I don't think alcohol as "social lubricant" is unknown in rationalist circles, but let's assume it was. Does that new information update the utility of alcohol enough to outweigh the costs? Statistics on this are still very influenced by COVID, but I've tried to pull data from 2019 where I could find it easily. This is not exhaustive.
Per NIH[1]:
Per NHTSA[2]:
Zvi says “I think alcohol is best avoided by essentially everyone."[1] Tyler Cowen says "I don’t think we should ban alcohol, I simply think each and every person should stop drinking it, voluntarily. Now." I disagree. I think Zvi, Tyler, and others[2] are failing to see the big upsides of using alcohol.
Alcohol helps us adapt to a modern environment in which we benefit from socializing with unfamiliar, non-ingroup people, often in uncomfortable environments. It helps us adapt to our modern environment with regards to dating and sex. It helps us adapt to our modern environment with regards to high stress and weak work/social-play boundaries (this is called “unwinding”).
1. Alcohol facilitates socialization with unfamiliar and/or non-ingroup people.
1a. Socializing with people who are unfamiliar is hard.
1b. This makes sense evolutionary. We have a tribe of familiar people, and anyone outside the tribe is the outgroup; they are by default an enemy or at least suspicious.
1c. This makes “opening up” – having non-superficial conversations – particularly hard, as non-superficial conversations are higher stakes and create vulnerability.
2. Alcohol facilitates socialization in uncomfortable environments e.g. crowded rooms you haven’t been to before.
3. Alcohol catalyzes bonding.
3a. Bonding the old-fashioned way – spending lots of time together, having ritualistic experiences together, going through trauma together – takes a long time.
3b. We are part of many many more groups than our ancestors were; each of these groups needs bonding.
3c. We don’t have enough time to bond with all these people the old-fashioned way.
4. Modern dating requires socialization with unfamiliar and/or non-ingroup people.
5. Furthermore, modern dating usually requires rapid consensual escalation, both emotional and sexual.
5a. Lack of rapid escalation usually leads to “nothing happening”, friendship, or situationship. Consider these dating failure modes:
5aa. First dates that don’t escalate to emotional or physical intimacy.
5ab. Multiple consecutive dates that don’t escalate emotional or sexual intimacy.
6. Alcohol catalyzes bonding.
7. Alcohol delineates work spaces from social/play/relax spaces.
7a. Alcohol is counterproductive for working. This is a feature, not a bug; it keeps the work and social/play spaces delineated.
8. Alcohol helps people socialize and/or play when they’re highly stressed.
8a. It’s hard to socialize and/or play when highly stressed.
8b. In the evolutionary environment, being highly stressed meant that one was actually in danger; there really wasn’t time to socialize or play.
8c. In today’s environment, people become highly stressed due to modern work or environmental (cities, news/media) conditions; socializing and/or playing is often a good thing to do when one is stressed!
The most salient aspects of alcohol usage are: A. alcohol's immediate effects, like euphoria, relaxation, disinhibition, stupidity, and hangover; B. alcohol's long term effects, like general bad health and especially the risk of debilitating addiction; C. deleterious public health effects. But the main value of alcohol is that it makes socialization easier. This value isn't captured in alcohol statistics, nor are they obvious in the way that the effects of alcohol-qua-drug on an individual are. It's easy to consider only the salient aspects when considering the risk/reward of alcohol and conclude that it's not worth it.
More Zvi quotes on alcohol:
a. “I don’t drink, but I totally understand the idea of “I need a drink” and the idea of a time when one can drink, and think those are important even though I don’t get enjoyment out of alcohol and thus save my calories for elsewhere outside of ritual quantities. It’s weird that I can be in the state of “I need a drink” and still not want one; I appreciate the benefits other people get and want those benefits, but I know I wouldn’t get them. Plus, alcohol is kind of a terrible drug and cause of all life’s problems, so sitting non-symbolic quantities of this one out seems wise.”
b. “I am not saying that there are zero situations in which it is correct to drink alcohol. I would however say that if you think it falls under the classification of: If drinking seems like a good idea, it probably isn’t, even after accounting for this rule.”
c. “As usual, I agree with many of [Tyler's] key points like avoiding moral nervousness and abstaining from alcohol in particular and drugs in general."
Raemon asks (in 2011!), "Is there any particularly interesting analysis of *why* drinking is so important to social interaction?" That question and the underwhelming comments partly inspired me to write this.
Evolutionary mismatch is why a variation Gwern's Algernon Argument doesn't apply. The original 'law' is "any simple major enhancement to human intelligence is a net evolutionary disadvantage." Alcohol is not an intelligence enhancer, but a similar argument could be made replacing 'intelligence' with 'social capabilities'.
I speculate there's also something going on where Zvi and Tyler are sufficiently good at socializing without alcohol and/or don't experience the drug in the same way that most people do. This leads them to underrate the social effects of the drug.