The Orgasm Is the Best Thing You Can Do

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One of the greatest foci of human ingenuity and concentrated effort over the past millennia has been the problem of how to get drunk. Even small scale societies on the brink of starvation will set aside a good portion of their precious grain or fruit for alcohol production. What does this tell us? It tells us that our taste for alcohol can't be an evolutionary mistake, just because of the amount of effort and resources that go into satisfying this desire.

Do we have alcohol to thank for civilization? The answer, according to Edward Slingerland’s new book, “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization,” is a resounding yes. Edward, who’s a professor at the University of British Columbia and self-proclaimed “philosophical hedonist,” says that far from being an evolutionary fluke, our taste for alcohol is an evolutionary advantage — one that we’ve relied on for millennia to help us lead more social, creative, and pleasurable lives.