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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: of view is expressed here do not represent those of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Media, Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: heat as an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they

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Speaker 1: may not even represent my own and nothing contained in

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Speaker 1: this show should be used as medical advice or encouragement

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Speaker 1: to use any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. So

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you one of the most frequent comments or

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Speaker 1: suggestions I've gotten from friends and other listeners since I

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Speaker 1: started the podcast over a year ago was what about alcohol?

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Speaker 1: What about booze? You haven't done any episodes on that,

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Speaker 1: and that's got to be, you know, in some respects,

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Speaker 1: one of the you know, biggest drugs of them all.

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Speaker 1: And so I thought the best way to have a

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Speaker 1: first episode that addresses the issue of alcohol would be

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Speaker 1: with Professor Edward Slingerland, who published a book last year

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Speaker 1: called Drunk. The subtitle is How We sit, danced, and

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Speaker 1: stumbled our way to Civilization. Now. Edward is the Distinguished

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Speaker 1: University's Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of

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Speaker 1: British Columbia and Canada, with adject deployments in Asian studies

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Speaker 1: and psychology, and he's a co director of the Center

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Speaker 1: for the Study of Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture and

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Speaker 1: director of the Database of Religious History. He's also a sinologist,

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Speaker 1: which means he's not an expert in sinus as he's

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Speaker 1: an expert in china um and that's a lot of

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Speaker 1: his more academic writing, although this is quite an academic

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Speaker 1: book in its own way as well. So I just

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Speaker 1: thought he would be a wonderful interest. Edward, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for joining me on Psychoactive. Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: So what would be the elevator? Pitch the basic argument

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Speaker 1: of your book in a few sentences. We've long been

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Speaker 1: told that our taste for alcohol and other chemical intoxicants

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Speaker 1: is an evolutionary mistake, and that's not the case. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, there are a host of both individual and

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Speaker 1: social benefits to intoxican use, and these benefits have paid

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Speaker 1: for the obvious costs. So so alcohol consumption is costly,

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Speaker 1: it's it's bad for our bodies. It can lead to

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Speaker 1: all sorts of social ills, um. But the taste for

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Speaker 1: alcohol has remained in our both genetic and cultural repertoire

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Speaker 1: because of these various individual and social benefits that have

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Speaker 1: been trucial in allowing human beings to make the transition

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Speaker 1: from small scale hunter gatherer societies to these large civilizations

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Speaker 1: that we live in now. And so, you know, far

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Speaker 1: from being a byproduct or a mistake, intoxication has been

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Speaker 1: at the center of civilization, um for as long as

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Speaker 1: as human beings have been doing anything in an organized

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Speaker 1: fashion as a species. Let me go say the audience,

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Speaker 1: stead of all the books I've read, uh for this podcast,

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Speaker 1: this has to be easily the most enjoyable read. It's

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Speaker 1: not just scholarly and thoughtful, but it's written with an

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Speaker 1: incredible sense of humor and a dry witticisms, and it's

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Speaker 1: just a pleasure. And one of those little lines that

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Speaker 1: Edward uses at the beginning is he says people like

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Speaker 1: to masturbate. They also like to get drunk and eat twinkies,

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Speaker 1: not typically all at the same time, but that's a

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Speaker 1: matter of personal preference. So why Edward, why is that

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Speaker 1: line right at the top of your book. Well, first

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Speaker 1: of all, that line was written at probably about point

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Speaker 1: oh eight blood alcohol content. So I had been working

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Speaker 1: on the book proposal. I had written ten versions of it,

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Speaker 1: I think, and my every time my agent would send

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Speaker 1: it back and she's just like boring. Zache read to

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Speaker 1: it and she and she was right. So I had, Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I had all the science and it all history.

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Speaker 1: The arguments were there, but it was a very kind

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Speaker 1: of plotting aid to B two. See, you know this

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Speaker 1: is a puzzle. This is why it's interesting. Um, it

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Speaker 1: didn't draw you in. And I realized, oh, you know what,

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Speaker 1: I haven't taken my own advice in the book, which

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Speaker 1: is that if you need a creative insight or you

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Speaker 1: need something new, you need to drink a little bit.

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Speaker 1: So I was on a conference trip. This was pretty pandemic,

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Speaker 1: and I had a couple of hours before I was

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Speaker 1: meeting my colleagues for dinner. So I took my laptop

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Speaker 1: down to the hotel bar and ordered myself a Negroni

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Speaker 1: And by the end of that Negroni, it felt like

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Speaker 1: I was taking dictation. So that line came to me,

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Speaker 1: and then the rest of that what's now pages one

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Speaker 1: to two of the book just appeared in my head

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Speaker 1: and I just wrote it down. You know, I needed

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Speaker 1: something to draw people in and get them hooked. You know,

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Speaker 1: I start with masturbation and junk food, just because the

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Speaker 1: standard story has been that, you know, alcohol is just

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Speaker 1: like those things, It's just like these other vices. It's

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Speaker 1: a kind of evolutionary mistake. And the main motive for

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Speaker 1: writing Drunk was to point out that that's not the case.

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Speaker 1: Our our taste for alcohol and other chemical intoxicants is

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Speaker 1: actually qualitatively different from vices like junk food or masturbation.

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Speaker 1: And it's important to realize that because we can't understand

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Speaker 1: um why it's been so central to civilization with without

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Speaker 1: realizing that that dis analogy, right, I think you you

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Speaker 1: make the analogy partially in the context of saying, there

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Speaker 1: are two major theories about why alcohol has been so

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Speaker 1: prevalent and survived for thousands of years among humankind, notwithstanding

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Speaker 1: its abundant negative consequences. And you see, there's a hijack

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Speaker 1: theory and a hangover theory, and you kind of disabuse

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Speaker 1: readers of both, so say a little more about that.

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Speaker 1: So hijack theories argue that alcohol is just the ethanol

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Speaker 1: molecule just happens to hijack a reward network that evolved

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Speaker 1: for other reasons, and so that's where masturbation comes in.

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Speaker 1: Masturbations a classic example of the hijack. So um evolution

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Speaker 1: gives us this awesome reward, the orgasm, for the thing

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Speaker 1: that it most wants us to do, which is pass

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Speaker 1: on copies of our genes to the next generation. So

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Speaker 1: the adaptive target of the orgasm is reproductive sex, and

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Speaker 1: yet humans and other organisms have figured out all sorts

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Speaker 1: of wildly nonreproductive ways to get that reward. So that's

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Speaker 1: a classic hijack. We're getting the reward even though we're

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Speaker 1: not doing the thing it's supposed to be. For the

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Speaker 1: reason evolution lets us get away with that is because

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Speaker 1: it's not very costly. Despite what you might have been

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Speaker 1: told when you were younger, masturbation doesn't cause you to

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Speaker 1: go blind. It's pretty physiologically negligible in terms of its cost,

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Speaker 1: and the basic system works right. Um evolution is not

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Speaker 1: into perfection, it's into a broke don't fix it. So

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Speaker 1: this is it works well enough um the other type.

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Speaker 1: So that's the dominant story. If you open a psych

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Speaker 1: one on one textbook. It's going to tell you that's

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Speaker 1: why we we like to drink this this hijack theory.

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Speaker 1: Um mismatches are a different type of evolutionary mistakes. So

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Speaker 1: this is where something was adaptive in our evolutionary past

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Speaker 1: but is not adaptive now, and that's where the twinkies

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Speaker 1: come in. So junk food is a classic example of this.

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Speaker 1: So having a taste for sugar and fat and wanting

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Speaker 1: to gorge on sugar and fat when we come across

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Speaker 1: it has historically been a very adaptive trait in humans

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Speaker 1: because those things were in short supply and you should

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Speaker 1: gorge on them when you find them. It really only

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Speaker 1: becomes a problem quite very recently in history when we

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Speaker 1: live in these affluent industrial societies where we have access

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Speaker 1: to twinkies and junk food and all sorts of bad things,

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Speaker 1: and it's very costly, So unlike masturbation, it's actually very

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Speaker 1: bad physiologically. It's to obesity and diabetes and all these problems.

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Speaker 1: But it's a very recent problem and it's still not universal,

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Speaker 1: so there's still plenty of places in the world where

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Speaker 1: getting enough calories is a challenge. So here's a case

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Speaker 1: where um it's it is costly, but it's so recent

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Speaker 1: and geographically localized that evolution hasn't had time to deal

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Speaker 1: with it. So when it comes to alcohol, the problem

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Speaker 1: is it's not like either one of those things. So

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Speaker 1: it did evolve for a good reason, but now things

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Speaker 1: have changed and it's it's not adaptive. So unlike masturbation,

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Speaker 1: alcohol is very costly physiologically, it's physiologically dangerous, it's economically costly.

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Speaker 1: Unlike junk food, it's ancient. We've been producing and consuming

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Speaker 1: alcohol all over the world, um for you know, probably

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Speaker 1: at least twenty thousand years, probably much longer. So it's

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Speaker 1: an ancient problem. So evolutions had plenty of time to

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Speaker 1: deal with it, um if it were actually a mismatched

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Speaker 1: type of mistake. And so UM I argue in the

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Speaker 1: book that given the ubiquity and the costliness and the

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Speaker 1: ancientness of our taste for alcohol, there's got to be

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Speaker 1: something else going on. There have to be some adaptive

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Speaker 1: benefits that are paying for the costs, and so probably

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Speaker 1: the bulk of the book is dedicated to walking readers

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Speaker 1: through both you know, what the challenges are that we

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Speaker 1: face as species, as humans and then how alcohol might

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Speaker 1: be giving us these adaptive benefits. Right, So, in the book,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you make this fascinating set of arguments about

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Speaker 1: why alcohol and how alcohol has been essential in human evolution,

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Speaker 1: and then bring it up to the present day, which

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Speaker 1: we'll get to later. And you also want to say,

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Speaker 1: we could not have civilization without intoxications. And now without

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Speaker 1: understanding the evolutionary dynamics of intoxic in use, we cannot

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Speaker 1: even begin to think clearly or effectively about the role

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Speaker 1: in toxic cannon should play in our lives today. So

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Speaker 1: when you say, you know, we could not have civilization

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Speaker 1: without intoxication, it's a bold statement. Say more about that, well,

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Speaker 1: and there's one sense in which, quite literally, intoxication probably

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Speaker 1: gave rise to civilization. So so one thing I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to flip on its head in the book is the

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Speaker 1: standard story that I had learned, which is that our

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Speaker 1: production of alcohol is kind of a mistake. So it's

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Speaker 1: an evolutionary mistake that we like to drink. And then

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Speaker 1: the fact that we make alcoholic beverages is a kind

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Speaker 1: of byproduct of civilization and agriculture. So the standard story is,

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Speaker 1: you know, we got agriculture, we started civilization and then

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Speaker 1: at some point are you know, excess production. We decided

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Speaker 1: to play around with a little bit and discovered we

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Speaker 1: could make beer and wine and things like that. Um.

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Speaker 1: When I started to look at the archaeological record, when

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Speaker 1: I started doing the research for the book, I realized

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Speaker 1: that the it's almost certainly the case that it's the

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Speaker 1: other way around. So in the book I talked about

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Speaker 1: this beer before bread hypothesis. So if we want to

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Speaker 1: talk about the Fertile Crescent, so the mid East where

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Speaker 1: probably where agriculture first started, we see these hunter gatherers

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Speaker 1: coming together, building this massive religious architecture. We don't know

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Speaker 1: what it's for, exactly what they did there, having these feasts,

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Speaker 1: So we have the remains of feasts and then drinking liquids,

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Speaker 1: and they have these big vats that held liquids, and

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Speaker 1: maybe they were drinking sparkling water, but it's really unlikely. Um.

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Speaker 1: We don't have direct chemical evidence from the one site

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Speaker 1: that I talked about in the book, Gobeck Late Tepe,

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Speaker 1: but we know that people were making beer in the region. Um,

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Speaker 1: we have evidence from thirteen thousand years ago. So this

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Speaker 1: is the Psyche Cobeck Late Tepe is ten tend to

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Speaker 1: twelve thousand years old, way before agriculture we did. We

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Speaker 1: don't have agriculture yet in that region, and yet hunter

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Speaker 1: gatherers are coming together and and brewing beer. And so

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Speaker 1: the idea is that, um, what motivated hunter gatherers to

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Speaker 1: then start settling down and cultivating crops and making them

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Speaker 1: more productive was the desire to make more and better beer,

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Speaker 1: not to make bread. It wasn't for nutrition, it was

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Speaker 1: for psychoactive reasons. And then you know, I look at

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Speaker 1: evidence from other parts of the world that wherever you look,

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Speaker 1: it seems like the first cultivated plants were chosen for

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Speaker 1: their psychoactive properties, not for a new trition. And so

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Speaker 1: that's a sense in which quite literally the desire to

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Speaker 1: get intoxicated gave rise to civilization. It's what caused hunter

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Speaker 1: gatherers to settle down in the first place. You know,

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Speaker 1: you reminded me, Edward. You know, when I've over the

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Speaker 1: decades as I've been speaking around the world around drug

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Speaker 1: policy or reform, and I put, you know, oftimes make

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Speaker 1: the point that there's, you know, almost never been a

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Speaker 1: drug free society and human history, UM, which is a

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Speaker 1: relatively few exceptions, and that if you look about it,

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Speaker 1: whether you're looking at alcohol, you know you have basically

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Speaker 1: hunter gatherer tribes living in remote areas, oftentimes with no

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Speaker 1: contact with other societies, who somehow figure out alcohol. And

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Speaker 1: it seems like you have cultures figuring this out independently,

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Speaker 1: and somewhat the same thing happens with some of the

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Speaker 1: psychedelic plants, and so it sounds like that's partially what

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Speaker 1: you're saying that. So why why do you think the

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Speaker 1: agricultural hypothesis that alcohol came with agriculture became so dominant?

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Speaker 1: I mean, wasn't there enough evidence even before these theories

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Speaker 1: of the agricultural impetus for for alcohol. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if we had some of this data. So we didn't. Um,

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Speaker 1: we didn't have sites like go Beckley Teppe back then. Um,

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Speaker 1: we didn't have some of this more recent work. We

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Speaker 1: have evidence now and very this is very recent of

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Speaker 1: beer making thirteen thousand years ago in present day Israel.

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Speaker 1: So I think partly it was we didn't have the data.

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Speaker 1: We didn't we hadn't discovered some of these sites. But

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Speaker 1: I also think it's um, it's part of this broader prejudice.

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Speaker 1: Or kind of weird. Um. I call it a kind

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Speaker 1: of neo pured in blind spot in scholarship. So you

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Speaker 1: see it in religious studies. So that's my my PhDs

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Speaker 1: and religious studies. And let's say we're talking about ritual Um,

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Speaker 1: we talked about you know, synchrony and singing and music

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Speaker 1: and maybe sleep deprivation or how people are using pain

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Speaker 1: you know, painful activities and rituals to enhance their their

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Speaker 1: mood or feeling of bonding. And what no one ever

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Speaker 1: talks about out is these people are often high as

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Speaker 1: hell when they're doing this. Yeah, and so um, it's

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Speaker 1: this weird blind spot where we're fine talking about piercing

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Speaker 1: and scarification and sleep deprivation, but you want to start

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Speaker 1: talking about psychedelics or about alcohol use, and people get

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Speaker 1: really oddly queasy. I talked in the book about some

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Speaker 1: of the seminal figures in religious studies. So merch Aliata,

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Speaker 1: who wrote this classic big book on shamanism. Um, you

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Speaker 1: know he's got this whatever, seven eight page book on shamanism,

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Speaker 1: and I think he mentions chemical and toxicans two or

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Speaker 1: three times, and always in a negative way. Um, you

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Speaker 1: know this is kind of fake shamanism is when you're

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Speaker 1: using psychedelics. So there's just it's a weird lacuna in scholarship,

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Speaker 1: and I think it has to do with this kind

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Speaker 1: of this odd puritanism where we don't like to talk

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Speaker 1: about chemical on toxicans. I mean, at one point you

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Speaker 1: make the argument fact that it's those societies which most

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Speaker 1: integrated alcohol, including getting raucously drunk, that ended up being

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Speaker 1: the more successful ones. Now I was wondering, as I'm

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Speaker 1: reading your book, do you actually have a decent control

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Speaker 1: group that you're comparing all this too and making that statement.

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Speaker 1: But you provide a lot of good examples of that.

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Speaker 1: So in terms of control groups, UM, the control group

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Speaker 1: is the extinct cultures that we don't know about because

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Speaker 1: they didn't they lost the competition. I mean, that's one

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Speaker 1: of the connections of this book with my earlier work.

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Speaker 1: So I did UM in cognitive science Evolution of Religion.

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Speaker 1: I was involved in a large research group that was

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Speaker 1: trying to explain, you know, what this mysterious thing we do,

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Speaker 1: which is religion. So you look all over the world

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Speaker 1: and you see people worshiping invisible beings and you know,

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Speaker 1: piercing themselves and do engaging in these painful rituals and

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Speaker 1: cutting off the foreskin of their penis and um, refraining

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Speaker 1: from eating delicious poor and shellfish, and and building these massive,

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Speaker 1: useless monuments. So um. You know what really got me

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Speaker 1: thinking about religion in this way was the first Emperor

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Speaker 1: of Chin's tomb. I don't know those people were familiar

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Speaker 1: with this terra cotta army they discovered in China's as

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Speaker 1: the person who unified China. Um massive fake army made

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Speaker 1: out of terra cotta, individually made, each soldier carrying real weapons,

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Speaker 1: and then lots of real wealth was thrown in the ground.

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Speaker 1: Gold and these labor bronze vessels, Horses were killed, people

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Speaker 1: were killed and thrown in the pit, and then they

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Speaker 1: buried it all in the grounds for this dead guy

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Speaker 1: in the afterlife. And I remember when I first kind

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Speaker 1: of learned about that site and realized how much of

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Speaker 1: the gross national product of the state of Chin went

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Speaker 1: into that tomb. You know, I thought this was a

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Speaker 1: period when these these states were in brutal competition with

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Speaker 1: one another. Why isn't the case that there was a

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Speaker 1: state as powerful as Chin, But instead of building a

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Speaker 1: fake terra cotta army. They built a real army, and

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Speaker 1: instead of throwing all this wealth in the ground, they

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Speaker 1: used the labor to you know, build more effective city

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Speaker 1: walls and do practical things. Why did they not outcompete

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Speaker 1: this culture that was throwing all this wealth in the ground.

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Speaker 1: And the answer has to be there has to be

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Speaker 1: some adaptive benefits to doing that kind of crazy stuff. Um.

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Speaker 1: And so you know, we explored how these kind of

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Speaker 1: costly displays and um sacrifices helped to build solidarity and

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Speaker 1: and get people past cooperation problems. And I think the

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Speaker 1: same is true of alcohol. You know, an ancient sumer,

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Speaker 1: it's estimated they took half of their grain and turned

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Speaker 1: it into beer. So they're taking really nutritious stuff that

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Speaker 1: could make into bread and turning it into a liquid neurotoxin. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: you would think that groups that didn't do that would

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Speaker 1: out compete groups that did um, that just kept all

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Speaker 1: their grain for nutrition. And yet that's not the case,

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Speaker 1: because we see that the cultures that survive use psychoactives

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Speaker 1: in this way, So it's got to be doing something

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Speaker 1: for us. Well, let me just stop you one second.

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Speaker 1: I remember hearing reading that if you look in American history,

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Speaker 1: the period when we had the highest levels of alcohol

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Speaker 1: consumption in American history. We're back at the origins in

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Speaker 1: the late at late eighteenth century, early nineteenth century. But

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Speaker 1: that also one of the factors was that it was

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Speaker 1: that turning alcohol into grain was a good way of

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Speaker 1: preserving it, a good way of transporting it. So that

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Speaker 1: you know, yes, there are these arguments for drinking and

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Speaker 1: then all this, and and there's the arguments about it

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Speaker 1: being safer than water when water was impure, but also

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Speaker 1: easier to preserve and to transport. So how do those

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Speaker 1: things figure into all this? So those are kind of

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Speaker 1: in the mix of the various mismatch theories. So one

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Speaker 1: of the mismatch theories is the dirty water hypoth This

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Speaker 1: so um, you know, contaminated water has been a problem

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Speaker 1: for most of our history. Is a species. If you

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Speaker 1: take contaminated water and fermented into beer, it becomes possible.

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Speaker 1: So that's one of the mismatch theories is that it was,

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Speaker 1: you know, our taste for alcohol was adaptive in our

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Speaker 1: evolutionary paths because it helped us hydrate in situations where

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Speaker 1: the water was contaminated. Um. The problem with that theory

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Speaker 1: is that there are lots of ways to to fix

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Speaker 1: contaminated water, including just boiling it. And boiling it is

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Speaker 1: a lot easier than turning it into beer, um, and

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Speaker 1: doesn't have the downsides of you know, the negative physiological

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Speaker 1: impacts that beer it could have. Another of the theories

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Speaker 1: is calorie storage. The problem again, problem with this one

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Speaker 1: is we think while you turn into beer and it

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Speaker 1: lasts for a really long time, that's actually not true. Um.

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Speaker 1: That's true now because we have hops and other ways

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Speaker 1: to preserve beers, but most historically made beer is actually

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Speaker 1: spoiled quite quickly. Like chea cha beer made out of

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Speaker 1: maize in South America, I think has to be consumed

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Speaker 1: within two or three days. Um, So it actually doesn't

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Speaker 1: last that long. When you're thinking about the American frontier,

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Speaker 1: what you have in mind is distilled spirits, and that

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Speaker 1: is a really good way to preserve things. Distilled spirits

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Speaker 1: last for a really long time. They're relatively easy to

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Speaker 1: transport because you're packing a lot of ethanol in a

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Speaker 1: small package. Um. But distilled spirits are relatively recent thing too.

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Speaker 1: As I point out in the book, they're really in Europe,

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Speaker 1: really only seventeen hundreds that we had these. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: once you get distilled spirits, you can now preserve your

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Speaker 1: grains in a way that um is not only long lasting,

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Speaker 1: but compact and easy to transport and trade. And so

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Speaker 1: alcohol really becomes a different type of thing once we

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Speaker 1: figure out distillation. But that can't be part of the

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Speaker 1: story if we're talking about, you know, some behavior that

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Speaker 1: started twenty tho years ago. We'll be talking more after

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Speaker 1: we hear this ad part of the way you also

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Speaker 1: frame this thing, and this gets into i think a

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Speaker 1: little more. The meat of the argument is you frame

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Speaker 1: some of this is a struggle between two Greek gods,

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Speaker 1: between Apollo on the one hand and Dionysius on the

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Speaker 1: other hand. So lay that out for our audience. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so Apolo. One way to look at this is Apollo

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Speaker 1: is the god of the prefrontal cortex. So I talked

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Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex plays a big role in my book.

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Speaker 1: It's really important part of the human being, right, whether

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Speaker 1: it's very physiologically expensive. We wouldn't have it if it

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Speaker 1: wasn't doing something important. You need it to control your behavior,

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Speaker 1: you need it to be ordered. So you know, a

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Speaker 1: Paulo is the god of order, kind of doing things

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Speaker 1: the right way, symmetry control, you know, it's about control,

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Speaker 1: and the PFC is the center of cognitive control of

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Speaker 1: executive functions. What allows you to um suppress desires or

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Speaker 1: um stay focused on a task and not get distracted.

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Speaker 1: It's what allows you to persevere in the face of

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Speaker 1: you know, tiredness or boredom. It's everything that a four

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Speaker 1: year old doesn't have, UM, but that a successful adult

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Speaker 1: has to have. And civilizations need this. We couldn't build

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Speaker 1: civilization without this kind of UM, perseverance, focus, self control,

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Speaker 1: and that's all the realm of Apollo. The friends of

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Speaker 1: Apollo chemically are stimulants, so things like caffeine and nicotine,

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Speaker 1: you know, they strengthen our ability to focus and stay

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Speaker 1: on task. But the Greeks, you know, and the Greeks

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Speaker 1: thought Apollo was really important, but they also worshiped Dionysius,

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Speaker 1: and so UM. You know, Dionysius is the the god

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Speaker 1: that comes out when we thrown the PFC or turn

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Speaker 1: it down a few notches. Dionysus is more like our

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Speaker 1: childlike cells um, so creative, trusting, open to new experience,

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Speaker 1: willing to try anything, engaged in play. Kids are like this,

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Speaker 1: and adults can be like that temporarily when they essentially

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Speaker 1: reverse uh cognitive maturation and go turn the PFC down

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Speaker 1: and go back to being like like they were when

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Speaker 1: they were little. And what's interesting the reason I find

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Speaker 1: Dionysius useful in the book is the Greeks worshiped Dionysius

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Speaker 1: is a god and recognize the importance of both Apollo

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Speaker 1: and Dionysis, But there were a lot were more worried

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Speaker 1: about Dionysius than a followed. He's Um, dionys is a

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Speaker 1: little bit scary. Um. He's worshiped as a god, but

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Speaker 1: they're wary of him. And it's I think significant, and

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Speaker 1: that the gifts that that Dionysius can give you can

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Speaker 1: go wrong if you're not careful. They're often two sided.

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Speaker 1: So Dionysus is the one who gave for instance, Midas

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Speaker 1: the Golden Touch, which didn't work out very well for him. Um.

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Speaker 1: So they respected and worshiped Dionysius, but they also saw

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Speaker 1: the dangers there, and I think that's the right attitude

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Speaker 1: to have. Tour Chemical intoxicans in general and alcohol in particular,

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Speaker 1: is respecting its power, seeing that it's important part of

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Speaker 1: our lives, but also being aware that I can turn

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Speaker 1: you into an animal like like Dionysus. Good you know it.

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Speaker 1: Recently did an episode with a German writer, normanal Or

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Speaker 1: what a book called Blitz about how the German army

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Speaker 1: was so successful, especially in the Blitzkrieg over Belgian, Netherlands

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Speaker 1: and France, because of the use of meth amphetamy and

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Speaker 1: in all their drug use. There's almost no discussion of

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Speaker 1: the role of alcohol um in modern day the value

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Speaker 1: from modern day armies. So say more about the war

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Speaker 1: fighting abilities of of uh, you know, alcohol and why

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Speaker 1: alcohol was seen as a friend to that more than

427
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: an enemy. Well, the crucial thing to get soldiers to

428
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: fight effectively and your army to be cohesive and effective

429
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: is getting people to trust each other. Right. I argue

430
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,199
Speaker 1: in the book that one of the central features of

431
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 1: human life, especially in larger scale societies, is the fact

432
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 1: that we have to overcome these cooperation dilemmas. They go

433
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: by various names prisoners dilemma, tragedy of the commons, but

434
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: the common structure is we we all do best if

435
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: we trust each other and and if we don't pursue

436
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: our im mediate selfish self interest. If we can do that,

437
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 1: we actually all end up better in the end. I

438
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: mean this happens all the time in life, mundane situations

439
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: like helping your friend and move a couch when he's moving. Um,

440
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: you kind of the most dramatic example is war. Right,

441
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: You're literally sacrificing the most important thing your life for

442
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: these other people. And so UM, armies are effective to

443
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 1: the degree to which they can form these cohesive groups

444
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: that trust one another and operate well together as a

445
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: as a unit. And and how do you do that?

446
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 1: You look at one an army attacking another army, especially

447
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 1: in the pre modern period, UM, the first thing that

448
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: comes to mind is like ant armies fighting, or you know,

449
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,679
Speaker 1: you see humans cooperating on a scale that looks like

450
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: social insects and sacrificing themselves in a way that looks

451
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 1: like social insects. We know how social insects pull that off.

452
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: It's because they're all genetically the same. They all they're

453
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: basically one big superorganism. It's puzzling how primates pull that off,

454
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,719
Speaker 1: because we are not one big superorganism. Um, we're individual

455
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: primates with primate biology, and yet we behave like social

456
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: insects sometimes, and the key to that is things like religion,

457
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: So religions doing some of that work. But another really

458
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:11,160
Speaker 1: crucial um cultural technology that we use to forge individuals

459
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: into cohesive trusting units is alcohol and other intoxicans. So

460
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: you know, we get drunk together, we are down regulating

461
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: our PFC, so we um we're less able to lie. So,

462
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: you know, lying or trying to trick another person into

463
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: trusting you when you're not really trustworthy is a really

464
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,199
Speaker 1: cognitively demanding task because at the same time, you have

465
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: to keep in your mind both what the truth is,

466
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 1: which you know to be the truth, and then the

467
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: fake thing you're telling this person. You've got to make

468
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: all your facial expressions and emotional reactions fit the fake thing,

469
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 1: and you have to suppress any that that applied to

470
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: the real thing that you don't want them to know about.

471
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: It's really very PFC heavy task. If you hit the

472
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: PFC with some methanol, it really impairs your ability to

473
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 1: do that. And so you bring people together, you get

474
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: them impaired cognitively so that they can't lie, they or

475
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: it's harder for them to lie or act in an

476
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: untrustworthy way. Your simultaneously boosting endorphins and sarahtonin these kind

477
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: of social bonding hormones that make you feel good about

478
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,479
Speaker 1: yourself but also make you feel good about others and

479
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: feel connected to others. This is how you forge individuals

480
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: into super organisms, and at least temporarily, and so you

481
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: can see why throughout history militaries have used this technique

482
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: for for forging individuals into units and then also giving them.

483
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: You know, the other thing alcohol does is make you reckless, um,

484
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: and that that's you need a little recklessness if you're

485
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: going to be fighting against other people. So it reduces

486
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: um magdola response, it reduces fear, reduces stress, um. The

487
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 1: I think militaries have always seen as crucial, and I

488
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 1: think that's really only changed recently when warfares become more technical.

489
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: So alcohol was crucial when we were picking up swords

490
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: and rushing into battle to fight other people. Um, It's

491
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: less helpful when I'm sitting in a control room trying

492
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: to pilot a drone. So I think that's one of

493
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: the reasons that we don't see it as much in

494
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: modern armies, just because the nature of warfare has really

495
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 1: you know, it is interesting right, because I firstually you

496
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: have this great line in the book that those who

497
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: puked together stay together. I guess that's in some sense

498
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: of good some nation what you just said. But I'm

499
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 1: thinking about the Navy Seals. I think you mentioned them

500
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: in the book, and that's you know, one of the

501
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: great military elite military units in the US in the world,

502
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: but just recently has been the news because of all

503
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 1: the abuses. And that's obviously one where you know, the

504
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: commanders want their you know, their Navy Seals not just

505
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: to survive all sorts of brutal forms of training. They

506
00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: want them to get drunk to bond. But then the

507
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: question is all of that somehow linked to some of

508
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: the abusive stuff we've also seen there or not? Yeah, yeah,

509
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: so they you know, the Navy Seals are on an

510
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 1: organization that's not sitting in a control room by autting

511
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:16,360
Speaker 1: drones right there doing really physical, dangerous stuff that looks

512
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: a lot more like more traditional types of warfare. And so, um,

513
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: I tell that story about this this Navy Seal commander

514
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: who after training would take all the group out and

515
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: get them really drunk, and there's a level of intoxication

516
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: that you get in UM business meetings or treaty meetings

517
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: that's more moderate, and that's you know, dealing with this

518
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: kind of building trust thing. There's a level of inebriation,

519
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: especially once you get distilled spirits, where it's going beyond

520
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: UM so much intoxication per se and becoming more of

521
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: a costly signal UM. It's almost like you know, scarifying

522
00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: yourself or doing something painful. It's the fact that you're

523
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: hurting yourself and you know you're gonna be really in

524
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: bad shape the next morning, but we're all doing it

525
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: together and we're all doing it voluntarily. That shows that

526
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: you're one of the group. So it becomes a kind

527
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: of hazing. It's a it's a form of hazing really

528
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 1: and you can see how that both could be useful

529
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: in building UM a sense of belonging and a sense

530
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: of group bonding, but could very easily tip over into abuse.

531
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: And so that's the nice edge that you're walking when

532
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: when you're using these type of hazing techniques which all

533
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: cultures have used. I mean, there's all sorts of initiation

534
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: rituals that you know often involve huge quantities of intoxic

535
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: ins and then often physical pain or danger or fear

536
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: to get people to bond, and it's a it's a

537
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: delicate balance to get enough of that so the bonding

538
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: happens without tipping over into abuse or arm. Groups that

539
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: don't use intoxicans, either because they don't have them they

540
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: live in an extreme environment where it's hard to make them,

541
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: or they banned them for religious theological reasons, tend to

542
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: substitute other practices that get you to the same place. UM.

543
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: So I talk about the Pentecostals who don't drink, but

544
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: they have these prayer sessions where they work themselves up

545
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: into these frenzies where they start you know, falling the

546
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 1: floor and start speaking in tongues, or they handle snakes,

547
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: so they have the same effect and kind of down

548
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: regulating the PFC and and boosting some of these feel

549
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: good hormones. So groups can use that instead. It's just

550
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: that that's really you know, I think, as I may

551
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 1: put it this way in the book, is it's kind

552
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 1: of a hassle, Like staying up all night singing and

553
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: dancing is really time consuming and difficult. Um And so

554
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: there's a good reason that most cultures are like, yeah,

555
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: we could do that, but why don't instead we just

556
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: sit around and drink beer. So there's different routes to

557
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 1: that state. But then non chemical and toxican ones um

558
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: are much more time consuming. Well, you know when you

559
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: were when you were both when I was reading your

560
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:09,320
Speaker 1: book and then again when you were telling the story

561
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: about how you came up with that opening line about

562
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 1: masturbation and such, you know, into the influence of a

563
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:16,839
Speaker 1: fairly high amount of alcohol. But it made me think

564
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: of some of the books that are out there. I mean,

565
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: you know, there's a book called The Thirsty Muse about

566
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:24,720
Speaker 1: the use of alcohol by famous you know, literary writers.

567
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: There's a book called Opium and the Romantic Imagination about

568
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: how famous writers you know used opium. Uh, there's a

569
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: book called Cigarettes Are Sublime. And of course you have

570
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 1: all the Silicon Valley folks and Nobel Prize winners, you know,

571
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 1: who claimed that their psychedelic experience helped ride on the

572
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 1: insight that resulted in they're creating, you know, zillion dollar

573
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 1: companies are winning a Nobel Prize, and sometimes sometimes cannabis

574
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: gets credit like that. I was just hanging with a

575
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: friend of mine who was one of the leading scholars

576
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: of international relations in the world, and he credits you know,

577
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 1: his occasional cannabis used to being this thing that's given

578
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: him some of his best insights in flections. So yeah, yeah,

579
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: Now I talked in the book about this, you know,

580
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: the there's all over the world throughout history there's a

581
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 1: connection between chemical and toxic ins and creative types. So artists, poets, shamans,

582
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: you know, people who were coming up with new stuff

583
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 1: and and I talked about why that's not a myth.

584
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 1: Evolution faced this design trade off where it needed us

585
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 1: to have a PFC so we could get to work

586
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: on time and focus to things. Um, but it also

587
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: needed us to be creative and trusting and they give

588
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: you things and um. And one way at dealt with

589
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:43,800
Speaker 1: that trade off was by slow walking the maturation of

590
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,399
Speaker 1: the PFC. So that's the last part of the brain

591
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: to mature. UM. It doesn't fully mature until you're in

592
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: your mid twenties. So it's really the last part of

593
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 1: a human to mature. And that keeps kids, you know,

594
00:35:56,480 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 1: flexible and creative and able to learn new things and curious.

595
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: There's good, both indirect and direct evidence that chemical and

596
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: toxic ins are a solution to this design trade off.

597
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,839
Speaker 1: We we have to have a PFC, but with these

598
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: substances we can turn it down when we want to

599
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: and get back to a more childlike state of creativity.

600
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 1: UM and being able to see new possibilities and so UM.

601
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: There's a very good reason that artists and poets and

602
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 1: anyone but anyone who needs a new insight. So you know,

603
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 1: I talked about my talk. I gave it Google one

604
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: of the Google campuses, and I was talking about at

605
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: some point, alcohol and creativity. The study had just come

606
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: out showing that if you've got people about point oh

607
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: eight B A C, they solve lateral thinking tasks better.

608
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: And they said, well, we know, we're taking you on

609
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: our tour. And so the first place they took me

610
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: on their tour was this whiskey room. They said, when

611
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: they're working on a problem and they hit a wall

612
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: they can't figure it out, instead of drinking more coffee

613
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: or smoking nicotine and sitting in front of their computers

614
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 1: and working pulling all nighters, they stop and they go

615
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 1: to the whiskey room and they pour themselves a little

616
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,440
Speaker 1: bit of scotch, and they sit and bean bag chairs

617
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: and they just chat. And that's how they tend to

618
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: um get past these problems because what they need is

619
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: an insight and and alcohol is helping with that, especially

620
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: audience that you mentioned something called in that context the

621
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: Bomber peak. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So they asked

622
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: me if I had ever heard of this concept, and

623
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: this is, UM, I think it's probably apocryphal, but um,

624
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 1: we could find out. We could contact Steve Bomber. But supposedly,

625
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: you know, Steve Bomber, the former CEO of Microsoft and

626
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 1: great coder, um discovered that his coding ability peaked at

627
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 1: this very narrow blood alcohol content, like very specific and

628
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: narrow blood alcohol content, and so supposedly he would keep

629
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:07,399
Speaker 1: himself hooked up to an alcohol I V to just

630
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: be right at that whatever point, you know, zero seven

631
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: eight seven that he found was the best way to code.

632
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 1: And it gets at this idea that there's an optimal

633
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: level of inebriation where you're still sober enough to remember

634
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 1: what the problem is you're trying to solve, and you know,

635
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 1: still you have your faculties intact, but you're loosened up

636
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: enough that you're you're flexible, you're creative, you're doing new stuff,

637
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 1: and humans you know, humans know this, and consciously you're

638
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:46,399
Speaker 1: unconsciously we use chemical intoxicants too, as an aid, as

639
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,239
Speaker 1: a tool, as a kind of mind hack when we

640
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: need divergent creativity or we need lateral thinking. Although you know,

641
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: I'll tell you when I was working on my dissertation,

642
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: I would occasionally go out of dinner with a friends.

643
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: You know, I would have a drink or two with dinner,

644
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:06,240
Speaker 1: and then I'd have like a double espresso in the evening, Okay,

645
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 1: And I racically saw it as my speed bowl. It

646
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: was my speed and I worked on two, three, four

647
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 1: in the morning and the ideas would be flowing in.

648
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:17,919
Speaker 1: Might be a little looser in my writing, but I'd

649
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: have the energy that You make a fair bit also

650
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,800
Speaker 1: of the genetic arguments, and you talk about the Asian

651
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: flushing syndrome infect the numerous places in your book explain

652
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: why that's significant. So one counter argument, so you know,

653
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: I say, well, look, our taste for alcohol is ancient,

654
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: and if it were only a costly mistake, evolution would

655
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,760
Speaker 1: have done something about it by now. One counter argument

656
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:49,240
Speaker 1: is that sometimes evolution can't fix a problem. Something really

657
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: is a mistake, and it really is a problem. But

658
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: evolution can't fix it. And there are two reasons that

659
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: could be the case. One is what's called path dependence.

660
00:39:57,360 --> 00:39:59,880
Speaker 1: And I'm using intentional language here, but this is all

661
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 1: in process, but previous choices constrained later choices. And so

662
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: a good example of a mistake like this is the

663
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: human back. We have all these back problems because are

664
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 1: our backs are terrible for for walking up right. You

665
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: would never design a bipedal organism with a back like ours,

666
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: But evolution didn't have the luxury of designing us from scratch.

667
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: It was taking a tree living primate and gradually hacking

668
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:29,800
Speaker 1: it to to walk up right. Um, so that's a

669
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 1: path dependence problem. You just you get stuck in a

670
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: certain value and designed space and you can't get out

671
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 1: of it. Another possibility is just that the right variation

672
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 1: hasn't come along yet, so selection can only act on

673
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: variation that exists. And so it's possible that alcohols is ancient,

674
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 1: costly mistake and genetic evolution would love to solve it,

675
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: but it just hasn't had a solution yet. And so

676
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: this is where this is why the Asian flushing syndrome

677
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: plays such an important role in the book, because this

678
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: is the solution to the problem. Um, so you know

679
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: why do people like to drink? What? Because it makes

680
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: us feel good? While the question is why does evolution

681
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 1: allow it to make us feel good? And clearly it

682
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: doesn't have to. It can make us feel bad if

683
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 1: we consume alcohol, and that's what this syndrome does, so

684
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: it's a What's interesting is this is a set of

685
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 1: two mutations to two separate mutations, and they're not linked,

686
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 1: so they're clearly getting selected for for some function, and

687
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: they interrupt our ability to metabolize ethanol. If you consume

688
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 1: any alcohol, it makes you flush, it makes you nauseous,

689
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 1: it makes it gives you heart palputations. Basically, Um, if

690
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: you have this genetic syndrome, drinking doesn't make you feel good.

691
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: It makes you feel bad. And it actually is so

692
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: effective and discouraging alcohol consumption that a chemical that mimics

693
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: its effects is used to treat alcoholism quite effectively. So

694
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,240
Speaker 1: this is a silver bullet. If our taste for intoxication

695
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:07,280
Speaker 1: is a genetic mistake. The solution exists in the gene pool.

696
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 1: It's not the case that evolution hasn't come up with

697
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: a variation yet. Because essentially it's allowing people to get

698
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 1: mildly inebriated, but once you drink too much, it's you

699
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: feel bad. They can't even really drink enough to get inebriated. Um,

700
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,880
Speaker 1: they can drink enough to get um. Some of the

701
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: benefits that are supported to some of these mismatch benefits, right,

702
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 1: maybe micronutrients, But yeah, they don't. They certainly don't. They're

703
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:34,799
Speaker 1: protected from alcoholism, for instance, because they just don't like

704
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 1: to drink that much. And this gene complex, it's estimated

705
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: it evolved seven to ten thousand years ago and around

706
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:47,319
Speaker 1: kind of where modern day Shanghai is, probably at the

707
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,880
Speaker 1: same time as the creation of rice agriculture, so it

708
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:55,879
Speaker 1: seems to be some adaptation to rice agriculture, and it's

709
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: possible that it's protective against tuberculosis, could be one of

710
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: the functions. It's also protective against fungal poisoning, so it

711
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: could be, you know, an adaptation to dealing with storing

712
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 1: grain and wet conditions. But in any case, it hasn't spread.

713
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 1: So this solution to the problem of alcohol has existed

714
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: for probably ten thousand years, and yet it's remained in

715
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: this relatively geographically constrained area and hasn't spread very far.

716
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: And that's not what you would predict if alcohol was

717
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 1: just a costly mistake. This would be like if you

718
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: had a gene that caused people to not like twinkies

719
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: and love you know, Brussels sprouts and eating their greens.

720
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 1: If twinkies were a scourge that goes back twenty thousand years,

721
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 1: that gene would would spread pretty quickly. Um So, to me,

722
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 1: this is a very clear case of where you have

723
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: this supposed problem, you have a very clear solution quote unquote,

724
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 1: and yet the solution doesn't spread. So that suggests that

725
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 1: the problem isn't just a album, right, There must be

726
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: adaptive benefits that are coming along with it. M hm.

727
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 1: So you say about alcohol, on the one hand, you

728
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: see alcohol is more like a pharmacological hand grenade. You

729
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 1: also describe it as the king of intoxicainst and the

730
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: perfect drug. Now you've talked about some of this, but

731
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:28,280
Speaker 1: the pharmacological hand grenade is that a good feature? Yeah,

732
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: it's it probably is is a feature and not a buck.

733
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,840
Speaker 1: So this is a This phrase comes from Stephen Brown.

734
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:37,320
Speaker 1: The Journal with Stephen Brown. He's the one who coined

735
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:40,799
Speaker 1: the term pharmacological hand grenade UM, and he compares that

736
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: with lasers. You know, the LSD or cocaine is like

737
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: a laser. It's going in and doing a very specific

738
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: things to the brain. Alcohols um pressing several different regions

739
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: of the brain while it's simultaneously rapping up sarahtonin and

740
00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: doorphins and so giving. It's a stimulant in various way.

741
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,280
Speaker 1: Is this seems to be this mix of effects seems

742
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: to be a feature of alcohol. UM. I think if

743
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 1: I could revise the book, I wouldn't call alcohol the

744
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 1: perfect drug. I would call it the least bad drug.

745
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 1: UM in the sense that it's not perfect. But if

746
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: you gave a cultural engineering team some design specs, you know,

747
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:28,720
Speaker 1: you said, look, we need we need it intoxican because

748
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,799
Speaker 1: we want to down regulate the PFC, we want to

749
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: up regulate these hormones. It's got to be easy to make.

750
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,240
Speaker 1: You should be able to make it out of anything.

751
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: It should be easy to discover. It should have consistent

752
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:48,280
Speaker 1: cognitive effects across individuals. It should have a short half life.

753
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: There's got to be a mechanism in the body to

754
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: break it down and get it out pretty quickly, so

755
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 1: you can get back to normal quickly. It's got to

756
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: be easy to dose if you gave them this whole

757
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: list of things you need. Did alcohols pretty much the

758
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 1: ideal solution to these problems. But it's not ideal. I mean,

759
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: alcohol would be the perfect drug, I think, if it

760
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: did everything that it does, but it wasn't physically addictive

761
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: and it wasn't so physiologically harmful. Let's take a break

762
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 1: here and go to an ad. A lot of the

763
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 1: books about the benefits of moderate drinking and bonding, but

764
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: it's also in part about the benefits right of getting

765
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 1: drunk um both historically. You know, you talk about the

766
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: Vikings and they're great drunk fests, and how much massive

767
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:52,919
Speaker 1: about alflaking. You get how incredibly successful they were for many,

768
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:55,800
Speaker 1: many centuries um, and you bring it up to the present.

769
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:59,280
Speaker 1: But I do think that's an important role that alcohol plays,

770
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 1: like assist friendships. The guys I've been friends with since

771
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 1: college forty years ago, you know, are the ones I've

772
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 1: probably got the drunkest with, and those are the ones

773
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 1: where it kind of got in, you know, the the

774
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:11,880
Speaker 1: inhibitions you have as a young man in your twenties

775
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:14,839
Speaker 1: about sharing very intimate stuff. I mean, we broke through

776
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 1: talking about stuff like that in a way that bonded us. Unfortunately,

777
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 1: none of us actually shouldn't say one of us Will

778
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: already showed signs of it and eventually did become an

779
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:26,880
Speaker 1: alcoholic and died of his alcoholism in his fifties. Um,

780
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: you know, the one British member of our of this,

781
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:30,799
Speaker 1: but all the others it was I think a really

782
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 1: very substantial in that benefits. Yeah. One of the anecdotes

783
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 1: that I ended up taking out of the book, UM

784
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: was about that. So it was a good friend of mine,

785
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:41,840
Speaker 1: very old friend of mine who um I had a

786
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:43,879
Speaker 1: bit of a falling out with. We were going through

787
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: a tough period and the breakthrough was this was actually

788
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:51,359
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, so it was remote. It was over

789
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: zoom um. But we got really really drunk unzoomed together

790
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: and he was finally, you know, we got to a

791
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: level of in abriation where he could tell me what

792
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: he was so angry about, and I was in a

793
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: receptive state of mind where I could, you know, grasp

794
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 1: why he was upset and apologize sincerely, you know, and

795
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: really feel sorry. And you know, we were able to

796
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: share emotions I think you know, particularly men um use

797
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:24,400
Speaker 1: this in their friendships because it's not for whatever reason,

798
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:28,080
Speaker 1: whether it's a genuine genetic gender difference or if it's

799
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 1: just because of cultural norms. Um, sharing emotions is not

800
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: something we tend to do. Hell, you know, you do

801
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 1: make me think that. You know, I have to say

802
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 1: alcohol play that pivotal role from me in my twenties. Um,

803
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 1: but once I got into my thirties and forties, it

804
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: was displaced in that regard by M D m A. Okay,

805
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 1: I mean in M d A just pivotal in terms

806
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:49,800
Speaker 1: of being able to talk about things that are difficult

807
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 1: to talk about, being able to listen to things that

808
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:56,040
Speaker 1: are difficult to listen about. Um. Now my can't do

809
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: with the frequency of alcohol, which then again maybe a

810
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: benefit in some regards. But it's an interesting thing that

811
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: alcohol and m D m A do share in comic times. Yeah,

812
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: and and for similar physiological reasons right there, Um they're ramping.

813
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:11,799
Speaker 1: I mean, M D M A is a stimulant, but

814
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: it's got that Um it's it's flooding you with serotonin,

815
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: right You're just feeling so good, Um that it's it

816
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 1: has a similar kind of expansive. You get that similar

817
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 1: type of expansiveness that you get can get with alcohol,

818
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: but in a much more targeted way. Um so yeah,

819
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 1: I mean that's the I think in a in a

820
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 1: kind of healthy grown up life, we'd understand what what

821
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:44,279
Speaker 1: various chemical intoxicants are good for and what their various

822
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:48,239
Speaker 1: you know, downsides or dangers are, and figure out a

823
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:51,399
Speaker 1: strategy for using them when appropriate. And I think those

824
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:53,320
Speaker 1: of us who are thoughtful and knowledgele with this managed

825
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: to do an individual level the the great challenges on

826
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: the societal level, which brings us more fully into the present,

827
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:03,319
Speaker 1: which we've alluded to and come to occasionally. But you know,

828
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: there's two things going on your book about the present time.

829
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:11,320
Speaker 1: I mean, one is you're basically offering a fundamental challenge

830
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: to the kind of neo prohibitionist uh you know thinking

831
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:17,200
Speaker 1: and mindset that's out there. And you know, you you

832
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 1: reference the the study that came out in the British

833
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: journal The Lancet in eighteen, the punchline of which was

834
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 1: the safest level of drinking is none, and you dismissed,

835
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 1: don't know, called it terrible or stupid or something like that,

836
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: with which I thoroughly agree. And it's notable that a

837
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 1: new study just came out of the Lancet in the

838
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 1: last few months in which they acknowledge the potential benefits

839
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:43,760
Speaker 1: of moderate drinking, especially among older people, only among zero

840
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:47,319
Speaker 1: benefit if you're under forty. Yeah. And then I see that,

841
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: you know, you're an American living in Canada now, and

842
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: I see that the Center for a Substance Abuse and

843
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 1: Addiction in Canada just came out of recommendations in September,

844
00:50:56,719 --> 00:51:00,480
Speaker 1: you know, basically saying, you know, not that drink down

845
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: almost to the floor. I mean a very not fully prohibitionists,

846
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:08,400
Speaker 1: but quasi prohibitionist stake. And so you express your exasperation

847
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 1: about all of that, and you know, it's pulling out

848
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 1: the benefits of the office part and all that. But

849
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 1: then there's the flip side, and it's your last chapter, right,

850
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 1: which I think you called distillation and isolation, and this

851
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: is just talking about all the harms of alcohol and

852
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:24,319
Speaker 1: what's wrong with alcohol and the fact that we've now

853
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:26,879
Speaker 1: moved not just from being winded but to distilled liquors.

854
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 1: And part of me was thinking, okay, you know, still

855
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 1: just trying to cover his ass here, he's already done

856
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: a celebration of alcohol, you know, but but and so.

857
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:38,319
Speaker 1: But then you make an argument about how distillation and

858
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 1: isolation may have changed the game, and that maybe even

859
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 1: that old um I can't remember as the hijacker hangover

860
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: theory may have some application that we haven't quite yet

861
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,200
Speaker 1: figured out in terms of the future distilled liquors. So

862
00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 1: lay that out about isolation and distillation and the problems

863
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:58,240
Speaker 1: there um for our listeners. Yeah, so the distillation first.

864
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:03,720
Speaker 1: So for almost all of our history with alcohol, we've

865
00:52:03,719 --> 00:52:09,319
Speaker 1: been drinking naturally fermented beverages, and alcoholic beverages come with

866
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 1: a kind of built in safety feature, which is that

867
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 1: they just can't get much stronger than a certain level

868
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 1: because you know, the easter producing alcohol and at a

869
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 1: certain point they poison themselves. They are more resistant than

870
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 1: the bacteria are, right, So they're they're engaging in biological

871
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 1: warfare against these bacteria that are that are very susceptible

872
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:33,480
Speaker 1: to alcohol. They're tougher, but they're not infinitely tough. And

873
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: we've been breeding east to get tougher and tougher so

874
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:39,239
Speaker 1: we can make stronger and stronger beers and wines. But

875
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: for most of our evolutionary history, the alcohol content of

876
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 1: of these beverages was capped at a pretty low level.

877
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,359
Speaker 1: So the beers we were drinking, we're coming in about

878
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 1: two to three percent ABV, and fruit wines a bit higher,

879
00:52:55,640 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: but probably eight nine maybe ten pc a BV. So

880
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: those are relatively safe delivery vehicles for ethanol. They're delivering

881
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 1: ethanol to our bodies at a rate that we can

882
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: kind of deal with. And especially like if you're drinking

883
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:16,319
Speaker 1: at two to three pc a b V beer and

884
00:53:16,400 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: you're a fully grown adult, you can drink that all

885
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: day long and never get beyond point eight or so

886
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 1: b a c. But what were those Vikings drinking at

887
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 1: those festival as a line you had from Sunday story

888
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 1: and they died with a cup in their hands or something. Yeah,

889
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,360
Speaker 1: they were drinking meat, they were drinking meds um that

890
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 1: we're getting up to slightly higher alcohol level, and they

891
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 1: were just heroically drinking massive quantities of it. I mean,

892
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 1: it is physically possible, it's just challenging. You've got to

893
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 1: basically be drinking constantly to get really drunk on things

894
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 1: like that. Then, relatively recently so um in Europe, not

895
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: until the sixteen hundreds or seventeen hundreds, which in you know,

896
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:00,839
Speaker 1: the story I'm telling is basically, yesterday, we figure out

897
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 1: how to disable the safety feature of naturally fermented beverages

898
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 1: by distilling them. Um, so we pull the alcohol off

899
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: and we could then produce these incredibly concentrated distilled liquors. So, um,

900
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:17,440
Speaker 1: you know, you can get vodkas that come in in

901
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:21,239
Speaker 1: the nineties in terms of a BV percentage, and so

902
00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:23,760
Speaker 1: part of my argument is this is a novel form

903
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: of alcohol that's so much more powerful it really should

904
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 1: be considered a different drug, and it's much much more dangerous.

905
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 1: You can, um, you know, the sweet spot, let's say

906
00:54:34,680 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 1: is point oh eight b a c Uh. You're drinking

907
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 1: two to three percent beer. You can drink that at

908
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:42,759
Speaker 1: a moderate pace all day long and kind of stay

909
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:45,759
Speaker 1: at point away. You're doing shots of vodka, you just

910
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:49,799
Speaker 1: blow right past point oh eight into levels where you're

911
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:54,840
Speaker 1: blacking out and you know, potentially killing yourself, um quite quickly.

912
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 1: So we now have access to a much much more

913
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:02,759
Speaker 1: powerful form of alcohol that's order of magnitudes more powerful

914
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:05,239
Speaker 1: than anything we've had to deal with before. Um. So

915
00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:10,399
Speaker 1: that's distillation. Isolation refers to the fact that historically our

916
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 1: alcohol consumption has always been social. Having private access to

917
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:20,400
Speaker 1: alcohol is almost unheard of in most societies, and every

918
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 1: society that I know of that uses alcohol surrounds its

919
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:31,280
Speaker 1: consumption with various formal and informal rituals that help individuals

920
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:34,319
Speaker 1: to control their consumption. So I talked about, you know,

921
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: the Greek Symposium wine party, where the symposi arc was

922
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,280
Speaker 1: in charge of mixing you know, the wine to water ratio,

923
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,040
Speaker 1: and you only drank when the thing got passed around

924
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:46,440
Speaker 1: by the symposi arc so they could control the pace

925
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: of drinking. In Chinese banquets, you don't drink it will.

926
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: You can only drink when someone makes a toast, and

927
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,439
Speaker 1: then whoever is in charge of making toasts is um

928
00:55:56,520 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: strictly at least traditionally regulated by ritual. So these are

929
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:05,040
Speaker 1: all ways we control alcohol consumption, and even in what

930
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 1: seemed like completely unstructured modern situations. So you go to

931
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: the pub with your friends if you're typically drinking in rounds,

932
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:16,959
Speaker 1: so you know, if you drink too quickly, you've gotta

933
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:19,920
Speaker 1: wait toward your next drink until we're all done. And

934
00:56:20,080 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 1: the bar keep could not make eye contact with you

935
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:25,160
Speaker 1: if they're worried about how quickly you're drinking. There's all

936
00:56:25,200 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: these ways when we're drinking in groups that we can

937
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:31,920
Speaker 1: moderate each other's behavior. Once you can go to a

938
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: drive through liquor store and load up your SUV with

939
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:38,840
Speaker 1: a case of vodka and drive at home and have

940
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:42,239
Speaker 1: all this, you know, enough alcohol in your house to

941
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:46,160
Speaker 1: kill a village full of people, and you're alone, and

942
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 1: you can just consume that whenever you want. That's a

943
00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:54,279
Speaker 1: really new, evolutionarily novel situation, and a quite dangerous one

944
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:59,120
Speaker 1: because I don't think we're well equipped to moderate our

945
00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 1: alcohol concer emption by ourselves. We need social help. Um

946
00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 1: And I think you know a natural experiment that showed

947
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: this is the pandemic. You know, it's it's a great

948
00:57:10,760 --> 00:57:13,239
Speaker 1: natural experiment. Hey, let's see what happens if we don't

949
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 1: let people leave the house anymore, but we still give

950
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 1: them as much alcohol as they want. What's going to happen?

951
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: And what happened was people problem drinking became really, really serious.

952
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:27,200
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of people who are still

953
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:30,280
Speaker 1: struggling with with the aftermath of that, trying to get

954
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:35,120
Speaker 1: back to sustainable levels of consumption. After indulging. Yeah, I

955
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 1: mean you quote the aforementioned Dwight Heath once again, the

956
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 1: Brown University anthropologist is talking about one of the greatest

957
00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:45,919
Speaker 1: indicators of a problem drinking is drinking alone. Yeah, right,

958
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:47,920
Speaker 1: more than almost anything else. And you also make the

959
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 1: point that America is particularly bad in this regard. I mean,

960
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:55,320
Speaker 1: you contrast the Southern European drinking culture, which you know,

961
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:58,360
Speaker 1: drinking you know, wine and beer with food, and you

962
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:01,240
Speaker 1: with the Northern drinking, which is more about drinking to

963
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,600
Speaker 1: get drunk, you know, the skin and Eving countries, Russia, Denmarkets, etcetera.

964
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 1: But then you say America seems to do it even

965
00:58:07,680 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: more problematically in the Northern Europeans. Yeah. Well, it's because

966
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 1: we've got two separate problems, well maybe three separate problems.

967
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:18,640
Speaker 1: One is that we're northern drinking culture. So you know,

968
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:22,040
Speaker 1: this is where you're drinking to get drunk. You're drinking

969
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 1: primarily distilled spirits. Um, you're often drinking and unisex groups.

970
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:30,080
Speaker 1: So a bunch of dudes get drunk together, a bunch

971
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 1: of women getting drunk together. You're drinking two with the

972
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:35,640
Speaker 1: purpose of getting drunk, and the goal is to be

973
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 1: visibly drunk. There's something wrong with you if you're not

974
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 1: visibly drunk as opposed to Southern cultures where we're being

975
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 1: you know, really visibly intoxicated. Is kind of shameful. Um.

976
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:49,280
Speaker 1: It's not not something you want to do in public. Um.

977
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 1: So that's unhealthy. So we've inherited that northern drinking culture.

978
00:58:53,800 --> 00:58:57,120
Speaker 1: On top of that, we have a more serious isolation

979
00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:00,480
Speaker 1: problem because it's more common in America going to live

980
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 1: in suburbs where, um, you don't have a local that

981
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 1: you go to, you know, on your walk back from

982
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:10,720
Speaker 1: the tube, you get in your car at your office

983
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:14,160
Speaker 1: park and you drive home to your house and you're

984
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:17,920
Speaker 1: drinking alone or most you know, with your family around,

985
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 1: but not socially in the way you do in Europe

986
00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:24,320
Speaker 1: or in major cities in in the U s where

987
00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: you have you know, a pub, a local that you're

988
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 1: going to. Um. So there's the isolation problem. It's higher

989
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:34,439
Speaker 1: in the States. Um. And then on top of all that,

990
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:39,840
Speaker 1: you have this weird Christian culture of the Puritans. You know,

991
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 1: these are the first ones that came over right where

992
00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:49,160
Speaker 1: they demonize alcohol and therefore have this kind of love

993
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:54,360
Speaker 1: hate relationship with it. Um. You know, I quote this anthropologist,

994
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 1: Janet Curzan. It's got a great book about um us

995
00:59:57,680 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 1: drinking culture and the problems with it. We're she's, you know,

996
01:00:01,240 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 1: as an anthropologist in the American South, she noticed that

997
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:08,400
Speaker 1: she would go to the liquor store because they have

998
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:11,920
Speaker 1: liquor stores and they Baptist drink. But people she had

999
01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 1: been at church wouldn't make eye contact with her in

1000
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: the liquor store, and she'd like, you know, try to

1001
01:00:16,520 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 1: wave to them, and they'd like look the other way

1002
01:00:18,760 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 1: and pretend they didn't know her. She was like, let's

1003
01:00:20,960 --> 01:00:23,600
Speaker 1: this is weird. And then a friend of her said,

1004
01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: you know, you don't say hello to someone in the

1005
01:00:25,880 --> 01:00:28,600
Speaker 1: liquor store, UM, in the same way you wouldn't if

1006
01:00:28,640 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 1: you were you know, if I ran into you in

1007
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 1: a porn store, we wouldn't be like, hey, what are

1008
01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 1: you getting? It's shameful to be seen there is shameful UM.

1009
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 1: And that's just a weird attitude to have towards alcohol.

1010
01:00:41,160 --> 01:00:43,720
Speaker 1: And so you pile all that on top of each

1011
01:00:43,760 --> 01:00:48,520
Speaker 1: other and you get a really pathological drinking culture. M hm.

1012
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:50,720
Speaker 1: You know, just making me think of a couple of

1013
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 1: the counter examples UM historically, right, so one you talked

1014
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:57,440
Speaker 1: about briefly as the Mornings, who maybe not at their origins,

1015
01:00:57,480 --> 01:01:00,480
Speaker 1: but you know, shortly after the origins, basically are you know,

1016
01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:03,240
Speaker 1: no inebriants. And I guess I'll point out that, you know,

1017
01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:05,840
Speaker 1: there's Mormon tea made from a you know, plant that's

1018
01:01:05,880 --> 01:01:08,960
Speaker 1: kind of feder in it, but I mean basically coffee, alcohol,

1019
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:12,640
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. Yet a very successful um culture.

1020
01:01:13,080 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 1: And then the second one is Islam, which is banned

1021
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:19,400
Speaker 1: alcohol but been tolerant of other ones um and the

1022
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:23,080
Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire was, you know, a very successful and powerful

1023
01:01:23,080 --> 01:01:26,800
Speaker 1: empire for centuries. So is it just that, in fact,

1024
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:29,120
Speaker 1: drinking was always going on and just didn't talk about

1025
01:01:29,160 --> 01:01:31,959
Speaker 1: it like in the South, or was it something else

1026
01:01:32,120 --> 01:01:34,520
Speaker 1: that enabled them to be so successful. We're drinking was

1027
01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:37,000
Speaker 1: not playing a big role in their culture. So I

1028
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 1: think what's happening with with Mormonism And and scholars have

1029
01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:43,640
Speaker 1: argued this is the case with Islam too. So in

1030
01:01:43,640 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 1: the case of Islam, they're surrounded by these Mediterranean wine

1031
01:01:47,360 --> 01:01:52,360
Speaker 1: drinking cultures and they need to distinguish themselves, and one

1032
01:01:52,360 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: of the ways they do it is through these kind

1033
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: of costly displays. So So this is one of the

1034
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:03,080
Speaker 1: feature years of successful religions is that they make you

1035
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 1: do counter productive from a practical standpoint, costly things to

1036
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:12,280
Speaker 1: show that you really believe in the belief system that

1037
01:02:12,320 --> 01:02:15,680
Speaker 1: you're professing you believe in, and also you do things

1038
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:19,760
Speaker 1: that distinguish you from non members. And so I think

1039
01:02:19,840 --> 01:02:24,880
Speaker 1: that the Mormon ban on alcohol and caffeine is more

1040
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:28,160
Speaker 1: like the kind of you know, Mormon underwear and the

1041
01:02:28,160 --> 01:02:31,640
Speaker 1: other things they do that distinguishes them from people around them.

1042
01:02:31,640 --> 01:02:38,200
Speaker 1: It's a very clever, costly demand on adherents. It enhances

1043
01:02:38,280 --> 01:02:40,680
Speaker 1: your sense that you are a group different from the

1044
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 1: groups around you. But it's it's not directly functionally a

1045
01:02:45,200 --> 01:02:48,680
Speaker 1: response to the problem of alcohol. It's a group marking device.

1046
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:51,720
Speaker 1: So you're in the end of this book basically saying

1047
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:55,880
Speaker 1: the still liquors are a real threat. You're a big

1048
01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:58,560
Speaker 1: fan of the office party. You point out how you know,

1049
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:00,920
Speaker 1: you and your buddies having some rinks and a lounge

1050
01:03:00,960 --> 01:03:02,800
Speaker 1: help you get all sorts of research brands to come

1051
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:05,160
Speaker 1: up with great ideas and to bond and to you know,

1052
01:03:05,400 --> 01:03:08,000
Speaker 1: you know, kind of moderate the competition among people and

1053
01:03:08,080 --> 01:03:12,080
Speaker 1: increase the uh the collaboration but are you basically saying

1054
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:14,120
Speaker 1: that when you're having office parties, I don't put the

1055
01:03:14,160 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 1: distilled liquor out there. Yeah, and sure, or be worried,

1056
01:03:18,120 --> 01:03:20,000
Speaker 1: but be more worried about it. So, in terms of

1057
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:24,880
Speaker 1: practical considerations, one of the ways writing this book, doing

1058
01:03:24,880 --> 01:03:28,160
Speaker 1: the research for it has changed my behavior is I

1059
01:03:28,240 --> 01:03:31,320
Speaker 1: appreciate beer a lot more. Um. I never was a

1060
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:35,200
Speaker 1: beer drinker. I'm I'm wine drinker and and and Scotch

1061
01:03:35,400 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 1: and various distilled liquors. Um, but I've come to see

1062
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:44,680
Speaker 1: the benefit of beer and as kind of a delivery

1063
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:48,600
Speaker 1: device for ethanol, a way to deliver ethanol to your

1064
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:54,600
Speaker 1: brain and your friends brains at a sustainable pace. And um,

1065
01:03:54,640 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: it's changed my behavior. So I had this welcome thing

1066
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,320
Speaker 1: for some new post docs in this product drink that

1067
01:04:00,360 --> 01:04:03,680
Speaker 1: I run, And you know, I made the conscious decision

1068
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 1: to instead of you know, ordering rounds of cocktails for people,

1069
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:10,200
Speaker 1: are getting bottles of wine for the table. Um, I

1070
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:13,960
Speaker 1: got pictures of beer. And I don't really like beer

1071
01:04:14,800 --> 01:04:16,960
Speaker 1: as much as I like those other things. But but

1072
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:19,720
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, this is actually a more safe

1073
01:04:19,800 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 1: and sustainable social truck. Um. So yeah, I would say

1074
01:04:23,880 --> 01:04:26,560
Speaker 1: be worried about um distilled liquors. I know this is

1075
01:04:26,560 --> 01:04:29,040
Speaker 1: the case. I think in Germany and some other European

1076
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:33,120
Speaker 1: countries there's different ages when you can legally drink distilled

1077
01:04:33,160 --> 01:04:35,960
Speaker 1: spirits as opposed to beer and wine. Um, you can

1078
01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:38,320
Speaker 1: drink beer and wine younger, and I think that makes

1079
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:42,160
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Yeah, it makes me wonder with

1080
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 1: these new you know, these canned cocktails that are coming

1081
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:47,520
Speaker 1: out now, which I think the alcohol content is equivalent

1082
01:04:47,560 --> 01:04:50,200
Speaker 1: to be or wine, and whether that's going to land

1083
01:04:50,240 --> 01:04:52,400
Speaker 1: up making them more like beer and wine than it

1084
01:04:52,560 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 1: is like drinking shots of something. Yeah, but it's and

1085
01:04:57,080 --> 01:04:59,720
Speaker 1: competing with beer now. Yeah, and if you're you know,

1086
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:04,880
Speaker 1: and nearing something that's deliberately low a b v um,

1087
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:08,600
Speaker 1: that seems like a sustainable strategy. Mm hmmm. Well we're

1088
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:10,320
Speaker 1: just so just to finish off here a little bit

1089
01:05:10,400 --> 01:05:13,880
Speaker 1: more about your own evolution. Um. I mean, so you know,

1090
01:05:13,960 --> 01:05:16,840
Speaker 1: you're you're a sinologist, you learned Chinese, you're writing these,

1091
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: you know, brilliant academic books about ancient China or I

1092
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:22,400
Speaker 1: don't call it ancient, but China long time ago. And

1093
01:05:22,440 --> 01:05:25,520
Speaker 1: then you had a great gause of a care your

1094
01:05:25,560 --> 01:05:29,640
Speaker 1: first of your crossover books before Drunk called trying not

1095
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:34,560
Speaker 1: to Try? About early Chinese philosophers, you know, talking and

1096
01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:37,720
Speaker 1: writing about an effortless way of being in the world,

1097
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:42,920
Speaker 1: which they called way. Did that in any way cause

1098
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:44,840
Speaker 1: you to open up to write this book about drunk?

1099
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:48,120
Speaker 1: Or what was the impetus that was directly? It was directly,

1100
01:05:48,280 --> 01:05:51,360
Speaker 1: it was directly related. Um. So yeah, my my colleagues

1101
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:53,240
Speaker 1: are a bit puzzled while I have suddenly written this

1102
01:05:53,280 --> 01:05:56,640
Speaker 1: book about alcohol. Um, but you know, and trying not

1103
01:05:56,680 --> 01:06:00,200
Speaker 1: to try. I explore this tension in early Chinese is

1104
01:06:00,240 --> 01:06:03,680
Speaker 1: thought that they want you to get into this state

1105
01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:09,600
Speaker 1: called way or effortless action. Um, this spontaneous state. You're creative,

1106
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:13,280
Speaker 1: you're in the zone, you're you lose the sense of

1107
01:06:13,320 --> 01:06:17,720
Speaker 1: yourself as an agent, and everything works out, you solve problems,

1108
01:06:17,760 --> 01:06:21,920
Speaker 1: People trust you and like you at this charisma, and

1109
01:06:21,920 --> 01:06:23,760
Speaker 1: and so they want you to get into this state.

1110
01:06:24,200 --> 01:06:27,200
Speaker 1: The problem is there's this paradox I call it the

1111
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:30,560
Speaker 1: paradox of way or the you know, the version in

1112
01:06:30,600 --> 01:06:32,120
Speaker 1: the title of the book. How do you how do

1113
01:06:32,160 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 1: you try not to try? It's directly paradoxical. So if

1114
01:06:36,840 --> 01:06:40,400
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, hey, relax, stop trying. Um, the part

1115
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:43,400
Speaker 1: of the brain that I'm activating is your prefrontal cortex.

1116
01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:46,920
Speaker 1: I'm lighting up your prefrontal cortex by asking you to

1117
01:06:47,120 --> 01:06:51,080
Speaker 1: do something agentic, and yet that's the part of the

1118
01:06:51,080 --> 01:06:54,880
Speaker 1: brain we're trying to shut down, so it's directly counterproductive.

1119
01:06:55,520 --> 01:06:58,800
Speaker 1: The early Chinese came up with various strategies to get

1120
01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:03,200
Speaker 1: around that, essentially giving you stuff to do to distract you,

1121
01:07:03,200 --> 01:07:05,840
Speaker 1: you know, like do this ritual or sit in meditation.

1122
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:08,960
Speaker 1: But in the course of writing, especially with the trade

1123
01:07:09,080 --> 01:07:11,880
Speaker 1: version of that book, UM, I was talking about this

1124
01:07:11,960 --> 01:07:15,960
Speaker 1: story from the really Daoist text where they compare a

1125
01:07:16,040 --> 01:07:20,640
Speaker 1: drunken person to the Daoist sage, and and they're clearly

1126
01:07:20,720 --> 01:07:23,440
Speaker 1: using it just as an analogy, so you should be

1127
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:26,920
Speaker 1: drunk on heaven and not drunk on alcohol. But it

1128
01:07:27,000 --> 01:07:30,200
Speaker 1: did cause a little light bolb to go off my head,

1129
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:32,440
Speaker 1: and and I thought, well, you know what, you know,

1130
01:07:32,560 --> 01:07:35,640
Speaker 1: if you have cultures that are aware that spontaneity is

1131
01:07:35,720 --> 01:07:41,360
Speaker 1: valuable for certain goals creativity, trust, and yet is also

1132
01:07:41,400 --> 01:07:45,520
Speaker 1: aware that it's paradoxical to to ask people to consciously

1133
01:07:45,800 --> 01:07:50,440
Speaker 1: become spontaneous, what a great work around to find a

1134
01:07:50,520 --> 01:07:53,320
Speaker 1: chemical substance that you could take that will do the

1135
01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:57,080
Speaker 1: job for you. So you know, it's directly paradoxical to

1136
01:07:57,120 --> 01:07:59,280
Speaker 1: try to use your mind to shut down your mind.

1137
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:04,200
Speaker 1: It's not paradoxical to drink a substance that you know,

1138
01:08:04,280 --> 01:08:07,400
Speaker 1: completely outside of your control was doing that job for you.

1139
01:08:07,800 --> 01:08:10,480
Speaker 1: So I started to get interested in the idea that

1140
01:08:10,720 --> 01:08:15,120
Speaker 1: UM cultures have figured out that you could use chemical

1141
01:08:15,160 --> 01:08:20,880
Speaker 1: intoxicants as this cultural tool to solve the paradox of

1142
01:08:20,960 --> 01:08:23,559
Speaker 1: how how you can try not to try So, so

1143
01:08:23,680 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 1: that that directly led to UM my interest in writing

1144
01:08:27,120 --> 01:08:30,240
Speaker 1: this book. I'm curious, you know, your book. I'm curious

1145
01:08:30,280 --> 01:08:33,200
Speaker 1: about the reactions you've got into it, not least in

1146
01:08:33,240 --> 01:08:36,200
Speaker 1: the community of alcohol and jog researchers. I didn't do

1147
01:08:36,240 --> 01:08:38,879
Speaker 1: any thorough search, but I'm wondering how it's been received

1148
01:08:38,920 --> 01:08:42,240
Speaker 1: and evaluated by all of the people getting funded to

1149
01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:45,160
Speaker 1: look at the problems with alcohol and all of those

1150
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:48,880
Speaker 1: alcohol researchers and public health and all that. Yeah, so

1151
01:08:48,960 --> 01:08:54,440
Speaker 1: it's UM surprisingly positive across the board. You know, I'm

1152
01:08:54,479 --> 01:08:57,760
Speaker 1: I'm not an alcohol specialist by original training, but I

1153
01:08:57,800 --> 01:09:01,559
Speaker 1: am a good researchers. You know, I did my homework.

1154
01:09:01,680 --> 01:09:04,720
Speaker 1: I really spent a long time doing the research for

1155
01:09:04,760 --> 01:09:08,240
Speaker 1: the book, and I reached out to a lot of

1156
01:09:08,240 --> 01:09:10,800
Speaker 1: these specialists in the field. I'm still you know, there's

1157
01:09:10,840 --> 01:09:13,479
Speaker 1: still a kind of you want to think of it

1158
01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:17,320
Speaker 1: as medicalized wing UM. I mean, most of the professional

1159
01:09:17,880 --> 01:09:22,880
Speaker 1: academic publications on alcohol or a medicalized lens, you know,

1160
01:09:22,920 --> 01:09:27,760
Speaker 1: it's treating it as a physical problem, physiological impact. Those

1161
01:09:27,800 --> 01:09:31,879
Speaker 1: people aren't convinced. UM. And you know, I still, actually

1162
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:35,400
Speaker 1: one colleague I really respect Randy NeSSI, who's UM kind

1163
01:09:35,400 --> 01:09:40,160
Speaker 1: of the founder of evolutionary medicine. UM remained unconvinced by

1164
01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:43,320
Speaker 1: my argument. So there are people who aren't convinced. And

1165
01:09:43,360 --> 01:09:47,439
Speaker 1: I do get um kicked back from people who say, hey,

1166
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:51,240
Speaker 1: how can you be celebrating alcohol when it's so damaging

1167
01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:55,479
Speaker 1: and you know, alcoholism such as serious scourge and UM,

1168
01:09:55,520 --> 01:09:57,719
Speaker 1: but I think I did you know? So that last

1169
01:09:57,800 --> 01:10:01,599
Speaker 1: chapter about the dangers of alcohol isn't just an ask

1170
01:10:01,680 --> 01:10:05,080
Speaker 1: covering add on. It's at the heart of the book.

1171
01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:07,240
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole the whole premise of the book

1172
01:10:07,479 --> 01:10:12,679
Speaker 1: is this is a really dangerous, harmful substance that cultures

1173
01:10:12,680 --> 01:10:16,280
Speaker 1: have always been ambivalent about, So why do we still

1174
01:10:16,360 --> 01:10:21,320
Speaker 1: use it? Um So, the dangers and the potential downsides

1175
01:10:21,360 --> 01:10:25,880
Speaker 1: of alcohol are are motivating force in the argument from

1176
01:10:25,920 --> 01:10:28,880
Speaker 1: the very beginning, I think, um So, I think people

1177
01:10:28,920 --> 01:10:32,120
Speaker 1: see that as well, and see that. Um Now, even

1178
01:10:32,120 --> 01:10:35,920
Speaker 1: though I'm talking about the benefits of alcohol, it's really

1179
01:10:35,960 --> 01:10:39,560
Speaker 1: just kind of to sit in a corrective space alongside

1180
01:10:39,600 --> 01:10:43,800
Speaker 1: of this. You know, twenty shelves of books about alcoholism

1181
01:10:43,920 --> 01:10:46,680
Speaker 1: and the dangerous of alcohol. Um, we do need a

1182
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,439
Speaker 1: little bit of a counterbalance looking at the positive functions.

1183
01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:53,200
Speaker 1: I'm curious, have any of the big beer wine companies

1184
01:10:53,800 --> 01:10:56,400
Speaker 1: invited you and offered you fat honor arium to come

1185
01:10:56,520 --> 01:11:00,120
Speaker 1: keynote their annual conferences or something, And if so, have

1186
01:11:00,160 --> 01:11:05,320
Speaker 1: you acceptive taking money from them or not? Yeah, I'm

1187
01:11:05,320 --> 01:11:10,160
Speaker 1: actually doing my first one like that in October at

1188
01:11:10,240 --> 01:11:13,920
Speaker 1: the World World Average Association. I think it's a beer

1189
01:11:14,640 --> 01:11:19,000
Speaker 1: producers organization. And I don't feel bad at all because

1190
01:11:19,040 --> 01:11:22,519
Speaker 1: I think that actually I think they need help and

1191
01:11:22,520 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 1: they should get help. Um. I think they've been him

1192
01:11:25,400 --> 01:11:29,800
Speaker 1: this defensive crouch where you know, they've kind of accepted

1193
01:11:29,920 --> 01:11:34,000
Speaker 1: this story that they're peddling something that's no different from

1194
01:11:34,160 --> 01:11:40,080
Speaker 1: nicotine or pornography or cocaine, And you know accepted. Yeah,

1195
01:11:40,280 --> 01:11:42,720
Speaker 1: you know, it's bad, and but it's a vice that

1196
01:11:42,760 --> 01:11:45,640
Speaker 1: people want and so and I don't think they have

1197
01:11:45,720 --> 01:11:49,519
Speaker 1: to be so defensive. I actually especially beer makers, because

1198
01:11:49,600 --> 01:11:52,880
Speaker 1: beer is the best, the safest form of alcohol. So

1199
01:11:52,880 --> 01:11:56,200
Speaker 1: this is a case where my interest intellectually kind of

1200
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:59,360
Speaker 1: overlap with the interests of an industry. I think we

1201
01:11:59,400 --> 01:12:03,040
Speaker 1: need to change the public discourse on this. So yeah,

1202
01:12:03,040 --> 01:12:06,000
Speaker 1: I am. I'm actually doing my first big address to

1203
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:09,840
Speaker 1: an industry organization, and I think the beverage industry is

1204
01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:12,800
Speaker 1: slowly waking up to my book and realizing, oh, here's

1205
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:15,880
Speaker 1: some positive arguments for alcohol. And I don't see any

1206
01:12:15,920 --> 01:12:18,800
Speaker 1: problem with with talking to them about it because I

1207
01:12:19,200 --> 01:12:23,439
Speaker 1: believe in it personally. Well, listen, I I think your

1208
01:12:23,439 --> 01:12:25,280
Speaker 1: book was wonderful. As I said, there are a few

1209
01:12:25,320 --> 01:12:27,920
Speaker 1: books I've enjoyed reading more and prepping for this thing.

1210
01:12:27,960 --> 01:12:30,880
Speaker 1: I think the book is important culturally. I hope it

1211
01:12:30,920 --> 01:12:33,639
Speaker 1: really does get out there. I saw you tweeting recently

1212
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:36,760
Speaker 1: had just been translated into Korean, so hopefully this has

1213
01:12:37,200 --> 01:12:40,880
Speaker 1: a really substantial global reach. And you know, I hope

1214
01:12:40,920 --> 01:12:44,000
Speaker 1: you don't leave the field because you're really saying something

1215
01:12:44,040 --> 01:12:47,040
Speaker 1: that's very important. So Thank you ever so much for

1216
01:12:47,080 --> 01:12:48,880
Speaker 1: writing this and for taking the time to talk with

1217
01:12:48,960 --> 01:12:52,800
Speaker 1: me and with and our listeners on Psychoactive. No great,

1218
01:12:53,000 --> 01:12:54,360
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.

1219
01:13:02,200 --> 01:13:06,040
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it,

1220
01:13:06,280 --> 01:13:08,480
Speaker 1: or you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts

1221
01:13:08,600 --> 01:13:11,360
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear

1222
01:13:11,400 --> 01:13:14,439
Speaker 1: from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories,

1223
01:13:14,520 --> 01:13:17,639
Speaker 1: comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one

1224
01:13:17,880 --> 01:13:23,360
Speaker 1: eight three three seven seven nine sixty that's eight three

1225
01:13:23,439 --> 01:13:27,960
Speaker 1: three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive

1226
01:13:28,000 --> 01:13:31,160
Speaker 1: at protozoa dot com or find me on Twitter at

1227
01:13:31,160 --> 01:13:34,559
Speaker 1: Ethan natal Man. You can also find contact information in

1228
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:38,080
Speaker 1: our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart

1229
01:13:38,200 --> 01:13:42,360
Speaker 1: Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Naedelman.

1230
01:13:42,840 --> 01:13:46,280
Speaker 1: It's produced by Noham Osband and Josh Stain. The executive

1231
01:13:46,320 --> 01:13:50,519
Speaker 1: producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren

1232
01:13:50,520 --> 01:13:54,280
Speaker 1: Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from

1233
01:13:54,280 --> 01:13:58,160
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, and me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is

1234
01:13:58,200 --> 01:14:02,200
Speaker 1: by Ari Blucien and Special Things to a bios f

1235
01:14:02,600 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 1: Bianca Grimshaw and Robert BP. Next week I'll be talking

1236
01:14:17,280 --> 01:14:20,680
Speaker 1: with Boris Jordan's founder and head of cure Leaf, one

1237
01:14:20,760 --> 01:14:24,599
Speaker 1: of the world's biggest marijuana businesses. This is my fifth

1238
01:14:24,680 --> 01:14:28,639
Speaker 1: company I've built, and my formula has always never build

1239
01:14:28,640 --> 01:14:31,760
Speaker 1: a company to sell it. Build a company to compete

1240
01:14:31,760 --> 01:14:33,800
Speaker 1: and be best in class. And that's what I'm doing,

1241
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 1: and I hope I'm successful. But I can tell you

1242
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:38,880
Speaker 1: one thing. I'm not building cure Leaf to sell it

1243
01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:41,880
Speaker 1: to a tobacco company. I'm building cure Leaves to be

1244
01:14:41,960 --> 01:14:45,800
Speaker 1: a competitive in this world. Subscribe to Cycleactive now, see it,

1245
01:14:45,840 --> 01:14:46,320
Speaker 1: don't miss it.