ancient humans discovered a taste for ethanol-based poison because much of their drinking water was lethally non-potable. whiskey translates from old gaelic into 'water of life'. lesser of two evils back then, i guess.
alcohol was also a cynical form of payment in the feudal era. it was a free/inexpensive byproduct of the farming and harvest process, and a feudal lord or landowner could pay his landless labourers in beer or rye or whatever. literally cost them nothing, kept the serfs docile and inebriated (literally several pints per day on average, throughout the day), and probably contributed to their longer-term inter-generational decline. genius.
now we know it's massively harmful for you, but the rituals persist. and then people like dilbert pour scorn on the rituals of other cultures that have a long history of other psychoactive drug use. even evil cocaine had a genuine health benefit in the traditional medicine and diet of the indigenous peoples. and coca leaves were similarly cynically distributed by the taskmasters in latin american mines and quarries, particularly at high altitude, as its stimulant effects helped the poor natives work for 12 hrs a day in low-oxygen environments. genius. 'drugs are bad, mm-kay', unless they can be integrated into the processes of work and extraction to make someone else richer.
alcohol was also a cynical form of payment in the feudal era. it was a free/inexpensive byproduct of the farming and harvest process, and a feudal lord or landowner could pay his landless labourers in beer or rye or whatever. literally cost them nothing, kept the serfs docile and inebriated (literally several pints per day on average, throughout the day), and probably contributed to their longer-term inter-generational decline. genius.
now we know it's massively harmful for you, but the rituals persist. and then people like dilbert pour scorn on the rituals of other cultures that have a long history of other psychoactive drug use. even evil cocaine had a genuine health benefit in the traditional medicine and diet of the indigenous peoples. and coca leaves were similarly cynically distributed by the taskmasters in latin american mines and quarries, particularly at high altitude, as its stimulant effects helped the poor natives work for 12 hrs a day in low-oxygen environments. genius. 'drugs are bad, mm-kay', unless they can be integrated into the processes of work and extraction to make someone else richer.
Last edited by uziq (2022-01-08 05:15:29)
