Thread

California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

389 points · 987 comments · randycupertino

alexandre_m · 1790644533 · focus · HN ↗
> while young people are drinking less alcohol due to health and financial concerns
My observation is that gen-z spends less time socializing in real life, and drinking remains a social habit for the most part at a younger age. While they drink less, cannabis, vaping and psychedelics are on the rise.
It's a nice claim to say they are more responsible, but it tells an incomplete story.
1. 1-6 · 1790645754 · focus · HN ↗
  I may be old-fashioned but the substitute mind-altering drugs you're mentioning does not sound like a more responsible pathway.
  1. landdate · 1790650740 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    adventured · 1790651201 · focus · HN ↗
    The parent is clearly implying the more reponsible pathway is: neither.
    landdate · 1790651502 · focus · HN ↗
    i replied to wrong person my fault
    EA-3167 · 1790651643 · focus · HN ↗
    In the real world telling people to make the hard choice you support (such as abstinence only stances) makes a large majority dismiss you completely. It’s mostly self-serving sort of advice that might apply to individuals, but we already know you can enforce it on a society.
    landdate · 1790818681 · focus · HN ↗
    You can enforce it on society, by making it not a choice. Poison all alcohol thats used for industrial purposes and make drinking or possession of alcohol a capifal offense.
    The reason these things never work is they choose in between half measures. You want to stop something you stomp on its skull into its brains are leaking out onto the pavement and then you keep stomping until your whole shoe is covered a bloody mess of gray matter and bits of skull.
    tomhow · 1790842834 · focus · HN ↗
    We've banned this account. Please stop registering accounts to break the guidelines with.
    tsunamifury · 1790657954 · focus · HN ↗
    You really. Really really. Need to research the temperance movement and the utter disaster that it was.
    You’re regurgitation of propaganda here is so laughably missing the point.
    Downvote me if you want but look it up. The temperance movement and prohibition that followed was run by wealthy women who filled their time judging the lower classes and factory owners who wanted to end labor union meetings and continue to underpay workers in horrid conditions while blaming alcohol as the problem.
    Easily one of americas worst decisions and propaganda people like you still believe to this day.
    qmr · 1790663944 · focus · HN ↗
    Stop saying accident when you really mean crash. Especially in the context of drunk driving.
    Drunk driving is a conscious decision, not an accident.
    lh712 · 1790673263 · focus · HN ↗
    But that is also because it has been used much more often than other drugs. Don't get me wrong, I agree that alcohol has some very bad effects. But if you ban (or decrease consumption of) alcohol, but that gets compensated by an increase in the usage of other drugs (which I am not saying is inevitable), you might be trading a bad situation for something far worse.
    A personal anecdote. My extended family has a long history of substance abuse and addiction. Of course, historically the substance so abused has mostly been alcohol (and tobacco, but that is less harmful in this kind of sense), and I saw [both first-hand and second-hand] a lot of direct and indirect effects of it that were very harmful and destructive. But recently, with another family member, I also saw first-hand the effects of addiction to another drug, methamphetamine, with induced psychosis, and I would choose dealing with an alcohol addict over this a thousand times. At least an alcohol addict is unlikely to suddenly decide to murder you, or to jump out of window, or any such mad move, just because some demons tell them or they suddenly realize that you have been an alien or a reptilian all along, or any similar crazy thing [which is actually pretty horrific when you face it in a real life from a close person]. A drunk person is also much more easily defeated physically than somebody who is high on meth and has some psychotic episode. [Though I am aware that alcohol caused or catalyzed many violent attack and murders too, I am not trying to trivialize that.]
    mrob · 1790677309 · focus · HN ↗
    >alcohol's main mechanism is through depleting oxygen in the blood
    Blood oxygen is quickly and cheaply measured with a pulse oximeter, which shows this to be false. The primary mechanism of action of ethanol is increasing the sensitivity of some GABA receptors (similar to benzodiazepines and barbiturates). But ethanol has very complex pharmacology, which a huge number of other targets. See:
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacology_of_ethanol" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacology_of_ethanol
    lh712 · 1790682952 · focus · HN ↗
    Yup. That original post had several factual errors.
    I am not a supporter of alcohol, but I find it kind of funny when some people demonize alcohol (which I agree is bad for one's health and has many negative externalities, but which has been used by our societies for millennia and its effects are relatively well understood, at least phenomenologically from extensive experience) and drop it in favor of much less understood and often much more dangerous drugs.
    landdate · 1790818164 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't use drugs, and if you are implying weed then you are out of your mind. I think weed should stay illegal as should all psychedelics. Don't put me in a box, I just despise alcohol because most other dangerously evil drugs aren't tolerated. Seeing people drink alcohol is like seeing someone on a crack pipe. Its wrong and disgusting and normal people are enranged at this intolerable behavior. Forced rehab for all alchys, druggies, and the like.
    Worst is all the nonsense that infiltrates society because of alcohol. How many people claiming rape or raping or whatever or bar fights or swerving jnto the road killing innocent people. Its a big mess and I am sick of this. No more. If you drink I don't care if you get water boarded, I will walk right past you, no sympathy except for those who seek help.
    lh712 · 1790863018 · focus · HN ↗
    I did not mean to imply anything about you specifically. I understand that it might have sounded that way, and for that I apologize.
    As for other points, I think you take that too emotionally for your own good. (It just clouds the judgement.) And this I am saying as somebody who (1) does not use drugs, and drinks alcohol very rarely, and (2) experienced negative externalities of drugs and alcohol abuse by other people firsthand, to quite an extreme level actually.
    To be honest, in principle, if done correctly, I would not be against banning and eradicating all (non-medicinal and non-scientific) use of drugs including alcohol. But one should keep in mind that these substances also play some beneficial roles in society (and for individuals). Among other things, they serve as a valve that allows people to "release pressure", and numb their dissatisfaction with circumstances of their life. In this way, the increase in the substance abuse is an indicator of wider dysfunction in our societies (although it is by no means directly related to it, since there are other factors). You close that valve completely, and the pressure might get released in way that is even more destructive.
    landdate · 1790751194 · focus · HN ↗
    Okay whatever, but the point is ut decreases oxygen to the brain and causes permanent brain damage.
    fragmede · 1790755680 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't drink alcohol if you don't want to, you can just say no. It doesn't cause permanent brain damage by decreasing oxygen to the brain though. The damage to the brain by alcohol from frequent repeated exposure to high doses which causes measurable brain damage comes from chemical effects. An occasional beer really isn't going to destroy your brain.
    landdate · 1790766151 · focus · HN ↗
    Okay, but you missed my larger point which was the deaths and violence and rape and crime caused by alcohol. If you alchys want to drink it should be far away from good law respecting citizens and you cant call the police if you get hurt while drinking or utilize the hralth care system.
    fragmede · 1790769923 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not sure why you're making it personal and calling me an "alchy". Who are you really arguing with here? I'm not whoever wronged you, I'm just pointing out that it's not oxygen deprivation that causes brain damage from alcohol.
    landdate · 1790814032 · focus · HN ↗
    I get your point, but your missing mine. "He killed over a hundred people and also raped women and children" "Actually he didn't rape women, he only raped children." "okay he didn't rape women but anybody who supports him should die" "woah buddy why do you think i should die"
    obviously not to that level, but we are ralking about a serial killer of hundreds of thousands if not millions and untold amounts of rape and serious injury/accidents. i was wrong on one account but lets keep on the subject.
    landdate · 1790814287 · focus · HN ↗
    Regardless your prior claim about one berr not causing brain damage is categorically false. While I was wronf about mechanism its true, even drinking in moderation causes brain damage.
    <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/alcohol-even-in-moderation-could-harm-your-brain" rel="nofollow">https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/alcohol-even-in...

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