4 ms·

I am not following that closely US politics, but are other sectors under the same scrutiny: guns manufacturer, automoto companies (road rage)?

altcognito 3y ago
Gun manufacturers get some scrutiny, but it isn’t a fair comparison in that social media is engineered to keep people addicted and messes with their mental state in a destructive way. Guns are a tool abused by people with mental predisposition to do so. The whole scene is performative nonsense anyway. Nothing will happen.
- skizm 3y ago
  Alcohol and sugary foods are also engineered to keep people addicted and mess with their mental and physical states and are completely legal and not frowned upon. Agree on the performative nonsense part though.
  - cush 3y ago
    They’re also labelled, regulated, and liable.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      In what ways are they liable?
      - cush 3y ago
        The alcohol industry is thousands of years old and has gone through varying levels of regulation and deregulation. The Prohibition happened. It was a big deal. But even then, even given their incredibly entrenched history of consumption and relatively obvious risks, they still face real civil liabilities. Hard seltzer companies, most recently, have been sued and fined for promoting their brands as healthy. A very similar case happened to the sugary drink Vitamin Water. But, if you really want to compare the alcohol industry to social media, you’d first need to give Budweiser a way to, in real time, modify the alcohol content of the can based on the current mental state of the drinker. Do that and it might come close to be a valid comparison. But you’d still need to change the clearly labeled alcohol content on the front of the can, and instead bury it in a fourteen-page terms of service agreement. Then, also give the can the ability to simultaneously monitor you, and inform the third-party salty snack-food manufacturers that your drunk and it’s time to send you a push notification from the chips bag, as you have a 40% increased likelihood of wanting chips. That might get you there. The prescription pain-killer and tobacco industries have paid hundreds of billions in fines for covering up their addictive properties. The list goes on. Section 230 needs to be seriously amended
  - mcphage 3y ago
    Alcohol is pretty heavily regulated. Sugary foods are not, which does suck—they should be.
    - throwoutway 3y ago
      Sugary soft drinks (Coke, Pepsi, etc) are higher on my list than cookies or cheesecake. Schools are startking to ban soda from being sold
      - mcphage 3y ago
        I agree—I don't think overall cookies or cheesecake are a major source of obesity, since they're really not eaten that often. You're right about soda, but in general the large amount of sugar (in whatever form) in so many foods is a problem.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      There have been attempts to regulate them, e.g. in NYC.
      - mcphage 3y ago
        Definitely a step in the right direction.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > Alcohol and sugary foods are also engineered to keep people addicted and mess with their mental and physical states Humans have been drinking alcohol and eating sugary foods for thousands of years. They weren’t “engineered” to do anything. They are just natural substances which humans stumbled upon and found inherently attractive (due to our biological predispositions). Both are very energy-dense. In a premodern / early modern society in which most people engage in hard physical labour every day, that energy-density is valuable. In a late modern society in which most people are sedentary, it becomes much more harmful. Many of the negative health consequences of both have only become known in recent decades. And several of those long-term health consequences are only apparent due to increased longevity, in centuries prior many people would have perished due to other causes long beforehand, and even deaths directly attributable to these substances would have seemed less significant against the background of generally higher mortality.
rayiner 3y ago
Guns and cars don’t change people’s mental state. Some of the states with the lowest homicide rates are states like Idaho, where half of households own a gun. This is also true over time. In the 1950s in the US, the percentage of households with a gun was much higher, but homicide rates were lower. Gun ownership rates in Europe were also a lot higher in the mid 20th century, while homicide rates were not.
- getlawgdon 3y ago
  Rate of gun ownership in Montana is among highest. Rate of suicide in Montana is among highest. Guess the method of suicide.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    Does owning a gun cause suicidal thoughts? Most of Western Europe has higher suicide rates than the US: https://www.phillyvoice.com/why-suicide-rise-us-falling-most-europe/ https://www.phillyvoice.com/why-suicide-rise-us-falling-most.... Eastern Europe has even higher suicide rates. And suicide rates in the US are going up as the percentage of households with a gun is going down.
    - skissane 3y ago
      It can make a difference. Someone with suicidal thoughts who has a gun, the gun can give them a quick and easy method of acting on it, with high certainty of success. Without a gun, they’d have to resort to other methods, which involve more work, have lower likelihood of success, and greater risk (and hence anxiety) of the “you don’t actually die you just end up severely disabled” outcome For someone dead set on killing themselves, it doesn’t make a big difference. For someone who has a sudden impulsive thought of suicide, having a gun can mean they die, without one by the time they’ve worked out how to kill themselves the impulse has passed There isn’t a simple correlation between gun ownership rates and suicide because suicide rates are determined by many factors of which gun availability is just one. But I think it is a real factor, and there is research which supports that it is, e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36652694/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36652694/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

altcognito 3y ago

Gun manufacturers get some scrutiny, but it isn’t a fair comparison in that social media is engineered to keep people addicted and messes with their mental state in a destructive way. Guns are a tool abused by people with mental predisposition to do so. The whole scene is performative nonsense anyway. Nothing will happen.

skizm 3y ago
Alcohol and sugary foods are also engineered to keep people addicted and mess with their mental and physical states and are completely legal and not frowned upon. Agree on the performative nonsense part though.
- cush 3y ago
  They’re also labelled, regulated, and liable.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    In what ways are they liable?
    - cush 3y ago
      The alcohol industry is thousands of years old and has gone through varying levels of regulation and deregulation. The Prohibition happened. It was a big deal. But even then, even given their incredibly entrenched history of consumption and relatively obvious risks, they still face real civil liabilities. Hard seltzer companies, most recently, have been sued and fined for promoting their brands as healthy. A very similar case happened to the sugary drink Vitamin Water. But, if you really want to compare the alcohol industry to social media, you’d first need to give Budweiser a way to, in real time, modify the alcohol content of the can based on the current mental state of the drinker. Do that and it might come close to be a valid comparison. But you’d still need to change the clearly labeled alcohol content on the front of the can, and instead bury it in a fourteen-page terms of service agreement. Then, also give the can the ability to simultaneously monitor you, and inform the third-party salty snack-food manufacturers that your drunk and it’s time to send you a push notification from the chips bag, as you have a 40% increased likelihood of wanting chips. That might get you there. The prescription pain-killer and tobacco industries have paid hundreds of billions in fines for covering up their addictive properties. The list goes on. Section 230 needs to be seriously amended
- mcphage 3y ago
  Alcohol is pretty heavily regulated. Sugary foods are not, which does suck—they should be.
  - throwoutway 3y ago
    Sugary soft drinks (Coke, Pepsi, etc) are higher on my list than cookies or cheesecake. Schools are startking to ban soda from being sold
    - mcphage 3y ago
      I agree—I don't think overall cookies or cheesecake are a major source of obesity, since they're really not eaten that often. You're right about soda, but in general the large amount of sugar (in whatever form) in so many foods is a problem.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    There have been attempts to regulate them, e.g. in NYC.
    - mcphage 3y ago
      Definitely a step in the right direction.
- skissane 3y ago
  > Alcohol and sugary foods are also engineered to keep people addicted and mess with their mental and physical states Humans have been drinking alcohol and eating sugary foods for thousands of years. They weren’t “engineered” to do anything. They are just natural substances which humans stumbled upon and found inherently attractive (due to our biological predispositions). Both are very energy-dense. In a premodern / early modern society in which most people engage in hard physical labour every day, that energy-density is valuable. In a late modern society in which most people are sedentary, it becomes much more harmful. Many of the negative health consequences of both have only become known in recent decades. And several of those long-term health consequences are only apparent due to increased longevity, in centuries prior many people would have perished due to other causes long beforehand, and even deaths directly attributable to these substances would have seemed less significant against the background of generally higher mortality.

rayiner 3y ago

Guns and cars don’t change people’s mental state. Some of the states with the lowest homicide rates are states like Idaho, where half of households own a gun. This is also true over time. In the 1950s in the US, the percentage of households with a gun was much higher, but homicide rates were lower. Gun ownership rates in Europe were also a lot higher in the mid 20th century, while homicide rates were not.

getlawgdon 3y ago
Rate of gun ownership in Montana is among highest. Rate of suicide in Montana is among highest. Guess the method of suicide.
- rayiner 3y ago
  Does owning a gun cause suicidal thoughts? Most of Western Europe has higher suicide rates than the US: https://www.phillyvoice.com/why-suicide-rise-us-falling-most-europe/ https://www.phillyvoice.com/why-suicide-rise-us-falling-most.... Eastern Europe has even higher suicide rates. And suicide rates in the US are going up as the percentage of households with a gun is going down.
  - skissane 3y ago
    It can make a difference. Someone with suicidal thoughts who has a gun, the gun can give them a quick and easy method of acting on it, with high certainty of success. Without a gun, they’d have to resort to other methods, which involve more work, have lower likelihood of success, and greater risk (and hence anxiety) of the “you don’t actually die you just end up severely disabled” outcome For someone dead set on killing themselves, it doesn’t make a big difference. For someone who has a sudden impulsive thought of suicide, having a gun can mean they die, without one by the time they’ve worked out how to kill themselves the impulse has passed There isn’t a simple correlation between gun ownership rates and suicide because suicide rates are determined by many factors of which gun availability is just one. But I think it is a real factor, and there is research which supports that it is, e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36652694/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36652694/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]