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"Similarly, you don't need to research your grocery store's meat selling policies to ensure you're not getting rotten meat." That is a poor analogy. There actu
by restalis 10y ago
"Similarly, you don't need to research your grocery store's meat selling policies to ensure you're not getting rotten meat."
That is a poor analogy. There actually is a lot of research needed in order to get right the edible food, including meat. We just did it in time, collectively, over many generations; then each of us just learned it all from others (parents, mostly). That's how we come to figure out that that piece of meat is not safe to eat if it smells bad and a lot of other important cues. And despite all that, dilettante individual observation can give us only so many results, and that's why there actually was necessary additional professional research that in time got institutionalized and the selling policies - rigorously regulated.
- coldpie 10y agoWhat? I meant as individual consumers. There's a whole lot more to food safety than whether it smells OK. We have regulations so end consumers don't have to study the history of every company involved in the retail chain or risk illness. Similarly, we can have regulations to prevent customers from unknowingly buying artificially unrepairable objects.
- restalis 10y agoAs I said, as individual consumers we had a lot to learn about what is safe to eat. It just happened as we grew up. We learned that knowledge from others instead of tasting everything and see what happens. The food culture however, was developed before us and now it's mature enough to be, more or less, taken for granted. This can not be said to be similar to other areas like that of digital gadgets, developed only recently and for which the community lacks common knowledge.