They found that communities producing their own alcoholic drinks, like fruit wines or cereal beers, often showed higher levels of political organization.
Er ah, er ah. Makes perfect sense to me.
Posted on 07/17/2025 1:10:45 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Societies rise with alcohol consumption and decline under prohibition. History proves it out. Drink responsibly.
They found that communities producing their own alcoholic drinks, like fruit wines or cereal beers, often showed higher levels of political organization.
Er ah, er ah. Makes perfect sense to me.
A gram is better than a damn.
There were beer halls all over ancient Egyptian.
The “Irish Virish”.
The Egyptians had a prayer to a God or gods paraphrasing - give my soul beer and onions!
Little known factoid: Egyptian civilization collapsed due to an overabundance of ground level methane!
Do you have a link to such data?
Some of my best times, sitting around a bar with friends, getting fairly sloshed and having conversations that were only meant for bars and wild laughter. Way before the 3 drink limit. Damn, 3 drinks and we were only getting started.
Great article, thanks for posting.
Years ago, I spent a wonderful week traveling through Greece. Had my first Retsina there and loved it. Forgot about it, but now I’ll go buy a bottle. I usually have one glass of Charodonnay from Australia every night with dinner. Retsina can be interesting substitute now and then.
No ouzo?
Great. Let’s go have a drink! Laz is buying.
Didn’t like flavor or Ouzo.
Ouch! I love it . . too much. So I quit buying it. It’s like liquid candy to me so I stay away from it.
The Irish have tried for years to get Drunken Bar Fight included as an Olympic sport. To no success, alas.
Read the title to THIS article.
Alcohol, especially beer, allowed communities to scale their size and increase population densities. Societies without alcohol often failed to grow because the increased population density contaminated the water supply, increasing sickness from polluted water. By drinking beer instead, organisms in the drinking water were killed, which allowed more people to live in a smaller space. Instead of a frontiersman life where they had to do all things themselves, population growth allowed specialization and shops that specialized (bakeries, blacksmiths, food vendors, etc.) in specific markets resulted in scale economies and rising incomes.
“Researchers analyzed data from 186 traditional societies worldwide. They found that communities producing their own alcoholic drinks, like fruit wines or cereal beers, often s
showed higher levels of political organization. “
The study likely does not distinguish between cause and effect; ignoring the possibility of other attributes of higher levels of political organization, of which alcohol may have been a social attribute but not the cause of higher political organization.
They think they know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but they don’t know.
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