For many people, alcohol raises talkativeness and lowers inhibition, so you’re more likely to say things you normally wouldn’t (in vino veritas). Sharing private things is a friendship-builder (HPMOR 7), but it can also be embarrassing. Drinking is a pre-commitment to build friendship through potentially embarrassing interactions, and when you abstain, you’re saying, “I’ll hear your secrets, but keep mine, thank you very much,” which is a suspicious and untrustworthy kind of stance.
To the extent the above is true, it’s too bad, because
Some people really don’t like drinking, and alcohol doesn’t make them more sociable anyway
No one should need to self-handicap in this way to trust and be trusted
It’s only a pre-commitment as far as the placebo effect causes you to engage in embarrassing behavior. There are some physical effects of alcohol, but your willingness to break social boundaries while intoxicated seems to depend only on how strongly you believe you are intoxicated.
It may be not the whole effect, although a major part of it. My coworker says that the only time when he consumed noticeable amount of alcohol he was surprised by the thinking becoming more difficult. I can say nothing from personal experience because I cannot tolerate the taste long enough for any effects to manifest themselves.
it’s too bad, because [...] It’s a pre-commitment, limiting your options
Pre-commitment is only necessarily bad in for perfectly rational agents in one-player games without akrasia. In multi-player games (the ones where CDT doesn’t work, e.g. Parfit’s Hitchhiker), or if you have akrasia (which can be described as you acting as a different player than yourself at a different time), pre-commitment does win in certain situations. That’s the whole point of picoeconomics, including pre-commitment devices such as Beeminder.
Plus, alcohol is not such a strong pre-commitment, anyway; it makes you less shy, but if you’re really motivated not to do/say something, then alcohol won’t make you do/say that.[1] If anything, it’s a pre-commitment to not perform activities needing good reaction times and coordination such as driving.
For many people, alcohol raises talkativeness and lowers inhibition, so you’re more likely to say things you normally wouldn’t (in vino veritas). Sharing private things is a friendship-builder (HPMOR 7), but it can also be embarrassing. Drinking is a pre-commitment to build friendship through potentially embarrassing interactions, and when you abstain, you’re saying, “I’ll hear your secrets, but keep mine, thank you very much,” which is a suspicious and untrustworthy kind of stance.
To the extent the above is true, it’s too bad, because
Some people really don’t like drinking, and alcohol doesn’t make them more sociable anyway
No one should need to self-handicap in this way to trust and be trusted
It’s a pre-commitment, limiting your options
It’s only a pre-commitment as far as the placebo effect causes you to engage in embarrassing behavior. There are some physical effects of alcohol, but your willingness to break social boundaries while intoxicated seems to depend only on how strongly you believe you are intoxicated.
source on one study: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3035442.stm source seeming to indicate that even the physical effects can be placebo-related: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1403295/
It may be not the whole effect, although a major part of it. My coworker says that the only time when he consumed noticeable amount of alcohol he was surprised by the thinking becoming more difficult. I can say nothing from personal experience because I cannot tolerate the taste long enough for any effects to manifest themselves.
Pre-commitment is only necessarily bad in for perfectly rational agents in one-player games without akrasia. In multi-player games (the ones where CDT doesn’t work, e.g. Parfit’s Hitchhiker), or if you have akrasia (which can be described as you acting as a different player than yourself at a different time), pre-commitment does win in certain situations. That’s the whole point of picoeconomics, including pre-commitment devices such as Beeminder.
Plus, alcohol is not such a strong pre-commitment, anyway; it makes you less shy, but if you’re really motivated not to do/say something, then alcohol won’t make you do/say that.[1] If anything, it’s a pre-commitment to not perform activities needing good reaction times and coordination such as driving.