I think we need to take seriously the fact that civilization evolved with alcohol. I’m not saying alcohol is load bearing to civilization, but what I am saying is that there’s a strong Chesterton’s Fence argument to be made against teetotaling, and time we tried it in America it failed spectacularly, not just because people wanted to keep drinking, but because it failed to get people to stop drinking and resulted in a lot of bad secondary effects, like normalizing organized crime.
So I think any compelling argument for giving up alcohol when it’s not a problem for someone has to adequately understand why alcohol is so popular beyond addiction for the many people who enjoy it and aren’t addicted.
The way you apply “Chesterton’s Fence” is bordering a fully general argument against any change. This is not how it’s supposed to be used. Chesterton’s Fence is an argument against getting rid of things, without having knowledge why they existed in the first place. We do have a good model why alcohol consumption coincided with civilization. Therefore, there is no strong argument of this form that can be made here.
You also seem to confuse voluntary teetotaling with government enforced prohibition. All the bad secondary effects are results of the latter, not the former.
I read this post as making a motte and bailey style argument. Perhaps it’s just how I’m interpreting the author’s somewhat (to me!) vague words, but for example the final sentence:
I understand that for many people giving it up would be more of a sacrifice, but it seems clear that the sacrifice is worth it to protect the people alcohol would otherwise kill and harm.
I interpret the second half to be saying that “the sacrifice” of giving up alcohol is a general statement that applies to everyone, and the author is making a bid here that everyone should make that sacrifice, at which point this is not really voluntary.
Maybe the author meant to say something more precise like “I think more people should voluntarily stop drinking” and some of their post implies this is what they mean, but then other parts seem to me to be written in favor of prohibition. I’m not sure.
Also, I’m far less confident than you that we actually understand the function of alcohol in society, even if we are familiar with its history.
Sure, but the argument of the post is “alcohol bad for other people so stop drinking”, not “alcohol bad for other people so drink marginally less or make drinking marginally harder”.
Well, highly taxed things can lead to a black market to bypass the tax (I think this happens with cigarettes already), and I’m sure if the tax went sufficiently high we would see a rise in moonshine production, organized crime would get back into it, etc.
But I could also interpret this post to be primarily advocating for individuals to develop voluntary social practices of avoiding alcohol. That seems the better option.
I think we need to take seriously the fact that civilization evolved with alcohol. I’m not saying alcohol is load bearing to civilization, but what I am saying is that there’s a strong Chesterton’s Fence argument to be made against teetotaling, and time we tried it in America it failed spectacularly, not just because people wanted to keep drinking, but because it failed to get people to stop drinking and resulted in a lot of bad secondary effects, like normalizing organized crime.
So I think any compelling argument for giving up alcohol when it’s not a problem for someone has to adequately understand why alcohol is so popular beyond addiction for the many people who enjoy it and aren’t addicted.
The way you apply “Chesterton’s Fence” is bordering a fully general argument against any change. This is not how it’s supposed to be used. Chesterton’s Fence is an argument against getting rid of things, without having knowledge why they existed in the first place. We do have a good model why alcohol consumption coincided with civilization. Therefore, there is no strong argument of this form that can be made here.
You also seem to confuse voluntary teetotaling with government enforced prohibition. All the bad secondary effects are results of the latter, not the former.
I read this post as making a motte and bailey style argument. Perhaps it’s just how I’m interpreting the author’s somewhat (to me!) vague words, but for example the final sentence:
I interpret the second half to be saying that “the sacrifice” of giving up alcohol is a general statement that applies to everyone, and the author is making a bid here that everyone should make that sacrifice, at which point this is not really voluntary.
Maybe the author meant to say something more precise like “I think more people should voluntarily stop drinking” and some of their post implies this is what they mean, but then other parts seem to me to be written in favor of prohibition. I’m not sure.
Also, I’m far less confident than you that we actually understand the function of alcohol in society, even if we are familiar with its history.
This is an argument against total prohibition. I don’t see an argument against making alcohol 20% more expensive or 20% harder to buy.
Sure, but the argument of the post is “alcohol bad for other people so stop drinking”, not “alcohol bad for other people so drink marginally less or make drinking marginally harder”.
The argument is to change your personal behaviour in order to modify the global multiagent equilibrium at least to some degree.
Well, highly taxed things can lead to a black market to bypass the tax (I think this happens with cigarettes already), and I’m sure if the tax went sufficiently high we would see a rise in moonshine production, organized crime would get back into it, etc.
But I could also interpret this post to be primarily advocating for individuals to develop voluntary social practices of avoiding alcohol. That seems the better option.