I avoided alcohol for the first 30 years of my life.
I now have about 7 beers (or equivalent) per week (never more than 3/day). There’s a temporary impairment for sure, and sleep suffers with several drinks just before, but I would definitely not recommend against moderate drinking.
I’m not opposed to drinking—I drank socially in college, and I knew many successful people who drank far more. What’s more dangerous is overwhelming peer pressure. I’ve known people who joined clubs where lots of drinking was all but mandatory, and their lives got a lot more chaotic than they wanted, very fast. Keep away from mandatory partying; discretionary partying, on your own schedule, with people who will respect your choices, is much better.
You’re right. I did get that kind of pressure at college parties. Really, people will be happy as long as you have one drink; the further teasing and egging on is just some stupid ritual program that doesn’t mean anything to them. It’s definitely weird to put yourself in a situation where people are gathered to drink+have fun, and not drink at all.
This thread is advice for people under ~22 and new to both adulthood and choosing friends rather than lucking into them. It seems that avoiding alcohol is a strongly positive idea in such a situation. (Especially if, like the OP, one is worried about x-risk.)
Afterwards, I trust them to make good decisions, and that can very well include alcohol (just like good decisions can very well include playing video games).
Clearly getting dangerously drunk or becoming an alcoholic are things which young people should avoid. As such caution against drinking is good advice for lots of young people. However, young Less Wrongers are more likely to be lonely, isolated and not having as much fun as they should. Going through college without drinking is likely to make dealing with these issues dramatically more difficult as so much socialization revolves around alcohol.
However, young Less Wrongers are more likely to be lonely, isolated and not having as much fun as they should. Going through college without drinking is likely to make dealing with these issues dramatically more difficult as so much socialization revolves around alcohol.
My suspicion is that drinking buddies are generally a net negative, as they may stop you from looking for other friends. My fallacious guess is most LWers are satisfied socially once they have a few friends they meet with regularly- and so if you find drinking buddies to tide you over until you find solid friends, you may find yourself looking for solid friends less and less.
I suspect that advice is better given as generally applicable, than as generally applicable but there are caveats. For one thing, policy debates should be two-sided, and for another people are simply bad at telling when the rules don’t apply. Anyone reading this is hopefully clever enough to take my injunction against alcohol and weigh it against the other information going into their decision; if they aren’t, I think it’s a good plan for them to avoid alcohol entirely. You are right that adding the motivation behind my injunction helps make it more potent, and possibly limits it in a good way.
[edit] One more thing- if you need alcohol to warm up and talk to people, what you really need is to get better at talking to people. That is a skill you can practice and depends on confidence you can develop.
I would only advise that a person choose rationally how much alcohol to consume (i.e. gain experience predicting the effects and aftermath of drinking, and make decisions about how much to drink before becoming inebriated). I don’t see any strong evidence that moderate and steady (as opposed to binge) drinking is helpful or harmful to health.
If someone wants to always optimize their rationality-in-the-moment and has no social or emotional needs, then I guess it’s safe to never get drunk. It certainly hasn’t helped me become smarter or more rational to do so. I just think it’s stupid from a hedonistic perspective to absolutely avoid it.
I avoided alcohol for the first 30 years of my life.
I now have about 7 beers (or equivalent) per week (never more than 3/day). There’s a temporary impairment for sure, and sleep suffers with several drinks just before, but I would definitely not recommend against moderate drinking.
I’m not opposed to drinking—I drank socially in college, and I knew many successful people who drank far more. What’s more dangerous is overwhelming peer pressure. I’ve known people who joined clubs where lots of drinking was all but mandatory, and their lives got a lot more chaotic than they wanted, very fast. Keep away from mandatory partying; discretionary partying, on your own schedule, with people who will respect your choices, is much better.
You’re right. I did get that kind of pressure at college parties. Really, people will be happy as long as you have one drink; the further teasing and egging on is just some stupid ritual program that doesn’t mean anything to them. It’s definitely weird to put yourself in a situation where people are gathered to drink+have fun, and not drink at all.
This thread is advice for people under ~22 and new to both adulthood and choosing friends rather than lucking into them. It seems that avoiding alcohol is a strongly positive idea in such a situation. (Especially if, like the OP, one is worried about x-risk.)
Afterwards, I trust them to make good decisions, and that can very well include alcohol (just like good decisions can very well include playing video games).
Clearly getting dangerously drunk or becoming an alcoholic are things which young people should avoid. As such caution against drinking is good advice for lots of young people. However, young Less Wrongers are more likely to be lonely, isolated and not having as much fun as they should. Going through college without drinking is likely to make dealing with these issues dramatically more difficult as so much socialization revolves around alcohol.
My suspicion is that drinking buddies are generally a net negative, as they may stop you from looking for other friends. My fallacious guess is most LWers are satisfied socially once they have a few friends they meet with regularly- and so if you find drinking buddies to tide you over until you find solid friends, you may find yourself looking for solid friends less and less.
I suspect that advice is better given as generally applicable, than as generally applicable but there are caveats. For one thing, policy debates should be two-sided, and for another people are simply bad at telling when the rules don’t apply. Anyone reading this is hopefully clever enough to take my injunction against alcohol and weigh it against the other information going into their decision; if they aren’t, I think it’s a good plan for them to avoid alcohol entirely. You are right that adding the motivation behind my injunction helps make it more potent, and possibly limits it in a good way.
[edit] One more thing- if you need alcohol to warm up and talk to people, what you really need is to get better at talking to people. That is a skill you can practice and depends on confidence you can develop.
I would only advise that a person choose rationally how much alcohol to consume (i.e. gain experience predicting the effects and aftermath of drinking, and make decisions about how much to drink before becoming inebriated). I don’t see any strong evidence that moderate and steady (as opposed to binge) drinking is helpful or harmful to health.
If someone wants to always optimize their rationality-in-the-moment and has no social or emotional needs, then I guess it’s safe to never get drunk. It certainly hasn’t helped me become smarter or more rational to do so. I just think it’s stupid from a hedonistic perspective to absolutely avoid it.