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If you were to take away all of the coke tomorrow, the first thing I'd spend all that extra money (and more!) on would be to try to invent a new cola.
by GauntletWizard 7y ago
If you were to take away all of the coke tomorrow, the first thing I'd spend all that extra money (and more!) on would be to try to invent a new cola.
- jniedrauer 7y agoWhy? They're a net negative to society (soft drinks themselves, that is)
- ribosometronome 7y agoCouldn't the same be said of any luxury?
- lostlogin 7y agoI’ve not considered coke to be a luxury product before. But if you mean that it’s not a necessity, it guess... maybe?
- zentiggr 7y agoNot a luxury when it's a net negative to your health to drink it. Lawmakers have slowly banned advertising for more and more obviously addictive and harmful things. They just can't make headway against the most pervasive and least obviously harmful things.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoNo. Refined sugar is incredibly toxic. It doesn't just rot your teeth, make you obese, and eventually turns you into a Type 2 diabetic, but it also raises the risk of heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer's, and many other conditions. The direct economic costs - health care costs, lost productivity caused by illness - are immense, and the soda and junk food industries make no contribution towards them. There are also less direct personal and emotional costs, in the form of family/partner illness and sometimes death. Some luxuries are similarly toxic, but as a "cheap" luxury sugar abuse affects a much larger demographic. IMO the ad efforts that support these products are unconscionable, and there's no question the money would be better spent elsewhere.
- homonculus1 7y agoIt hasn't done any of those things to me, however, so kindly get your hands off mine and out of my business please.
- mft_ 7y agoAre you sure it hasn't raised your risk?
- homonculus1 7y agoWhatever marginal risk increase I suffer from my moderate consumption is well worth the guaranteed enjoyment I gain. A lot of HN users wish to "optimize" these facets of other people's lives through government regulation, but it's no less odious than going up to people in person and knocking their drink to the ground. It's not your choice.
- cameronbrown 7y agoExactly. I'm more than happy for more labels saying how bad sugary drinks are - like a less extreme version of smoking warnings - but taking a choice away for someone because you think you know better is authoritarian, even if we're only talking about a drink.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoIt's far more authoritarian to promote industries that spend outrageous sums on manipulating people into harming their own health, with incredibly expensive social and personal consequences. It's absolutely and completely false to frame this as a government vs individual issue. It's actually corporate propaganda vs the individual. No one who supports individual freedom has any business encouraging corporate propaganda, because it's the psychological equivalent of sugar - absolutely toxic to genuine free choice. Big Tobacco has already discovered this strategy doesn't work in the long term. Big Pharma is catching up slowly. (Ask the Sacklers.) Big Sugar is still lagging behind, but it's only a matter of time.
- wpietri 7y agoNobody's talking about taking away soda. People would still buy soda if there weren't ads for it.
- tenebrisalietum 7y agoBut would they buy Coke?
- wpietri 7y agoIf they didn't, they'd be buying something they were even happier with. So from both a consumer perspective and a societal perspective, it's a net gain. It's only from Coke's perspective it might be a problem. But I think it's wrong to privilege their success over everybody else just because they have enough money to manipulate people.
- frenchyatwork 7y agoPerhaps because they like it?
- yellowapple 7y agoExactly. I drink energy drinks pretty regularly. With the sole exception of Monster, I've yet to see any ads for any of them (and the Monster "ads" are more sponsorships for various motorsports events that postdate me actually starting to drink the stuff). Of course, the packaging itself is technically advertising, but still.
- irrational 7y agoThey aren't saying get rid of coke. They are saying get rid of coke advertising. Everyone already knows about coke and is indoctrinating the rising generations without the need for additional advertisement.
- solipsism 7y agoYou realize you could make an equally damning article about Coke, don't you? The meta question is about how we decide what gets banned.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]