Edward Slingerland | Drinking for 10,000 Years: Intoxication and Civilization

Edward Slingerland’s latest research is a deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization - and the evolutionary roots of humanity’s appetite for intoxication. “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization” elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends that surround our notions of intoxication to provide a rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Slingerland shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers.
Edward Slingerland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Asian Studies. Dr. Slingerland is an expert on early Chinese thought, comparative religion and cognitive science of religion, big data approaches to cultural analysis, cognitive linguistics, digital humanities and humanities-science integration.

[@modolief]

8:37 - the talk starts here

[@njvree]

I like how Edward defends the utility about alcohol and raises our conception of alcohol as not just a vice, but a tool. This made me think about alcohol in a different way.

[@kamikazijunebug9546]

Kicking back after work, having a pint and a smoke, and enjoying your lecture😀

[@funny-video-YouTube-channel]

Correct observations he made. Our current civilization is build on Coffee, casual beer consumption and SUGAR. A lot of sugar ! Alcohol = liquid sugar.

[@bacobill]

The number one cause of alcoholism in my opinion is the stripping of human individualism and creativity but that's just my own experience.. And FYI the so-called non-alcoholic beers can trigger any alcoholic due to a very small percentage of 'residue' alcohol from processing.. Very tricky game.. Thank you for this presentation.. and thank you Brian Eno ;)

[@SofaKingShit]

Indeed, clearly what this world needs is much more individualism. Society is simply a group of individuals, exactly like Maggie Thatcher said, and you might perhaps simply look how well functioning and how happy people were while being under her watch and you might also observe how all individuals thrived regardless of whether they were rich or poor whilst living happily under her reign to know this. Definitely on the right track there. More individualism. Yay.

[@psr0459]

Opening -- "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls …." It's Last Orders !!

[@ethanadamrose580]

I think the guy who recorded the audio on this was drinking alcohol.

[@CrowNiffoc]

heres with better audio kzbin.info/www/bejne/aoCWoHqKbMiqnNk

[@savage22bolt32]

Cool. A talk about alcohol in a bar room..

[@eaton55r]

Religious and social changes that I see will lead to more people becoming AA candidates. Alcohol has gained, wine is much more popular and drinking in front of children has increased. These comments come from too much personal experience... Now that I no longer drink it appears to me that the cost to personal relationships is not really well known. Now, as far as legal goes Mary Jane *** But, more research, knowledge about all drugs - not just taught by institutions, also by family members who need to know more. We all learn there are times too be very quiet... We all must also learn about drugs, if they are not a problem in you life, they will be for someone affecting you life. Like a supervisor, family member or even politician. They do not take drug tests and pass laws requiring almost everyone else to. Ahhh! Think on that.

[@SofaKingShit]

I've just watched this and now I'm going to the pub for a good old fashioned bar fight.

[@petesmitt]

Drunkenness is beneficial in bringing out inherent temperament traits, like a bad temper.

[@myersstudios]

thAt waS GreAt nEat ,;,

[@icRegions]

Portion management.

[@chocochipbananasplit]

You See, this is why I don't like academics outside the evolutionary science talking about Evolution and primate behaviour, because some "Facts" he gave about non-human primates and how he talked about how Evolution works, were just wrong. Like, cool research and all, but humans do not behave that different than other apes, culture aside. Also, Evolution doesn't "like or dislike" it just describes aleatory Mutations that are increasy probability of survuval under certain circumstances. Also, morals or values aren't "human emotions", they are sociocultural systems of believes that can change through time. This goes much deeper and although his investigation about the genetic tendency of humans' Taste for alcohol is very interesting, if you are going to talk about how Evolution and human behaviour is the base of your hypothesis, get facts right.

[@WackadoodleMalarkey]

Serious monkey business

[@montrouslydiminutive]

With all due respect, nothing Slingerland has stated is counter to what you have claimed as fact. He specifically says that “evolution doesn’t care” regarding likes or dislikes, and selects those mutations that are beneficial to passing on genetic material (or, at least, are not maladaptive to such). Human evolution “likes” alcohol in that the desire and metabolism of ethanol have not been out-selected. That humans can, after hundreds of millennia of evolution and exposure to alcohol, still imbibe without genetically-prohibitively negative or non-effects possibly indicates that alcohol has had a net positive (or, at the very least, neutral) effect on human evolution. However, his arguments suggest a positive correlation between alcohol and ingenuity, comradeship, and culture. As Slingerland says, humans are of course primates, but socio-culturally “weird” ones. What is culture, but patterns of conscious and unconscious behaviour? By our own devices (i.e., cultural history), we have become so technologically dependent that we have created a completely different (read: ‘alien’) environment for ourselves, so disconnected from a “natural” primate environment, that it functions to distance our conscious and unconscious behavioural and social proclivities from our primate cousins. I would strongly recommend reading his book “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization” before you make any concrete opinions of his talk/work. There is a gulf of information that cannot be expanded on or clarified during a short popular-science spoken event (at a bar after sampling ancient brews, no less), which a book has the time--and extensive catalogue of references--to dig into.

[@noahsark2009]

Have a stiff one and loosen up your prefrontal cortex on my strong suggestion.

[@lreeher]

Where is your next talk or KZbin video?

[@w.d.g.]

i hate alcoholics.

[@bacobill]

I did too for 30 years.. then I drank for 30 years.. go figure.. 4 years sober looking back with compassion on myself and others now.. Never say never ;)

[@jennifs6868]

ah, the lying dark empaths.

[@qMartink]

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