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Why does it have to? Coke as a company is responsible for some horrifying effects on the world. Health effects, economic depression in the developing world, ong

Why does it have to? Coke as a company is responsible for some horrifying effects on the world. Health effects, economic depression in the developing world, ongoing environmental harm. And for what? Sugar water. Not space travel, not energy, not transportation, not safer aircraft or cars, not saving lives, no. For fucking. Sugar. Water. And they're far from the only company burning energy, effort, time and knowledge to accomplish nothing but profits at the expense of virtually everything else touching them.

dooglius 7y ago
The parent comment said that externalities should be priced in, I am saying it's not an externality and is already "priced in" if it hurts only the drinker. That's orthogonal to Coke being good or bad.
- skummetmaelk 7y ago
  The externalites aren't priced in though. Heavy consumers of soft drinks require more health care on average which affects insurance prices of non-drinkers. To be truly "fair" this should be factored into the price of such products so that buying a coke includes an x dollar tax for your estimated increase in medical needs. This is however only doable with a socialized medical system. The other option is to let insurance companies monitor your diet, but that sounds quite a bit more dystopic...
- palerdot 7y ago
  This view is too myopic. In India, for example, Coke sucks millions of litres of fresh water when surrounding areas are suffering from drought or mostly barren. There has been cases where Coke was forced to move out of a location due to outrage from people ... Personally, I'm of the view that individuals should be responsible in their decisions and how banning advertising of toxic products or the product itself will lead to a better society ...
aeternus 7y ago
Coke is enjoyable to many, that's a benefit. Air travel and space travel also cause ongoing environmental harm, whose says the benefits of those outweigh the environmental cost? Maybe we should ban them as well. All companies "burn" energy, effort, and time to produce profits, that's pretty much the goal of a company.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  > Coke is enjoyable to many, that's a benefit. True. But would people enjoy it as much if it were priced accordingly to give the workers who made it a living wage? If they had to pay full non-subsidized prices for the corn sugar they use, and to give those workers a living wage as well? In other words, would people enjoy it as much if it was instead of a dollar a bottle, more like four dollars? And don't even try and shift to a different company. It is not unreasonable to assume that there is ethical compromise involved in purchasing anything from a company Coke's size. Chiquita almost started a war so they could continue exploiting South Americans for cheap bananas. I take issue with this "well there's no haaaarm" point because there very often IS harm. There is tons of harm if you follow the supply lines back to the developing world where western corporations exploit entire nations for the sake of cheap goods that then are consumed at a break neck pace in the West, far more than they should be, which then even harms THOSE people by making them overweight. If your company could do actual good in the world by ceasing to exist, then I question why you need to exist in the first place. That's all I'm saying.

dooglius 7y ago

The parent comment said that externalities should be priced in, I am saying it's not an externality and is already "priced in" if it hurts only the drinker. That's orthogonal to Coke being good or bad.

skummetmaelk 7y ago
The externalites aren't priced in though. Heavy consumers of soft drinks require more health care on average which affects insurance prices of non-drinkers. To be truly "fair" this should be factored into the price of such products so that buying a coke includes an x dollar tax for your estimated increase in medical needs. This is however only doable with a socialized medical system. The other option is to let insurance companies monitor your diet, but that sounds quite a bit more dystopic...
palerdot 7y ago
This view is too myopic. In India, for example, Coke sucks millions of litres of fresh water when surrounding areas are suffering from drought or mostly barren. There has been cases where Coke was forced to move out of a location due to outrage from people ... Personally, I'm of the view that individuals should be responsible in their decisions and how banning advertising of toxic products or the product itself will lead to a better society ...

aeternus 7y ago

Coke is enjoyable to many, that's a benefit. Air travel and space travel also cause ongoing environmental harm, whose says the benefits of those outweigh the environmental cost? Maybe we should ban them as well. All companies "burn" energy, effort, and time to produce profits, that's pretty much the goal of a company.

FussyZeus 7y ago
> Coke is enjoyable to many, that's a benefit. True. But would people enjoy it as much if it were priced accordingly to give the workers who made it a living wage? If they had to pay full non-subsidized prices for the corn sugar they use, and to give those workers a living wage as well? In other words, would people enjoy it as much if it was instead of a dollar a bottle, more like four dollars? And don't even try and shift to a different company. It is not unreasonable to assume that there is ethical compromise involved in purchasing anything from a company Coke's size. Chiquita almost started a war so they could continue exploiting South Americans for cheap bananas. I take issue with this "well there's no haaaarm" point because there very often IS harm. There is tons of harm if you follow the supply lines back to the developing world where western corporations exploit entire nations for the sake of cheap goods that then are consumed at a break neck pace in the West, far more than they should be, which then even harms THOSE people by making them overweight. If your company could do actual good in the world by ceasing to exist, then I question why you need to exist in the first place. That's all I'm saying.