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> "I do think there should be a strong presumption in favor of activities that consist of providing people with something they want in exchange for money." > "

> "I do think there should be a strong presumption in favor of activities that consist of providing people with something they want in exchange for money." > "There should be significant foreseen externalities that are either evidentially obvious" Wireheading. An obesity crisis[1] which costs $173Bn/year of medical treatment. $45Bn/year in lost productivity due to dental treatments[2]. Over half the uk drinking alcohol at harmful levels[3]. Hours of social media use per day linked to depressive symptoms and mental health issues[4]. People are manipulable. Sellers will supply as much temptation as the market will bear. We can't keep pretending that humans are perfectly rational massless chickens. Having CocaCola lobbying to sell in vending machines in schools, while TikTok catches children's attention and tells them they are fat and disgusting and just shrugging and saying the human caught in the middle should just pull on their self control bootstraps - society abandoning them to the monsters - is ridiculous, and gets more ridiculous year on year. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html [2] https://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/oral_health_disparities/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/oral_health_disparities/index... [3] https://www.ias.org.uk/2023/01/30/what-happened-with-uk-alcohol-consumption-and-harm-in-2022/ https://www.ias.org.uk/2023/01/30/what-happened-with-uk-alco... [4] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(18)30060-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...

whimsicalism 3y ago
The children are mostly okay and I view this as a veil for conservatism because they don’t behave the same as you. Tiktok fat shaming is bad but leading your “society is dystopia” comment with obesity rates in the US is fine? More extensive redistribution rather than moral panic + regulation over tiktok. Let’s not waste time on speculative interventions.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  The Lancet[1] says "Childhood obesity rates have increased substantially over the past year in the UK, according to a new report from the UK Government's National Child Measurement Programme. This rise in prevalence is the largest single-year increase since the programme began 15 years ago and highlights the worldwide rising trend for obesity among children and adolescents [...] it is now an undeniable public health crisis." and "a US study reported an increase in recreational screen time of almost 4 h a day in children aged 12–13 years during the COVID-19 pandemic." Why do you think this is "mostly okay" and why is "mostly okay but getting worse" good enough for you? > "I view this as a veil for conservatism." I view this as sticking your head in the sand and trying to distract from it with a cheap insult. By 2030 do you think obesity prevalence will have gone up or down? Screen time? Depression levels? Happiness? Isolation? They've all been trending in bad directions for years, despite COVID. Smartphone apps aren't going to magically get fewer gambling mechanics and dark patterns, two hundred million people aren't magically going to stop responding to advertising and stop eating McDonalds, American cities aren't magically going to turn away from cars and pro-walking. > "Tiktok fat shaming is bad but leading your “society is dystopia” comment with obesity rates in the US is fine?"" Calling out a public health crisis isn't fat shaming, so yes it's fine. > "More extensive redistribution rather than moral panic + regulation over tiktok. Let’s not waste time on speculative interventions." You can't fix juvenile diabetes by taking cash from McDonalds and throwing it at the sick child, or the sick child's doctors. There's nothing speculative about this - companies engineer food to exploit our senses, and engineer advertising to exploit our weaknesses, we know it works, we see the results of it, and we should stop it. > "view this as a veil for conservatism because they don’t behave the same as you.*" It isn't about how they behave, it's about why we behave. The why is willful manipulation by companies which want profit and don't care about harming us to get it. The manipulation is effective, coersive, substantial, powerful, abhorrent. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(21)00314-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8...
  - toolz 3y ago
    > willful manipulation Not trying to be inflammatory, but you're trying to manipulate readers right now. Why is your manipulation good but companies manipulation is bad? > companies engineer food to exploit our senses [...] and we should stop it I'm struggling to comprehend what you actually mean here, because the only interpretation I'm coming up with is that you believe a central authority should stop people from making food taste better.
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      > "you're trying to manipulate readers right now. Why is your manipulation good but companies manipulation is bad?" I didn't say my manipulation is good. Why is lifting 1Kg good but lifting 1000Kg bad? My manipulation doesn't have a billion dollars and a team of PhDs behind it. "Children need to be protected from pervasive junk food adverts in apps, social media and video blogs, the World Health Organization says." - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37846318 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37846318 > "the only interpretation I'm coming up with is that you believe a central authority should stop people from making food taste better." Even when people are suffering obesity with malnutrition[1] to the point of death while companies advertise 'happy meals', we still won't face that there's a problem. Central authorities act to prevent harm societal harms at the expense of personal freedoms in many existing situations. Here is a societal harm. Here is some central authority pushback: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/45110055 https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/45110055 and https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-advertising-rules-to-help-tackle-childhood-obesity https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-advertising-rules-to-... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-018-0143-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-018-0143-9
  - pkkm 3y ago
    > companies engineer food to exploit our senses This is just a maximally edgy way to phrase "companies are making tasty food". Which I don't disagree with - like Stephan Guyenet and (apparently) you, I blame the fatness problem on the fact that we've evolved to eat a bit extra because food wasn't always available, and now we're surrounded by an extreme variety of tasty food 24/7. I don't believe any of these food ideologues (keto, anti-grain, carnivore) who try to vilify a single ingredient or food group. But then, how could you possibly regulate that? If it was some bad ingredient then it could be limited or banned, but how would you regulate tastiness itself? To me, this seems hopeless, and I'm expecting the obesity problem to get addressed by a combination of making cities more walkable and normalizing semaglutide-like drugs to the point their use is as ordinary as popping a vitamin pill with breakfast. I'm curious to hear if you have different ideas.

whimsicalism 3y ago

The children are mostly okay and I view this as a veil for conservatism because they don’t behave the same as you. Tiktok fat shaming is bad but leading your “society is dystopia” comment with obesity rates in the US is fine? More extensive redistribution rather than moral panic + regulation over tiktok. Let’s not waste time on speculative interventions.

jodrellblank 3y ago
The Lancet[1] says "Childhood obesity rates have increased substantially over the past year in the UK, according to a new report from the UK Government's National Child Measurement Programme. This rise in prevalence is the largest single-year increase since the programme began 15 years ago and highlights the worldwide rising trend for obesity among children and adolescents [...] it is now an undeniable public health crisis." and "a US study reported an increase in recreational screen time of almost 4 h a day in children aged 12–13 years during the COVID-19 pandemic." Why do you think this is "mostly okay" and why is "mostly okay but getting worse" good enough for you? > "I view this as a veil for conservatism." I view this as sticking your head in the sand and trying to distract from it with a cheap insult. By 2030 do you think obesity prevalence will have gone up or down? Screen time? Depression levels? Happiness? Isolation? They've all been trending in bad directions for years, despite COVID. Smartphone apps aren't going to magically get fewer gambling mechanics and dark patterns, two hundred million people aren't magically going to stop responding to advertising and stop eating McDonalds, American cities aren't magically going to turn away from cars and pro-walking. > "Tiktok fat shaming is bad but leading your “society is dystopia” comment with obesity rates in the US is fine?"" Calling out a public health crisis isn't fat shaming, so yes it's fine. > "More extensive redistribution rather than moral panic + regulation over tiktok. Let’s not waste time on speculative interventions." You can't fix juvenile diabetes by taking cash from McDonalds and throwing it at the sick child, or the sick child's doctors. There's nothing speculative about this - companies engineer food to exploit our senses, and engineer advertising to exploit our weaknesses, we know it works, we see the results of it, and we should stop it. > "view this as a veil for conservatism because they don’t behave the same as you.*" It isn't about how they behave, it's about why we behave. The why is willful manipulation by companies which want profit and don't care about harming us to get it. The manipulation is effective, coersive, substantial, powerful, abhorrent. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(21)00314-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8...
- toolz 3y ago
  > willful manipulation Not trying to be inflammatory, but you're trying to manipulate readers right now. Why is your manipulation good but companies manipulation is bad? > companies engineer food to exploit our senses [...] and we should stop it I'm struggling to comprehend what you actually mean here, because the only interpretation I'm coming up with is that you believe a central authority should stop people from making food taste better.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    > "you're trying to manipulate readers right now. Why is your manipulation good but companies manipulation is bad?" I didn't say my manipulation is good. Why is lifting 1Kg good but lifting 1000Kg bad? My manipulation doesn't have a billion dollars and a team of PhDs behind it. "Children need to be protected from pervasive junk food adverts in apps, social media and video blogs, the World Health Organization says." - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37846318 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37846318 > "the only interpretation I'm coming up with is that you believe a central authority should stop people from making food taste better." Even when people are suffering obesity with malnutrition[1] to the point of death while companies advertise 'happy meals', we still won't face that there's a problem. Central authorities act to prevent harm societal harms at the expense of personal freedoms in many existing situations. Here is a societal harm. Here is some central authority pushback: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/45110055 https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/45110055 and https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-advertising-rules-to-help-tackle-childhood-obesity https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-advertising-rules-to-... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-018-0143-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-018-0143-9
- pkkm 3y ago
  > companies engineer food to exploit our senses This is just a maximally edgy way to phrase "companies are making tasty food". Which I don't disagree with - like Stephan Guyenet and (apparently) you, I blame the fatness problem on the fact that we've evolved to eat a bit extra because food wasn't always available, and now we're surrounded by an extreme variety of tasty food 24/7. I don't believe any of these food ideologues (keto, anti-grain, carnivore) who try to vilify a single ingredient or food group. But then, how could you possibly regulate that? If it was some bad ingredient then it could be limited or banned, but how would you regulate tastiness itself? To me, this seems hopeless, and I'm expecting the obesity problem to get addressed by a combination of making cities more walkable and normalizing semaglutide-like drugs to the point their use is as ordinary as popping a vitamin pill with breakfast. I'm curious to hear if you have different ideas.