:39 AM
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Message 85 of 136 (263699)
11-28-2005 8:42 AM
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Reply to: Message 79 by Modulous
11-28-2005 4:02 AM
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Re: Insurance
Hey, do your rates go up if the accident was not your fault at all? Like, if you were driving along and someone pulls out of a driveway and hits you broadside?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 79 by Modulous, posted 11-28-2005 4:02 AM | | Modulous has replied |
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nator
Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: 12-09-2001
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Re: ADHD
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well. seeing as i tend to move every couple years and travel a lot and to very different locations, my sample size is a bit bigger. yes i appreciate your point but it's not applicable.
So, can you please describe your methods for recording your observations, and also the statistical methodology you have used to determine your results?
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