4 ms·

Not sure how deliberate your example was, but you can't hardly beat Coca Cola as a damaging influence on society. Coca Cola spends millions on propaganda disgu

Not sure how deliberate your example was, but you can't hardly beat Coca Cola as a damaging influence on society. Coca Cola spends millions on propaganda disguised as research, designed to convince people that their product is not a health hazard. They're no better than the big tobacco companies. And let's not forget that the sugar industry as a whole has done this on a vast scale over decades, bribing scientists and funding shoddy research in order to encourage abusive consumption of the substances they promote [2]. I don't think it's at all controversial to state that the sugar industry has cost millions of Americans their health or their lives. 1 - https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/the-food-industry-is-gaslighting-us-on-the-harms-of-sugar/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/the-food-industry-is... 2 - https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/sugar-industry-bought-off-scientists-skewed-dietary-guidelines-for-decades/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/sugar-industry-bough...

Theodores 9y ago
We have been too kind to the Coca Cola brand. We tell ourselves that Coca Cola started out as the product we know and love but originally there just so happened to be trace amounts of cocaine in there. These would have been harmless quantities, not likely to have any type of effect. This is the quaint legend we have arrived at. However. Coca Cola started as a sugary drink laced with cocaine. Much like how beer has alcohol in it to keep you buying more, Coca Cola had that magically addictive cocaine in it to keep customers coming back for more. The name 'Coca Cola' is a celebration of this history, really there is no more insane an idea than getting a nation hooked on class A drugs in liquid form. The name and the connotations would make a right minded person want to be disassociated from that. In theory a 'crack pipe' could be re-purposed as a nice little vase suitable for a small child to play with. But that would make you shudder. So why is it that we are happy to have this denatured liquid cocaine drink as something we give to children? We could at least change the branding, drop the 'coke' and 'coca-' drug references. With allusions to it being the real thing? When original Coca Cola got closed down and they had to reformulate their marketing they realised that they could do just as well getting people hooked to sugary drinks laced with caffeine and salt, the cocaine wasn't actually needed to shift product. Or even the sugar, fake sweeteners work too, perhaps even more addictively. Maybe it is the marketing that is the problem and not the product ingredients. They can even get the water hooked into buying plain bottled water, something that was never bought back in the days when tap water was a luxury.

Theodores 9y ago

We have been too kind to the Coca Cola brand. We tell ourselves that Coca Cola started out as the product we know and love but originally there just so happened to be trace amounts of cocaine in there. These would have been harmless quantities, not likely to have any type of effect. This is the quaint legend we have arrived at. However. Coca Cola started as a sugary drink laced with cocaine. Much like how beer has alcohol in it to keep you buying more, Coca Cola had that magically addictive cocaine in it to keep customers coming back for more. The name 'Coca Cola' is a celebration of this history, really there is no more insane an idea than getting a nation hooked on class A drugs in liquid form. The name and the connotations would make a right minded person want to be disassociated from that. In theory a 'crack pipe' could be re-purposed as a nice little vase suitable for a small child to play with. But that would make you shudder. So why is it that we are happy to have this denatured liquid cocaine drink as something we give to children? We could at least change the branding, drop the 'coke' and 'coca-' drug references. With allusions to it being the real thing? When original Coca Cola got closed down and they had to reformulate their marketing they realised that they could do just as well getting people hooked to sugary drinks laced with caffeine and salt, the cocaine wasn't actually needed to shift product. Or even the sugar, fake sweeteners work too, perhaps even more addictively. Maybe it is the marketing that is the problem and not the product ingredients. They can even get the water hooked into buying plain bottled water, something that was never bought back in the days when tap water was a luxury.