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From: rodvan@microsoft.UUCP (Rod VAN MECHELEN)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Summary: poison
Message-ID: <59597@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 6 Dec 90 02:45:20 GMT
References: <59261@microsoft.UUCP> <ewg8s1w163w@bluemoon.uucp>
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 30

In article <ewg8s1w163w@bluemoon.uucp>, bmb@bluemoon.uucp (Bryan Bankhead) writes:
> > I am aware this seems to hold true for almost all people, but 
> > it can also be demonstrated that a huge chunck of humanity 
> > drinks alcohol, there's no sane reason for it, it does nothing
> > to promote survival, and ideally no one would do it.  Yet
> > billions do.  
> Alchohol consumption continuew because in most individuals the reduction 
> in survival capabilities is relatively small and valued much less than the 
> benefits derived from the pleasant sensations. If cyanide gave a great 
> high it would still be REAL unpopular.

You do not understand the nature of poison.  In small amounts, it acts 
as a stimulant.  In moderate to large amounts, it acts as a depressant,
and in (relatively) big amounts it kills.

Were you to take a very very small dose of cyanide, you would find its
effects most invigorating.  At a higher dose, you would find it depressing,
and at the dose where most of us think of it as being very little, the
stuff is lethal.

Alcohol, caffeine, amphetamines are all the same.  It's just that the
absolute amount of each is different.  

But all of them are poisons.

OO

\/

Rod


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