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SilasBarta comments on Bizarre Illusions - Less Wrong
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I didn't say it was. I accept that you also started liking the taste itself; I just claim that this would happen for anything, including bat urine, so I don't put it in the same class of stuff that tastes good before significantly molding your mind to make it so.
Sounds like a despised "just-so" story to me. You can just as well find markers of biotic diversity in bat urine (at the very least, diabetic bat urine) that derives from the variety in their diet, and the different kinds of bats, etc.
I know. I was referring to your newfound "ability to distinguish differences to a higher degree of precision" and didn't know a shorter term. Please don't criticize someone's terminology unless you offer an alternate, superior term that you would not object to. Like what I did in a different discussion over here in point 2.
Okay. Scientists have, though, and usually you can get away with swapping out "high quality" stuff for low quality stuff and people won't notice. They will throw a status-driven hissy fit if they find out what you did, though.
So would you agree that my thesis is at least accurate for a portion of the population? (The thesis was, "People don't really like the taste but use the supposed taste and other reasons as an excuse for getting high in a socially acceptable way and keeping it legal to do so.")
True, what you said was
which I read as implying that differentiation causes "liking" ("inherently tied" was imprecise terminology on my part). What did you actually mean?
Uh, taste as an evolutionarily-shaped nutrition-detector isn't exactly a novel just-so hypothesis. If your real objection is with the assertion of complex flavor preferences or the link between such flavors and biotic diversity, I don't know what calling it a "just-so story" even means. You were probably looking for a slightly less general retaliate button.
Valuable biotic diversity. The kind of stuff that garners positive feedback from the tract.
I wasn't "criticizing your terminology", I was attempting to correct a perceived misunderstanding in progress. You used the word "nuance" and then went on to talk about double-blind taste tests, which taken together led me to believe that I hadn't effectively communicated the scale of distinction I had in mind. Hence the comparison to ale and lager. I'm well-aware of wine snobs and their embarrassing track records.
Assuming that my terminological correction is some ineffectual, off-topic criticism of your choice of words is assuming I'm basically acting in bad faith. Not very productive.
Yes.
I was listing the differentiation, and the liking of taste, as two separate phenomena, with any possible causal relationship, not necessarily the differentiation causing the enjoyment.
Yes, we do have (what can be called) nutrition detectors, but none of them work anything like what would have to be present for the one you posited: 1) in the EEA, we didn't normally taste the ingredients of beer, 2) 25% of the population is distracted by the taste of alcohol and unable to use the information, 3) the nutrition detectors we do have evoke pleasant responses in almost everyone, from a very young age (i.e. aren't acquired tastes).
I call it a "just so story" because it doesn't pass many obvious sanity checks.
None of the things in beer "garner positive feedback from the tract". And knowledge of what fruits and meats the bats in the area are able to eat would definitely signal the diversity in the area. If you meant GI tract micoorganisms, beer came around way too late, and is way too dissimilar to other things we consume to have been adapted for as a gauge of useful diversity.
What is the brief appellation you believe I should have used to describe what I was referring to? If you don't have one, you should have accepted the specificity/brevity tradeoff I made in trying to summarize what you just said, and responded to the substance of the point, saying what I got wrong there.
If you do have one, you just passed up your second opportunity to be helpful by telling it to me. What's your goal here?
No, telling me what I did wrong without telling me what would have been right, is bad faith, because it leaves me in the position of having to get permission from you every time I want to briefly refer back to something you said.
Okay, thank you. I just wish I didn't have to pull teeth to talk about these things.
"None of the things in beer "garner positive feedback from the tract"".
Not true. One of the things I like about beer is that when I'm hungry, it tastes REALLY good. It tastes like I'm eating a meal. This doesn't happen with wine, which is just a drink.
LOL! What's funny is, this isn't the first time I've heard this line of "reasoning".
"Okay okay, high-carb substance X might not taste good, but it tastes REALLY good when you're energy starved (in contrast to all those high-carb food/drinks that don't taste really good in such a circumstance)."
I mention it because it tastes better than other high carb food and drinks in those circumstances. That's a fact, at least regarding my taste.
And there's really something wrong with your manner of argument, since you could say something similar about any reason why anyone would say anything ever tastes good. You might as well say you dislike the taste of milkshake, but just like the effects of fat and sugar on your body, or something like that.
[replying separately to this tortured meta sub-thread]
Look, it wasn't clear to me at all that you were making such a trade-off. I wouldn't have mentioned the word "nuance" at all if I thought you were you just abbreviating my intent. Misinterpretations are a dime a dozen in these sorts of conversations, no need to take a retransmit so personally.
To have a clear exchange of ideas. Do you suspect another?
Emphasis mine. You're taking it personally. It could just as easily have been poor phrasing on my part. I'm more interested in ensuring that the thing you read is the thing I'm trying to write than I am in figuring who's to "blame" for some terminological "error".
Not sure what you mean here. In the EEA we could still probably taste the rough signature of a fermentation process.
Again you imply that supertasters are unable to get past their initial reaction to the taste of alcohol, despite the utter plausibility of psychoactive reinforcement leading to a modified sense of taste.
Source? My tastes changed slowly but continually as I aged. Is your assertion that none of the common shifts from childhood to adult food preferences are linked to nutritional content?
If the above ordered list constitutes your "obvious sanity checks", then I question their adequacy. If you're referring to some other sanity checks, I'd be interested in hearing them.
To clarify, I'm not actually advocating Roberts' theory. I brought it up because I think it's plausible, which is all that's required to doubt the counterintuitive assertion that developing a taste for bat urine is akin to developing a taste for beer.
Came around way too late? Dietary adaptations can be pretty rapid (e.g., adult lactose tolerance). But I doubt your assertion that beer is too dissimilar to other things we consume - getting a message like "this is fermented, caloric, and not obviously toxic" from your tongue is probably good enough.
Then you'd have to show how it has selective power. What information is gained from the fermentation stage, and why would it shift our makeup so quickly?
Not one that just happens to line up with a convoluted mechanism that just happens to justify liking beer.
We change what we like, but we keep the category of sweet (detection of sugars). There is no scientific substantiation for a "fermentedness" category detector: just sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and the recent meaty one. That gives a serious presumption against this kind of mechanism.
Then I just have to show equal plausibility of the usefulness of bat urine, which I've done. Diabetic bat urine contains sugar, which in turn contains sweetness, which in turn contains information information about the plants in the area. This result can be extended to normal bat urine, in which the fruit content of the area will determine bat urine bitterness, which we would then "enjoy" drinking, just as people learn to "enjoy" beer's bitterness.
And, as a bonus, urine was consumed for a sliver of our evolutionary history.
Sure, it's convoluted and implausible, but good enough to keep consumption of bat urine nice and legal, which is really all it has to do.
Why would it need to be a quick shift?
Huh? In earlier comments you seemed to have no problem with the idea that people developed a taste for things that got them high, but now the idea is suspect because it supports an explanation for liking beer?
And there's no need for a "fermentedness" category detector, any more than there's a need for cones that selectively perceive yellow.
Ah yes, the "grand social conspiracy to ward off prohibition" hypothesis emerges again. I'd be interested in hearing more about how you think this is supposed to work.
A large fraction of the population is hugely enthusiastic about something, and acts to preserve it? It worked for chocolate - what makes you think alcohol inspires less enthusiasm?
Enthusiasm alone doesn't solve coordination problems, especially when there's no problem to be solved in the first place.
On retrospect, I would argue less "keep alcohol legal" than "keep alcohol available".
It's called umami.
You haven't shown equal plausibility for your "bat urine" hypothesis as Roberts has for his "fermented food" hypothesis. Go ahead and scan his blog under the categories fermented food and umami hypothesis. (I don't agree with everything Roberts has written on the subject.)
That said, I think it was an error for loqi to bring up Roberts's ideas at all -- when he talks about fermented food, he means things like yogourt, soy sauce, natto, miso, fish paste, and kombucha, not the products of alcoholic fermentation. (ETA: No, apparently he includes alcoholic fermentation.)
http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/2010/01/17/lindemans-lambic-framboise/
My mistake.
I think people usually either find a taste they like when they drink (sometimes mixing in sweet drinks), or drink just for the alcohol and grow to like the taste over time. I doubt many people claim to drink solely for the taste: I've never heard anyone say this, though people who enjoy the buzz of alcohol also say they like the taste.
Again, this is something that could make anything taste good -- it's no evidence of liking the alcoholic drink. It's one of the very reasons I rolled my eyes at when people tried to convince me that I must actually like alcohol, because I like a certain drink that heavily dilutes the alcohol taste through sweetness.
I've certainly seen people put on that pretense, and, in any case, they certainly claim it's a driving factor, if for no other reason than the vastly varying prices for the same amount of alcohol.
I do not particularly like the high of alcohol. However, I really like Belgian beer, and it has alcohol in it, sometimes large amounts, and it's a side effect I am willing to handle for the taste! Unfortunately, that side effect does mean I am forced to limit myself to about 3 beers in one sitting.
I wonder if you have never drank sufficiently good beer. It doesn't have to be that expensive even, super-high end beers are much cheaper than super-high end wine. $5-7 for a normal bottle, $30 for a bottle of the best beer in the world. http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/westvleteren-abt-12/4934/
If you're ever in Pittsburgh, I'll buy you a real beer at the Sharp Edge.
I also admit that your point is probably correct and I am something of an outlier -- and it's really just Belgian beer that I would drink despite the alcohol; most other beer and wine and liquor is nothing special.
Thanks for the offer, and your input.
Pay attention, everyone. This is what it looks like when you really like drinking something, rather than its effect on your mind:
When you start running into hard limits about how much of the stuff you can consume before deleterious effects on your body, and this is a downside to you, that definitely sounds like a serious enjoyment. (That's where I am regarding ice cream and many other sweets.)
In contrast, when there are very narrow situations in which you enjoy its "taste", and drink "just enough" to accomplish mild relaxation when you want to, um, mildly relax, well, then I start to get skeptical.
I think I understand. We're talking about two different things.
You're saying, if I understand correctly, that there's a great deal of snobbery in alcohol drinking: people claim that expensive wines or liquors taste so much better, and this claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Outside of this snobbery, though, just in terms of friendly social drinking, almost everyone agrees that they drink because they enjoy the feeling, and the taste is just something they grew to like over time, or they mix it with something sweet to make it taste better.
Um, no, and that's the problem. I have never been able to get people to admit that it's just about the mental effects, and that they have to find ways to make themselves tolerate the awful taste. Not without a lot of teeth-pulling, and people telling me about all the wonderful arguments against this position.
Again, it's the insistence that they like "this particular drink" because it's "so good" that bothers me. No, it's about getting high, and no one will talk about this.
I'm surprised by this experimental result. In my experience most people say that it's about the mental effects as well as the taste. Just to be clear: over half the people you ask say that they don't drink alcohol for the mental effects at all, and it's solely about the taste?
I wonder if part of this is due to the way you're asking. You use language like "tolerate the awful taste", "suffer through", and compare it to hot sauce and engine oil. Obviously you strongly dislike the taste of alcohol. Not everyone does though; while I drink primarily for the mental effects, I also enjoy and have acquired a taste for some different types of alcohol, and I like some combinations of flavors when having a beer with food.
So maybe you're getting strong reactions in contrast to your extreme statements that alcohol tastes awful and no one could ever like the taste.
It's more like this:
me: I think I'm strange. I don't like alcoholic drinks. I mean, I like the effect on me, but not the taste, not the process of drinking it.
them: Yeah, that is strange. I mean, I like margaritas.
me: Oh really? What do you like about them?
them: Well, I like them when I go out dancing...
me: No, I mean, like, about the taste.
them: Well, I like those really frozen ones with lots of different fruit flavors.
me: So you like the taste of those margaritas? What is it about the taste?
them: Um, well, it helps me to relax. [Alternate: It's kind of a social thing/social lubricant.]
me: *falls out of chair* Okay, so about the taste. Do you like the taste more than that of a milkshake?
them: Hm, that's a good question, I've never even thought of that. No, I like the milkshake much better.
me: *loses hope in humanity*
What would happen if you asked someone this:
And they answered your question? Specifically, would one good response cause you to rethink your theory on the subject? How many responses would you need to be convinced?
I am not saying I have those responses. I am just curious.
It sounds like the person here is saying he drinks for the mental effects ("it helps me to relax"), and that he doesn't mind the taste because it's mixed with things he likes ("fruit flavors"). This seems like the answer I'd expect.
Whereas it seems like you absolutely despise the taste, most people who drink don't mind it, and sometimes like it, especially when mixed with fruit or sweet tastes.
But they don't like it, "especially when mixed with fruit or sweet tastes (and taste-bud numbing ice, but whatever)". Rather, they like sweet, fruity, cold drinks, and still find them good, even if it is worsened with a little alcohol.
That, I think is the appropriate way to characterize it.. Again, remember my incessant point about baseline comparisons: if someone likes fruity sweetness, it's going to make pretty much anything (that doesn't clash) taste good. But so what? That doesn't mean they like the stuff its mixed with. It just means they like that fruity sweetness, and their enjoyment may persist even if the drink is degraded with other, worse flavors.
What's more, conversations like these (alarmingly typical) reveal that people aren't even thinking about the distinction between liking a drink for its taste, and liking it because they like getting high -- and nor are they interested in learning.
I've been watching this thread for a while, and as a frequent alcohol-drinker, I thought I would try to report my experience as honestly as I can manage:
I agree that most alcohol consumption is mainly about the buzz. I like different states of consciousness. The one induced by alcohol is not my favorite, but it's one I can enjoy without having to sneak around or worry about prison, so I make do with the (somewhat personally disappointing) political freedoms I have. I do drink wine for the taste - it just isn't the same kind of taste as anything else. It's a sensory-overload experience that happens to be delivered by the tongue.
Isn't it possible that a little bit of complex, astringent bitterness can actually make a sweet fruity drink more palatable? I wouldn't drink a virgin margherita; I honestly believe the tequilla and triple sec make it taste better.
It seems like this whole argument is motivated out of a wish to make it socially acceptable to say "I don't like the taste of beer" by trying to paint everyone who disagrees as liars.