This was effective in stopping me from drinking til age 20. Too drunk to google it right now, can someone enlighten me about this phrase?

In that vein, I propose another slogan: "Capitalism kills brain cells."

  • Pezevenk [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Yeah it is. It's the favorite shtick of alarmist articles. "X increases you risk of Y by 600%!!!". Of course they don't bring up that in practice that means something more like a 0.001% increase in absolute risk, which doesn't sound so scary any more. It's like what that other research that was posted here said. The risk for light drinkers increased (if it was even reliable and not some random fluctuation) by 4 people in 100,000 for all alcohol related diseases/injuries. That is a 0.004% increase in absolute risk, which again is hard to determine if it was even just a chance fluctuation. This doesn't sound nearly scary enough so an article like that would probably opt to compare it against the 914 in the control group and determine that your risk increases by about 0.43%. Well, that still sounds sort of unimpressive, so often they try to find very specific things so that they can say it increases your risk of x by 300%, or that something else reduces your risk of y by 500% or whatever, and omit what that actually means in practice, or the question of whether the data is even very reliable when it comes to rare complications.

    There is practically no way you can get a prion disease if you don't eat meat. If you do eat meat, getting a prion disease is incredibly unlikely. However, it is a non 0 chance, and that is a huge increase from the practically 0 chance that exists if you don't eat meat. You could easily come up with some kind of number like a 900,000% increase in risk or something like that. From that standpoint it appears insane that anyone would even taste meat once or twice. In reality it doesn't really mean all that much.

    I've stopped obsessing over all that stuff because the misery this shit causes to people probably outweighs any benefit they may cause. I know many people who lived ridiculously long and healthy lives, none of them ever paid any attention to this kind of stuff. They didn't do anything particularly unhealthy either (with a couple of exceptions) but the one common element seemed to be that they didn't worry about things all the time, and this kind of stuff is kind of the opposite of doing that so I'd much rather try to do that instead of worrying about the 4% relative risk increase something I do may carry. Just don't overdo it.

    • RedDawn [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      No, it's objectively not at all comparable, you're just way off base in how dangerous alcohol is. In many respects it's the most dangerous and harmful of any of the common drugs.

      so that they can say it increases your risk of x by 300%, or that something else reduces your risk of y by 500% or whatever, and omit what that actually means in practice,

      We can be really clear about what the harms of alcohol use are in practice and it's literal millions of deaths per year.

      https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol

      I’ve stopped obsessing over all that stuff because the misery this shit causes to people probably outweighs any benefit they may cause

      Literally not a chance in the case of alcohol, the public perception of it is far off from reality due to obscene amounts of propaganda promoting it, so being honest about how dangerous it is is a positive thing for society in much the same way public health campaigns regarding smoking have been a hugely positive thing.

      • Pezevenk [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        In many respects it’s the most dangerous and harmful of any of the common drugs.

        Lmao yeah cool.

        We can be really clear about what the harms of alcohol use are in practice and it’s literal millions of deaths per year.

        Yeah I'm not gonna keep talking with someone who seems to act deliberately obtuse and pretends to not understand the difference between binge drinking and occasional use.

        • RedDawn [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          "Lmao" isn't an argument and what I said is true. Studies consistently show alcohol to be either the most harmful, or one of the most harmful of all drugs.

          • Pezevenk [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Repeating the same wrong thing over and over doesn't make it right.

            • RedDawn [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              3 years ago

              Good thing I'm right then and you're just a dipshit too lazy to google "most harmful drugs" and see that alcohol consistently ranks at the top. Stop messaging me, drunk ass.

              • Pezevenk [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Oh OK, if you googled it, that's alright. I remember when I googled why my nose was running for a long time and Google told me I had a spinal fluid leak. Thanks Google for always being very balanced, reliable and not alarmist when it comes to medical facts.

                • RedDawn [he/him]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  3 years ago

                  The source isn't "Google" it's every study ever fucking done on the topic, google is just how you can look at hundreds of them which all rank alcohol as among the most harmful drugs, many of them rank it as the single most harmful. You're wrong, you lost an argument on the internet, oh no!

                  • Pezevenk [he/him]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    There is no such study. You're describing a subjective judgement you saw on articles.

                    • RedDawn [he/him]
                      ·
                      3 years ago

                      Here's one. There are many. You're literally wrong dude just shut the fuck up and sleep it off.

                      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31081439/

                      Here's another

                      https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.592199/full

                      • Pezevenk [he/him]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        I have Google you know. I've seen this shit. The difference is that I'm not a mindless drone and I actually read the studies and what they really say.

                        • RedDawn [he/him]
                          ·
                          3 years ago

                          "I actually do my own research sweaty and that's why I know vaccines cause autism actually, and alcohol isnt bad for you".

                          • Pezevenk [he/him]
                            ·
                            3 years ago

                            No, I don't do my own research, I read the research. You don't read the research, you read the headline.

                              • Pezevenk [he/him]
                                ·
                                3 years ago

                                Dude seriously, you hit me with nonsense that quantifies the harm caused by a drug by including crime that is supposed to be caused by the drug in a conversation about its health effects and I'm supposed to just accept that?

        • RedDawn [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          You seem to be missing the part about how alcohol is an addictive drug and anybody using it at all runs the risk of becoming addicted. You're the one being "obtuse" here, but I'll chalk that up to the fact you have very little experience with alcohol overall. Alcohol causes millions of deaths per year, it's extremely dangerous and harmful. You're objectively wrong about it.