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

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.
“Drinking for 10,000 Years: Intoxication and Civilization” was given on June 14, 02022 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks. These hour long talks are recorded live at The Interval, our bar, cafe, & museum in San Francisco. Since 02014 this series has presented artists, authors, entrepreneurs, scientists (and more) taking a long-term perspective on subjects like art, design, history, nature, technology, and time. To follow the talks, you can:
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[@MrDarrylR]

This presentation is a great complement to the Danish film Another Round from 2020.

[@ashleyking3865]

I had a professor show, convincingly, that creativity is not separate from reason but it's highest manifestation. He called it excellent reason. So the pfc has to be a part of that in most cases I would think.

[@leeroyescu]

01:43 I get the need to popularize the scientific message here but this starts off on a footing so drenched in teleology that it actually fudges the picture a little. There's no evolutionary mistake, evolution isn't "pissed off". "Allowing" masturbation does make evolutionary sense just like free plans make business sense in freemium model start-ups: it boosts engagement, gets you more hooked, coming back for more. Solo orgasms are not "getting away with" anything. If anything this very perspective makes it enticing, reinforcing the behavior. Furthermore, solo vs. mating orgasms are neurochemically different, the body _could_ distinguish them. A better example of what would "piss off" evolution would be hermits. Total abstinence, abstaining from orgasm, prudish religious or cultural norms, stuff like that.

[@jamesdeininger3759]

Why can’t pleasure be a good enough evolutionary reason for drinking? He just said in the beginning that sex’s main driver is pleasure

[@smkh2890]

Who drinks Jaeger Meister for pleasure? It is a strong herbal concoction, a 'digestive', to round off a meal. The poet of wine , Omar Khayyam, praised intoxication as a salve for metaphysical despair. "Life flies, One thing is certain, the rest lies: The flower that once has blown, forever dies" "The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on." " I came like water and like wind I go, Into this Universe, and Why, not knowing."

[@hyperTorless]

That was very interesting, thanks. There are some points that would have needed more in-depth reasoning though: there *must* have been adaptation to alcohol-consumption in humans as we've consumed it for so long. Antioxydants are a real thing and they are present in wine, why would there not be health benefits to consuming them? The "french paradox"... well it exists. Also, "we haven't had time to adapt to distillation that started 12kya"... which happened at the same time as agriculture, and we surely did adapt to agriculture fairly well.

[@beaudjangles]

Very interesting as someone who doesn’t drink these days due to gout. I don’t quite follow his logic that it can’t just be a pleasure seeking thing that we do. Why does he infer that it needs to have some benefit @11:00 , just because he’s looking at it through an evolutionary lens?

[@beaudjangles]

Evolution only requires us to procreate and raise our young til they can procreate. I’m not sure of the logical leap he is making there. Either way, very interesting. The other thing was that there isn’t much evidence of the creativity and alcohol link. Couldn’t we just say there’s a link between people socialising and creativity? Did I miss his evidential link between alcohol and creativity? Not saying there’s not a link but you’d think he’d present some better evidence.

[@smkh2890]

Beer Goggles have contributed to procreation in many cases.

[@beaudjangles]

@@smkh2890 Haha no doubt. Very short sighted of me.

[@liamhickey359]

@@smkh2890 alcohol must be one of the most effective sexual lubricants going.

[@kevinreardon2558]

Sorry, but the "out of the box thinking" can be trained out of an adult. You just have to be shown how. Children don't have the cognitive experience to block out solutions, while adults can be taught to know about that blockage. I get paid for just that.

[@N0Xa880iUL]

What do you mean? You get paid to do what?

[@westho7314]

Elephants are brilliant, human drunks, not so much.

[@CAM-fq8lv]

Explains a lot.

[@N0Xa880iUL]

This sounds like self indoctrination. Also reeks of western culture.

[@Fredysaurus]

It was filmed in a region with a western culture Sherlock

[@Fredysaurus]

I'd also say he repeats it's dangers and outright criticises the ways we have access to it so easily, he's calling for that access to be dumbed down a little if anything. Every argument he makes is at least backed up by possible correlative evidence if not evidence, and he was pretty honest about it being correlative when it was.

[@N0Xa880iUL]

This is euro-centrism plain and simple. Such BS.