#39: Alcohol, Penis Envy, Plate-Licking | Robert Sapolsky Father-Offspring Interviews

[@eristic1281]

We have another reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving - the Sapolskys are on KZbin. Special thanks to Robert and Rachel!

[@thomasmaddox5638]

I have read every book by Prof Sapolsky and listened to every interview with on Determinism, etc. ... and watched every lecture of his more than twice+ ... BUT every time I hear one of these sessions, I always pick up something new, which is exactly what I have been searching for... Luck, or 'amor fati'.

[@agaelliot]

wow some people in your life must not recognize you...

[@francoisperrin7397]

Your dedication is remarkable! I guess you've tried sharing Sapolsky's teaching with people in your community. Can you share with us their reactions? Have you managed to detect any enthusiasts about that way of describing life? I'm asking that because most people in my community don't understand anything and quickly become denial.

[@andreiburcus573]

Which book of his did you find most transformative?

[@johnny6868]

A great man at a time when great male role models are in short supply!

[@EricMungai-ri9dm]

I get beard envy watching Sapolsky.

[@waynedexter]

Not brain envy?

[@singing-sands]

@@waynedexter😂

[@Saritabanana]

I adore this channel. Father and daughter. But I must admit that it’s difficult to watch because my father died last May. I wish we had the connection you 2 have before he got sick. I’m 46 and I feel like a little girl missing him all the time. He lived with me. He had frontotemporal dementia then he died of cancer in my home which was special but also fuked up. Happy thanksgiving to your precious family! Xo

[@dankjared]

That golden retriever is going to wake up a genius

[@meee4217]

Oh he already is a genius 🥰

[@TMK1450]

ROFL 🤣

[@monicaveers3531]

The thumbnail of the text "Plate-Licking" over Sapolsky Sr and "Penis Envy" over Sapolsky Jr was pure gold, haha.

[@lubomirdinchev334]

We don't have free will, but we have informed choice. Thank you for the information influencing my choices.

[@jennymhumble]

"Informed choice." I like this way of describing it!

[@yasmintomic]

Being newly 40 something ASD/ADHD, your perspective is certainly thought provoking.

[@Liftergeist]

Thank you for the amazing episode you two, it's always a true delight to see a new one pop up in my feed.

[@tracy9610]

I wasn’t a plate-licker until I got my pupper, Pedro. He taught me!

[@datowiklauri9625]

I love this man. I'm from Georgia and I support you with all my heart. I want to read your books so much that I started studying English thoroughly.

[@tammyscott9664]

I can’t believe this is the 39th episode! It seems like it just started a few weeks ago! 💃

[@tonyburton419]

l have missed quite a number. But that's OK...Will listen to missed ones soon. Better often than what's on TV!.

[@yanademenko9700]

Thank you, brilliant offspring 😅 to bring your genius father one more time ❤🎉

[@julianvanostrand3275]

I am so glad so many people can now experience Sapolsky

[@A3Kr0n]

That was an interesting story of the study about the effects of moderate alcohol use. I haven't had any alcohol this century. It's fun to say that.

[@loner1295]

Oh wow! I realized that is also true for me. Can I steal your line?

[@twistedoperator4422]

As someone who has an older family member who licks plates, against the wishes of everyone else, that question got me.

[@vhs10907]

Dr. Sapolsky is a gem! Thank you for your videos.

[@devos3212]

Really happy that I stopped drinking many years ago. Wish I hadn’t even started.

[@Jukau]

did your brain recover?

[@mcd5478]

Fabulous! I’m thankful for this KZbin channel! 💖

[@jennymhumble]

I love these interviews!! ☺️ I keep submitting questions in hopes that it will keep your interviews coming for a long time! 😄

[@ambrosemalone1151]

Absolutely brilliant talk on alchohol. Loved the chemistry angle. Keep up the great work. In the words of Mel Brooks' Producers, Love it!!!!!!!!!!!

[@phinnyzuril5314]

Hugs and smooches to doggo on the right side of the screen. "Ho hum...dad's lecturing again." Happy holidays to the Sapolsky family.

[@lizlemon9632]

Thank you for simplifying complex questions…free will really isn’t free.

[@zatoichiMiyamoto]

Thanks Mr Sapolsky and thanks for all the variables that put you in my path.

[@TopQuark2013]

So grateful for the generously shared knowledge of Dr. Sapolsky and family !

[@10100110110viktor]

Большое спасибо! Ваши книги и лекции очень помогают справиться с трудностями в жизни! ❤

[@christinley5213]

Hahaha this was great!! Thank you!! Big hugs… love you guys!!!

[@bebe8842]

Keep doing these videos 👏🏻👏🏻

[@Prometheus_43]

Thank you guys, this is both informative and helpful, keep up the great work!

[@bebe8842]

16:00 So true. People shouldn't be upset by this reality. Instead, they should try to understand that it is what it is, and become more humble and appreciative. Ultimately, they should focus on doing good and contributing by creating something positive.

[@seangambogi7901]

Another upload! Thank you Sapolskys

[@human498]

22:12 It doesn't just stop. It takes time and practice, & the help of loved ones.

[@a.bodhichenevey1601]

Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for this powerful lecture. I hope many people this Thanksgiving find this episode and take it to heart. It has been truly liberating, indeed. Keep up the excellent work!!!

[@brianhayford8320]

Well this reframes the entire first 4 decades of my life completely...

[@evodevo420]

Thank you so much for what you said about determinism I really needed to hear that today

[@laugaz]

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for sharing your precious knowledge with us in such a pleasant and entertaining way! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[@drhyshek]

Awesome! Loved it.❤

[@greatedges]

Always interesting. Thanks both!!

[@vicfitz82]

Bravo and thank you for another wonderfully informative video

[@cht2162]

Fantastic presentation!

[@theAmygdalaiLama]

ah, well done. Great laughs re: Freud, and great stuff about the free will thing too. This was always baked into me, that people do bad things but that human life is so complex that nobody is really, "responsible," for any of it, it's all the complexity. It's not an Allistic thought. ;)

[@KeithCooper-Albuquerque]

Thanks for another great video, you two! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

[@aboutdawntoday]

Interesting.

[@joshuawayneyork]

You've never had a sip of alcohol in your life?! That's incredible! I wish I could say that.

[@bobbrian1641]

We luv ya, brother! We cant help it. We have no free will.

[@cindyscott8470]

Thanks so much for this episode Father - Offspring. Always so much amazing information shared freely!

[@ardentenquirer8573]

Thank you

[@poi4ever121]

When I was pregnant I became allergic to all alcohol. I can hardly stand the smell of it. Chemistry!! Take away free wiil- take away most of those people who Love to accuse and Punish. Thank you for your explaining this.

[@bridgham1]

Yippee! More Beard!

[@f.osborn1579]

A great big bushy beard!

[@mozartsbumbumsrus7750]

Thank you both, Robert. And Rachel, the two R's. Readin' Ritin' and Rithmatic. Ok, so my math isn't so great but who cares among friends? Prof, you've furthered my inspiration and curiosity to further study and learn why my life-long conviction is true that serious high art classical music and music-making makes people better human beings!

[@pansepot1490]

I heard that Wagner was a Ahole, very greedy and unpleasant. And from the little I remember of the biographies of other great musicians, not all of them were remarkably good human beings.

[@waynedexter]

It sucks that humans were cursed with having an ego. Just imagine how beautiful this world would be if this weren’t this case.

[@marsthelewis]

I think this convinced me to take out alcohol - we’ll see!

[@mozartsbumbumsrus7750]

I need a drink........of H²O

[@michalsamuel3888]

How does cannabis affect the brain, especially long term use?

[@McGloin349]

Thank you for another episode!

[@nicolasuribestanko]

I BELIEVE Prof. Sapolsky's condemnation of alcohol - even in modest quantities - is not 100% justifiable, as it implicitly assumes humans enjoy an unlimited lifespan. Were that the case, then of course we would want to avoid any damage to our organism - be it ever so little. BUT, since we only live maybe 80 or 90 years, then a bit of modest indulgence can be justified, as it can add much pleasure to our limited lifespan - especially amid the bleakness of confronting our own mortality.

[@OmniversalInsect]

Fair enough.

[@stephaniecok3484]

lack of free will helps us with understanding family members who have alcoholism too to circle back to the beginning.. Since, alcohol is a disease or disorder and then accepting and facts of the beginning of this podcast in which Sapolsky so clearly showed that alcohol is poison and the effect of ethanol on the body is sad but the no free will helps me feel less upset with a family member who suffered this disease and something I had to grow up with and was not aware of except that this person had two personalities angry red eyes and kind blue eyes. Lack of free will has helped me forgive myself and my family and having looked back at the actions by a parent with alcoholism and their attempts to not be that person every again to anyone even though consumed by alcoholism, but processing it differently? Eitherway My parent with a genius IQ and alcoholism, doesn't blame me for having less than 150 IQ, This no Free will theory has made me more compassionate and try harder to understand others and I am so grateful believing it thanks to DR. S.

[@XYZ56771]

Love this channel...thank you!

[@Things606]

Way more people abuse cannibus these days. Would love to hear about that

[@nancychace8619]

That thought crossed my mind, too. With all due respect, I don't think marijuana is necessarily so inocuous. There certainly are lots of problems with how its grown illegally. Pesticides, etc. that wind up being consumed. Even just the implications of how strong it is these days, by all accounts.

[@Things606]

@ it has negative impact on the brain

[@briseboy]

Interestingly Dr. Sapolsky speaks about the exteriorization of responsibility which is so common as mental heuristic in this culture. Freud may have contributed to that cognitive error - his psychiatric career was lengthy, extending into the 1930s from matriculation in 1995. We must remember that his concern was prosocial, empathetic, therapeutic, and that his ideas were shaped by the European culture of his time. Thus, during his informed speculations, like tripartite consciousness in one of his hypothetical voyages, we must analogize, as Danny Kahneman warned us about his own dualistic description of Thinking into "systems 1 and 2." These can be behavioral realms under different situations, as the brain CANNOT hold all its experiences and attributions at once in the social. We must fall back on oversimplifications and distilled responses, but MUST constantly LEARN from the subsequent responses we receive. THAT is a brain, inaction, NOT dogmatic overgeneralizations of some static architecture. These were generalized behavioral SITUATIONAL responses, and Freud did NOT conduct controlled experiment, instead only summarizing (temporarily!) his observations, IMPORTANTLY using some nonscientific and problematic speculations popular during the latter 19th and early 20th century. For better understanding of Freud's mistakes, should any wish to delve into that period when altruistic therapists attempted to formulate a coherent psychology, it would be best tofirst explore Developmental Psychology as organisms have distinct adaptations, develpment into adult a varying process rather modular, as the most important survival priorities are shaped by our specific altricial and obligate social species. Dr. Sapolsky has looked at two similar social Primates, from which behavioral and neuropsychological researchers gain SOME insights into ourselves. We DO have some differences, of course, our sophisticated symbolic verbal communication being the one that most trips us up when attempting to understand reality and behavioral spectra. We acquire limited suites of response, appropriate to developmental stage, when we are first deeply, then increasingly less, dependent. However, humans retain social dependency, as this evolved through better survival rate under both social and trophic-level niche that our species occupied. Since so much response to events is through more flexible proxy adaptation, even into Today, we find social and therapeutic practices having attributional errors, just as we individually make such cognitive errors and remain subject to biases - some individually acquired, many imitated, "learned." [i do not speak from evolutionary psychology, but from comparative behavior, comparative ethology, and related neuroscience training]

[@lpodverde]

The problem is, realizing things are out of your contol doesn't take away the suffering you experienced and will experience due to things out your control. It's only empowering if there is a fix for these things and you can gain control over them.

[@nancychace8619]

Some truth here.

[@diggieb.6724]

there’s no control.❤

[@OmniversalInsect]

A lot of suffering is the result of feeling personally responsible and blameworthy for the bad position you are in. I suffer from some mental health issues, and accepting that it's not my fault because I'm not in control of it is ironically very liberating. Of course the suffering is still there, but it is not as bad as it would be if I blamed myself for it.

[@CashMoneyMoore]

good stuff!

[@jimjackson4256]

That must be one smart dog.

[@nancychace8619]

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for sharing. Appreciated the discussion on alcohol. I once heard that when a person drinks they are anesthetizing their frontal lobe. It would be interesting to hear a thumbnail sketch on what happens to the brain when it gets the proper treatment for this common malady? Perhaps explore a couple of the most common ones. How does it heal? It would help a lot of people. I will enjoy a good glass of wine this evening to celebrate Thanksgiving in spite of it. Dam the torpedoes. Hope you have a good day - 🙂

[@decklanquow9709]

I haven't had alcohol since February 2006. So we exist. 😅

[@Follows-ed7mw]

Since you have dipped into the domain of consumption behaviors in their relationship to health, what about an inventory of the bad effects of overeating on the human body? There seems to be a wide gap between BMI talk and the normal range in that scale and what is considered to be ideal weight which is at the lower end or lowest end of BMI. How important is ideal weight and should we be okay with just the BMI range?

[@kevincfoss]

I think the observed ‘health benefit’ is not from the alcohol, but from the emotional catharsis of doing something naughty without guilt.

[@nicolasuribestanko]

SELDOM will we find such striking agreement between Prof. Sapolsky's views and those of the Bible, as when he spoke about our not having earned our good fortune. I urge everyone to pull out his New Testament and read 1 Corinthians 4-7. Great wisdom there!

[@Prometheus_43]

Indeed, it's almost as if this wisdom existed prior to the creation of the bible!

[@apollo6457]

Robert! Did you know that you get a shoutout from Nicholas Cage in the movie ‘Dream Scenario’ literally paused the movie to comment this!

[@philosophicalmixedmedia]

Plate licking has a cultural component that correlates for example some nordic societies using their bread to soak up the fat on the plate as a signalling effect of being a lower ranking member of the cohort. Can you image a king licking their plate?

[@chintum-d5i]

Sometimes when people become great they discover something which is invisible.

[@kumailhaiderkhan8478]

going to 9th grade biology, what if I hadnt been ever a biology student but now clinical psychologist, can robert sapolsky makes me his TA

[@AdamShaiken]

I was taught and have always thought that was referred to as the first rinse...don't you ?

[@louayfallouh6687]

Liberating

[@glennwallace1365]

Re: alcohol - Kind of puts a different spin on the national cultural phenomena of Russian vodka, German and Mexican beer, English Ale, American Martinis, French and Italian Wine, plus other cultures' favorite poisons. No wonder international relations are such a mess! Does this relate to religious intoxication that also acts as a poison for our brains?

[@reyneva]

[@mrlawilliamsukwarmachine4904]

14:21 what about plate envy 😏

[@user-vi6ro8bd4l]

Can't help wondering about how nfw might look in psychotherapy? Would CBT become obsolete, or recognized as only helpful to those who have the capacity to apply it? How would that be determined? The deeply ingrained/conditioned aspect of individual responsibility to repair childhood or other trauma, even though it's "not your fault", seems like a long leap to being "nobody's fault". How does repair or healing look in an nfw and neuroscience talk-therapy context?

[@jeremymr]

Clearer images covering over the identical images printed on a piece of paper being held up... Sapolsky just invented a new technology!

[@Seekthetruth3000]

Alcohol is a drug, be careful. Good info.

[@JanisFroehlig]

Lots of religious conservatives don't drink at all. There may een be some Amish folks who would volunteer for a study. Take my Baptist mom, please!

[@jamiegallier2106]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@johnc4957]

If you moved your eyes down to your stomach, would your sense of self change or would your sense of self still be up where your brain is?

[@quicknumbercrunch8691]

Brilliant and kind observations. Wish I was spending the holidays with you guys. Robert, after forty five years of work (along with my day job) I figured out how the mind creates thoughts. The fields of cognitive science had gathered all the data. I sifted through and juggled the data until the theory formed. How can I approach you, or someone you recommend, to show the paper to?

[@I-am-Hrut]

You can start by getting a phd in neuroscience.

[@quicknumbercrunch8691]

@@I-am-Hrut The need to go through a doctorate program is what has kept humans from discovering the mind function. Self study allowed me intellectual freedom, and that was essential. I'm not saying that a doctorate is a bad thing. It's great for getting the experiments done to find data. I taught at the NYU Stern school of business for five years and loved it. The Phds I worked with and hung out with and even dated were living in extremely narrow tunnels. They would never see what is going on, big picture. Thank you for cynical condescension. We all need some of that to make sure we are not confident and happy.

[@I-am-Hrut]

@@quicknumbercrunch8691 Doubt it. But you asked _how_ you can approach Robert* or someone he recommends with a paper that you wrote over the last 45 years as a non-specialist in a highly specialized topic (e.g. neuroscience). I don't care if your paper cures cancer, if you don't have the proper credentials then nobody is going to be willing to listen to you-so you need to build up some credibility and probably publish your paper in an accredited scientific journal for peer review before you've got a shot of Robert* bothering to take it seriously. If you're _this_ dedicated that you've spent 45 years of your life on this one thing then what's a few more years to get the credentials to be taken seriously?

[@quicknumbercrunch8691]

Whose Alex? A Phd would make no difference at my age. I was asking Robert for his advice.

[@I-am-Hrut]

@quicknumbercrunch8691 I must've been watching an Alex O'Connor video when I got the push notification that you had responded to me. When you comment as often as I do, sometimes you have a brain fart. 🙃

[@mrlawilliamsukwarmachine4904]

6:44 this is your 🧠 on 🥃 🥴

[@patrickchaney4102]

3:05 What is this massive opioid that looks like a peptide or something?!

[@briseboy]

As to the last question, we are FIRST, NOT exclusively socially adapted. Exteriorization of attribution ("disempowered") has some validity, as we are HOPEFULLY entirely situational in our responses. Some selected adaptations are variably to completely Determined. We ARE limited by our dependencies at all social developmental stages. Even the most common male/female phenotypic variances are BOTH useful and individually variable,. Think how small populations required behavioral flexibility, and some traits are better varied than rigid. To be disempowered in any reality is to be utterly incapable of response. The TERM, then, is erroneous, one of dissimulatory RHETORIC, rather than referring to reality. It is FALLACIOUS to even USE terms that , as the one in question DOES, essentially claim injury , quadriplegia, being"knocked into a comatose state." Humans CAN BE cruel, and what you are really claiming, is that some individual or group has confined, injured, or killed you. It MAY be TRUE in a culture form which you cannot , escape. DISPERSAL is the MOST common adaptive ability of ourselves and other animals. Plants rooted, can only disperse seeds of offspring. Other adaptations exist. One can physically dispute, UNLESS it leads to inevitable loss or termination. Better, one CAN regard oneself as equal and attempt to modify or ameliorate the behaviors of others. When a coalition (and Dr Sapolsky IS familiar with the ubiquity of coalitions in social Primates) prevents one , as in the momentary trend of US culture, the breaking of that coalition is useful or essential to end any ACTUAL "disempowering" injury or obstruction by that coalition. I do not personally recommend making disputational coalitions, but instead, only direct approach to those perceived as "disempowering." You MAY discover that you have been in eRror. Your behavioral flexibility and agility can help you, but you MUST NOT play, even as the present dominant coalition, the role of "victim" which use of the rhetorical term implies that you DO or HAVE been doing. Humans are LIMITED in MANY cognitve ways, which is what Dr Sapolsky appears to be attempting to encompass when using "no free will." OF COURSE you are limited, whether you are so overaroused as to be disoriented as to actual situation, or so unmotivated as not to sense or desire to respond. I have already commented that the very concepts of determinism and free will are TRIVIAL, as even relatively simple dynamical systems having a mere three independently variable factors are unpredictable. IN a large biological population you will find different responses to the same hormonal, physiological, phenotypic limitations. Some are universally nonviable. Don;t choose those. YOU, however ARE unpredictable within unpredictable limits (EVEN IF THOSE LIMITS ARE DEFINITE), even when some significant constraints occur. The entire simplistic conception is TRIVIAL.

[@lf6190]

never had a sip of alcohol in your life!? wow

[@heronheronhero]

I think plate licking has to do with 1. how hungry you are 2. what kind of hungry you are (and how the dish relates) 3. environment* 4. self control strength 5. if you grew up with siblings and are used to racing to eat to get seconds first so you can snag all the asparagus before they do 6. amount of food and time left ** 7. cutlery (and god's given ones) 8. what kind of food it is * the formality of the dinner and who is attending/observing (such as someone you want to impress or look cool in front of ((like Santa Claus)). plate licking/scraping is less of a taboo at an informal setting as opposed to formal ones like a gala or stupidly fancy restaurant . ** sometimes I eat all the leftover sauce and such when i cant get seconds (but want seconds, and/or really enjoyed the food ( or like a stupidly good once-in-a-lifetime cheesecake or something) and have a lot of time to burn before the meal ends (family dinner)) As someone with pica id also like to bring up the estranged cousin to plate licking: eating the normally discarded bits after you've eaten the food ( i haven't a fancy name for it) i.e. the stems on the maraschino cherries, peels of limes, the rind of the watermelon, the paper wrapper of those store-bought muffins, the stem of the lollypop, the stick of the popsicle, metal and paper gum wrappers, starburst wrappers, milk duds box (oddly enough, the pandemic has helped me to curb my pica habits by providing a near constant physical barrier between my mouth and the outside world and its tasty objects. I also thought the face masks made me mysterious and cool to my classmates 💀 )

[@bobdillaber1195]

If we had free will, we would choose to be smarter than nature and nature was too smart to let that happen. So, while we don't have free will we have something better. We have the will to be free. That means we are in a perpetual state of anticipation. And we know from your work that it is anticipation that gives greater satisfaction than reaching any goal itself.

[@thepiper5522]

If I was there, I wouldn't have the power to not pet that doggie.

[@batchint]

robert has holy socks ho ho ho…

[@PhillipBell]

They should have named dyslexia as a palindrome. That way, dyslexic people could also spell it.

[@TontonMacoute]

Test devout Muslims as the control group.

[@AbisolaDamilola5007]

🐣

[@BongShlong]

I mean wouldnt it be easier to find strict muslims for the alcohol experiment? This might also introduce a selection bias but seems a bstter control group than former alcoholics lol

[@briseboy]

The alcohol issue is HIGHLY important and NEEDS massive public reiteration. I have OBSERVED those who use alcohol near-daily, as well as the daily wine-swillers AND the brain-smashing heavy intermittent users (you WILL find the so-called "moderate users WITHIN these groups). 1. ALL alcohol use is Positively Correlated with INCREASED incidence of Cancers - and NOT just the cancers commonly associated - the colon and other gastrointestinal and liver, et cetera, lethal mutations which must be cut out before metastasis occurs in the mutated cells. Metastasis is a common if miniscule occurrence of cells, for reasons having to do with cells and evolution. It need not be gone into in a discussion of the extreme antisocial effects of ANY alcohol use. GABA is a local synaptic signal SUPPRESSOR, and THIS is WHY behavioral changes largely related to impulsive and violent behaviors occurs. Predictive reasoning of probabilities ABSENT from the present situation are, in normal brains, necessarily equipped with GABAergic controls. This is fine, responsive "wiring" to produce the best outcome of which one is capable at any developmental stage, or the myriad of situations which the brain is EVOLVED to bring to choice in novel or long-practiced situations. [and i caution AGAINST using or believing in the term "wiring" as if it were static architecture - The ENTIRE brain, with ALL its associative capacity is NECESSARY to act CONTINGENTLY, that is, able to CHANGE in a time period faster than eyeblink, closing, opening, responding to complex sensorimotor and associative and memory impulses] The DISinhibition occurring in alcohol is one of excluding the above lightning ability to respond APPROPRIATELY. I come from a discipline that includes that lightning selection of appropriate response in other animals, as well as in the few human practices requiring highly refined sensorimotor actions. It requires less than three years of alcohol use to relatively permanently damage this natural whole-brain ability. When I think of the Brodmann cortical areas, i realize again that not only are Executive and Emotional PfC regions disabled under acute alcohol presence, but ALL are : somatosensory, motor, memory, visual and external sensory, attentional capacity. As you know, alcohol WILL kill one through suppression of hindbrain regions, when sufficient presence occurs. That Small molecule penetrates blood-brain barriers completely. Unlike Dr Sapolsky, then, I HAVE BEEN exposed to the individuals who choose to self-destruct due to their failure to understand what occurs within themselves. Among the health professionals in my own family, my sister, an RN who "destressed" through much of her career through use of a glass of wine each day, both infected her children with the trivialization of alcohol. Her OWN ability to coherently function suffered steady reduction, and although to YOUR culture she might seem normal, her initial powerful cognitive capacity turned slowly into that of the dimwit, irrational "functional alcoholic" social norm, which IS causal of MOST of today's fragmenting socicultural sphere. [other defects exist that do not require comorbidity with alcohol use. You SEE this in the individuals who coalesce to seek Social Dominance, in your political sphere. Trump, for instance, developed into a Dark Triad or rather, Tetrad Personality, though HIS use of neuroactive compounds omitted alcohol BUT INCLUDED numerous amphetamine and cocaine relatives. A few of his worst coalitional members, DID show the mental derangement and cognitive destruction of alcohol, but those are the most egregious and known aberrants. Those familiar with syndromes and effects of exogenous neuroaffective agents can see CLEARLY the specific symptomatic behaviors of users. Even Psychiatrists who previously discounted alcohol's extremely salient behavioral effects of "moderate" users miss the signals, and therefore often contribute to the grave error of normalization of these compounds.

[@tommitchell6307]

I'm a huge admirer of Robert Sapolsky and love this series but I happen to know quite a bit about the literature on the supposed benefits of small quantities of alcohol and Sapolsky presents a very partial view here. (1) There is clear evidence of a benefit of small quantities of alcohol in mice and in Drosophila that avoid the statistical confounding problems he mentions. (2) Humans are descended from frugivorous recent ancestors and have co-evolved with alcohol naturally present in fermenting fruit for the last several million years. There are good evolutionary reasons to suspect that our liking for it is an adaptation (which now may be very maladaptive in a world with fermentation and distillation technology). (3) Authors in the field are well aware of the problem of former alcoholics in samples of non-drinkers. Recent studies using Mendelian Randomisation to try to identify the causal pathways linking alcohol consumption to health outcomes are inconclusive. It may turn out that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe but the current evidence does not support that conclusion yet. (4) Focusing solely on safety and ignoring the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption for stress reduction, sociability and old-fashioned pleasure is to miss the point of why most people drink alcohol. It tastes great and gives pleasure. Yes, it's risky and possibly damaging at any level but any life well-lived is full of risks. Booze is just another one that we need to understand and evaluate personally.

[@PinataOblongata]

He described the biological effects. Forgive the reductionism, but there seems no reason to assume something with those effects "might" actually turn out to be beneficial. It seems more like wishful thinking in a culture that already exalts the experience and for people looking to give themselves an excuse for something that feels good, even though it's just deleterious. You can have a life well-lived without risk. You can experience sky diving with a fully functioning parachute and emergency spare. You can explore the ocean knowing which fish are poisonous and what conditions the sharks like. You can get out in the world but still look both ways crossing the street. Experience is not contingent on risk. As for the taste, it tastes bloody awful. The only way people drink the stuff is by adulterating it with stuff that actually tastes good. Any sugary soda is way more tasty than beer or wine or the burning of a scotch, we just tell each other to "develop a palate for it" which actually just means holding your nose and drinking more until what you really like is getting drunk and what you've really developed is a tolerance, not an enjoyment of, the taste. Zero alcohol beverages that mimic certain alcoholic drinks have come a long way, so if people really just wanted the taste and it wasn't about getting pissed, they'd avail themselves of those. It's also incredibly easy to have a fun, sociable time without alcohol - in fact, alcohol just ruins a good time, making people too sleepy to keep partying, too aggro or annoying, making people vomit and shit themselves and be generally unpleasant to be around. It's very difficult to have a stimulating conversation with a drunk person. Sure, feeling tipsy can be nice, but people tend not to reach that stage and then pull back with water or soda, they keep going into obnoxious land. And is that tipsy feeling worth dissolving your brain cells for? Probably not.

[@christopherhamilton3621]

The subject is alcoholism, NOT moderate to mild alcohol use. Jeeez! Get over yourself.

[@mozartsbumbumsrus7750]

​@christopherhamilton3621 I disagree. I think Prof was investigating the effects of ethanol not alcoholism on the brain. He mentioned it in passing, yes, but he's a neuroscientist and neuroendocrinoligist who didn't get into the liver etc damages. Perhaps the AA might be more holistic in dealing with alcoholics? Who knows?

[@untilheaven]

Good point. I feel like his conclusion meets the second half of your point 3: Current findings certainly don’t say moderate consumption is good for your brain and cardiovascular health.

[@nancychace8619]

Stress relief does have a physiological component. Alcohol is also a pain reliever.

[@RichRich1955]

fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

[@GildedImage]

Question: I think the concept of free will is moot in this, but I'm wondering, as a counselor-in-training, about the degree to which a person can curate their environmental factors, given that they've developed sufficient metacognitive capacities and have encountered the adequate cultural influences to imagine such curation is possible, toward helpful restructuring in their brains. I imagine my role, as a psychotherapist, is to be one particularly dynamic environmental factor / cultural influence by which clients can acquire novel and helpful personality or behavioral structure and hopefully, maybe someday construct the possibility of a kind of metacognitive self-efficacy. Is this congruent with your sense of determinism regarding so-called mental health disorders (the correlated processes, not the disease-like taxa)? Can we assume, from involved neurology, a kind of hierarchy of potential responsiveness?