How to study people who are drunk

(economist.com)

45 points | by marojejian 4 days ago ago

14 comments

  • untrimmed 4 hours ago ago

    With all our smartwatches and social media apps tracking us, aren't we all already part of some giant, unofficial naturalistic study?

    • lukan 4 hours ago ago

      The data is unfortunately not quite open and not meant for science, but for advertisement and propaganda.

  • marojejian 4 days ago ago

    archive: https://archive.is/nRLrZ

    Though in general i think science needs more rigor, this a was a fund article with a legit point. And the findings listed on drinking were interesting. (does reduce pain, and some people don't get hung over)

    • TimByte 3 hours ago ago

      More rigor is always good, but there’s also value in studying messy real-world behavior as it happens

    • southernplaces7 6 hours ago ago

      Can absolutely vouch for the pain reduction aspect. It's not exactly a pointed anesthetic in the way some medications are, but alcohol certainly dulls a lot of aches and moderate pains of the body. Though I think this is also partly due to the distracting effect of relaxed and socializing while drunk. Love it either way, in moderation.

      Also, i'm one of those people who rarely suffers anything resembling a hangover, even after those rare nights of heavier drinking, but then maybe drinking only hard spirits helps, because sugar-loaded alcoholic drinks like wine, beer and cocktails are famous for creating some of the most monstrous hangovers among those who get hangovers in general.

  • throejd84mrifmr 6 hours ago ago

    > And if they did, a team of neuroscientists from the local university was waiting to gently torture them.

    > The researchers were on site to test how well alcohol can numb pain.

    > “Ethically, we can’t ask people to drink alcohol to levels they do in their day-to-day lives,”

    > the point beyond which they felt proper consent was hard to establish.

    How is this study ethical? Researchers declared they do not need formal consent, because that would be too hard, and just went on, to torture impaired people!

    Universities were going on and on, how drunk people can not consent, and even saying hi to someone in a bar is unethical! And now serious research institute pulls this stunt with torturing people without their consent!

    • brian-armstrong 5 hours ago ago

      > Universities were going on and on, how drunk people can not consent, and even saying hi to someone in a bar is unethical!

      Actually they've been saying that drunk people can't consent to sex, not to saying "hi." Bit of a difference, that.

    • saagarjha 33 minutes ago ago

      It's really weird how you made this about your inability to understand informed consent.

    • titanomachy 6 hours ago ago

      I'm pretty sure they're saying they didn't experiment on anyone over 0.15 BAC, because they felt that those people were unable to give true consent.

    • oersted 5 hours ago ago

      I can’t see it explicitly specified in the article, but let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill, it says “gently torture”, it’s clearly tong-and-cheek, I doubt it’s more than a pinprick.

    • sfn42 5 hours ago ago

      Universities are not homogenous. Lots of students don't give a shit about all this drama. They're just there to study things and have fun.

      It's mostly people studying BS humanities topics like "women's studies" and crap like that. They don't represent everyone.

  • TimByte 3 hours ago ago

    There's definitely a tradeoff in terms of experimental control, but the real-world insight seems worth it.

  • gizajob 3 hours ago ago

    They’re not drunk, honest.

  • smcin 5 hours ago ago

    This is getting downvoted a lot, probably because the title makes it sound frivolous which it isn't; it's a legit case in how to do a naturalistic study.