dclayh comments on Absolute denial for atheists - Less Wrong

39 Post author: taw 16 July 2009 03:41PM

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Comment author: Mario 17 July 2009 03:38:55AM 0 points [-]

I have a theory about alcohol consumption; I call people who like (or don't mind) the taste "tongue blind." My theory is that these people have such poor taste receptors that they need an overly strong stimulus to register anything other than bland. Under this theory, I would expect people that like alcohol to also like very spicy food, to put extra salt most things they eat, and to think that vanilla is a synonym for plain.

Comment author: dclayh 17 July 2009 04:10:01AM *  1 point [-]
  1. Vanilla is a synonym for "plain" when it's artificial (i.e. the vanillin molecule and nothing else). Actual vanilla is obviously a whole different beast.
  2. If people who liked wine had such dead tastes buds or (more realistically) noses, why would they bother to make up such elaborate flavors? (In particular, if it were only about status-signaling, the move from old-style wine description ("insouciant but never trite") to the new style ("cassis, clove and cinnamon with a whiff of tobacco and old leather") seems very strange.)
  3. My personal experience in general doesn't jive with your theory, except for one point: people who like alcohol tend to have a high tolerance for bitter things, and therefore also like very dark chocolate (I personally am an exception to this, however).
  4. ETA: the software converted my 0-indexed list to a 1-indexing. How sad.
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