No offense to those who still drink alcohol (I can't for reasons not related to addiction) but the fact that this low-dose poison is still the world's most consumed psychoactive substance alongside caffeine while LLMs are available on our phones, (pseudo)self-driving cars are on the roads, virtual meetings on our computers, and reusable rockets in space feels almost anachronistic. I wish alcohol would go the way of the cigarette.
But all this is not to say that it is solely responsible for the behavior of those men in Antarctica.
> the NSF told the AP the changes involving alcohol were related to morale and welfare at the base, and were not aimed at preventing sexual harassment or assault
> “Alcohol can obviously blur the lines of consent, there’s that issue at play, but overwhelmingly, sexual assault has occurred even when neither party has been consuming alcohol, as was the case with me,” Sorensen said. “So it’s definitely not going to eliminate the problem.”
> “For example, my incident took place during work hours, at a job site, no alcohol involved, and was corroborated and reported through official channels,” Barquist wrote
So two separate victims saying their assaults were nothing to do with alcohol, and the NSF also saying their changes to alcohol aren't due to the harassment claims.