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I agree that obesity and lack of exercise are terrible things - the latter is something I struggle with. I agree that it's quite ironic that diabetes magazines
by benaiah 13y ago
I agree that obesity and lack of exercise are terrible things - the latter is something I struggle with. I agree that it's quite ironic that diabetes magazines are sold next to junk food. I agree that many people have screwed-up priorities and self-control and that they would be better off without this stuff.
That said, I strongly disagree, to the point of revulsion, with the implicit desire of the author, which I see echoed in various forms and about various subjects, that the government take action to ban any of this. ("Imagine if 65% of the population had a gambling problem and we let the banks put pokies inside ATMs." - emphasis mine).
It appalls me that HN is so adamantly desirous of the freedom of the press, the freedom of anonymity, the freedom of assembly, etc., but sees no problem with calling for the mass restrictions of freedoms in work, housing, healthcare, and the like. Even, apparently, the freedom to choose what you eat. It's revolting to us that someone might decide what you should be able to say, but we are happy to make moral pronouncements from our padded office chairs on others' behalf, as long as it's something that won't affect us.
Let me be clear - I am not absolving these companies of all wrong. They commit fraud when they lie about ingredients, they are implicit in assault or even murder when they sell actively toxic (as opposed to simply unhealthy) food and advertise that it is safe, and they regularly abuse our screwed-up political system to gain unfair and immoral advantages over competitors. These things are all wrong.
Selling unhealthy food, with an honest description of what's in it, isn't.
He even mentions it in the post - consumers are voting with their feet. We can disdain the stereotypical "people of Walmart" all we want, but we have no business forcing them to live the way we think is best. We're no better than the NSA if we start going down that road. No one is coercing them to buy there. There are plenty of cheap and healthy alternatives. We just have to come to terms with the fact that they are making a poor choice, and we have no right to force them to stop.
We absolutely should encourage them not to. It's perfectly fine if you choose to boycott these places. It's fine if you don't let your children eat that food, and it's fine if you make it your life's work to making that food obsolete. But you have to draw the line there. Once you start forcing people, at the threat (ultimately) of death, to eat certain things, you are no better than the NSA forcing people at the threat of death to say or not say certain things. That's not our place.
</lengthy rant>
All that said, he's right. The world is, as he bluntly puts it, "fucking insane", and this is one of the ways that shows.
EDIT:
Holy cow, this article got flagged to death. Probably rightly so. It's on the third page right now, despite having 65 points in 2 hours.
- nbouscal 13y ago> actively toxic (as opposed to simply unhealthy) food Can you please clarify the difference between the two? Also, I don't see anywhere in your post that you address the fact that drastically unhealthy choices by other citizens are born by everyone else through increased costs of health care and insurance. And one last thing, since one of the more common strategies is taxation, calling it threat of death is a bit hyperbolic. At most it's threat of imprisonment, and it's still a bit disingenuous to call it that.
- benaiah 13y agoUltimately, all the rest of the threats have to be supported by the one at the bottom, which is death. Prisons can be overthrown by a rebellion, and the only way to stop a rebellion that won't negotiate is with deadly force. The reason I and so many others dislike government intervention so strongly is for this very reason - it is the one organization which we allow to police all others with our collective power of death, and its role should thus be as small as possible in order to avoid abusing that awful responsibility. As for toxic vs. unhealthy food, I'm not a nutritionist or biologist, so I won't attempt a scientific distinction, but essentially someone selling drain cleaner and saying it's drinkable is wrong, while someone selling soda and saying it's drinkable isn't. A healthy person can have a soda without negative health effects - those only show up if you drink it excessively. Drain cleaner is enormously damaging to your body period, no matter your health or whether you drink it regularly or not.
- nbouscal 13y ago> A healthy person can have a soda without negative health effects That's simply untrue. The standard recommendation from nutritionists as to the healthy number of sodas to drink is zero. That's why I asked the question: the reality is that the difference between 'unhealthy' and 'toxic' is simply one of scale. Yes, clearly, drain cleaner is on one end of that scale, and soda is on another, and alcohol is somewhere near the middle. Trying to act as though there is a clear dichotomy, though, is misleading. The reason that you and so many others who refer to taxation as threat of death are a pain to have discussions with is that you argue in such a way as to completely ignore reality. Yes, in your hypothetical theoretical worlds, there exists a narrative in which someone resisting taxation would proceed to foment a rebellion which would end in that person's death. That being the case has absolutely no place in a rational discussion of government, and simply serves to distract us from real practical issues that are worth discussing.