4 ms·

I think you may have misread the tone of my comment. > It is decidedly in the interest of coffee conglomerates to demonstrate that coffee is good for society,

by gen220 6y ago

I think you may have misread the tone of my comment. > It is decidedly in the interest of coffee conglomerates to demonstrate that coffee is good for society, because it justifies the great fiscal and human expenses they go to, to bring fresh coffee to your breakfast table. I don't think that coffee is necessarily good for society, and that they're doing us a great service by revealing supporting information to us. > consider the opportunity cost: we could instead be researching many other things that don't carry as high a cost as coffee (in terms of production labor, refining, and transportation), and may commute even greater benefits I actually think we (as a society) should be more uniformly investing in the basic research: not only in things that make certain companies marginally more profitable, because now their expensive products are scientifically-proven to be "healthy". However, I do think it's unreasonable to expect corporations to do this research for us, because they have no incentive to, as a sibling comment of yours pointed out. This vein of thought is nuanced, and I concede that it could be easily misinterpreted as apologia, given the context of my original message (which was misinformed).

pphysch 6y ago
It's not the tone as much as the omission of the elephant in the room, which is that "coffee is healthy" is a revenue-generating narrative for the coffee business/cartel. Especially in light of this research being funded by said business.
- gen220 6y ago
  Ah, got it! I admit that I didn't want to come across as disputing the claim by addressing the elephant, since I'm not really qualified to dispute the claim. I wanted to plant the seed of skepticism in my links, which make your present point better than I could in an hn comment. I actually agree with your analysis. To try and rescue the discussion, it's interesting to observe that many "healthy" things are "also" revenue-generating narratives. For example, "exercise is healthy" is great for the sportswear cartel, which has a similarly poor track record on human rights. It doesn't mean that the thing itself can't be objectively healthy, but I totally agree with you that we should take these projections for what they are, especially when they're sponsored by the business that profits from them. If you're curious in reading something that builds on the "revenue-generating narrative" idea more, I recommend the new yorker link, it's quite good. :)

by gen220 6y ago

pphysch 6y ago

It's not the tone as much as the omission of the elephant in the room, which is that "coffee is healthy" is a revenue-generating narrative for the coffee business/cartel. Especially in light of this research being funded by said business.

gen220 6y ago
Ah, got it! I admit that I didn't want to come across as disputing the claim by addressing the elephant, since I'm not really qualified to dispute the claim. I wanted to plant the seed of skepticism in my links, which make your present point better than I could in an hn comment. I actually agree with your analysis. To try and rescue the discussion, it's interesting to observe that many "healthy" things are "also" revenue-generating narratives. For example, "exercise is healthy" is great for the sportswear cartel, which has a similarly poor track record on human rights. It doesn't mean that the thing itself can't be objectively healthy, but I totally agree with you that we should take these projections for what they are, especially when they're sponsored by the business that profits from them. If you're curious in reading something that builds on the "revenue-generating narrative" idea more, I recommend the new yorker link, it's quite good. :)