Hacker News Reader

Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

There is no evidence either small quantities of tobacco or most drugs harm you either.

People that want to drink will find excuses to do so.

Maybe — I haven't looked at the evidence.

But, alcohol is something that has been present in our ancestral environment (e.g. fermented fruits). If anyone's telling me, our bodies didn't learn to at least tolerate small amounts of it without any major side effects, I'm going to be asking a lot of follow-up questions.

I think it's much easier to argue this case than, say, tobacco or "drugs", which are arguably more recent inventions, depending on your exact definition of drug.

Same logic applies to heavy metal like lead and others. Also cyanide and arsenic. And so on. We still actively avoid them. Just because we can tolerate them via various process does not mean it wouldn't be better to avoid them altogether and minimise exposure.

One could argue that small exposure to these metals is what caused us our body to develop defenses against them. If you remove the "small" exposure, you remove the cure, so to speak. Similar to how small quantities of cyanide create an adaptation in your body, but a slightly bigger one would kill you. Minimizing exposure can be net negative for us, as humans, and four our future children.

Smoked meat has been a staple of human diet for millenia.

It's cancerous.

Which "drugs"?

The problem with highly addictive things is people do not stop at small quantities.

If alcohol was invented today, people would be like "no way we allow a juice that makes you happy, stupid, aggressive and endangers yourself and others and has high addictive levels".

If alcoholic drinks were invented today they would probably taste about as good as junk food so there would be no loss. Can you imagine any business promoting a product that requires years to sitting in precise storage!?

Lots of things we eat and drink and use would be illegal if invented now. Refined sugar, many herbs. Even rice can contain arsenic, as can some root vegetables. Maybe even electricity - something that is easily fatal, and can start fires?

I'd agree, but alcohol isn't necessarily highly addictive. The addiction depends on the dose quantity and frequency. I'm talking, a beer or wine, not necessarily liquor. I mean, let's look at the real word: for every alcoholic addict, there must be _at least_ one person that casually drinks one drink a week or two.

I agree. To clarify I do jot mean alcohol is highly addictive but that highly addictive drugs are more harmful than alcohol because of the difficulty of moderation. Most people I know drink alcohol but have no problem not having it for a few days, and usually drink reasonable amounts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com