Moderation v Excess

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing the fact that Nick is drinking non-alcoholic beer. Yeah? At half 11 in the morning. Yeah, yeah at half 11 in the morning. Nick, have you gone mad? What are you doing? Why are you drinking non-alcoholic beer? Well it's

Speaker B: 00:00:37

February so it's monk month and... Pray tell, what is monk month? Well for several years now I'd say probably at least five and possibly as much as ten. I've taken a month off booze and in recent years I've also added to that meat. So this month I've been consuming no alcohol and no meat. Well it turns out it's not possible to drink no alcohol or at least to consume none because it's in so many foods. Did you know that? I did not know that. Fruit juice, bananas, about one and a half percent of banana alcohol by volume. So you can get lots of really good non-alcoholic beers, one of which I'm enjoying right now, but if you look at the label it says it's below half a percent and that's because apparently it's almost impossible to eliminate alcohol from all kinds of foods. It's just cheating really Peter isn't it? Well you can't really decide not to consume alcohol, it's in bread. So anyway I don't know, I don't actually know, everyone says why, what's the motivation? I don't know because now it's just become a thing and I couldn't not do it now because people would think I'd weakened. So if I said no I'm not doing monk month this year everyone go what are you an alcoholic now then? Most people go what's what monk month, I don't really care. Right. No they don't, everyone asks you about it and then sometimes some people are like, often people will say oh well you can, you know, but I'll say no I don't, you know, I'm not drinking this month, I don't really want to go out very much, can we do it in March? And people are like oh it doesn't matter if it's just one day does it? And I'm like no it totally does. Yeah I'm not free in March either by the way Nick, just saying. I think April's not looking good. But I also, I mean Peter's sniping from the sidelines but he did try to take part but he couldn't hack it. What this year? No not this year, no he tried it last year, gave up, went skiing, got pissed. So there's a problem, skiing always gets in the way. No exactly so but anyway, so I don't really mind not drinking and not eating meat for a month. I mean it really doesn't bother me that much and in a way that's part of the point is to sort of go well yeah this is totally doable so you know it's my annual kind of certification that I'm definitely not a raging alcoholic. But I do also like when I, I mean when I, I'm definitely not a one glass of wine a day person you know. I like to have a few beers in a single session and you know and all nothing. I don't, so this to me it's like the pattern of how I am going to approach things like this is very much one of all or nothing, one of excess and yet you know all the medical advice, all the kind of moral advice is very much that moderation is key and that you should do a bit of everything. Perhaps what I should be do is like be a vegetarian in the week or something and eat meat at weekends or you know not drink from Monday to Thursday to which I say no that's totally impossible. I just couldn't do it, couldn't be, I'm either not doing it at all or I'm doing it you know. What I certainly couldn't do is sort of decide to cut down a bit. I don't know how I would

Speaker A: 00:03:47

do that. I like your style and I'm the same and I'm yeah I'm all or nothing, I'm all out or you know not at all. You're all in. I'm all out or I'm all in. Yeah. And yeah and you know. You're in the middle of it, you're doing a thing now. I am so something I've started so I've, mine because I want to lose weight and just generally be a bit more healthy and over the years I've tried different things. Don't get me wrong listeners I'm not some huge sort of whale type person. I'm pretty, I've always pretty svelte you know just taking getting. Not a whale, he's a shark.

Speaker B: 00:04:22

Well said. He's a hunk of meat and no mistake.

Speaker A: 00:04:26

So yeah so just by chance I happened I think it's actually quite a thing now is intermittent fasting. I'm actually getting pretty hungry right now actually because I don't eat after 8pm at night before midday. So it's a bit like a gremlin or something. Exactly except I do have water but and actually what I like about it is so I do that every day and I've been doing that for a few weeks now. Actually what I quite like about it is although it just sounds like I'm trying to moderate my intake, I guess I am, but what I like about it is just I sort of switch off that side of me between 8 and 12 and it's just really simple. I don't have to think about it, I don't have to cut back on stuff and when I switch back on again at midday I kind of pretty much have what I want and it's that kind of on or off thing that I like

Speaker B: 00:05:14

about it. Yeah it's like a daily monk month and I totally get it and if you were to say well what I'll do is I won't eat after a certain time and I'll try not to have breakfast too early, it wouldn't work. You'd get up and you'd be like well maybe today's the day I can start at 10 or finish at 9 and it would all fall apart. It's like if I just said well I'm going to have a week or two off booze every month, I'd either pick a really convenient week or I'd split the week up so I was doing a day here and a day there or I'd come up with some other excuse. Oh it's February's 29 days this year so I'll start on February 29th, it's only fair. No you can't do that, soon as you start doing that you know. It's a slippery slope but I mean I guess sort of you

Speaker A: 00:06:04

know although we've talked about in terms of what we're trying to stop I mean I do agree especially when I was younger you know I used to love a drink and as you say not just a glass of wine here let's really go for it and some of the most fun moments of my life have been you know when I've had quite a bit to drink in good times and I am that kind of person I think you're similar it's just you know as we've said all in or all out and this kind of middle path of restraint and moderation it's just boring you know and who wants that? Well I don't know well

Speaker C: 00:06:38

so let's hear it. Peter's being all moderate. Yeah well I'll argue from this because I think as I you know my 20s like sort of teens and 20s yes I was a big drinker I like going out for a big drink every you know more than twice a week sometimes but as I you know through my last part of the 30s I've kind of really just naturally started to mellow and so Nick and I go out for drinks now and again and I've taken to drinking half pints for every pint of his partly because I can't keep up but also I just don't like this I like the sensation of getting drunk but not the sensation of being drunk if that makes sense yeah yeah yeah so I yeah so I've naturally kind of progressed towards that boring middle road sort of thing and I have a similar sort of dieting regime so my girlfriend's vegetarian and even when I'm cooking for myself I generally by and large eat vegetarian at home. You like your beans you like your pulses. I love beans Kind of like a cupboard full of beans. Because I sort of save the meat eating for when I go out so for a meal or something I'll have something cooked for me that's meat because it's by and

Speaker B: 00:07:54

large better. Well don't they say that the bean is the meat for the vegetarian? Kind of I guess. Well what's the bean what's the bean of the vegetarian? I don't know. Is that the beans doubling up? Yeah

Speaker C: 00:08:04

beans got broad shoulders yeah but yeah but so so yeah I suppose I can I quite like this approach I I don't think I can handle the the extreme I mean certainly I mean the but I do do have tendencies for extreme things so every at least once a year I do a a sort of expedition with a couple of mountain biking buddies of mine and there's something great about the fully immersed long long hard. Doesn't sound great so far. Expedition so we a couple years ago went to Nepal uh we were there for well from London that's a bloody long way well done we went to Nepal we cycled to Nepal we we were there for about three weeks and the trip was physically and you know it was tough it was it was quite demanding and that but that was that was kind of like an extreme that I still enjoy but I don't want to do that kind of all the time I wouldn't want to do that for six months that would be too much I think I think you start you start getting a bit of uh diminishing marginal utility when you start doing too much of the of extreme thing all the time

Speaker A: 00:09:12

a little of what you like is good for you yeah it's just so boring though yeah but I but I think I

Speaker C: 00:09:18

percent in: 2005

Speaker B: 00:10:42

with the kids yeah so yeah it's like so yeah I noticed this trend when I was at um yeah about probably about 10 years ago the younger people in the workplace I'd noticed that you know we would um go to a pub what I would consider to be a pub and they would call it an old man's pub like and to me it was just a pub and and and I just noticed that they didn't particularly they weren't particularly interested in going to the pub but then I mean you know could we imagine in 20 or 30 years time a similar podcast with people going isn't it terrible how young people don't use Instagram and Snapchat anymore uh I know it was bad for us but that's how how can you live a full and uh a full and satisfying you know life as a youngster without using Instagram and Snapchat they're just all down the pub all the time now yeah what's that all about I hope they do I hope it swings back the other way um but uh but yeah I think so I've had a look at some of the personality factors so I mean okay I mean ultimately the question is what is is it better like are they are all these people who aren't drinking and smoking happier well you might look at all the stuff on the internet about mental health problems that young people suffer and conclude that uh they're not right but I mean that's that's let's put that aside and just look at if you look at the personality factors associated with you know and there's not very much data about sort of generally excessive behavior in general but uh there is quite a lot of data about looking at what drives people for example to to binge drink and and the things associated with that are uh extroversion comes up a lot significantly correlated with it but also uh low conscientiousness and conscientiousness is the thing that makes you sort of stick up stick at what you're trying to achieve okay so it makes you kind of knuckle down and and see tasks through to the end and that sort of thing what what you and I bad at yeah I was gonna say I can see this going and then um and neuroticism as well it's associated with neuroticism um risk-taking uh similar so risk-taking is associated with sort of impulsiveness sensation seeking um also sociability and extroversion uh and aggressiveness so that there's quite I'd say that the more broader thing is the risk-taking is probably gonna be a you know a sort of explanatory factor for specific types of excessive behavior so that's what makes people take risks and what makes them kind of bingey type people but what actually what makes you happy well if you look at what makes people happy um there's things like agreeableness uh which drives you know sort of the extent to which you're you tend to want to fit in with the people you're around um emotional stability which sort of speaks for itself extroversion uh makes is is strongly associated with happiness but also conscientiousness so um basically the risk-taking binge drinky types have one element of that they tend to be more likely to be extroverts but um uh which and that it can be a driver of happiness but so is conscientiousness so I think there's basically two ways of being happy and this is a boring middle road if you're you can either be extroverted type yeah well an extrovert happiness type yeah uh where you're more likely to engage in risk-taking and you'll be sort of open to experience and doing uh you know or you could be the conscientious type where you're kind of stable you uh you know you you kind of work hard and and achieve good life satisfaction but you probably don't you'll probably let do much less of the risk-taking and I and I think that feels right to me like I mean if I think of me and my girlfriend very that would be a perfect description of the difference between us both I'd say we're probably both equally happy but she she's got this totally different business model yeah of being really moderate yeah about things and sensible and whereas I'm the I'm kind of the opposite so

Speaker A: 00:14:41

you don't want to be an introvert who doesn't get stuff done no that would be really bad the worst

Speaker B: 00:14:46

the worst that that you're not gonna be having any fun because you'll be you'll be you won't be taking any risks on day but also you'll be unhappy so yes yeah try not to have that that's the kind of middle of the Venn diagram of doom yeah well I know one of the things that um I

Speaker A: 00:15:02

was recently doing I'm really one of these sort of awful American business books etc and one of the things you do is go through your own traits or all your values in life that are important to you what I realized is something that I really like is um randomness and unknown and chance situations that's risk to experience yeah that's really important to me and and that kind of because otherwise I get bored and so that sort of ties in with what you're saying about being so it's not surprising that therefore I'm also someone who's I think I'm probably an extrovert um but also someone who does like you know excess and going for stuff uh I don't what's my what's my point I don't know it all ties in together I guess it's all part of the same sort of thing really well

Speaker B: 00:15:43

I mean there's this so the question is let's say that you wanted to um conscientiousness is a good one right because conscientiousness is one of the traits that's really strongly associated with outcomes so conscientious people tend to be much better at you know holding down jobs acquiring wealth um and uh you know relationships and they tend to get stuff done and they follow exactly yeah right you know like Woody Allen said 90 percent of success is showing up well I mean they're the ones who show up so so conscientiousness is definitely a good thing but if you weren't conscientious but you resolved to try to be your entire life yeah would it be hard would that actually just be counterproductive because you wouldn't be living according to your own fundamental desires so you know there's this famous Clement Freud quote which is if you resolve to give up smoking drinking and sex you don't actually live longer it just seems longer and and and I and I feel like there is a lot of truth there like you know we probably people who like who like excess who like different experiences who like to do things hard um you know probably try even if we were persuaded that it was bad for us it might be even worse to try and you know suppress those desires your entire life and certainly that's what I I think I would feel if I was having to live I mean if I was forced to have one glass of wine a day instead of you know a whole bottle once a week I would be uh I'd be miserable you know even if I thought it was good for me I really think I would be miserable so I so so I I think now that there is a bit of a problem and I'm I'm now gonna pile this is very speculatively going to start piling correlation on correlation here okay but that does seem to me that there's a tendency for people who are conscientious people who are emotionally stable also to be the kind of people who think that um other people ought to be like that so I think there's a tendency to try and regulate quite pious yeah and I I am typified in my view by things like the British Medical Association who you know are forever trying to get legal changes to make you know to impose tax on sweets and and you know stop people from drinking after 10 in the evening and all of that kind of thing uh yeah and I feel like that's what it comes out it's like that we we're perfectly happy this way so we can make other people happy this way by effectively enforcing it and and and um you know whereas I don't think I don't think sort of people like us would would want to prevent people from being modern from from taking a moderate path yeah I think moderates are more likely to want to prevent uh us extremists yeah yeah from from pursuing that way of life

Speaker A: 00:18:30

um you're absolutely right so um I hadn't realized there's a phrase which I think it's called angry sober or someone something like that is someone who was once an alcoholic but no I guess you know one always is but doesn't drink anymore they're sober but they're just really angry about in life because they can't drink right so so what we we can answer this question is it better to

Speaker B: 00:18:53

yeah now I'm not saying the middle east would be a peaceful place if they if they drank booze there but I'm not not saying

Speaker A: 00:19:01

no but also what we're saying is is which is better excess or moderation well it depends if

Speaker B: 00:19:06

you're an excess type of person or moderation type of person I think it's boring but I think that might be right I think that might be I mean he's just probably quite happy over the outcomes the outcomes are worse for for excess types yeah but as I said you know whether you take account of the psychological outcomes and not just the kind of health outcomes when you factor in the psychological outcomes there might be just better yeah you know uh I don't know I think we've

Speaker A: 00:19:31

resolved this um there's something actually a little anecdote I want to go on to but um is there um anything uh you'd like to chip in with Peter no not particularly okay it's very

Speaker B: 00:19:43

moderate yeah it is very moderate he finds it hard to generate an extreme view about this yeah

Speaker A: 00:19:47

okay so um I've got a little anecdote um to round us up on um but first just a question I want to ask a silly question quite simple what could you not give up Peter I would struggle to give up

Speaker C: 00:20:01

um meat the option to eat meat um I just just food would be a very sad time fat sad place without without a meat option food and meat yeah even though I as I've said you like your beans I like my beans and I sort of um I'm sort of a flexitarian and you know by and large vegetarian they're not being able to ever eat meat again it'd be very sad I could give up most other things I

Speaker A: 00:20:26

think yeah I just find that I'm funny enough just just for kicks I was thinking about just just trying a week out I've done it before being vegan next week um but yeah I just always find just unsatisfied at the end of each meal essentially uh Nick what could you not give up

Speaker B: 00:20:42

well this reminds me of you know the thing of like you can live three minutes without air and three days without water and three weeks without food so just thinking of it in terms of which thing would would give me the shortest time span before I got you know totally uh desperate realistically it's got to be nicotine because that's the thing I've never successfully given up nicotine and and it it's a matter of always been a matter of days even when I've given up and it's been a week or two weeks you know as soon as I've gone back to it I'm like yes this is so the right thing to do you know uh I just really love it and um of course I'm now a vaper so I haven't smoked a real cigarette for years um and I'm hoping that you know the science will come out in favor of vaping but you never know but uh watch this yeah yeah I couldn't I couldn't I can't it's a daze probably I could give up food for longer than I could give up nicotine

Speaker A: 00:21:38

I like it he's a good candidate so far um so you know we've got meat uh nicotine and my one's really easy so mine is uh my biggest pleasure that I can give out is is is this podcast I just I just love I love this yeah hopefully our listeners feel the same yeah no my my biggest thing I just tea I love tea and the the greatest sort of by-product of of this um intermittent fasting I'm doing at the moment is because I only have water between 8 p.m. and and midday is about one minute past midday I have a cup of tea and every day it's just five minutes of heaven having

Speaker C: 00:22:13

that tea I love tea more than ever couldn't you allow yourself a cup of tea in the morning

Speaker B: 00:22:17

no because no he's seen that's a typical moderate thing he would go Peter would go I'll just have a cup of tea in the morning and then he would he'd just have a cup of tea in the morning whereas you know we would need that rule it's got to be roll on the slippery slope arguments just make that part of the rules yeah except unless you unless you know you're in your 40s and and and you realize you've been got by the slippery slope your entire life you know you've

Speaker A: 00:22:41

got then you have to put a barrier something the things what you don't get is the beast in us needs this cage we need those iron bars right um just before we finish off I've got definitive proof and an anecdote that proves that um the moderation is is a dangerous data yeah and is worse than excess is that um a few months ago I was in St. Louis in America um and went out for the evening with a mate of mine and um we were going out sort of visiting a couple of blues bars where they were rubbish blues bars but anyway it was going to be a long night and I didn't want to drink beer because I just wanted I just want to be sensible I didn't want to get too drunk and I just didn't want to feel bloated um and so by the time we had moved on to a restaurant this um Louisiana themed restaurant there um I made the the sensible choice I thought of instead of having beer I would have cocktails um and so and so the waitress sounds like an obviously good choice yeah yeah because I wasn't you know it just made so much sense and so the waitress said what would you like and and I said well what's popular he said well everyone likes the hurricane it's called and um this doesn't sound good and I said yeah I'll have one of those um and it tastes just like um cura or something like that it just tastes just like fruit juice and um and I had quite a few of them I had about four or five and um this isn't a very moderate story yeah all I can say is that the next morning I had the worst hangover I have had in about a decade and a half and in the best night of your life well the weird thing is I didn't even wasn't even that affected during the night but my god in the morning and then I looked up what was in a hurricane and um I mean everything's in a hurricane yeah right yeah so um and so that's why they're in and vodka and everything yeah and so that's when I saw the light and I realized you know this sort of false path of moderation just made no sense I don't think that word means what you think it means okay so on that cautionary tale uh we'll wrap up uh thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast I'm Fraser McGruer been here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights until next time goodbye