Alcohol and health

originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
...I think her analysis was essentially, also, that the war was caused by a course of diplomatic and armament choices made by all of the Western European countries since the turn of the century and not the result German initiative.
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Germany was late to the Colonialism game and they were eager to acquire subordinate nations and take their wealth. Or so I've read.

Wilhelm was also a total flake.
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Both true, both not to the point.
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I think it is relevant. Germany's late scramble into colonialism led to the need for a merchant marine, and then a need for a larger navy to protect said merchant marine without relying on other countries (wasn't actually necessary, except for national & kaiser pride). The development of the Dreadnought class of battleships created a chance to "even the playing field" in terms of naval technology. Tirpitz leveraged both to convince the German government to go on a massive naval spending spree. Which in turn convinced the British the Germans were up to no good and helped propel them into the arms of the French.

Remove the German naval buildup and perhaps the Anglo-French alliance is less tight or England plays a broker role in French-German tensions. Speculative, yes, but not illogical.
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I'm not following your reasoning here. There was no chance that England, given its history, merchant marine and colonial empire, would allow any power in the early 1900s to equal or exceed its navy. However, the German decision to invest massively in its navy was unnecessary from the POV of protecting either their coastal waters, small colonial ventures or global trade. The English perceived it as a deliberate decision to threaten their position. Therefore, a policy decision by Germany increased the likelihood of their participation in WWI against the central powers.
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I wasn't saying there was any likelihood England would do this. I was saying that the arms race growing out of Imperial competition was a common project, so to speak. You can't fault Germany for engaging in it and not England...
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As a generality, I agree. I would point to the size of the German naval buildup as an exception - something that was a dramatic change in policy, and could have been avoided in the name of frugality, diplomacy, and strategic focus. Not the same as the generic European military buildup of the time IMHO. More like Iran's missile program. Of course it's not the sole factor in starting the war, just one more.
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So, I will readily admit that I know British history better than I do German history. My reading in late 19th century and early 20th century history discusses the British naval build-up as pretty impressive, especially technologically. Germany was more threatened by it as it was mostly landlocked. So Britain could have easily closed off their access to the colonies. I ask this as a genuine question though: with this context in mind, was their naval build-up really more provocative than Britain's, unless you take their Imperial ambitions as more at fault?
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The British naval investments were more or less a continuation of a naval superiority policy that predated the Napoleonic wars, IMHO. The German buildup was an abrupt change; enabled partly (& ironically) by the development of the Dreadnought class battleships, which evened the playing field somewhat. Germany being more land-locked and with fewer colonies & smaller trade would be arguments against needing a big navy, no? FWIW, I'm strongly influenced in this conversation by Robert Massie's book Dreadnought.
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No, if you need access to the colonies and to expland your trade, you need a navy to protect what access you have and to protect your merchant marine.

I haven't read Massie since it first came out over 30 years ago, so my memory of it, to say the least, is not perfect. As I do remember it, what was striking was how it teased the history of the arms battle out of biographies of the people involved. It did not seem to me to diverge from the long held view that the history was one of mistakes and miscalculations on both sides. Am I wrong?
 
But Germany had very few colonies, and their merchant marine was small and often under the protection of the Royal Navy, at least in enforcing international maritime law during peacetime. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Germany's economic interests and military concerns were European. If England was a neutral power with regard to Germany, France and Russia, there was certainly no need for them to have a navy competitive with England's. England therefore concluded that Germany's ambitions were to become the dominant European power on the land AND seas.

I believe this is one of the main points of Massie's book. But it doesn't contradict the view that WWI was a culmination of miscalculations on multiple sides. It just assigns a large role in setting the stage to the German naval buildup.

Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse or being pedantic, but anything that keeps my eyes off the horror of our election is helpful.
 
"Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse or being pedantic, but anything that keeps my eyes off the horror of our election is helpful."

i'm drinking a 2001 chateau musar that had shown leakage in the past (dried wine under the foil, a bit a ulage, but fill is still bottom neck), and it ain't helping. (remarkably, the wine is sound.)

the hell that America is bringing upon itself is beyond imaging. if there are history books in 100 years, what will they say?
 
originally posted by robert ames:
if there are history books in 100 years, what will they say?
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That autocrats all around the world came into power, not just in penny-ante states but even in the very largest and richest and most-powerful.

That competition for resources, greed (where the local economy supports it), and failing to remember the past allowed autocracy to flourish.

It didn't end well (...we just don't know for whom yet).
 
originally posted by Ken Schramm:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
P.S. Do we get the 2024 award for thread drift here?
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Unquestionably.
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Although by the time we hit having some Musar to endure the travesty that is global politics, we seem to have closed the circle. Kind of impressive, really.
 
originally posted by Ken Schramm:
A bit of sanity
A tad more balanced and less hysterical
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This is much the same theme that the book that Robert Dentice mentioned sounds. It's pretty clear that those who've looked at the totality of research find a decidedly mixed picture about the wine-health connection. Several takeaways: wine, especially red wine, has distinctly less harmful impact than other forms of alcohol, even normalizing for alcohol intake. Also, moderate wine drinking is far less harmful than heavy drinking and, for certain conditions, may actually show some benefits (what qualifies as "moderate" also varies widely, 100 mL of wine/day seeming to be about average). And, finally, there is very little evidence of harm to the liver by moderate wine drinking.

Mark Lipton
 
There was a good overview article in, I think, the Washington Post today or yesterday on health effects of drinking, mentioning some of the points raised in this thread. Off the top of my head, it said that a series of recent studies in Europe have discerned carcinogenic effects from consumption, most notably but not limited to higher risk of breast cancer in women (a longstanding finding). Evidence of cardiovascular benefits to moderate drinking is largely (if memory serves) "observational," that is associative-corelative, not cause and effect; e.g., moderate drinkers may be disproportionately exercise-conscious with generally superior cardiovascular health for that reason.

The beverage industry is portrayed as (no surprise) substantially implicated in research yielding results that promote moderate drinking, and antagonists argue that this research substantially cherry-picks available data.

Interesting and complicated discussion. Personally, I try for two-three no drink days a week. A good glass of wine cheers me up, which is a contribution to good health and justifies the practice. A chief concern for me is the asymmetrical gender risk exposure (breast cancer), and the biggest disincentive is apprehension that I could be promoting what may be, in effect, risky behavior by my SO. Planning to talk the subject through with her in the near future.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
So, the youngsters are vaping and smoking weed instead of drinking. What's the science on the health risks there?
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I don't have the numbers by age group, but overall in a representative survey of 1500 wine consumers by Nielsen IQ & Wine Market Council, there was no significant correlation between stated consumption of weed (in any form) and decreased wine consumption. In a random forest regression analysis on the same data, the leading predictor by far of reducing wine consumption was reducing alcohol in general, over demographic, occasion usage and consumption of other drink categories. Again, weed was pretty far down the list of predictors.

Other surveys have shown mixed results on this, depending on the sample and questions asked.

The market is still quite new and dynamic, so I wouldn't write cannabis off as a competitor yet. And obviously at some point there has to be a clash for share of buzz. But the evidence for it being a major factor in declining wine sales is slim right now.
 
The Freakonomics podcast did a four-episode series on various dimensions of marijuana mainstreaming, including health implications relative to those of drinking. Worth a listen at 2x speed.
 
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