
Alcohol as a social technology to check the trustworthiness of others (2014) - searchableguy
https://hndex.org/7798063
======
rongenre
“If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the
question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house
where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when
they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is
abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is
reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.” ― Herodotus

~~~
zelphirkalt
That's such a little neat trick, it's great. Sometimes I think that some
civilizations back then had figured out more about how to be a society at
least in some respects, than we have today.

~~~
amirmaleki
Maybe we just rely too much on what we have achieved scientifically, and we
have to embrace our guts and live out lives more freely.

~~~
astral303
Yes, our gut is our second brain, it’s the subconscious.

To dismiss one’s instincts is irrational. Our bodies developed fine-tuned
monitoring and alerting systems (our instincts). To ignore your gut is to
ignore your hard-earned experience.

Trust your gut. The scientific reason for why it’s telling you that will be
explained later.

~~~
DFHippie
This depends on the nature of the decision. If it's whether or not to
vaccinate or insulate your attic you probably are better off trusting your
brain. Many of the problems we face today are due to people spurning eggheaded
decision making.

~~~
astral303
Here’s a familiar bit of egg-headed decision making, to prove to you it is the
brain that’s the problem, not the gut.

Ask the grunts/troops/anyone who is actually writing code: how do you _really
feel_? Most _feel in their gut_ things got too complex and bad decisions are
being made.

If these engineers only actually listened to their gut, they would be pushing
back hard to get complexity reigned in, to get back to a much cleaner
architecture. But for a myriad of reasons, such as not wanting to appear
clueless in a fast changing tech world, the engineers stay silent.

The rationalization is a very brain activity.

Do a reality check on yourself. What feels have you been rationalizing or
dismissing? Take a look by observing—what kind of feeling is it? Where is it
in your body? (A lump in your throat, tightness in your stomach?) Observe what
it is. Don’t explain it away or it will stop being observable.

Once you observe, you will learn new information, which will then inform your
subsequent decisions.

~~~
clucas
The scenario you outline is of a person experienced in a technical field
having second thoughts about something, but not raising the concerns sure to
external factors.

This is very different from the scenarios mentioned by the GP, where people
who are not experienced in the technical field (i.e. not immunologists or HVAC
engineer, respectively) ignore the advice of people who are experts, just
because it feels right to them in their gut.

I would say, listen to experts (and not your gut) when outside of your field,
and listen to your gut (but not only your gut) when in your field.

~~~
astral303
I agree that listening to expert advice over your gut is the right thing to
do.

But that’s besides the point—-learning to trust expert advice is a brain
behavior that has to be properly learned. (For example, many of us have
learned to catastrophize and over-generalize, where bad advice from one expert
suddenly translates into not listening to all future experts).

I’m imploring: do not dismiss your gut, folks! Please continue to use brain,
but stop dismissing your gut.

....

“I think therefore I am” is oversimplified bunk.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Your “gut” is this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

And thinking your gut knows something is part of those biases, namely,
confirmation and selection bias.

~~~
crazypython
No, it's this.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebellum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebellum)

Or, it's System 1, the fast system. While your System 1 might make bias
mistakes, I believe it can be trained not to make them.

------
anonymousiam
Maybe not exactly what the excerpt was getting at, but here's a variant:
Instead of individuals using alcohol for this purpose, some fortune 500
companies use it too. At corporate "Team Building" offsite workshops, open
bars are available to the sequestered employee groups. Those without the self
control to abstain or exercise moderation are quickly identified as non-
management material.

The excerpt also reminded me of an H. Ross Perot story that I cannot seem to
find anywhere online. Someone had approached him for VC and had a sound
business plan. The person had had issues with alcohol in the past, and had
sworn off it. Perot had learned this (probably from a PI), and at the moment
they were going to sign a business deal, Perot insisted on closing the deal
with a drink. The other party explained that he did not drink, but Perot was
absolutely insistent and would not close the deal without a drink. So the guy
left without a deal. The next day, Perot called him and closed the deal. Perot
had been testing the resolve and reliability of the guy. The venture was a
success and became a Fortune 100 company.

~~~
pengstrom
It's really, really bad to encourage a sober alcoholic to drink. What if he'd
fallen for it? Back to square one.

~~~
angrais
Well given we don't know if the story is true or the VCs intentions. Let's
assume good faith and if the person offered the drink took it, then the VC
would have stopped this person before they had a sip :)

~~~
asddubs
and then told him to fuck off and that the deal is off, so he can go have a
drink at home. it's not just about the physical act of drinking, by convincing
that person, you have already broken down barriers inside them. fuck anyone
who does this

------
uxamanda
Not the main point of the article, but I found this quote interesting.

"...police officers could significantly improve their ability to detect false
statements if suspects were asked to give their alibis in reverse order."

This is similar to a technique we use in user research – not to catch someone
in a lie, but to help them remember what actually happened. If you ask someone
"what is your morning routine like", they tend to forget a lot of details and
gloss over things that were difficult / tedious. If you ask them to recount
backwards from "how did you arrive here today", they will give you a clearer
picture. Not sure it works in all cases, but I use it on myself when I really
want to remember a sequence of events.

~~~
shrimpx
Intuitively, to me, it’s because it’s sorted “new to old” so the first events
are fresher in memory and can be recalled vividly, making the most recent
older event likely to be recalled vividly by association, etc. As opposed to
starting with the oldest event which is dimmer in memory along with its
associations.

I think liars are easier to catch when they recite events in reverse because
they visualized their lies in chronological order, like when memorizing a
poem. They could become immune to the reverse trick if they practiced their
lies in reverse.

------
katzgrau
I don't really buy this. True colors do tend to show when someone is being
careless in general, especially when they're drinking. But someone who really
wants to give you a false impression of themselves or their motives will
probably manage to stay on point while drinking with you.

To summarize, beware of false negatives. Alcohol in given quantities doesn't
have the same effects on everyone, and if you're drinking with them, you may
miss the red flags you set out looking for in the first place.

~~~
amirmaleki
In think the point of the excerpt was both sober and drunk states (whatever
you call it neurologically) are needed to make a sound decision.

------
codetrotter
A HN submission of cached contents of an article, that was cached by a HN
indexing system because it was previously posted in the past.

This shows that HNdex is doing its job in helping people discover posts that
they hadn’t seen.

It must also be some sort of milestone in the history of HN perhaps, as
[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=hndex.org](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=hndex.org)
currently shows that this is the first post to HN from HNdex aside from the
Show HN about HNdex itself.

A couple of things that this makes me wonder is:

\- Will the cached article itself eventually also be cached and show up when
you make the following search on HNdex for example?
[https://hndex.org/?q=alcohol+social+trustworthiness](https://hndex.org/?q=alcohol+social+trustworthiness)
I’m thinking that the author of HNdex probably already thought of excluding
HNdex pages from HNdex itself.

\- Is this a new era of HN, where more third-party sites pop up in order to
explore and interact with HN in novel ways? I am aware of a few other third-
party sites that offer some sort of interaction with HN. But the others that I
can think of immediately have been alternate front ends that mostly didn’t do
anything radically different. HNdex on the other hand is really something
different.

\- Since the caches work with things like Google+, and since it has cached
articles that have since gone 404’d, it must mean that HNdex is the result of
a personal project that has been ongoing for quite a while. Or they extracted
the data from other archive sources. Either way, I wonder if any of the other
people on HN also have HN-related projects that they either made for their own
use and didn’t (yet) set up a public version of, or are working on currently.

~~~
agumonkey
Also it might help reading in places with limited network (bandwidth or
blocks)

~~~
mschuster91
If anything HN itself is one of the most readable sites on the web. I'm
literally at a beach at the moment and since Germany is rock bottom of Europe
when it comes to 4G rollout outside the cities, the only actually usable
websites are HN and Reddit via a custom client. Everything else is dog slow.

~~~
agumonkey
not hn content, the linked article

lots of time my network will have issues loading them

------
supportlocal4h
I've heard it expressed in Japan that coworkers who were unwilling to drink in
the obligatory after-work bar visit were untrustworthy. They were taking
advantage of their coworkers. The drunk coworkers would share unguarded
thoughts while the sober one wouldn't. All taking and never giving was
unscrupulous.

Years ago, it was almost a requirement to participate. One rationale was that
being drunk excused someone who spoke their mind. As speaking your mind to
your boss was not allowed in sober company, but sometimes critically important
to the success of a company, you had to at least pretend to be drunk and go
along with everybody else's pretense. That's oversimplifying it, but you get
the idea.

~~~
austincheney
If you require an excuse to exercise honesty there is every indication the
climate is probably toxic, potentially abusive, and certainly coercive.

~~~
baby
I’ve never seen such a place in the western world tbh. Most of the real talk
happens over drinks after work.

~~~
LunaSea
It's called the Netherlands

~~~
ThePadawan
Nice to hear that - I was about to rep Germany as well ;).

Though it's surprising how badly this can go even in close countries such as
Switzerland.

I once left feedback such as "this 3h on how to use Powerpoint should only be
30min. It doesn't have a lot of content, and the teacher clearly isn't
interested" on a company course (where it was explicitly requested).

I was summarily called into an HR meeting to explain that such direct language
was not appropriate.

I did not make it much longer at that company.

------
chepin
"Son, never trust a man who doesn’t drink because he’s probably a self-
righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some
of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the
suffering in the world. They’re the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never
trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They’re usually afraid of
something deep down inside, either that they’re a coward or a fool or mean and
violent. You can’t trust a man who’s afraid of himself. But sometimes, son,
you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are
that he is learning something about humility and his natural human
foolishness, about how to survive himself. It’s damned hard for a man to take
himself too seriously when he’s heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl.”

JAMES CRUMLEY

~~~
vore
I really don't like this quote: it reinforces this weird idea of what a "real
man" is and that a real man should get drunk from time to time.

If someone doesn't want to drink or get drunk, so be it: don't lord it over
them like they haven't performed some rite of passage, and it's especially
disrespectful towards people who have had bad experiences with alcohol.

~~~
antepodius
The GP proposes a supposedly useful heuristic. If it's useful, people using it
will benefit (on average).

Do you think people would not benefit from this heuristic, correctly applied?
Or are you against the quote because of wider social implications?

I.e. do you the the quote is incorrect in a pragmatic sense, or just morally
wrong?

~~~
uryga
it's a heuristic that's biased against people who don't drink for unrelated
reasons. i'd say that's not-great both pragmatically and morally

------
wildrhythms
The tech industry is rife with drinking culture and alcoholism in general. I
do not drink, and I frequently feel isolated as a result, both at business and
social gatherings. 30+ year old colleagues will demand a reason for why I
don't drink, as if I'm the one engaging in exclusionary behavior :(

~~~
katzgrau
I wouldn't call it alcoholism, but I do think there's too much emphasis on
alcohol in team building. Getting trashed with your team and making memories
(or lack thereof) is kind of a fast track to becoming tight. But there are
healthier and better ways to do it.

This is 30+ year old me speaking, but mid-20s me would be out until the early
hours of the morning with the rest of the team on a work night, and I loved
it. But now that I manage a team, I pretty much never make alcohol the focus
of any company event - not really healthy or something I want to be actively
promoting to employees. I guess I'm a bit of a puritan now.

~~~
eckza
I feel this. As someone who has seen some real shit... I feel like that kind
of intimacy in a professional environment could actually be detrimental.

I don't want to see my boss wasted. Nor do I ever want to fall in love with
the hot scrum master again.

~~~
clwk
Bravo.

------
zelly
What this article doesn't tell you is that this is only historical practice
among people making deals with their own money--entrepreneurs--or higher-up
executives or partners in a law firm etc.

As someone who works for a living for someone else, you are doing yourself no
favors by getting drunk around your peers or bosses. As an employee you are
trading your labor for money. You aren't necessarily going to be putting
anything at stake personally, so whether or not there exists trust between you
and your peers matters very little (regardless of MBAisms or management
platitudes about teams). As an employee, getting drunk around your peers or
being around drunk peers can only lead to negative consequences. The facade
people put up is good. You don't want to know what's behind that; you didn't
pick these people, you're not marrying these people, you're working with them
on a temporary basis then moving on. Also, employees shouldn't talk about
politics or religion at work for the same reason.

~~~
beervirus
I don’t care what kind of job you’re in. It _matters_ whether or not people
think of you as someone who’s easy to get along with.

~~~
rabuse
It absolutely does. We're social beings, after all. I used to be very
antisocial, but once I learned how to actually talk to people, I wouldn't
trade it for the world.

------
olcor
Personally I have a very simple rule. I don't drink alcohol, and I don't need
to have a reason for it. I tend not to give any single reason if anyone asks
me about it; just any excuse on top of my head. Most of the time it suffices.
The times it doesn't, I give up and let them think whatever they deem fit.

I have no issues against alcohol and people who drink. If people want to judge
me on my teetotalism, it's up to them, but their judgement is not going to
have any effect on my choice. I made mine and I'm going to stick to it.

I've found that Stoicism helps a lot in dealing with this. The choice to drink
is in your hands. Other people's thoughts are theirs, and different people
will think differently. You can only control whether you drink or not, so
leave the judgement (if any) to others and don't think too much about it.

~~~
Pilottwave
While you dont have to explain yourself for not drinking. I am intrigued as to
why you chose this no drinking rule for yourself. Care to share?

~~~
nkuttler
I find it interesting that you think this is noteworthy. On a global scale
half of the adults don't drink alcohol. In the US around a quarter of all men
and a third of women don't drink.

~~~
unethical_ban
Like, at all? Literally, 1/4 of all men don't drink any alcohol, ever?

I'm in a bubble.

~~~
auganov
Born in one of the highest consumption countries way above the US. My dad
never drank, I never drank, hardly ever seen my mom or grandparents drink
(though they're not strictly against it).

I assume drinkers just tend to go to places where people drink like pubs,
clubs which I've never been to. I'm sure non-drinkers tend to be rare there.

Also assuming that drinking might correlate with sociability there could be a
friendship paradox style thing going on where people you know are much more
likely to be drinkers.

------
keenmaster
Drinking is as old as time, but what I feel is more modern is this silly
gamification of "getting real." There is a problem if you have to drink to get
real. Get real when you're sober. Have long, winding conversations about
anything and everything when you have your faculties together. Tell it like it
is because that's what you do, but soften the blow using your brain not beer.

~~~
sneak
It might be that the drinking is a social cover that permits everyone to “get
real” at once, and that the drug that is alcohol is actually irrelevant in the
social sense, much like how a fire alarm is more a signal of permission for a
group to begin evacuating without social judgement or other cues.

------
Rainymood
>Not only is getting drunk pleasant

As someone with asian genes I have this thing called the asian flush [1]. As
far as I understand it my body breaks down alcohol too fast resulting in all
the waste products flooding my body.

Basically, I'm allergic to alcohol.

Alcohol makes me feel like shit, my heart starts beating in my chest, my head
goes red, I get huge headaches. I always thought: why do people like this so
much? Then I found out I'm allergic to alcohol.

It kind of sucks because so much socialising in today's world is based on
alcohol. It took me 25 years but I've finally managed to accept the fact that
I literally just can not drink alcohol. It took me 25 years to be brave enough
to stand up to the social pressure of drinking. Geez.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction)

~~~
dfee
> It kind of sucks because so much socialising in today's world is based on
> alcohol.

No, that was the pre-COVID world. You’re on a level playing field now (at
least for a few more months anyway).

~~~
Broken_Hippo
You've obviously never gotten drunk with an online friend. Not to mention that
there has been an increased interest in home cocktail making since folks
started staying home, sharing the creations online.

There is more than one way to socialize with alcohol.

~~~
dfee
Yeah, never. I have $1500 worth of alcohol in my house, had my first drink 19
years ago, have close friends who a) own bars, b) own vineyards, c) own
breweries and d) are execs at major international spirits companies, but yeah:
never drank with a buddy while video chatting.

Alternative idea: maybe my remark wasn’t to be taken as black/white, but
instead was exploring social engagement in 2020.

------
carterschonwald
A lot of changes in behavior while drinking are, at low doses, social /
cultural remission rather than via universal effect of the drug in question.

The simpler answer is that people build relationships through shared interests
and experiences. Getting brutally intoxicated is just a pretty boring one that
some people reach for.

~~~
toastal
I found this curious when I lived in the UK. People didn't seem keen on
talking to strangers at a coffee shop, but were at the pub. I had a date once
that declined dinner with me as too serious but offered getting drinks
instead. It was really confusing, but it seemed having drinks was a
requirement for establish new social connections. I inquired if people thought
that this was true and healthy for relationships, and it seemed the consensus
was "yes, it's true; no, it's probably not healty, but it's not gonna change".
It seemed very odd for it to be a social culture requirement.

Then moving to Southeast Asia where the social events centered more on the
food than the booze gave me a place where I felt more comfortable. There's no
'stiff upper lip', and strangers at lunch or in teh market are as jovial and
friendly as those I'd met at the pub a few times I went.

~~~
baby
I’ve lived in London and in Asia, and there’s as much drinking in Asia if not
more. I remember reading that south korea is the biggest consumer of alcohol
per capita in the world

~~~
toastal
I'm in Thailand now. There's a lot of Chang and Leos tipped back all over,
even casually on the stoop of 7-Eleven, but it's more about the sentiment of
not needing to have a drink. The only time it's remarked is when people say
it's odd for a Westerner to not go to the bars (which is annecdotal but
indicative of how Western culture is perceived here).

It was a bit different in Laos though where Beer Lao can sometimes be cheaper
than water and is sort of a national pride and probably most well-known
export.

------
strogonoff
See also: dares as a psychopath test[0].

The article touches on alcohol, too: Hintjens’ The Psychopath Code claims
psychopaths avoid getting drunk—or high—with others present.

[0] [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/05/05/dares-costly-
signals-a...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/05/05/dares-costly-signals-and-
psychopaths/)

~~~
swagasaurus-rex
very interesting.

From the article:

> Dares, in other words, are a psychopath test. They allow the opportunity to
> scrutinize people’s displays of social emotions on demand, rather than
> having to wait for an aversive event to happen.

Perhaps raising the stakes is a great social indicator at seeing how people
handle intense situations.

~~~
jacobush
I also liked how the article compared made it clear humans and psychopaths
have co-evolved like parasites and hosts.

------
mjfl
If someone is an angry drunk but able to control their emotions when sober,
isn't it sort of cruel to get them drunk to expose this part of them?

~~~
kayodelycaon
Pretty much. I’m bipolar and since starting medication, I can’t mess with
psychoactive substances without drastic consequences.

A single shot of scotch after 18 months of sobriety took out several of my
meds for an hour and I spent 4 days wanting to eat a shotgun.

I also can’t have caffeine or stimulants because they both trigger mania and
give me panic attacks.

I’m also allergic to milk. In my experience, any upscale restaurants that
claim to handle allergies still have cross-contamination.

Socializing with people is extremely awkward.

------
minerjoe
A native elder once told me, "You can't trust a drinker, the're already lying
to themselves that drinking poison is OK."

------
sircastor
I don’t drink, and I’ve often read and worried about this culture of coworkers
and peers who won’t trust you, and leave you out of social functions because
of your choice.

I’ve never encountered it though, and people seem to accept at face value that
I don’t drink, and I’ve never felt left out. Even if the activity was a bar,
I’ve always been invited along.

Maybe I’m just lucky, or the companies I’ve worked at have a different sort of
people at them, but I’m grateful for it.

~~~
vincnetas
Good thing that you're not in ex soviet zone. Not drinking there when someone
offers is sign of weakness and personal offence to the one who offered to
drink. Unless you have a proovable medical condition, but then everybody just
feels pity for you. And what are you doing in this "dacha" anyway then :)

For reference see movie "Peculiarities of the National Hunt". Spoiler, it has
nothing to do with hunting.

[https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0114055/](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0114055/)

~~~
082349872349872
From the comments on a satire of french hunters:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuGcoOJKXT8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuGcoOJKXT8)

Q. What's the difference between a beer and a hunter?

A. You _can_ find a beer without alcohol.

In my village, not drinking is uncommon, but wouldn't get one ostracised.
Drinking without food, or drinking out of plastic, on the other hand...

PS. "Но лучше с коллективом выпить по чуть-чуть / И будет ХА. РА. ШО." Есть и
перчик и рассол. Поехали! :)

------
ilaksh
Alcohol as a way for alcohol companies to get rich at the expense of young
people's health and sometimes lives.

I actually think there is kind of a conspiracy around alcohol. Because the
effect of alcohol is to reduce your cognitive function, and that often causes
normal people to become drunk since they have an impaired decision making
ability about stopping. Drunk people sometimes make mistakes that interfere
with their lives.

But if you become drunk and make mistakes multiple times, which I assert is
actually a completely normal consequence of regular drinking for everyone,
then people will literally say that it was not the alcohol that caused the
problem, but that you have defective genetics (are an alcoholic) if you decide
to stop drinking.

So I think they idea of alcoholism as a genetic disease is actually a really
effective propaganda by the alcohol industry. No one can really safely consume
significant amounts of alcohol regularly without making mistakes. Some people
are more susceptible, but that doesn't mean that they are genetically flawed
or that other people can't easily run into problems also.

~~~
bjo590
> you have defective genetics (are an alcoholic) if you decide to stop
> drinking

Is it a commonly held belief that alcoholics are genetically inferior to non-
alcoholics? I personally associate addiction problems with a poor environment
(low social support, overly stressed, depression) or early childhood trauma
more than genetics. However, I'm just one person with my own conceptions. I'm
curious if it's seen as a genetic flaw.

~~~
ilaksh
Well actually, after you say that, I realize there is a more basic concept
here.

The basic concept is that when alcohol causes problems for people, the culture
blames the person and assumes they are an outlier and have something wrong
with them (they are addicted, or "can't handle their alcohol"). This is false,
because alcohol has detrimental effects for everyone.

Because acknowledging that alcohol can be generally problematic or sometimes
dangerous for the population overall might lead to people's fun being
curtailed. So anytime things get out of hand, which is every single weekend,
that person who had the problem with alcohol is labelled an alcoholic, rather
than acknowledging that the alcohol actually caused everyone some problem (for
example, a hangover) and that particular person just had it worse than other
people.

Personally, I think that there are simple ways to apply technology to help
limit excessive intoxication, especially in places like bars. Count the number
of drinks with an app or something. Its too easy and too common for
individuals and groups to become excessively intoxicated which is damaging to
their health and dangerous in terms of vehicle operation etc. So the level of
alcohol consumption needs to be monitored and taken much more seriously,
rather than just blaming the victim in any case where an impaired person or
group makes the wrong decision to have another drink.

I think this BS about people being broken if they can't "handle their liquor"
actually helps perpetuate alcohol problems because people actually try to
"prove" that they can "handle it". And it goes along with a culture that over-
emphasizes how much enjoyment people have from alcohol.

------
deeblering4
I can relate to this to a certain extent.

Not sure if its cause or effect, but the people who I have had the latest
nights with I probably do trust the most.

Whether thats 100% alcohol related is debatable, but alcohol does help get
social nights started.

------
whycombagator
Where I work lots of people have bottles of liquor on their desks, even some
sprint retros or meetings are done with a bottle on the table. There are
endless happy hours & days of the week where we get served alcohol on premise.
Team outings cannot happen without alcohol being involved.

Take two sets of people: those who drink & those who do not - guess which set
gets promoted/large raises/etc.

~~~
throwaway98797
Which set is happier?

Honest question.

------
scandox
The most convincing reason I have seen for drinking is the one given by Aldous
Huxley in The Devils of Loudun: to escape our "sweaty selves". In short to
achieve a small escape from the constant experience of being ourselves.

A somewhat similar take though more strategic it is said the ancient Persians
either debated drunk and decided sober or debated sober and decided drunk.

------
snvzz
As a non-drinker, I have to say, pressuring people to drink is toxic and a
major societal problem.

~~~
bencollier49
Why? Speaking as devil's advocate.

~~~
vore
Alcohol has psychological effects and peer pressuring people into experiencing
them seems pretty not cool.

~~~
snvzz
Alcohol is toxic, kills brain cells and damages pretty much everything in your
body, and is highly addictive to top it off. The only reason it is legal
mostly everywhere is how easy it is to make and how ingrained it is in
society.

It is much more damaging and much more addictive than most outlawed drugs. To
top it off, it interacts badly with almost everything else.

------
alecfreud
if you want to improve trust and communication in the workplace, encourage
positive & healthy social relationships among employees, so they are
comfortable enough to speak their mind.

drugging people into an uninhibited state so they speak their intoxicated
thoughts is not a long term solution.

------
roenxi
It is an interesting theory; but I don't think it holds up very well on close
inspection.

For one thing, human 'trust' is mostly about raw familiarity. If trust were
linked to actual trustworthiness, politics would be completely different and
"any publicity is good publicity" wouldn't be a proverb. Motivated
untrustworthy people generally have great success getting people to trust
them, drinking involved or otherwise.

In addition, trust even being an assessable characteristic is debatable,
people's reliability is very dependent on context and circumstance. Nobody is
trustworthy in a divorce court, for example.

"causes people to get along more freely and easily" makes a lot of sense, but
the utility drunken parties for assessing trustworthiness seems weak.

------
WarOnPrivacy
For folks who act a lot differently while inebriated, the accepted belief (way
back when) was that alcohol changed their personality. I figured out that the
alcohol released the suppression on those personality traits. In my case, it
made me quiet (for once).

History: Drinker from 8-24. Quit because I started feeling sick from it.
That's my history w/ intoxicants in general.

Sidebar: I don't care if someone's buzzed. It's just a state, like being tired
or caffeinated. However, it seems common for drinkers to have a moment of
embarrassment around non-drinkers but I kind of wish they didn't.

------
baby
It’s interesting because I have a hard time trusting people who don’t drink.
And I often will not get along with someone until I at least get a drink with
them. It’s not great as I know some people who categorically do not drink.

~~~
throwaway98797
I find 3 hours of coffee split between 2-3 occasions equals one night of
moderate drinking from a relationship building perspective.

------
fjfaase
I never got drunk because I cannot stand the taste of alcohol. I can drink at
most half a glass of wine or beer. (Similarly, I can also not stand the taste
of some artificial sweeteners. I am probably not a supertaster, because I do
like grapefruit very much. I also have a problem with many 'synthetic' smells
and cannot stand smoke.)

I never realized that this had an effect on my social life, by not joining in
with getting drunk with others (especially in my younger years). In my current
social circles, excessive consumption of alcohol is not the norm.

------
agumonkey
I only skimmed the article but the paranoid tone reminded me of some idea I
had regarding alcohol:

    
    
      As an adult the constraints of social life are really heavy and indeed we have to fake / lie / hide constantly. drinking alcohol is not spying technique, it's a lubricant to restore your intuition and natural self without care
    
    
      Also, even without the social burden, existential crisis lead to paralysis often, alcohol or other drug can make you feel creative and random again, a bit like a child.

------
BrianHenryIE
In vino veritas

------
barce
Yeah, let's just ignore the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world that don't drink
and assume they're untrustworthy. What a sophomoric article! الله اكبر

~~~
frequentnapper
Isn't it also sophomoric to not drink because of some superstition originated
by a guy 1400 years ago that a being in the sky will burn you for all eternity
because of it?

~~~
antepodius
The origin and socially acceptable justification for an algorithm says little
about the algorithm itself.

------
mcnichol
I knew a guy in the military who often stated: "Never trust a man you cannot
have a drink with"

I had always felt conflicted because alcoholism was a common thing there and
often people were sorting these things out.

This article was precisely his point. It has always stuck with me. Some of the
most counter-intuitive advice from the least expected minds which has changed
my views much later in life.

------
aaron695
If you missed the link, this was discussed in 2014.

I thought this deleted comment was interesting from that discussion -

Why not drinking is a sign of conservatism -

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7798391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7798391)

------
viztor
This isn't something new. Psychologies has concluded it's easier people
friends with those who they 'commit crimes' (doing something evil) together.
Consuming alcohol is just one of those, only it's way too popular.

------
foolinaround
when people ask me at a bar why I don't drink, i have given this answer "I
dont need to drink to say or do dumb things"

we laugh about it, and then we move on to other topics...

------
juskrey
The usual thing in Russia for doing business. Easy to spot an idiot when he is
drunk. Someone who is not drinking is perceived as someone who has an issue to
hide.

------
semistrict
My first though was you're using the wrong drug.

------
jonnydubowsky
"Also, in most cultures it’s considered bad form to shock the heads of new
acquaintances with huge magnets".

------
rootsudo
Alcohol is disgusting, I don't get why it's so popular to willingly intoxicate
yourself for peer acceptance.

~~~
pete762
Maybe because for most people intoxicating themselves around others who are
intoxicated is an inherently pleasurable experience? You really think
basically all cultures in the world have been drinking for the past 10000
years out of peer pressure?

~~~
rootsudo
Pretty sure it's because water was naturally hard to get and keep clean,
meanwhile the body adopted ethanol since it's fermented and therefore killed
many unhealthy pathogens.

Water history and alcohol history have pretty interesting histories.

I just dislike the taste of alcohol and I don't see how it's pleasurable.

------
mensetmanusman
Since alcohol use is present in most rapes, abuse, hazing, auto fatalities,
...

Maybe we chose the wrong social hack

~~~
emsy
100% of car crashes involve cars. Clearly cars should be banned.

------
als0
This is in the same category as drugging people. Law enforcement should not go
there...

------
qserasera
Perhaps the days of TMS from a distance are not too far ahead.

------
m3kw9
All the > symbols makes me think I’m reading an email.

------
m3kw9
With Covid I wonder if alcohol are done over zoom?

------
jgilias
Stalin is known to have deliberately gotten the high ranking party members
drunk while staying mostly sober himself exactly for this purpose.

~~~
pete762
Which is exactly why sober people in a drinking group are inherently
suspicious.

------
jdkee
Now do it for mushrooms.

------
odomojuli
Ah yes, I am familiar with this tradition. It's called hazing.

------
LoSboccacc
alcohol increase aggressiveness and self indulgence, not directly
truthfulness, and it's sad to see frat boy culture getting glorified on shaky
psychological myths.

------
unchocked
Try LSD.

------
monadic2
Verification is a fool’s dream.

------
mgamache
in vino veritas

------
sibmike
Sociopaths can pass this "trustworthiness" test at any time of the day even if
they are wasted. More likely, they run the test on you.

