4 ms·

When drinking particularly acid drinks, juice, soda, etc., a straw significantly reduces the amount of erosion of your teeth.

sixstringtheory 3y ago
I question if it actually does make a difference, and in any case, we should kill two birds with one stone and just not drink unhealthy drinks. “It’s so simple!” -Jim Gaffigan “Stop it!” -Bob Newhart
- irrational 3y ago
  Let’s just outlaw everything but tap water.
  - sixstringtheory 3y ago
    You don’t have to outlaw anything. Disincentivize it. “But then only the rich will get to rot their teeth out!” Good, I guess? So what? “Poor people will still spend money on sugar water! You’ll drive them deeper into poverty!” Then the price isn’t high enough yet. It needs to exceed the cost of the dental and medical work it will precipitate. Which by definition will price many poor people out of sugar water. Which it should.
    - aziaziazi 3y ago
      Nice approach, but IMHO outlawing would be easier and healthier for the society: Easier: track down illegal sugary drinks is easier that track down at what price a drink is illegally sold. Healthier: forbid those drinks and all the folks forking for that industry will now work for something more useful the the society instead of trying to find ways to convince people to drink their shitty fluid.
      - sixstringtheory 3y ago
        You don't have to know at what price the drinks are sold. All that matters as the government is that you know how much is being moved around. Then you charge each link in the chain appropriately. The rest works itself out in the market. I disagree with the legislative approach, but just think of how much cheap/free labor the war on drugs supplies. A war on sugar would keep those numbers up! Good job boys, promotions all around! In the more boring dystopia, the disincentivization would lead to poor quarterly financials and cause the same movement in the industry. Nobody is pumping out cola at a loss simply because it's their passion project.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
SoKamil 3y ago
Do we as a society even need acid drinks?
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  If you’re going down that path, all we need is water. Human needs go beyond the physical.
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  Do we as a society even need [alcohol|nicotine|cannabis|refined sugar|fat|salt]? Maybe not. But I refuse to believe that you asked that question in good faith, because we're obviously going to have all of them. People should be free to live as healthily or as unhealthily as they choose.
  - sixstringtheory 3y ago
    People should be free to live as unhealthily as they choose as long as the problems they inevitably create don’t negatively affect other people. Activities high in negative externalities should be prohibitively expensive to help pay for remediation, and the opposite should be positively reinforced, even subsidized. A stitch, in time, saves nine.
    - Turing_Machine 3y ago
      I'm pretty sure more people have been killed by governments with too much power than have ever been killed by drinking straws.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    > But I refuse to believe that you asked that question in good faith, because we're obviously going to have all of them. People should be free to live as healthily or as unhealthily as they choose. Why? Especially in a country with government-subsidized healthcare?
- Jweb_Guru 3y ago
  We don't need a lot of things. A better example than plastic straws is beef: we definitely don't need beef, it's already expensive, and it has an extremely large and disproportionately heavy impact on CO2 consumption due to the combination of required grain, methane release, and needing land for cows incentivizing cutting down rainforest. Most people here would be pretty up in arms about any proposal to ban beef, so why focus on comparatively harmless stuff like lipstick and soda?
Havoc 3y ago
Any link/source? Not that I don’t believe you just curious as it seems plausible but never chances across support for it
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9785633/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9785633/

sixstringtheory 3y ago

I question if it actually does make a difference, and in any case, we should kill two birds with one stone and just not drink unhealthy drinks. “It’s so simple!” -Jim Gaffigan “Stop it!” -Bob Newhart

irrational 3y ago
Let’s just outlaw everything but tap water.
- sixstringtheory 3y ago
  You don’t have to outlaw anything. Disincentivize it. “But then only the rich will get to rot their teeth out!” Good, I guess? So what? “Poor people will still spend money on sugar water! You’ll drive them deeper into poverty!” Then the price isn’t high enough yet. It needs to exceed the cost of the dental and medical work it will precipitate. Which by definition will price many poor people out of sugar water. Which it should.
  - aziaziazi 3y ago
    Nice approach, but IMHO outlawing would be easier and healthier for the society: Easier: track down illegal sugary drinks is easier that track down at what price a drink is illegally sold. Healthier: forbid those drinks and all the folks forking for that industry will now work for something more useful the the society instead of trying to find ways to convince people to drink their shitty fluid.
    - sixstringtheory 3y ago
      You don't have to know at what price the drinks are sold. All that matters as the government is that you know how much is being moved around. Then you charge each link in the chain appropriately. The rest works itself out in the market. I disagree with the legislative approach, but just think of how much cheap/free labor the war on drugs supplies. A war on sugar would keep those numbers up! Good job boys, promotions all around! In the more boring dystopia, the disincentivization would lead to poor quarterly financials and cause the same movement in the industry. Nobody is pumping out cola at a loss simply because it's their passion project.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

SoKamil 3y ago

Do we as a society even need acid drinks?

ricardobeat 3y ago
If you’re going down that path, all we need is water. Human needs go beyond the physical.
LeoPanthera 3y ago
Do we as a society even need [alcohol|nicotine|cannabis|refined sugar|fat|salt]? Maybe not. But I refuse to believe that you asked that question in good faith, because we're obviously going to have all of them. People should be free to live as healthily or as unhealthily as they choose.
- sixstringtheory 3y ago
  People should be free to live as unhealthily as they choose as long as the problems they inevitably create don’t negatively affect other people. Activities high in negative externalities should be prohibitively expensive to help pay for remediation, and the opposite should be positively reinforced, even subsidized. A stitch, in time, saves nine.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure more people have been killed by governments with too much power than have ever been killed by drinking straws.
- rayiner 3y ago
  > But I refuse to believe that you asked that question in good faith, because we're obviously going to have all of them. People should be free to live as healthily or as unhealthily as they choose. Why? Especially in a country with government-subsidized healthcare?
Jweb_Guru 3y ago
We don't need a lot of things. A better example than plastic straws is beef: we definitely don't need beef, it's already expensive, and it has an extremely large and disproportionately heavy impact on CO2 consumption due to the combination of required grain, methane release, and needing land for cows incentivizing cutting down rainforest. Most people here would be pretty up in arms about any proposal to ban beef, so why focus on comparatively harmless stuff like lipstick and soda?

Havoc 3y ago

Any link/source? Not that I don’t believe you just curious as it seems plausible but never chances across support for it

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
LeoPanthera 3y ago
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9785633/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9785633/