Stephen <mca### [at] aolcom> wrote:
> On 22/06/2013 6:53 PM, Warp wrote:
>  > andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>  >
>  >> There was a large teetotaller movement in the first half of the last
>  >> century (and before) in the Netherlands and elsewhere. One of the
>  >> reasons given (e.g. by my father) was that many poor families were
>  >> starving because the men drank all the money. That is still a big
>  >> problem in many parts of the world.
>  >> My old boss was a teetotaller too. He lost many friends during the war
>  >> because of people telling too much under influence.
>  >
>  > In other words, "knives are being used to kill people, therefore I never
>  > touch a knife and never will."
>  >

> Bad show! Old Chap.

> That is not what Andrel said.

I know. I was referring to the arguments of those other people. It's the
fallacious "thing X *can* be used in harmful ways, therefore I won't even
touch it" principle. If you used the same principle with everything, you
would actually die because you couldn't do anything at all, not even eat
food or dring water. You couldn't drive cars, you couldn't handle any
kind of tools, you couldn't handle money, nothing.

> IMO one should ever force anyone to take poisonous substances.

Who's talking about forcing anybody to do anything? I was talking about
people using the wrong, uninformed reasons to avoid something.

As for "poisonous substances", everything is poisonous if you take it
too much. You die from drinking too much water (it's even called "water
poisoning"). You will die a horrible death by poisoning if you take too
much vitamin A.

That doesn't mean that those substances are in any way dangerous or
unhealthy in proper amounts.

Perhaps you missed the "small amounts of alcohol from time to time can
actually have health benefits" part.

> Or imply that there is something wrong with them if they don't.

I think it's wrong if they do it for the wrong, misinformed reasons.

>  > It's a false dichotomy.

> It is a poor reading by you of human nature.

It is quite a perfect example of false dichotomy. They seem to think that
there are only two options: Either complete abstinence, or pathological
alcoholism, killing yourself and others by excessive drinking.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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