On Aug 21, 2004, at 5:54 PM, Erik Reuter wrote:
On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 03:42:32PM -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote:
Perhaps the alcohol clouded their minds and kept them from realizing this simple fact?
Ah, but that wouldn't have been a "simple fact" to anyone born before medical science had progressed past leeches and phrenology. :\
That's absurd. Of course it is a simple, timeless fact as long as humans have had coats and alcohol.
That's an interesting assertion and I'd like to see the evidence you have to support it. If you can point me to reference materials indicating that there were experiments performed (or even observations made) as recently as 200 years ago, I'd be most intrigued by them, and would accept them as evidence to support your claim that alcohol's non-warming effects were known to contemporaries of (e.g.) Ben Franklin.
Otherwise I think I'll have to continue with my view that, until medicine became a science, there was no knowledge in the human species that alcohol didn't warm the body.
Because alcohol *does* cause a sensation of warmth, it was associated with being warm for centuries, and even today it's used for the purpose of "warming up"
Apparently by people whose minds are numbed, possibly from alcohol or hypothermia.
Well, yes, generally -- as I mentioned, they're long on ice-fishing tales.
I'm still curious about the "immoral" aspect of giving booze to kids, though (and I can't recall who said it was)
Fool
Hey, if you're going to resort to name-calling... :D
(I know what you meant.)
I find it an interesting assertion, one that needs some support before I can accept it as even being a point that can be argued. At least as a blanket, all-inclusive and arbitrary declaration.
How about cigarettes? Cocaine? LSD? Marijuana?
This is interesting as well; are you seriously suggesting that cocaine and alcohol are equivalent substances? That LSD and weed can be lumped into the same categories? Ethical concerns dealing with giving *any* such things to kids aside, that strikes me as a rather harsh perspective.
Perhaps you're aware of data that I'm not, data that suggests the effects of acid are fundamentally identical to those of, for instance, beer (or watered wine). If so, I'd like to know where you came by that information as well, and whether you're an activist agitating to add alcohol and tobacco to controlled substance lists like the other items you've listed.
But then, that's *always* my problem when I come across the word "immoral" (or "moral"), which is why I prefer to think in terms of ethics. Morality, to me, suggests the presence of an all-powerful superbeing dictating absolutes, which is something I'd be hard-put to accept as even a rational conjecture.
I've known a number of people who, speaking (thinking?) loosely, use the
two words interchangeably.
Yes, actually I've bumped into it a lot as well, and that's why I try to make a distinction. Perhaps I'm being particular, but it doesn't hurt to clarify terms.
-- WthmO
If you can't beat 'em, have 'em flogged. --
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