site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   22417 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

From time to time, people discuss prohibitions here. The general zeitgeist is often that one particular interpretation of the the US's experience with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s is conclusive for all prohibitions of any type everywhere and always. Nevermind that there are alternative interpretations of the US's experience with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. Nevermind that different prohibitions are different. We now have one data set from South Africa.

In 2020, the South African government banned alcohol sales as part of their COVID measures. Then they lifted the ban, and then brought it back unexpectedly, and then did that again

Every ban saw murders decline, and every reprieve saw them return. Stunningly, prohibition worked:

Perhaps they just didn't keep the prohibition long enough over any time period for the data to show that murders would have really gone up massively over time. Perhaps murders aren't the right measure. (EDIT: Perhaps there were other restrictions that happened concurrent to the alcohol prohibition; one might be interested to see if there are any differences in start/end dates for other restrictions and see if there is something like a DiD.) Lots of interpretations, but only one limited data set. I'm not a huge fan of alcohol prohibition, personally, but I wonder if that is, to some extent, a luxury belief of mine.

As far as I know, prohibition measures in the US, enacted on state level many years, even decades before 1920 in multiple cases, were a long-term indirect consequence of the massive culling of men in the Civil War. A lopsided operational sex ratio (yeah, I just found this phrase on Wikipedia) that favors men inevitably leads to an overall loosening of social norms concerning men’s behavior, which in turn invites backlash on the part of the church lady demographic. This isn’t surprising. Gorbachov’s anti-alcohol campaign in the USSR was driven by the same fundamental considerations, presumably. (According to the 1959 Soviet census, the male-to-female sex ratio among the 35-50-yrs-old cohort was a whopping 4:7. )

I’m wondering if similar social forces are at play in South Africa now.

I’m wondering if similar social forces are at play in South Africa now.

Though the wider point is a great one, it's not really applicable to SA. The prohibitions were just covid measures - they're seen in retrospect as weird/funny, and there's no appetite to bring them back. More generally, SA politics is not very grassroots, things like that are largely determined in smoke-filled rooms by party elites rather than by social coalitions.

I find it hard to believe that just banning alcohol caused that much of a drop in murders in SA. For one thing, the liquor stores had block-long lines the days before lockdowns, both for personal stashes and for reselling. As for murders, there is a huge domestic violence problem, which prohibition would probably address, but the vast majority of murders in the townships are either for money or gang reasons. The thing is that there are key confounders: lockdowns made it far more difficult to supply illegal drugs like tik (meth and god knows what) and whoonga (heroin and god knows what, sometimes HIV meds), which are also a massive contributor to violent crime, lockdowns make gang activity more difficult and less lucrative, and the additional welfare passed out during lockdown periods probably dissuaded some marginal criminals from killing someone over fifty rand.

I would say that, given the study apparently counts car accidents, a huge chunk is probably coming from that. Driving drunk is totally normal in South Africa, from the richest to the poorest, and the general standard of driving is pretty dangerous (the common estimate is that 1/3rd of licences on the road are fake). Clearing the roads in general with lockdown and in particular eliminating drunk driving probably has some major effect as well.

I mean lockdowns also just mean fewer people on the roads. We saw global declines in road deaths, even in countries where most people drive soberly and defensively.

Yes, that's what I mean by clearing the roads in general - banning alcohol probably had an additional synergistic effect on top of that. Also, in addition to clearing cars off roads, a lot of road deaths in SA are pedestrians walking along the shoulder (poor folks will walk very long distances by the highway), who were probably also cleared out somewhat by lockdown. They also wouldn't have the uh, inexplicable uptick in road deaths in the US from the summer of 2020.

whoonga (heroin and god knows what, sometimes HIV meds)

I admire the diligence of the local dealers, why not give your clients some PEP for HIV gratis? Saves on the costs of sharing needles and you hold onto a lifetime client for a longer value of said lifetime.

If you run into any docs fleeing the South African medical system, it's an interesting topic to ask about. Wikipedia claims there may be some psychoactive effects, but I've never heard of that, what I hear from SA medical types is that the binding agent in the antiretrovirals is thought to help hold whatever chemicals they put in it together (plus, most likely, superstitions of various sorts).

Prohibition was a lot more successful than it’s given credit for. It permanently changed American drinking culture. Prohibition is the reason most men don’t spend every evening standing around a a little stool with a bottle of liquor getting blasted, like in Russia.

Total bullshit.

Europe started from the same base and doesn't have that problem. Never has prohibition.

Alcoholism also declined in Russia by quite a lot since the 90s.

Alcoholism also declined in Russia by quite a lot since the 90s.

coinciding with blanket bans on alcohol ads and wide restrictions on sales

We have kitchen tables, thank you very much. Unless you're talking about drinking in garage co-ops. Anyway, the patterns of alcoholism have shifted even in Russia. Beer alcoholism is now a thing.

Prohibition is the reason most men don’t spend every evening standing around a a little stool with a bottle of liquor getting blasted, like in Russia.

sorry, paint the picture for me? is the stool a makeshift table for a bottle of gin? and there may or may not be glasses?

As with many, many, other things the 'American' man in question standing around the little stool with a bottle of liquor is not the same 'American' man who fought the war against King George.

Italians and Irish catholics drunkenly beating their suffragette wives is not why my WASPy ancestors fought the revolutionary war

You know suffragettes were disproportionately wasps and their descendants(namely Mormons), right? The 19th amendment is one of those things where the Catholic ‘told you so’ meme applies.

The problem with the 19th amendment isn't women, it's democracy. The same as the 17th amendment, and the 24th amendment, and the 26th amendment.

We need fewer voters, not more voters. We need a republic, not a democracy.

And how do you decide who those fewer voters should be?

I’ll bite the bullet- male heads of property owning households with children, and widows of the same, should be allowed to vote, assuming no evidence of treachery, criminality, or immorality.

male heads of property owning households with children

That would result in a government which undervalues the well-being of

  • wives
  • households of very limited means
  • people without children

where their interests conflict with those of well-off fathers.

Considering this acceptable under-mines one's standing to object to FOO attempting to reserve the vote to FOO, and steering the government to ignore the interests of BAR where they conflict with those of FOO.

The political process then becomes a game of musical-chairs where every group tries to grab the government before their enemies do.

Whichever groups end up losing this conflict then have less incentive, and reason, to regard the government as legitimate; and being unable to influence it peaceably, are more likely to attempt change through violence.

I would prefer that political violence be avoided.

I can therefore conclude that it would be wise to extend the vote to single people, wives, non-child-bearing husbands, and fathers without property.

assuming no evidence of treachery, criminality, or immorality

And how long would it take before 'supporting policies I don't like' became 'evidence of immorality'?

There are many, many ways to do that. You could restrict it to people who pay the poll tax, or to those who own property, or those who are married with children, or only people who have been in the country for twenty-one years, or only people who have been resident of the state for twenty-one years, or...or...or... You can read history and come up with your own way, but limiting who is allowed to vote is a normal suggestion and has been implemented in some form everywhere voting occurs.

Frankly I'd settle for paying people not to vote, as anyone who would rather have $100 than cast a vote shouldn't be voting anyway.

In my ideal world, I'd be the marginal voter excluded, so the only people allowed to vote are those better than me, and nobody worse than me has the privilege.

Would you like to suggest a way, or were you thinking I wouldn't bite the bullet? Do you care about the differences, or are you just expressing disdain?

There are many, many ways to do that. You could restrict it to people who pay the poll tax, or to those who own property, or those who are married with children, or only people who have been in the country for twenty-one years, or only people who have been resident of the state for twenty-one years, or...or...or... You can read history and come up with your own way, but limiting who is allowed to vote is a normal suggestion and has been implemented in some form everywhere voting occurs.

And whichever criterion you choose, wherever the interests of that group differ from its complement, the elected officials will then be incentivised to discount the latter in favour of the former.

This is not, to put it delicately, a recipe for a peaceful society.

Frankly I'd settle for paying people not to vote, as anyone who would rather have $100 than cast a vote shouldn't be voting anyway.

This runs up against the diminishing marginal utility of money. $100 means a lot more to someone of lesser means than it does to a billionaire.

Would you like to suggest a way, or were you thinking I wouldn't bite the bullet? Do you care about the differences, or are you just expressing disdain?

It was more of a Socratic method question; however, one could select a number of residents at random and pay them enough that they could devote themselves full-time to political issues....

Well sure, but blaming Irish immigrants for that is just dumb- expanding ballot access was a WASP project.

Angloids had major problems with alcoholism too, one need only look up the gin craze of the 18th century to find out.

I was not aware pre-prohibition era Italians were notorious for drunken wife beating

It's funny seeing some of the comments about how "inevitable" the horrible consequences of Prohibition are, when I think about the various "dry" villages here in Alaska.

I have to think it's kinda different there. A small village in Alaska, with a high native population of people who are genitically weak against alcohol, is pretty different from New York City with a large mafia and a population where alcohol is part of the traditional culture.

Or about approximately half of Arkansaw.

Arkansas and Alaska both have high murder rates and low lifespans. I don't think alcohol bans are the reason for that, but they're not exactly advertisements for the edification that comes from these policies. In contrast, the hard-drinking Upper Midwest has low murder rates and long lifespans.

So, yeah, you can probably ban alcohol and reduce consumption significantly. That won't necessarily cause the Al Capone apocalypse. But it also won't usher in an era of long lives and peaceful living.

In contrast, the hard-drinking Upper Midwest has low murder rates and long lifespans.

Germanic Wisconsin on its own God-level drunk tier even amid surrounding competition. Also, the Germans didn’t like whiskey, so old fashioneds made with brandy are a Wisconsin supper club staple.

I eat like a Bohemian and drink like a German, thanks be to God for this. Amen. —Martin Luther

Alternatively, societies with lower baseline murder rates and longer lifespans can tolerate negative effects of alcohol use. They remain in relatively good place after the alcohol-related problems have taken taken their toll. Whereas if your society has problems ... there are very few societal problems that can't be made worse by increasing the number alcoholics and other addicts around.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that alcohol prohibition reliably reduces the murder rate in the long run. This is worth taking into account, but it's hardly conclusive of whether we should have alcohol prohibition. Reducing the speed limit on all roads to 25mph will reliably reduce traffic deaths; outlawing TVs and bookshelves over a certain size will reliably save the lives of several hundred young children each year who are killed when furniture falls on them; not to mention all the lives that would be saved by banning candles and fireplaces; etc. Personal liberty has a great deal of value and I think we should be skeptical of prohibitions even if the data suggests they are "good" for people.

You’d also have to compare it to the good available in allowing these things. Reduced speed increases the cost of business and increases the commute time for workers. Outlawing bookshelves above a certain size limits books.

Hard drugs provide no real value, and huge downsides. Alcohol has benefits is promoting socialization, but has drawbacks in drunk driving injuries, bad decisions, etc. fireplaces and candles provide backup heat and light when electric power isn’t available.

Reducing the speed limit on all roads to 25mph will reliably reduce traffic deaths

It really depends on which roads you're talking about, and who's using them. Reducing the speed limit to 25 on the DC beltway at rush hour won't do anything because no-one's going 25 to begin with. And reducing the speed limit to 25 in rural Mauretania won't do anything because no-one has a car anyway.

outlawing TVs and bookshelves over a certain size will reliably save the lives of several hundred young children each year who are killed when furniture falls on them

several hundred? really? Even worldwide that is surprisingly high (and outlawing large furniture would likely result in more stacked furniture more likely to fall anyway)

It's double digits a day from slipping in the shower, in case that feels like context

571 in 20 years in the US.

Thanks! More than expected, but still too low to make "outlawing TVs and bookshelves over a certain size will reliably save the lives of several hundred young children each year" true (as it will not fully eliminate such deaths)

Thanks, I guess I was slightly off, it's more like dozens per year. Still far more deaths than the total number of US school shooting deaths over the same time period (131 killed and 197 wounded in active shooter incidents at elementary and secondary schools from 2000 to 2020).

Besides, it's not like you're looking to ban all bookshelves, this is about common-sense restrictions on assault shelves. Civilians do not need access to 14-foot-high bookshelves!

Jokes aside, it is interesting to contemplate where the lines get drawn on things that are concerning, things that seem obvious to some, and so on. Dozens of dead kids per year ain't nothing, but I have never heard anyone seriously propose bookshelf safety measures.

An IKEA Billy with an extension is only 7’9”. My grandfather and father could store all their books on duck hunting in one. No one needs a 14’ bookcase.

in school shootings other children are killed (almost certainly over than half of them did no bullying to perpetrators), with furniture, one's own

The real enemy is quick-change shelves. If it’s not secured to the wall, it’s not California compliant. (There’s a joke about magazines here, too, but I can’t quite make it work.)

I don’t think this is a line-drawing issue. It’s a difference of intent.

the solution is to ban both 14 foot high bolsheviks and assault weapons. i'm sure anti-gun people would be willing to swallow the bullet of banning 14 foot high bolsheviks.

14 foot high bolsheviks

What about 14-foot-high Left-SRs?

At last, compromise.

Actually

https://www.homedepot.com/p/SIMPLE-MOUNT-Furniture-Anti-Tip-Kit-TK400L/206411011

Very common

Something similar is included in each IKEA bookshelf.

I have never heard anyone seriously propose bookshelf safety measures.

some reasonable ones are done by producers (many of mine come with stickers/instructions to attach them to wall rather leave freestanding, exactly to reduce risk of failing)

I hear those are also highly recommended in earthquake-prone regions.

I'd bet that the quantity of Americans getting use out of ARs as larger than the quantity getting value from a 14 foot bookshelf.

I sympathize with this in regards to full prohibition of alcohol unless you live in a sufficiently fallen society. Sufficient problem and prohibition is not only justifiable but a moral imperative and you are extremely unreasonable if you are not willing to consider that there is a red line. If your society has enough of a problem with alcohol abuse then it should be banned no question.

For example alcohol prohibition towards Indian "native" Americans is a no-brainer. It is extremely destructive towards them and makes them dangerous to others as well. Both how alcohol affects them, and the general problem of alcohol abuse in their community, is an example where the skepticism must be towards those who decriminalized it, at the expense of the people affected.

The trade offs in comparison to the examples you mention aren't there. Still, I also sympathize with considering idea of freedom even if it causes harm, provided the harm isn't large enough or comes with other significant benefits. Alcohol is damaging enough that the weight would fall in favor of prohibition except for one reason.

The only reason I don't support prohibiting it is because it is so entrenched culturally, and there is historical continuity and significance. So there is a more significant trade off because it is a more important part of living and past culture. Of more normal and respectable people too. So there is a point there. However these are advantages but of a much different nature than books, or getting faster to your destination than 25 miles per hour. But alcohol is bad enough. It carries a significant cost. And certainly restrictions and trying to curtail alcohol abuse is good.

We should put a line to it and prohibit harmful drugs who don't have that history. Alcohol is bad enough but its byproducts are too culturally significant. The rest of harmful drugs are not. The damage that alcohol abuse inflicts in society is bad enough and we should not allow more to be added to it.

Yes, there is a line where prohibition makes sense, but I don't think any human society comes close to crossing that line when it comes to alcohol. This is especially true given that alcohol has proven its ability to coexist alongside the development of advanced human societies over the course of several millennia.

You are making an argument of faith here based on an affirmation rather than sincerely considering whether the line has been crossed and examining the facts and where this doesn't pass, and where it passes. Because there are actual human societies that the line has been crossed.

I gave the most fitting example which is Indian country. The effect of alcohol towards them is a complete horror show. The level of harm it causes them far surpasses any possible benefit. There seems to be a genetic component to that even though this is also a field where there are those trying to deny race differences. https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12010113

Even as it is these are the consequences worldwide: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-topics/alcohol-facts-and-statistics/global-burden

Globally, alcohol misuse was the seventh-leading risk factor for premature death and disability in 2016.

In 2016, alcohol misuse was the leading risk factor for death and disability among people ages 15 to 49.

In 2016, approximately 14.0% of total deaths among people ages 20 to 39 were alcohol attributable.

In 2016, of all deaths attributable to alcohol consumption worldwide, 28.7% were due to injuries, 21.3% were due to digestive diseases (primarily cirrhosis of the liver and pancreatitis), 19.0% were due to cardiovascular diseases, 12.9% were due to infectious diseases (including tuberculosis, pneumonia, and HIV/AIDS), and 12.6% were due to cancers (most prominently those of the upper aerodigestive tract).

In 2016, 5.1% of the burden of disease and injury worldwide (132.6 million disability-adjusted life years) was attributable to alcohol consumption."

These are significant consequences.

The prohibitions mentioned in the OP in South Africa might be another example of a good trade off. If your society is South Africa you kind of have to prioritize making it less of a failed society and reducing the violence.

There seems to be a genetic component to that even though this is also a field where there are those trying to deny race differences.

Shouldn't the quality of the field in general make you a bit suspect of the line of causality here? I don't doubt that Native Americans engage in a lot of dysfunctional alcohol use, but I do doubt that the alcohol is what's causing the dysfunction.

More broadly, it's just kind of weird that alcohol putatively reduces societal health, but a map of state-by-state alcohol consumption is just about anti-correlated with longevity. Similarly, many of the hard-drinking countries around the world are doing great, and the places that don't drink are dysfunctional hellholes with short life expectancies (with the exception of a couple wealthy Gulf oil states). I suppose this is largely a product of wealthier places being able to buy more alcohol and the individuals that drink the most aren't doing great (Simpson's paradox style), but it's hard for me to look at Germany and France and think that they're actually missing out on a ton of longevity and productivity due to all the beer and wine.

It's the opposite. They are trying to deny and obfuscate because they oppose differences and want to talk about it in a politically correct manner. So there are debunkers pretending the issue doesn't exist and is just a negative stereotype. In the past there was a complete prohibition of alcohol sales to "Native Americans" .

Like many real issues, you are also going to find some talking about it.

There is in a fact a bigger problem of drunkedness, people being addicted to alcohol and dying in part due to that. Maybe they abuse the alcohol also for reasons of being impulsive, IQ related and so on but it doesn't change that the combo of them and alcohol works worse. Both in terms of behavior and health.

but it's hard for me to look at Germany and France and think that they're actually missing out on a ton of longevity and productivity due to all the beer and wine.

The issue is quantifiable. Even outside alcohol, when it comes to drugs one can see an increase of drug abuse in certain european countries due to less policing and a more pro drug culture.

Germany is still going to be better than muslim countries but Germans would live longer without alcohol consumption.

Sure, it is manageable even if it is probably among the top negative behaviors that affect life expectancy in countries like Germany. That is because Germans don't have that many problems and are successful. Most Muslim countries have more significant problems to worry about.

The issue becomes especially notable in some eastern european countries where it actually plays a more significant effect for bellow 80 years old life expectancy. Even in Germany, for alcohol abusers it does eat years from their life.

Men in Belarus live only 68 years and this was the country that had the highest alcohol consumption in the world in 2010! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31960526/

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/05/17/heaviest-drinking-countries/9146227/

  1. Belarus

Alcohol per capita (APC) consumption: 17.5 liters Pct. binge drinking: 26.5% (14th highest) Pct. of deaths, alcohol-related: 34.7% (the highest) Life expectancy at birth: 72.1 years

Life expectancies in the nations with heavy alcohol use are also shorter. The average life expectancy at birth in high income nations was 79.3 years as of 2012, far higher than in almost all of the heaviest drinking nations. In Romania, the average life expectancy was just 68.7 years. In Russia and Ukraine the average life expectancy was below 72 years as well.

Anyway, comparing countries like Germany with the worst is a losing game. You either compare with other successful societies that do certain things differently, or try to estimate how it would do, if it did things differently.

Now, you could argue that drinking is a common part of German culture, and although it can be done in moderation or you can have to the other extreme Eastern Europe type of disaster.

Here are some numbers of the top of a few seconds searching

The use of psychoactive substances is one of the main risk factors for the global burden of disease and premature mortality (1). In 2019, worldwide tobacco use was responsible for approximately 229 million disability-adjusted life years (DALY) and 8.71 million deaths. A total of 2.44 million deaths were attributable to the consumption of alcohol and 494,000 to the use of illegal drugs (2, 3). Thus, based on the total number of annual deaths (56.53 million), a fifth (11.64 million) are accounted for by the use of psychoactive substances (3). Despite an observed decline in the consumption of alcohol since the 1990s, Germany is among the 10 countries worldwide with the highest per capita consumption rates (4, 5). The proportion of smokers in 2019 was also above the West European average (6).

https://www.aerzteblatt.de/int/archive/article/226333/The-use-of-psychoactive-substances-in-Germany-findings-from-the-Epidemiological-Survey-of-Substance-Abuse-2021

So based on the above numbers, it is 4.32% of total mortality.

I think, if a society already has a strong taboo against alcohol consumption, there's good reason to maintain said taboo legally. Whatever benefits were gained historically, I'm not sure it matters now. And the taboo suppressing consumption would hopefully tamp down on the natural consequences of creating a black market good.

I've seen some Muslim reformers like Mustafa Akyol defend the right to drink alcohol as part of liberalizing Islam and I always thought it was not just a huge strategic error (I worry it seems very suspicious to focus on that element - which brings Muslim cultures more superficially in line with Western ones - to conservatives who might otherwise listen) but of little practical good and much harm anyway.

Yes, there is a line where prohibition makes sense, but I don't think any human society comes close to crossing that line when it comes to alcohol.

The following winter (this was the year in which Cn. Pompey and M. Crassus were consuls [55 B.C.]), those Germans [called] the Usipetes, and likewise the Tenchtheri, with a great number of men, crossed the Rhine , not far from the place at which that river discharges itself into the sea. The motive for crossing [that river] was, that having been for several years harassed by the Suevi, they were constantly engaged in war, and hindered from the pursuits of agriculture. The nation of the Suevi is by far the largest and the most warlike nation of all the Germans. They are said to possess a hundred cantons, from each of which they yearly send from their territories for the purpose of war a thousand armed men: the others who remain at home, maintain [both] themselves and those-engaged in the expedition. The latter again, in their turn, are in arms the year after: the former remain at home. Thus neither husbandry, nor the art and practice of war are neglected. But among them there exists no private and separate land; nor are they permitted to remain more than one year in one place for the purpose of residence. They do not live much on corn, but subsist for the most part on milk and flesh, and are much [engaged] in hunting; which circumstance must, by the nature of their food, and by their daily exercise and the freedom of their life (for having from boyhood been accustomed to no employment, or discipline, they do nothing at all contrary to their inclination), both promote their strength and render them men of vast stature of body. And to such a habit have they brought themselves, that even in the coldest parts they wear no clothing whatever except skins, by reason of the scantiness of which, a great portion of their body is bare, and besides they bathe in open rivers.

Merchants have access to them rather that they may have persons to whom they may sell those things which they have taken in war, than because they need any commodity to be imported to them. Moreover, even as to laboring cattle, in which the Gauls take the greatest pleasure, and which they procure at a great price, the Germans do not employ such as are imported, but those poor and ill-shaped animals, which belong to their country; these, however, they render capable of the greatest labor by daily exercise. In cavalry actions they frequently leap from their horses and fight on foot; and train their horses to stand still in the very spot on which they leave them, to which they retreat with great activity when there is occasion; nor, according to their practice, is any thing regarded as more unseemly, or more unmanly, than to use housings. Accordingly, they have the courage, though they be themselves but few, to advance against any number whatever of horse mounted with housings. They on no account permit wine to be imported to them, because they consider that men degenerate in their powers of enduring fatigue, and are rendered effeminate by that commodity.

C. Julius Caesar. Caesar's Gallic War. Translator. W. A. McDevitte. Translator. W. S. Bohn. 1st Edition. New York. Harper & Brothers. 1869. Harper's New Classical Library. Hirt-Gal 4.1-2.

The Gauls are exceedingly addicted to the use of wine and fill themselves with the wine which is brought into their country by merchants, drinking it unmixed, and since they partake of this drink without moderation by reason of their craving for it, when they are drunken they fall into a stupor or a state of madness. Consequently many of the Italian traders, induced by the love of money which characterizes them, believe that the love of wine of these Gauls is their own godsend. For these transport the wine on the navigable rivers by means of boats and through the level plain on wagons, and receive for it an incredible price; for in exchange for a jar of wine they receive a slave, getting a servant in return for the drink.

Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History. Book V, Part 25.

I am the son of these people, who did not write down their own drinking habits so they are only described to us by others. We can cherry pick whatever quote we like, for example,

"To continue drinking night and day without intermission is not considered shameful by any man"

Did they drink always or never or somewhere in between? Maybe even, were they people much like us? Or me at least

I am the son of these people,

Are you certain? After the Gaul population lost to the Romans, significant portions died and-or were enslaved. If we take Caesar's claims at face value, about one third of the population. If it is a propagandist claim inflated by factor of 10x or 100x, still humongous amount of people who never had descendants.

They lost their culture to the extent that precious little is known of pre-Roman Gallic culture and the language spoken in France is classified as Romance language, heavily descended from Latin.

Presumably the people least adapted to unmixed wine have died off by natural selection during the generations.

They lost their culture to the extent that precious little is known of pre-Roman Gallic culture and the language spoken in France is classified as Romance language, heavily descended from Latin.

S_S did also mention the Suebi, who have plenty of descendants.

Roman male slaves were not castrated and could indeed have descendants. Roman female slaves could also have descendants, both with male slaves and in the typical way of slavery.

To be fair, drinking wine (and especially beer) does lower your T levels, so the Gauls were right about the feminizing influence of alcohol.

A Twitter autist I follow was suggesting that mead is the true chad drink due to honey's beneficial effect on T levels. Ergo, the masculine vigor of the vikings. More likely, any positive effects are lost when turning it into alcohol.

it this a prohibition against alcohol or a prohibition against wine in particular? From the text it makes sense that it is a prohibition against alcohol because they are criticising the effects of alcohol but i can hypothesise a situation where they are against wine but freely drinking beer.

They on no account permit wine to be imported to them, because they consider that men degenerate in their powers of enduring fatigue, and are rendered effeminate by that commodity.

Is this supposed to imply that the Suevi prohibited alcohol consumption entirely? Or just wine? Obviously the Nordic peoples of the Viking age were famously producers and drinkers of mead, and contemporary Germanic peoples famously enjoyed ale, so unless those were cultural innovations that arose centuries after the Suevi - or unless the Suevi were an outlier - I would assume that alcohol consumption was not unknown among their people.

Chiming in as an oenophile. The Romans introduced viticulture to (what is now) Germany in the 8th Century. Wine is all about soil and climate, and only certain regions in Germany produce wine; mostly river valleys in the southwest, but there is a little bit produced near Dresden in Saxony along the Elbe.

Importation of unwatered wine by various Gaullish tribes is noted to have produced what appears to be a wide-spread plague of alcoholism. The price of wine rose so high that in addition to paying vast sums of precious metals to the merchants, the Gauls were willing to enslave their own and trade them for the stuff (who were promptly shipped to Roman vineyards and put to work making more wine grapes to be sent to Gaul). I added in a quote from Diodorus Siculus attesting to this to my post above.

You should look into aboriginals in Australia, alcohol really fucks these people up.

Unfortunately, there are some people that cannot properly metabolize alcohol because their ancestors have not been degenerate drunks.

The same people who cannot properly digest milk because their ancestors never bothered to domestic cows

We keep warning you to stop shitting out one-liners, and you keep dropping in to do it. Two week ban, this time.

but I don't think any human society comes close to crossing that line when it comes to alcohol.

How much time have you spent around Native Americans?

I don't think any human society comes close to crossing that line when it comes to alcohol

Not even remote native communities with super high alcoholism rates, and where lots of kids get fetal alcohol syndrome?

alcohol has proven its ability to coexist alongside the development of advanced human societies over the course of several millennia.

Yes, but not native american societies. And there's plenty of evidence that Eurasians have had some serious selection pressure to help them deal with alcohol (and alcoholism is still a huge problem in Europe + North America).

I'm not a huge fan of alcohol prohibition, personally, but I wonder if that is, to some extent, a luxury believe of mine.

TBH the devil will be in the details of the baseline murder level (if there's already rampant organized crime murders, the addition of alcohol to the black sector may not make much of a dent), how the distribution system of alcohol works in SA, the availability of smuggled alternatives, whether there's local traditions of brewing/distilling that people can fall back on for moonshine, the competence and reach of police, etc.

can we find any signal in dry counties in the US? or is the data hopelessly confounded?

It’s hopelessly confounded because any county remote enough for dryness to not just be extra business for the next one is, well, exactly what I just said.

Dry counties have legal alcohol possession and use, they merely lack alcohol retailers.

Dry towns remove bars from the equation, but not much to reduce drinking.

I don't know; it would be interesting to look into!

Nevermind that there are alternative interpretations of the US's experience with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s.

Yes, there are revisionist interpretations pushed by those who want to do it again despite the clearly destructive results from the last time.

And the US drug prohibition has not, regardless of your protestations, covered itself in glory.

there are revisionist interpretations pushed by those who want to do it again

Nah. I think a lot of the data requires a pretty significant revision on the standard narrative, but I also don't want to do it again.

And the US drug prohibition has not, regardless of your protestations, covered itself in glory.

The good news here is that we now have memorialized that this is your standard. Not covered in glory. Oof, you are a pure child of light, and I'm sure this standard will never come back to bite you ever.

The good news here is that we now have memorialized that this is your standard. Not covered in glory. Oof, you are a pure child of light, and I'm sure this standard will never come back to bite you ever.

I know all sorts of wordplay is against the rules on The Motte, but that was in fact understatement.

I view the people who want to re-enact Prohibition to be the socially-conservative equivalents of all those whose only solutions to current problems are "more of the same, which had absolutely terrible results", like non-policing and eliminating discipline in schools, doing nothing but "helping" homeless, etc.

Oh goody! I know you won't want anything that could be cast as "more of the same, which had absolutely terrible results", so I'm sure you'll be very forthcoming with your incredible, innovative solutions to current problems, solutions which don't look anything like what has come before. I so look forward to that little red bell icon.

If you insist. Both of you are being jerks. (And @The_Nybbler, as usual, is being dishonest, claiming that we prohibit "wordplay." Like all our other anklebiters, you know where the line is and you pretend not to when you petulantly insist on crossing it.)

Knock it off, both of you.

If you prefer sneering in order to paper over the point that "more of the same, which had absolutely terrible results" is transparently a very bad idea, knock yourself out.

I learned my sneering for the purpose of papering over the point that "more of the same, which had absolutely terrible results" is transparently a very bad idea from only the very best.

I really like both of you guys, why can't we all just get along? (cry emoji)

but drug prohibition in other places do quite well. Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, - in comparison US basically does not prohibit drugs at all.

If America stopped being America and Americans stopped living there, we might get Singaporean results. Until then citing an island city with no hinterland is an absurdity.

those who want to do it again

Fascinatingly, there is still a Prohibition Party in the United States. They've apparently run a Presidential candidate in every election since 1872.

They’ve morphed into a tiny third party for Protestant fundamentalists who think the constitution party isn’t socially conservative enough, though- the last platform of theirs I looked at said to refer to the King James Bible rather than articulate specific policies.

the last platform of theirs I looked at said to refer to the King James Bible rather than articulate specific policies.

So they're open-borders (Leviticus 19:34) gender-neutralist (Galatians 3:28) welfare liberals (Ezekiel 16:49)?

I have trouble considering it much of a morph, considering how much Protestant fundamentalism had to do with the Temperance movement from the beginning.

The original prohibition movement was as much of a woman’s movement as anything else, tied up with progressive politics moreso than fundamentalism.

Being a woman's movement and with a relationship to progressive politics was absolutely not mutually exclusive with being an evangelical movement, especially prior to the Civil War.

Protestantism and especially English or Scandinavian inflected Protestantism was heavily correlated with Temperance for a very long time. There's a reason many dry counties left in the South are heavily Protestant even though they're deeply conservative.

Last time, the prohibition worked well in lowering alcohol abuse. Also it partly failed due to corruption. The drug problem is so bad also because of corruption and influential people connected to the drug trade like spooks of the CIA.

The solution to this is to go after criminals, mobsters, gangsters, criminal spooks that use drugs to fund their black budget, etc.

Decriminalization of drug policies lead to far greater addiction to harmful substances. There is no solution to corruption than to punish those engaging it. You can't escape the negative consequences through legalization and tolerance.

Last time, the prohibition worked well in lowering alcohol abuse.

It worked well in reducing alcohol use. Long term it probably did lower alcohol abuse (basically by ending saloon culture) but I don't know that alcohol abuse during prohibition was down.

South Africa is far more corrupt than the USA, so if this was really the root of the issue, we’d expect prohibition to have failed there as well.

Well, it depends on how much you want policies to work. American prohibition worked in improving alcohol related diseases but there was still some success by mobsters in bypassing it.

Also there were other legal avenues to bypass it. Doctor prescriptions, religious exceptions, etc. https://www.tastingtable.com/1180444/the-legal-way-you-could-obtain-alcohol-during-prohibition/

These loopholes were abused to continue the trade during prohibition. For example, there were a lot of fake rabbis abused the religious exception. https://www.jta.org/2019/08/27/ideas/the-clever-fake-rabbis-who-made-millions-off-of-prohibition

Quoting from the above:

The likelihood of getting caught was reduced by enabling and participating law enforcement officials and politicians. Furthermore, for those who were caught, the punishments were not severe. For example, the Volstead Act stated that the fine was at most $500 for a first violation, which barely made a dent in what many violators typically made selling the illicit drinks.

In a more failed society, with more serious abuse problems, prohibition policies might work even better.

I am more addressing the "drug war hasn't solved the problem" claim. Even with the corruption, anti-drug policies in comparison to decriminalization policies, still save lives related to the drug abuse. In South Africa it also helped with the murders.

Another relevant issue, is the problem that criminals might take advantage of black market conditions to become powerful. Appeasing them by legalizing their industry still gets you the harmful consequences of the drug trade. There isn't a better alternative than actually genuinely trying to get rid of corruption.

Are there societies with more corruption on other issues like the economy, with less corruption on drugs than the USA? I am not speaking about south africa here. But there are plenty examples of countries without America's drug abuse problems. Part of the reason for the corruption might be this pro drug use ideology. How much does the police actually tries to enforce laws against drug abuse? In addition to American corruption, being bordered by countries that have powerful drug cartels is also important. That is still about criminals capturing power and acting with impunity.

But the worldwide record shows that American style drug use is not a problem shared by all societies, and not even all affluent societies.

And the US drug prohibition has not, regardless of your protestations, covered itself in glory.

Decriminalization has been a disaster. The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020. The data cuts off, but it's even worse now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_drug_overdose_death_rates_and_totals_over_time

Over 100,000 people died due to overdoses in the United States last year.

And of course the negative effects of the War on Drugs are highly overstated as well.

The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020.

That is not the time window over which hard drug decriminalization occurred for a small portion of the national population. In fact that time window is so much wider that I accept this as evidence that unrelated social trends are swamping the data.

"Deaths of despair" from opiates blow up in regions across the country. Mostly in areas that certainly didn't legalize recreational fentanyl. I'm blaming something other than Oregon state law.

Decriminalization has been a disaster. The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020. The data cuts off, but it's even worse now.

It's impossible to untangle recent decrim efforts from the recently increased popularity of fentanyl if you are looking at OD rate as a metric -- it is just much easier to OD on, and I'd argue that the popularity (which we are probably now stuck with) was a direct result of the WOD enforcement regime.

I agree that fentanyl is the biggest cause.

But, c'mon, the overdose rate in places that decriminalized has spiked by huge amounts. In King County, where I live, deaths TRIPLED between 2019 and 2023. In 2023, one in 1700 people in King County died of an overdose. This is massive.

https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/health-safety/medical-examiner/reports-dashboards/overdose-deaths-dashboard

What changed after 2019? Fentanyl was already out there. The difference was open air drug markets with ZERO enforcement.

In good news, deaths will be lower in 2024 than in 2023. And, as coincidence would have it, when I drive by 12th and Jackson now, there are only a handful of junkies, not the 100 or so that used to congregate there. Drug enforcement works.

It's right there on page 1 -- non-fentanyl-involved ODs are flat.

I haven't been to Seattle lately, but just north in Vancouver there have been lightly enforced open-air drug-marts for decades. I think Portland too? Decriminalization is just a recognition of the de facto situation -- as such it doesn't really change things much. Actual legalization such that the drug supply is not left in the hands of brutal smuggling gangs might help -- but I think it's probably too late now that the hardcore opiates users are hooked on fentanyl in particular, and actively prefer it to other less finicky opiates. This intractable situation came about entirely because fentanyl is easier/cheaper to smuggle -- which is a direct result of the War on Drugs.

Actual legalization would alleviate accidental fentanyl overdoses because they are due to insufficiently good manufacturing. There's plenty of margin between a dose which gets you high and a dose which kills you if you can get a consistent dose.

I know that New York City has had an issue with unlicensed weed shops. The licensed weed shops have complained that because of their higher expenses that stem from obtaining and maintaining a license, they can’t compete with the unlicensed.

I wonder how much actual legalization would alleviate accidental fentanyl overdoses, given the huge problem with fentanyl is it is so cheap to produce. It winds up in all sorts of other drugs as it is a cost-effective way to boost another drug’s high. Could the cost of actually-legalized drugs be brought down enough that people shy away from street drugs like most would currently with bathtub gin?

Could the cost of actually-legalized drugs be brought down enough that people shy away from street drugs like most would currently with bathtub gin?

Not sure about cocaine (or LSD I guess -- neither are prescribed very much), but prescription versions of all the other popular ones are already way cheaper than the street versions. (not including marijuana of course, since it's roughly as hard to grow as lettuce and various regulations tend to make the official versions more expensive to produce than the ways the black market has already figured out)

I know that New York City has had an issue with unlicensed weed shops. The licensed weed shops have complained that because of their higher expenses that stem from obtaining and maintaining a license, they can’t compete with the unlicensed.

Licensing isn't legalization. Licensing is making something illegal unless you have special permission from the state to do it. New York's City process to get that special permission is hugely expensive but their enforcement is terrible, hence the illegal shops.

More comments

How many people are too stupid to read and follow the directions?

Hundreds of people OD on Tylenol every year in the US. I cannot imagine the carnage that would result from OTC fentanyl.

How many people are too stupid to read and follow the directions?

It's easier than measuring a dose of heroin, which druggies manage without instructions all the time.

Hundreds of people OD on Tylenol every year in the US.

Mostly deliberately.

Is that the fault of decriminalization? Rates have basically only gone up since 1979.

Oregon’s policy was a disaster, but didn’t exactly show up in overdose deaths. Take that result with a tiny, but still incredibly lethal, grain of fent. It still suggests that the 2400% insanity isn’t due to decriminalization. No, people are just doing harder stuff, whether or not they can get arrested for it.

I can't find the article at the moment but I believe overdose deaths in Oregon exceeded the rest of the country during the measure 110 period.

Decriminalization has been a disaster. The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020.

Which includes a large part of the drug war. Which hasn't stopped.

The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020

When prohibition was in full effect across the united states?

This just suggests that prohibition or no prohibition is largely drowned out by other factors in terms of the harms inflicted by drugs

The axis of that tweet says "unnatural death". It seems at least plausible that this would include drunken people inadvertently killing themselves by falling of a bridge or running into traffic.

The curfews seem like a massive confounder. We can compare the July ban (750/week) with the post ban period (1100/week), as there was a curfew in both of these going on. The only thing which we can learn from this plot, however, is that during curfews, alcohol bans seem to decrease unnatural mortality.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Take a young person who likes to drink occasionally, who is probably a part of some party culture. Now tell them they can not party until further notice. Sometimes, they will adopt well to it, forswear partying and getting really into video gaming. But sometimes they will become depressed and self-medicate with alcohol. Without any drinking buddies providing social oversight and making sure that they don't choke to death on their vomit or kill their spouses or roommates, an increase in alcohol-related mortality should be expected.

Also, 350 additional alcohol-related death per week are not a huge number. South Africa has a population of 62M. Mortality rates generally go in the order of a percent a year. The yearly excess mortality from alcohol would be a whopping 0.03%, with 3% of the deaths being attributable to alcohol. This is roughly equal to the deaths from lung cancer (overwhelmingly caused by tobacco) of 0.037% per year. Long-term effects of liver failure due to booze are likely a bit lower.

I am generally opposed to telling people how to run their lives to get rid of these risks. I don't drink or smoke, but at some point the health police might come for me either for rock climbing or spending weekends playing video games, and I would want there to speak out for me.

My state did not shut down package stores during the pandemic because it would cut off chronic alcoholics. There are people who are so alcohol-dependent that if they don't continue to consume it at a regular pace, they will end up in the Emergency Department, or worse.

I doubt that murders will really have gone up massively with a persistent ban, but I would also expect that alcohol consumption that would diminish sharply with a small on/off switch would be down by less with a long-term, planned, codified ban. Telling people they can't buy something for a few weeks might engender a few oddball workarounds, but it doesn't result in the development of long-term, sustainable institutions of illegal production and distribution (which we see develop with any in-demand black market item).

I do agree that there's a stylized version of American Prohibition where people just accept a simple narrative and engage in some motivated reasoning about how their preferred policy was the right thing in all ways. I'm sure there really were tradeoffs and that some sorts of violence would go down with alcohol bans. Ultimately, I'm against prohibition because I like alcohol and don't like the government, not because I have high confidence that it actually increases violence. I don't think this is a luxury belief in the traditional sense - I am aware that this is probably bad for some people and I don't think I gain any performative social esteem from holding it.

Yup.

The Prohibition impact isn't really the problem. The first order effect of prohibition is to decrease availability of [banned thing]. The long term effect is to decrease legal availability of [banned thing].

The second order effect is to push the markets for [banned thing] underground, correlating more or less with how badly people still want [banned thing].

And the third order effect, or one of them: when merchants of [banned thing] can't use normal conflict resolution/contract enforcement methods, they have to invoke base violence in order to operate. Wars over turf, breaking kneecaps to collect on debts, burning down establishments that don't pay protection, killing snitches, those all become necessary to the business. And then it eventually becomes organized and systemic.

They can't use the court systems and the state-sanctioned violence, so unless you have a full-on police state, this stuff will spill over into civilian life.

So yeah, flipping a switch on and off between "banned" and "legal" will show some effect, but leave the switch on "banned" long enough and you'll ultimately see a system evolve which perpetuates violence. THEN maybe you can assess whether the additional violence is worth the actual harm reduction achieved by the ban.

It seems unfortunate that for many things there isn't a stable equilibrium of "Legally permitted but socially verboten" where a given activity or product is not banned, but the social judgment that comes from engaging in it is so severe that it necessarily remains hidden on the fringes of society, so there's 'friction' involved in accessing it, and most 'right-thinking' people avoid it because they don't want to risk the social consequences, even if they're curious.

One option would be to make the thing not 100% verboten, but a massive hassle to have legally, like Title II weapons.

For example, you could still sell alcohol in bars and restaurants, but they would have to close at 9pm. Not stop selling alcohol (easily exploitable), close outright. No alcohol in grocery stores, only in designated liquor stores that have to be at least 10000 feet away from the nearest grocery store, cannot open earlier than 10am or close later than 4pm, must stay closed on weekends and holidays, can't take cash, can't sell more than 200ml of ethanol to a customer per day.

Bringing alcohol for personal use from another county would be legal, but you would have to declare it before consumption. You would have to take it to the police station, pay a per-container fee if you have more than six containers and get the containers stamped within two days. If you were found consuming unregistered alcohol, it would be a crime and the fine would be 10x the price of alcohol levied on both the drinker and the owner of the premises. If you were arrested for public intoxication, you'd better be able to prove you had consumed enough allowed alcohol, or your BAC would be used to calculate how much you had drunk.

All this would mean that getting a beer after work would not be impossible but would be a hassle. Your best option would be having one at a restaurant. Or driving to a wet county for a sixpack every week. Or spending your lunch break driving to the local liquor store.

Not even disagreeing, but realize that when you try to create 'clever' regulatory schemes like this you're up against the innovative power of every entrepreneur in that space.

Every single exploit or loophole that can be found will be used to the hilt, so you'll probably have to constantly adjust your regulations to add friction back into the system as market actors find ways to remove it. Kinds of like, I suppose, how Zyn has taken off with the decline in smoking and the general low-status of chewing tobacco. Or more directly, how vaping stepped in to replace smoking as well.

When marijuana was first legalized where I lived, it was a massive PITA to get it and there weren't that many dispensaries. The illegal trade still retained a huge portion of the market share. At a certain point, legal vs. illegal isn't what people are choosing based off. It also becomes convenient vs. inconvenient. If the above rules were put into place, you'd find no shortage of "beer guys" within the month.

And the third order effect, or one of them: when merchants of [banned thing] can't use normal conflict resolution/contract enforcement methods, they have to invoke base violence in order to operate. Wars over turf, breaking kneecaps to collect on debts, burning down establishments that don't pay protection, killing snitches, those all become necessary to the business. And then it eventually becomes organized and systemic.

This is just taking the US experience of Prohibition and expanding it to cover all bans in all countries.

Taiwan and Japan ban drugs just fine. They are not police states. There are no gangs or violence associated with drugs.

Some things are hard to ban, some easier. And there is a large amount of cultural difference too. But most bans do actually reduce consumption of the banned thing without too many negative consequences.

This is not just US Prohibition. Drug gang violence is a major problem. A review of murder statistics implies our high murder rates are drug gang activity. We are indeed not a nation of Japanese people and Japanese Americans are not typically imprisoned or killed over illegal drugs.

They are not police states. There are no gangs or violence associated with drugs.

I've said it before, I am completely prepared to admit that Japanese people are less likely to be violent regardless of the policies they operate under.

See my point:

correlating more or less with how badly people still want [banned thing].

Japan doesn't have the huge drug-addled underbelly that the U.S. does, to my knowledge.

But they DO have Yakuza, who keep things orderly but, I emphasize, STILL rely on violence to enforce their business practices.

And allegedly the decline of the Yakuza is opening up space for more violent operations who are harder to police because they're less legible. Although as mentioned elsewhere, Japan is pretty close to being a police state.

So... my EXACT, PRECISE point still applies to Japan, even if less obviously so.

Japan is totally a police state.

Have you been to Japan? I spent two and a half weeks there, spending time in various parts of the country, and I think I can count the number of police officers I saw on one hand.

"Police state" isn't just a function of uniformed officers. I don't totally agree with the description, but if you consider "fearing the police" a critical part of a police state, I'd point to the absurd conviction rate and the idea that you'd just expect to get arrested if you started any sort of disruptive crime as indicators that the Japanese largely "fear" (probably uncharitable, more like "respect and comply with" in practice, I think) law enforcement.

As compared to the US where I've seen no shortage of people doing (minor, mostly non-violent) crimes right in front of police officers.

I'd point to the absurd conviction rate

The Japanese conviction rate being so high is mostly a result of two factors:

  1. The Japanese take confession cases to trial (the confession is presented as evidence), so they show up as "conviction" in Japanese statistics whereas they show up as "not a trial" in almost every other country's. Because confessions are very common, this drastically inflates Japan's conviction rate.

  2. Japanese prosecutors are actually quite reticent about pressing charges without a confession, so cases that might show up as "acquittal" in another country tend to show up as "not a trial" in Japan.

Japanese culture is indeed hilariously disgusted with criminals (the best example is probably the manga/anime Death Note, in which a vigilante who decides to kill all the criminals - but who can only kill the ones who the justice system has already caught - is presented as morally ambiguous rather than an utter lunatic), but AIUI their justice system isn't actually as vicious as you'd expect from that (note that Japan does not have jury trials, which is probably a good thing).

to kill all the criminals - but who can only kill the ones who the justice system has already caught

inaccurate, there are some cases shown where Death Note vigilante kills criminals before they could be caught

More comments

They obtain the confessions by coercion, basically what detective novels call "the third degree". You can be held without bail for 23 days at a time, and if you don't confess in that time they can re-arrest you for another 23 days on your way out of the jail.

More comments

There are no gangs . . . associated with drugs.

I thought the Yakuza were pretty involved in the drugs trade.

Taiwan and Japan ban drugs just fine. ... There are no gangs or violence associated with drugs.

This isn't true. First link I found.

To a first order approximation it is true. The murder rate in Japan is around 0.3. In the United States it is 7.

Drug use is confined to a tiny minority. And with almost no junkies, there is almost no market for drugs.

Why ban on commercial surrogacy or human cloning or CP or deepfakes doesn't result in breaking kneecaps, burning down, etc.

establishments that don't pay protection

What does that have to do with prohibitions? Protection racket is a form of tax used by proto-state-actor with short time horizon.

Why ban on commercial surrogacy or human cloning or CP or deepfakes doesn't result in breaking kneecaps, burning down, etc.

Well as I said:

correlating more or less with how badly people still want [banned thing].

Drugs and alcohol are an ur-example because the people that want them REALLLLLY want them. Similar with prostitution. Gambling too. I imagine legalized sports gambling has made it far harder for criminals to make a buck on it now.

It helps when the thing is legal overseas or is more readily produced overseas and can be transmitted electronically so there's no need for interpersonal violence at the consumer level.

Like, we had a brief change in the drug trade when crypto was still new and allowed Silk Road to exist, and money could be exchanged for drugs without the need for violent enforcement. But the state cracked down and so we slid over to the standard equilibrium.

I do not think people "really" want alcohol unless acculturated into it by other people. There are many Muslim nations with ~0 alcohol consumption and these countries have none or little of these long-term effects you propose.

Many Muslim nations still have drug problems, but with drugs other than alcohol: qat and captagon come to mind most prominently, and aren't to my knowledge issues in the West. Opium was an issue in Afghanistan, but IIRC the Taliban was actually against it.

I don't know if the quintessential Western hard drugs (meth, fentanyl, probably missing a few because I like my life boring) are major issues elsewhere in the world these days.

Meth is a thing in developing countries with really long work days.

I mean, with Islam they also abstain from Pork despite that being an insanely popular dish in most countries that can afford bacon.

They've got the sort of equilibrium that I suspect is hard to achieve for most places.

I've also noted before how unlike most other immigrant groups, Arabs/Muslims DON'T seem to create any organized crime syndicates in their host countries in the way that, say Irish, Italian, Russian, or various South American immigrants did in the U.S..

Instead, they tend to form political units which, in their worst instantiation look like ISIS, but even in milder form look like Hezbollah or the Taliban.

So, STILL engaging in violence, but directed to a very different objective.

What about rape/grooming gangs in Europe?

Aren’t Arab criminals a major problem in some European countries, eg Sweden? I’ve certainly heard from Dutchmen that Moroccan organized crime is a serious problem over there, as well.

Sweden has seen a noted uptick in criminality in immigrant-heavy suburbs and it has significant boosted their violent crime rate.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/10/22/swedens-brutal-gang-problem-heres-what-officials-blame-it-on/

Could you expound on that difference? My understanding of American immigrant crime syndicates is that they were also historically quite involved in machine politics like Tammany Hall. I'm not sure if the mafia, for example, became a bipartisan bugbear of its own volition, or more because it became politically expedient to oppose organized crime circa the 1930s. There are probably still rumors of involvement by organized crime in politics -- maybe see the current longshoremen union?

Human cloning: not enough people want it badly enough. Same probably goes for surrogacy, with the added fact that anyone who could afford the criminal price could just afford legal workarounds.

In the case of CP I think it results in similar behavior to drug prohibition. Extensive criminal networks, child trafficking and all the associated crimes, etc. the people who want it want it bad, will pay for it, and have no easy substitutes.

Deepfakes are currently too easy and still readily available even when technically illegal. No market when the supply is nearly infinite and demand is relatively low.

None of those things are comparable. A better comparison is bans on drugs, which do result in broken kneecaps and gang shootings, and bans on prostitution, which result in the same.

Human cloning: not enough people want it badly enough.

How do you know when it's universally banned? Asking that question in a poll is like asking "are you a bad human who deserves to rot in jail?"

Deepfakes are currently too easy and still readily available even when technically illegal.

Wouldn't deepfakes solve previous CP problems? Deepfakes of any kind might be not so accessible anymore since we're still in yearly stages on banning it. E.g. in China it's OK with just "deepfake" watermark (or what it is) and South Korea only banned it 6 days ago.

How do you know when it's universally banned? Asking that question in a poll is like asking "are you a bad human who deserves to rot in jail?"

I notice a complete lack of any social judgment towards those who'd like human cloning to be legal, or anything adjacent to that. For contrast, look at the social judgment towards those who want to look at naked pictures (including obviously drawn pictures) of young women (including the obviously fictional ones) who are 17 years and 11 months old.

If you looked at society without knowing the laws, you'd probably assume that human cloning is legal, it's just that there is no use for it and that's why no one does it.

No, people who want cartoon River Tam porn are not judged in any way shape or form by society except possibly for not being able to shut up about it.

There's a funny thread not long ago you may have missed.

but it doesn't result in the development of long-term, sustainable institutions of illegal production and distribution (which we see develop with any in-demand black market item).

This.

Furthermore, alcohol is significantly easier to produce than other drugs, such as methamphetamine. With meth I would likely get caught the moment I tried to source precursor chemicals. With alcohol, all the precursor substances are easily sourced in any supermarket. Building a still is probably the hardest part, but the general principle is simple enough. If alcoholic were willing to fork over half their salaries to be supplied with shitty booze, then a lot of producers of shitty booze would pop up overnight. A total prohibition on alcohol seems about as enforceable as a prohibition on masturbation, but with a lot of people actually going blind.

Of course, prohibition will still deter some people drinking in the long run. But most of the discouraged drinking would not have lead to violent crimes down the road. Your median alcohol-induced murder or rape does not happen because someone drank two glasses of wine at a fancy restaurant, or by some partying kid who was fine to spent the night at a dry bar instead of finding an illegal booze-serving place.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats