Thoughts and Whispers

It's said there are genetic differences among peoples depending on the length of their exposure to alcohol. The Mediterranean races, for example, have been living with wine for thousands of years and tolerate it well, with very few drunkards among them. The Northern European races have greater problems, since beer came in later and apparently wasn't available as readily (or that's my impression from reading the Icelandic sagas).

The story makes sense: compare the Jews or Italians with the Irish, Swedes or Russians, and then think about the American Indians. I wonder if something similar will turn out to be true of the things that are so addictive in modern life: junk food, TV, hard drugs, pornography and whatnot. Eventually the welfare state is going to collapse, I think, and the ways of life that support themselves will support themselves and those that don't will run aground. To the extent resistance to some of these things is genetic maybe that will play a role as well. It's all hard to imagine though, since selection of the fittest would require such a different state of society.