Root cause is the human biases and lying due to cognitive dissonance? And alcohol is a symptom that's easy to grasp.
You’re talking about waterfall management by laws and I’m talking about individual consciousness and the capability of understanding our biases? I guess that explains the perceived differences.
I stated earlier that I really don’t have the resources for this discussion in extent, but I’m leaving a draft for a blog post based on this too. I’ve been creating a matrix of different human habits to perform the cost/benefit calcucaltion. For alcohol and for practically anything individuals do.
I’ll try to sum it up here really quickly and hope for you to provide the pluses, should you have those, for alcohol. You already mentioned with strong emphasis that its normal thus right. And I don’t think either of the “facts” that we’re used to doing something (like smoking, before it was approached with honesty) or because others are doing it (like social media on the predatory and attention wrecking platforms) are good reasons, but I’ll accept that these are pluses to you.
So based on the homo economicus narrative we are rational and will make a rational choice, right? Then this matrix (a quick draft, for reference only, I hope you give me more minuses here than the buzz, the norm and the herd instinct) should work as the guiding light. https://imgur.com/a/NgV6dt9
Then we have the homo ephicus (ethical human with a twist of brutal praxis) that knows that human “mind” is actually an intuition making decisions and strategic reasoning and excuses and post-hoc justifications (thanks Jon Haidt & Hume) we use to lie to ourselves and to our societies.
So with the lingo of THN:
normal =! right
human =! reason
human === lying
But sorry, I can’t do this more clearly as the homo economicus world is putting immense pressure on the cog, I’m positioned to be. I’ll keep you in mind should I have the time to make this bit better.
Yes. 100 percent agree. The addiction industry requires us to be desperate and wanting an escape, so that they can brainwash us into complicity and brain fog from hangover or doomscrollin.
Banning something that has so huge disadvantages, but has been lobbied just like cigarettes is exactly the kind of society I want to live in.
But the choice is not mine, so in that way I win.
It's a social norm and a poison from my POV and just like pfas or plastic in the drinking water I believe it should be controlled and the lobbying banned. Then we'd see the true wish of humanity.
Now our needs are manufactured, not around our wellbeing, but for what "must" be lobbied and advertised.
The norm is manufactured. Just like the addictive algorithms and almost any other thing in this world of pseudo-free will.
Even the likes of Joe Rogan are bringing up the issue, with many others so I see some light in the tunnel for my society, but so far you're right. Your side seems to be winning.
I'm tempted to start the full deontology and Jellinek model on substance abuse on this, but don't have the effort now.
If we perform a cost benefit analysis on alcohol the downsides are plentiful and then some.
And the pluses are practically masked versions (taste, buzz,...) of the two major things that make human do anything: what others are doing and what I'm used to (which are pretty shit reasons to do anything IMO) it basically boils down to addiction. Not chemical, but functional and social.
Then we return to the cost benefit analysis and start figuring out how far the lying disease has progressed. The fierceness of the debate feels like a good indicator of this usually.
I'd be tempted to explain this more in depth, but I have stuff to do.
And the substance abuse is a progressive lying disease so once we figure out "this has gone too far" the threshold for abuse has been crossed a long time ago in most cases.
First the close ones see the problem and the individual in question is the last to see it. Thus a lying disease.
In a healthy society there would be no need for intoxicants with so severe harms (BBC list for substances by harm is a good reference) and thus no exposure for a addictive substance.
Now the norm decides that, almost without exceptions, we must all be exposed.
Based on what Sarah Wynn-Williams told about Zuck and what we've seen a lot of these state out loud (and know a lot more that have exrepessed this in private) seems that the society is being held hostage by child's who are threatening us with a tantrum, should we refuse the lollipop.
I think it's about time we turn adult now. The coming of age for humanity, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer used to say.
Human being, with very few exceptions, is corrupted by power. And a billion dollars is immense amount power.
You can make your opponent's life a living hell with a hundred thousand and buy or figure out a way to frame extortion material from almost any decision maker with a million.
See how wars are being started tweeting from the toilet seat by a man who has never known anything but power to harm others.
See the many "formerly normal" people ending on a private island, doing horrendous things to children.
We tried to figure out examples of people with power who weren't corrupted by it, at least to some extent, and came up with very few.
It's a human trait we know very well, but do very little about.
In the times of metacrisis and power concentrated in the hands of few who actively try to fry the world I think what we need is the exact opposite of that.
That is what we've had mostly for the last fifty years and look where it has gotten us? And US. I'm not from US
I was just gathering a list of global top hundred with their influence relevant spending and boy that was not a pretty sight. At least in terms of normal people.
You’re talking about waterfall management by laws and I’m talking about individual consciousness and the capability of understanding our biases? I guess that explains the perceived differences.
I stated earlier that I really don’t have the resources for this discussion in extent, but I’m leaving a draft for a blog post based on this too. I’ve been creating a matrix of different human habits to perform the cost/benefit calcucaltion. For alcohol and for practically anything individuals do.
I’ll try to sum it up here really quickly and hope for you to provide the pluses, should you have those, for alcohol. You already mentioned with strong emphasis that its normal thus right. And I don’t think either of the “facts” that we’re used to doing something (like smoking, before it was approached with honesty) or because others are doing it (like social media on the predatory and attention wrecking platforms) are good reasons, but I’ll accept that these are pluses to you.
So based on the homo economicus narrative we are rational and will make a rational choice, right? Then this matrix (a quick draft, for reference only, I hope you give me more minuses here than the buzz, the norm and the herd instinct) should work as the guiding light. https://imgur.com/a/NgV6dt9
Then we have the homo ephicus (ethical human with a twist of brutal praxis) that knows that human “mind” is actually an intuition making decisions and strategic reasoning and excuses and post-hoc justifications (thanks Jon Haidt & Hume) we use to lie to ourselves and to our societies.
So with the lingo of THN: normal =! right
human =! reason
human === lying
But sorry, I can’t do this more clearly as the homo economicus world is putting immense pressure on the cog, I’m positioned to be. I’ll keep you in mind should I have the time to make this bit better.