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Asking for laws instead of people to build self control is not the answer.
by ProAm 4y ago
Asking for laws instead of people to build self control is not the answer.
- mckirk 4y agoAs the saying goes, 'the human mind is a stationary target'. At some point the idea, that average people can build enough self-control to resist all those temptations that are constantly being optimized into being the most tempting they can be, just doesn't work anymore. Nobody would argue for giving kids free access to heroin and let them 'train their self control'.
- jonfw 4y ago> Nobody would argue for giving kids free access to heroin and let them 'train their self control'. When most people argue against prohibition, they're not saying that making the bad thing available is great. They're saying that we can't effectively reduce the availability of things that people want, so when we attempt to do so, we end up with all of the negative externalities associated with prohibition without any of the actual prohibiting
- sidfthec 4y agoAt the same time: "Residents of states where cannabis has been legalized use marijuana 24% more frequently than those living in states where it remains illegal" -- Colorado University This may be fine enough for weed, but what if harder drugs start being used 24% more? Even if they're in more pure form than from illegal sources, that doesn't sound like a net positive.
- mywittyname 4y agoOxycontin is perfectly legal and regulated such that only qualified professionals were able to prescribe and dispense it. And look how that turned out. There's a whole lot of evidence that prohibition vs legalization each have negative effects and it is up to society to decide which is more appropriate in certain situations. I doubt that food regulations are going to result in black market Doritos barons waging deadly turf wars in the streets. But I suspect it will result in food manufactures building a much worse product in response.
- jonfw 4y agoDo you have a link to the study? When I did a quick search I saw a pretty wide variety of numbers, not sure which one you are referring to. Another way of writing that headline is potentially "cannabis users 24% more likely to admit to using cannabis when in a state where it's legal", or even "marijuana legalization brings cannabis users from out of state". Even if the study you're referring to does effectively control for those two factors- I would hesitate to apply those results to a harder drug like heroine. Marijuana education and legalization are happening at the same time. The information on Marijuana is pretty promising and education may incentivize it's use for some purposes. I do not believe the same about heroine- education would probably disincentivize it's use.
- ProAm 4y agoIf you need the government to tell you what to eat, I think were at a point where we let evolution fix this one for us... as for that is signs of a failed society.
- taskforcegemini 4y agowithout "the government" we wouldn't know what is actually in the food and couldn't make an informed decision
- slowmovintarget 4y agoDo: Have the government require transparency and safety of producers of goods (especially food). Do not: Dictate or attempt to control what food consumers choose. Exceptions: Tobacco, carcinogens, hallucinogens, narcotic substances, poisons... See "safety"
- munk-a 4y agoWhy is sugar not on your list of exceptions when excessive quantities of it are much more impactful on your health than everything on that list outside of out-right-poisons? Obesity is killing a lot of folks before they grow old enough to develop Cancers.
- yetihehe 4y agoI could classify food as narcotic substance. It's addictive for me, I've felt withdrawal symptoms very clearly and I really felt like a junkie on hunger when I dropped too much weight too fast. There is BIG a difference between "stomach empty" hunger and "PANIC_MODE: your cells require energy NOW" hunger.
- towzzer 4y agoSomeone has already pointed out sugar and how it's not on your exceptions list. Let's do this another way though. What are the criteria for being added to your exceptions?
- ProAm 4y ago
- nawgz 4y agoIndividual self control vs corporate chemical addiction machines... Regulation is a good thing - it helps citizens save their energy for their own lives, instead of having to reserve it for navigating an increasingly complex and profit-optimized society.
- vorpalhex 4y agoThis is a form of the argument "we must protect people from themselves". Look, there are a lot of religions out there that push feelings, take advantage of people and encourage false beliefs. We should help citizens save their energy for their own lives and regulate Buddhism as the required state religion. That way citizens don't have to navigate all these religions.
- nawgz 4y agoUsually education is the selected weapon against the latter, which means I could probably bastardize education into saying "we must protect people from themselves" If you genuinely don't think the massive power imbalance between for-profit food providers and individual citizens should be regulated to prevent the use of addictive chemistry, do you also spend your time regularly arguing for all drugs to be legalized?
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoIf healthcare costs were completely private - then sure, do whatever you want. When a large portion of healthcare costs are public - then you might want to ban things with huge negative externalities in the form of future healthcare costs... It's a little unfair to eat your cake and have the public pay for it later...
- tofof 4y agoIf you want to incentivize the lowest-cost option, you should be pushing for hydrogenated saturated fats and high-sugar diets and for people to take up smoking. Morbidly obese people tend to die quickly from cardiovascular failure in their 60s and end up costing substantially less than the ordinary population in health care costs over the course of their lives since they don't live to be octogenarians. Especially healthy, smart-eating, athletic people are actually the group that costs the most in total healthcare. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18254654/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18254654/ "Because of differences in life expectancy, however, lifetime health expenditure was highest among healthy-living people and lowest for smokers. Obese individuals held an intermediate position." "Although effective obesity prevention leads to a decrease in costs of obesity-related diseases, this decrease is offset by cost increases due to diseases unrelated to obesity in life-years gained. Obesity prevention may be an important and cost-effective way of improving public health, but it is not a cure for increasing health expenditures. " The linked article was published in PLoS Medicine, a high impact-factor journal.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoExcept it's not that simple. 0) Dying fast is clearly not an objective - if it was... Why ask people to eat unhealthy things instead of just killing them directly? 1) If you die at 17 - you never pay taxes. Dying fast != cost effective. 2) Unhealthy people that die at 17 can still have more healthcare costs than healthy people that live to 109. Age of death has little to do with healthcare costs.
- reddit_clone 4y agoThats cold.
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoI don't actually think self-control is the answer because I think we should consider the effects on brains in sugar/fat to be like effects of other drugs on the brain, especially because we know shit like childhood trauma and poverty predisposes people to obesity.
- wincy 4y agoPassing regulation assumes we actually know what’s best for everyone. I lost 80 pounds eating Johnsonville Beddar Cheddar Sausages and sauerkraut every day for six months, definitely something that’s “too fatty”.
- slothtrop 4y agoLosing weight is not the only metric for optimal health.
- claytongulick 4y agoIt's probably the biggest one. I was CTO for a healthcare network. Weight loss was the primary focus for population health - because the data massively supports this. SDOH [1], falls prevention and other stuff, while important, take a far backseat as far as overall health impact. [1] https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-deter...
- slothtrop 4y agoCVD is a leading cause of death and remains a risk even without excess weight; one needn't discount everything other than weight as "falls prevention and other stuff".
- claytongulick 4y ago> one needn't discount everything other than weight as "falls prevention and other stuff". I didn't. And yes, CVD is a huge issue. Obesity directly contributes to it, independent of other factors [1]. Which is why most population health stuff is targeted at weight loss. From a population health standpoint, it has the biggest impact with well understood interventions. FWIW, I helped deliver CMS certified DPP programs that were funded by private payers. Their data was clear on all this. [1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000973 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000973
- bigyikes 4y agoI’m shocked by some of the replies to this comment. Are people seriously advocating for regulations against… stuff that tastes good? No, thank you. Please don’t tell me what tasty things I’m allowed to create or consume. Regulation of this type is just group punishment, but advocates believe it to be some kind of altruism. “People are getting fat!” Okay, but I’m not, and honestly I eat tons of junk. Why punish everyone who likes tasty food? If you hate obesity so much, then outlaw obesity. That’s a stupid idea too, but at least it more closely aligns the regulation with the result you want.
- jorl17 4y agoWould you apply the same logic to drugs like cocaine, MDMA or similar? They, too, can be taken and handled with care and moderation, yet are outlawed (even if sometimes only at the "distribution/dealing" level)
- Clamchop 4y agoI don't know if we should or shouldn't but it deserves more thought than you're giving it. For one thing, I seriously doubt prohibition could ever be politically viable, but increased prices or reduced visibility and availability of processed high-calorie ready-to-eat foods might be in some situations. We've already seen some of this, like New York's soda tax or banning vending machines from public schools.
- Clamchop 4y agoPublic health regulations are not completely effective for everyone, but they can still be more effective than null on average. Raising prices, reducing availability or visibility, and other measures do usually work. Prohibition is often cited as a failure, but in terms of public health, it absolutely was not. On the whole, people did drink less and there were public health and social benefits. The organized crime was a separate issue, and so was self-control, as the will of the people to drink played a part in its downfall as well. Our steps toward cigarette prohibition, on the other hand, seem unlikely to be walked back. There will still be illegal cigarettes and people who smoke them, but there will be less smoking, and that's a public health win.
- drewcoo 4y agoThe entire food industry is aligned against individual self control. It's incredibly unlikely we can all be lone heroes standing against all that industrialized science. So how can we control the food industry?
- triceratops 4y agoIf self-control worked food companies wouldn't go to all this effort and expense. Since they are rational market participants, we can infer that self-control doesn't work at scale.
- themitigating 4y agoSo we should get rid of all laws related to drugs, speed limits, drinking while driving, etc?