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Sugar industry, tobacco industry, oil industry. Which other industries have distorted reality, and which future ones will be revealed in the coming decades?
by zeristor 2y ago
Sugar industry, tobacco industry, oil industry.
Which other industries have distorted reality, and which future ones will be revealed in the coming decades?
- Workaccount2 2y agoLiterally every industry does their best to distort reality to what best fits them. People naturally do this too, so it's not particularly surprising or even necessarily malevolent.
- xhkkffbf 2y agoAnd if oil, sugar and tobacco are out, where can we work guilt-free? At one recent discussion, a tenured sociology professor said her industry was not bad. And someone else chimed in by pointing out that they take huge tax dollar grants to churn out near worthless degrees studying research that often can't be replicated. And then they load on student debt to get the kids to pay for it. This made the snooty, tenured scold shut up.
- fsagx 2y agomedia
- gsky 2y agoPlastic industry and chemical (pesticide) industry
- rqtwteye 2y agoThe plastic industry is basically an extension of oil
- bell-cot 2y agoNot that it's any secret (now) - but how 'bout the alcoholic beverage industry, and the pharmaceuticals industry?
- Mehticulous 2y agoRecycling.
- Ma8ee 2y agoThat one is a bit complex. Recycling things like paper, metal and glass works very well, in particular if they are sorted at the source. Most plastics can’t be recycled cost effective, which a lot of plastics producers have work very hard to hide.
- AceyMan 2y agoI've been wanting to post an Ask HN on this: What's to stop us from going back to steel, paper and glass? You know, packaging we can actually recycle.
- namdnay 2y agoConvenience
- nick3443 2y agoProfits
- Pasorrijer 2y agoLast three years I've been in the Netherlands, all pop was glass bottles, similar with most water
- vpribish 2y agoclose the externality with a carbon tax
- apothegm 2y agoCost differences and price sensitivity.
- matthewdgreen 2y agoAnd more importantly, how much of a tax would it take to make single-use plastic bottles uneconomical? Are we talking 20 cents?
- whatshisface 2y agoEvery single one. PR is a normal corporate department.
- michaelt 2y agoThat seems a bit reductive. Most industries employ honest people, don’t have to cover up anything major. There’s a big difference between slightly misleading marketing (say, calling your 10% hand stitched clothes “hand stitched”) and outright paying scientists to cover up genuine harms to health and the environment.
- fwip 2y agoMost big industries are, at the least, hiding labor rights violations overseas or among migrant workers. Usually legal, of course, but not ethical.
- chucksmash 2y agoWhen someone asks for examples of particularly bad actors, replying "everybody is a bad actor" is a pat non-answer that communicates nothing except the answerer's disillusionment.
- zemvpferreira 2y agoTrue, but it’s useful disillusionement that conveys useful knowledge: companies must be monitored. Every industry, left to itself, will commit horrible acts for profit. There’s no such thing as an ethical business in the dark.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chucksmash 2y agoI disagree. Think of the places where corruption is endemic. Having an outlook of "well, everybody is corrupt" normalizes the behavior and makes it easier to justify sliding into corruption oneself. If the outlook were useful, it would help to fix the problem instead of doing the opposite. The disillusionment doesn't offer any benefit that can't also be gained with a touch of common sense alone. But going from "some people are terrible, sometimes" to "everybody is terrible" forecloses any possibility of improvement.
- leetrout 2y agoAI
- tekla 2y agoTech Startups
- willsmith72 2y agoNot just startups
- grecy 2y agoKeep that in mind when you read or hear news about anything. Someone has a vested interest in the side of the story you’re getting, and they may have even paid for it.
- Mistletoe 2y agoYou are missing the worst one of all. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” -Dwight Eisenhower farewell address 1961 Did we listen? Nope.
- hackly 2y agoWar/Weapons industry has been very active lately.
- hcarvalhoalves 2y agoEvery other movie coming out of Hollywood features the army, guns or military equipment in some fashion. Cinema is a PR channel for this industry.
- bun_terminator 2y agoadvertising companies still pretending (and pushing the idea) that ads work
- dantyti 2y agotbf, they still work, but my educated guess would be that the overall ROI distribution looks similar to the gambling/adult industries: a minority of the population bringing in an outsized return due to peculiarities in how their brains work
- oops 2y agoAuto industry with the creation of suburbs and jaywalking laws.
- jraby3 2y agoBanana industry basically had America destroying democracies in S America so we could access their resources. United Fruit. Great book about it The Fish that Ate the Whale. https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/1250033314 https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/12500...
- whatshisface 2y agoSo the company could access their resources. No Americans, save for retiring government appointees, got so much as a banana.
- exe34 2y agothe companies were owned by shareholders who profited handsomely.
- ethbr1 2y agoTechnically all Americans got bananas, because the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) and the Standard Fruit Company (now Dole) subverted nations to ensure uninterrupted supply.
- red-iron-pine 2y agoand, like, bananas are cheap as hell. pretty common, even in Canada. imagine if they were as rare as dragonfruit or durian
- jraby3 2y agoAt the time the book takes place in they were very rare. Most Americans had never eaten or seen a banana.
- pier25 2y agoAI, social media
- icydeadposts 2y agoCognitive dissonance means many here won't agree. Easier to point fingers than do self reflection and neutral critical thinking.
- jaco6 2y agoConsumer software industry
- DarkmSparks 2y agogreen energy industry is far more active than the oil industry now, especially green energy companies owned by oil companies with dry oil fields.
- HumblyTossed 2y agoCrypto.
- rqtwteye 2y agoBig tech and advertising industry.
- swayvil 2y agoNews industry?
- dylan604 2y agoIndustrial ranching/farming
- valval 2y agoWhat makes ranching/farming industrial?
- dylan604 2y agoOwnership, size, practices. For farming, the growing of monoculture crops with heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides. For ranching, over populated constrained pens depending hormones and antibiotics to keep the animals “healthy” long enough to get to desired size before slaughter.
- yard2010 2y agoFacebook and instagram industry
- lisper 2y agoCrypto.
- carlmr 2y agoMeat industry. They're pushing "big sugar lied to you" (true), "(saturated) fat good for you!", which is contrary to most evidence we have. Only because sugar is bad for you does not mean fat is good for you. Evidence is rather on the side of complex carbs, high fiber, moderate protein, moderate unsaturated fat and low saturated fat intake.
- dinfinity 2y agoYes, fat is 'good for you'. Without consuming it, you die. But I would say that in general, 'x is good/bad for you' is a harmful oversimplification. Sugar is also not 'bad for you'. It's not that simple. Glucose is important and sometimes extremely beneficial to consume (in any form). As for saturated fat: it's complicated. Correlation != causation. For transfats we have a pretty good idea via which causal mechanism problems arise. For saturated fat we only have correlations. Given how hard nutritional research is and especially how hard it is to draw conclusions from it, I would say it's better to refrain from feigning confidence on substances where the jury really is still out.
- carlmr 2y ago>Yes, fat is 'good for you'. Without consuming it, you die. Right, in small amounts though. You don't need that much. Eat a handful of nuts and you're good. It's like a teaspoon of sugar in your tea won't cause huge issues. Cold drinks with 10 teaspoons in a bottle however are a problem.
- valval 2y agoYou should point out that weak evidence is on the side of those things. Frankly, the number of carbs and fiber you need throughout your life is 0.
- consteval 2y ago> Frankly, the number of carbs and fiber you need throughout your life is 0 Sincerely, what are you talking about? It's been well-known a diet high in fiber lowers your risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Also, no carb diets are largely bullshit. There's plenty of complex carbs with many nutrients. The problem is while "no carb" might be somewhat effective, it's not sustainable for the vast majority of people. That, to me, makes it very close to worthless.
- 11235813213455 2y agoTourism, Airplanes, Flights transport industries
- dboreham 2y agoFacebook industry.
- deely3 2y agoAI insdustry.