4 ms·

This doesn't surprise me at all. It took almost 40 years to prove that smoking causes lung cancer. Similarly, despite unambiguous scientific evidence, it stil

by sddfd 9y ago

This doesn't surprise me at all. It took almost 40 years to prove that smoking causes lung cancer. Similarly, despite unambiguous scientific evidence, it still seems acceptable to deny that man-made CO2 release into the atmosphere causes global warming. There's actually a good book covering these two instances and others: "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming"

QAPereo 9y ago
Common factor: Money to be made. Tobacco was the core of many states' economies, and still remains a massive industry which makes many people wealthy. Dealing with CO2 emissions would have required dealing with fossil fuel use... and that's tons of money and power in play there. Sugar is, at the very least, another substance people crave, and has been making people rich for hundreds of years. Delaying tactics are feasible when you have billions or trillions of dollars, control regulatory bodies, own politicians, scientists, and armies of lawyers. Delaying tactics on the orders of just a few decades means generations of VP's and C-levels getting unfathomably rich, as well as key shareholders. So... fuck the harm, delay, delay, delay. The key is that you have to not give a shit about anyone other than yourself, or be genuinely deluded.
- trhway 9y ago
  another major key factor is to maintain majority of [voting] population in the mental state impossible to penetrate by voice of reason. Such state is typically initiated by low quality education and maintained by local and global populist hysteria (that includes religion) based on anger, fear, envy, ...
- ythn 9y ago
  > The key is that you have to not give a shit about anyone other than yourself This is actually quite difficult. Despite its shortcomings (and perhaps ironically) religion can be effective at convincing people to put others first but I would say the default behavior in most people is "I only care about myself and family first". This default behavior is exacerbated when people follow the influence of greed, lust, etc.
  - StillBored 9y ago
    Its a double edge sword. Most religions require suspension of critical reasoning as well in order to "take on faith" that which cannot be proven (or is outright wrong). The result is basically training people to be susceptible to propaganda.
- notfromhere 9y ago
  Corn is a core of a lot of farming areas in the U.S.; any attack on sugar is an attack on all the HFCS in everything
xena 9y ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
justboxing 9y ago
> It took almost 40 years to prove that smoking causes lung cancer. Yep, and the Sugar Industry used the same tactics as Big Tobacco. They cleverly paid 'Researchers' to conclude that 'There's just not enough evidence, so more evidence is needed' and kept kicking the can down the road. They also did a media blitz campaign to discredit the real scientists who proved the tobacco links / sugar links to cancer.[1] [1] Source: http://sugarcoateddoc.com http://sugarcoateddoc.com
mikenew 9y ago
You have to wonder how many people died because of that. Maybe this is nieve, but it feels like there should be harsh punishment for suppressing or manipulating information that can prevent or lead to people’s death.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Yeah, it's kinda weird that you can get the death penalty for killing one person, but the industry that kills several hundred thousand people per year with their products not only gets away with fines, but gets to continue selling the deadly product.
- DougWebb 9y ago
  Died, continue to die, and are going to die. This is an on-going problem.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
And a reverse example is that for 40 years, people thought low-fat diets were heart-healthy, and that turned out to be bad science.
- dd36 9y ago
  Propagated by the sugar industry, which was a primary beneficiary.
agumonkey 9y ago
did we just go through a "modern" bubble ? I feel like most of post ww2 era was most the dream of a new perception of the world that could sustain its distortion field for a few decades: - oil based energy now wrecking havoc - "science" based nutrition - free market - communication technology I'm listing the dark parts but there's something odd in the way we probably all swallowed the pill with such a big grin for so long and now pop, lies lies lies; also you're dying because of stupid practices fueled by greedy scammers.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Are you in for something even more somber? Check this: http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.gr/2017/06/a-field-guide-to-negative-progress.html http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.gr/2017/06/a-field-guide-to-... http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.gr/2017/06/renewables-next-fracking.html http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.gr/2017/06/renewables-next-f...
- ethbro 9y ago
  To level-set, - oil-based energy powered our global economy that was able to research alternative forms of energy - both nutrition and science have always been an unfinished work, "we don't know everything" != "we know nothing" - free markets, for their faults, are still better than any other base system we've come up with - communications technology, I'd hazard we're still grasping with the repurcussions of this re: democracy and many other pre-existing systems. But the fact that I read about the Rohingya genocide by Myanmar again on the front page of the BBC this morning would indicate it has its advantages to the world too
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    yeah I paint a dark picture, probably too dark, but I have a different view, at least on the information. Today I see and know "all" at least that's what you think. I know what the press feel is important (one month greece is doomed, next month they forgot what greece is). It's almost pure noise. I'm starting to believe that space and isolation has its value, at least to a degree. Then there are the social implications. It's very weird.

by sddfd 9y ago

QAPereo 9y ago

Common factor: Money to be made. Tobacco was the core of many states' economies, and still remains a massive industry which makes many people wealthy. Dealing with CO2 emissions would have required dealing with fossil fuel use... and that's tons of money and power in play there. Sugar is, at the very least, another substance people crave, and has been making people rich for hundreds of years. Delaying tactics are feasible when you have billions or trillions of dollars, control regulatory bodies, own politicians, scientists, and armies of lawyers. Delaying tactics on the orders of just a few decades means generations of VP's and C-levels getting unfathomably rich, as well as key shareholders. So... fuck the harm, delay, delay, delay. The key is that you have to not give a shit about anyone other than yourself, or be genuinely deluded.

trhway 9y ago
another major key factor is to maintain majority of [voting] population in the mental state impossible to penetrate by voice of reason. Such state is typically initiated by low quality education and maintained by local and global populist hysteria (that includes religion) based on anger, fear, envy, ...
ythn 9y ago
> The key is that you have to not give a shit about anyone other than yourself This is actually quite difficult. Despite its shortcomings (and perhaps ironically) religion can be effective at convincing people to put others first but I would say the default behavior in most people is "I only care about myself and family first". This default behavior is exacerbated when people follow the influence of greed, lust, etc.
- StillBored 9y ago
  Its a double edge sword. Most religions require suspension of critical reasoning as well in order to "take on faith" that which cannot be proven (or is outright wrong). The result is basically training people to be susceptible to propaganda.
notfromhere 9y ago
Corn is a core of a lot of farming areas in the U.S.; any attack on sugar is an attack on all the HFCS in everything

xena 9y ago

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

justboxing 9y ago

> It took almost 40 years to prove that smoking causes lung cancer. Yep, and the Sugar Industry used the same tactics as Big Tobacco. They cleverly paid 'Researchers' to conclude that 'There's just not enough evidence, so more evidence is needed' and kept kicking the can down the road. They also did a media blitz campaign to discredit the real scientists who proved the tobacco links / sugar links to cancer.[1] [1] Source: http://sugarcoateddoc.com http://sugarcoateddoc.com

mikenew 9y ago

You have to wonder how many people died because of that. Maybe this is nieve, but it feels like there should be harsh punishment for suppressing or manipulating information that can prevent or lead to people’s death.

ceejayoz 9y ago
Yeah, it's kinda weird that you can get the death penalty for killing one person, but the industry that kills several hundred thousand people per year with their products not only gets away with fines, but gets to continue selling the deadly product.
DougWebb 9y ago
Died, continue to die, and are going to die. This is an on-going problem.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

And a reverse example is that for 40 years, people thought low-fat diets were heart-healthy, and that turned out to be bad science.

dd36 9y ago
Propagated by the sugar industry, which was a primary beneficiary.

agumonkey 9y ago

did we just go through a "modern" bubble ? I feel like most of post ww2 era was most the dream of a new perception of the world that could sustain its distortion field for a few decades: - oil based energy now wrecking havoc - "science" based nutrition - free market - communication technology I'm listing the dark parts but there's something odd in the way we probably all swallowed the pill with such a big grin for so long and now pop, lies lies lies; also you're dying because of stupid practices fueled by greedy scammers.

coldtea 9y ago
Are you in for something even more somber? Check this: http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.gr/2017/06/a-field-guide-to-negative-progress.html http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.gr/2017/06/a-field-guide-to-... http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.gr/2017/06/renewables-next-fracking.html http://archdruidmirror.blogspot.gr/2017/06/renewables-next-f...
ethbro 9y ago
To level-set, - oil-based energy powered our global economy that was able to research alternative forms of energy - both nutrition and science have always been an unfinished work, "we don't know everything" != "we know nothing" - free markets, for their faults, are still better than any other base system we've come up with - communications technology, I'd hazard we're still grasping with the repurcussions of this re: democracy and many other pre-existing systems. But the fact that I read about the Rohingya genocide by Myanmar again on the front page of the BBC this morning would indicate it has its advantages to the world too
- agumonkey 9y ago
  yeah I paint a dark picture, probably too dark, but I have a different view, at least on the information. Today I see and know "all" at least that's what you think. I know what the press feel is important (one month greece is doomed, next month they forgot what greece is). It's almost pure noise. I'm starting to believe that space and isolation has its value, at least to a degree. Then there are the social implications. It's very weird.