Like the link points out, we were drinking before we had written language.

It's a matter of dealing with life on life's terms. The reality is that people like drinking. Sometimes people drink too much, and a few unlucky folks can't drink anything without risking death.

I ocne read a story about a Vietnam era war correspondent. He was a pacifist before going to cover combat and seeing combat up close made him hate war even more.

At one point a publisher asks him to contribute an article that 'deglamorizes war.'

He wrote back that deglamorizing war would be as easy as deglamorizing sex.

Let's fire up a peace pipe with tobacco then!

/j

I hate that existence, such an obvious health detriment, is so ingrained in culture that people don't even question it...

Less strong, but since they drank beer instead of water overall consumption was higher. Lots of people should still drink less though.

No one is forcing you to brush your teeth.

The "dying at 25" thing is the result of a common misrepresentation of data. Infant mortality rates were significantly higher in the past, so the average gets thrown off. But, if you remove those data points (to reflect post-infancy mortality), you'd be living roughly the same amount of time.

Popular misconception.

There were a lot of people who never made it out of childhood, which skews the average down.

But if you made it to adulthood, you had a pretty good chance of making it to 65 or so.