3 ms·
I think you're ignoring the many positives in this. What would happen to the change-your-life-in-24-hours book segment of the economy; the fad-diet book indust
by dpwm 9y ago
I think you're ignoring the many positives in this.
What would happen to the change-your-life-in-24-hours book segment of the economy; the fad-diet book industry; the people who claim authorship of the books; the photographers who sell their images to a middleman to license to the publisher; the publishers that print them.
And when the books don't work because there's an entire industry devoted to feeding consumers misinformation and convincing them that the low-effort obvious things they can do (moving your diet as far away as possible from what the processed food industry is selling and becoming more active) won't work unless you're deeply abnormal in some way, the situation is beneficial to the healthcare industry that benefits from prescribing antidepressants and treating obesity-related diseases.
The wealth-creators of these industries are creating jobs in growing sectors of the economy. If you fix the real underlying problems, people will be out of their livelihoods.
- RobertRoberts 9y agoJust to clarify (I am dense) this is a sarcastic post, right? (please forgive my stupidity if you are being serious, and if not, for wrecking your joke)
- sinsterizme 9y agoNothing funny about what he said
- dpwm 9y agoDefinitely not fully serious, so I'm pleased you questioned it. There was no stupidity on your part and no joke to ruin. I was simply attempting to construct an argument that can be made before somebody else did so. It's not something I agree with, and I suspect few could agree with it as being overall good with the examples I used, but the economic upsides do seem, to first order, to be undoubtedly real. It's really more like an adaptation of the Parable of the Broken Window [0]. The problem is that for each commercial party involved, any fixing of the root cause makes things worse for them and those they employ. In other words, this is an area where pandering to business interests will never fix the root problem, because economic improvement for a host of industries requires people getting worse. Politicians don't generally want to put those that elected them out of work. And yet sometimes the alternative is shortening or worsening the lives of others. The thing is nobody will associate the shortened life expectancy or the worsened state of being with the decision-makers but they will if their action causes the loss of their jobs. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- RobertRoberts 9y agoGood to know I am not losing touch with reality. Normally I'd ignore your comment or add a real response... but I just couldn't figure out which was the right way to go with it. ha.
- echlebek 9y agoYour comment reminds me of Zorg's monologue from The 5th Element. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v8Qm10FwuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v8Qm10FwuM