Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
But what guarantee is there that the bond would be replaced? What if the only thing that two people have in common is that they love their gin and tonic and they find each other both drinking it on a Tuesday afternoon at their local pub and start talking? If there is no gin and tonic, are they both going to the bowling alley?
Replaced = different person. Who you're making friends with seems irrelevant at this point.

From your perspective yes. But in the mind of someone who has been a hermit all his life, never going outside to parties or hanging out with large groups of people, the only way they might mentally break themselves out of their shell is by reasoning that the alcohol might make them a different, perhaps cooler person. Otherwise they might just psych themselves out mentally to do anything sober.


This has a good chance of being true. But it probably depends on the individual and I guess in retrospect neither mine nor your conjecture should be applied sweepingly across all people. Some people might need it, some might not. I know a few in both categories.
Then we'll say that we disagree.


I guess I should clarify that it is not completely necessary for alcohol to enter the social equation here. But I do think that may, may people find it necessary themselves. I do think that it still has a net positive effect for various reasons that I can't put out as facts (for every drunken angry husband, how many socializing college parties are happening at the same time?).
What I am having in mind here, is a world where alcohol does not exist (never has, never will). Being the social creatures that humans are, they would still very much like to gather, like in the form of parties. The key here is that you cannot simply credit alcohol for things that happen when people are intoxicated. It would all happen - and does happen - without any form of intoxication. Some of the downsides, however, would not happen without alcohol; such as alcoholics, of course, but perhaps also DWI (that would of course depend on whether one would allow different sorts of drugs to exist in the thought experiment, and other things).

Rather than focusing solely on the negative effects of alchol, I don't think that alcohol actually contributes to much good. It is more of an icing on the cake where it works positively.