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An acquaintance I once met, that used to work on the product design team for one of the major brands of snack/potato chips makers, had a witty response to what

by saganus 13y ago

An acquaintance I once met, that used to work on the product design team for one of the major brands of snack/potato chips makers, had a witty response to what a friend asked, along the lines of: "so, tell us, how can you work at something that you know is bad for people's health?" and he answered: "I am certainly used to the opinion that garbage food is bad for your health, and what I think is that garbage food does NOT exist. What it actually DO exist are garbage diets. If you eat one bag of chips every now and then, nothing bad will happen to you. However if you eat one bag a day for 10 years, you will probably feel the effects." So the bottom line is as usual, everything in moderation. I mean, the often used analogy is with water. You can't live without drinking it and yet you can certainly die if you drink too much of it. Isn't this like an overdone debate? I mean, you can definitely start an alarmist attitude towards almost anything you can think of, no?

sgift 13y ago
The only thing this tells me is that your acquaintance has a good working "moral deflection" system. What? Cigarettes are bad? No, no, I wouldn't work on a bad product. All is good in moderation! What? I spam people with ads all day and that could be bad? No, no, I wouldn't work on a bad product. I only inform people! And so on. No one thinks he does bad* things. Your mind forbids it or you would probably go insane. That doesn't change the reality. * For various values of bad
- saganus 13y ago
  I actually never thought of it that way. You could be right to some extent in that he is indeed a good "moral deflector", but the main point I was trying to make still stands, in that one bag of chips is not something that will significantly change your chances for cancer or whatever other disease could be associated with eating a lot of the stuff. Same with cigarettes. Indeed they have been undoubtedly linked to cancer, but still, if I smoke only one it really won't make a difference. Same with spam, one email every few months, as has been my experience with gmail for the past several years for example, really does not annoy me more than a mosquito could. There's a difference between working on a bad product such as, let's say hand grenades or other stuff actually made to harm, and working on a product that is definitely bad but only if you actually let it be, i.e. abuse it. My point is that the blame is not on who makes the product, as the product maker does not make said product with the intention to harm, even if they do know that if you cross a line it will be harmful. The blame is on the person that lets this product ruin its life. Just like any drug. If I hit a joint right now, I guarantee that it won't harm me. But if I let it run my life and I stop working because I want to smoke weed, then the blame's on me, not on whoever grows the weed or even the one who sells it to me. Precisely the reason as to why we usually put age restrictions on certain things, as we deem children to be not capable of drawing this line between use and abuse of things that could end up being very harmful. However as we grow up we believe that we are then capable of taking responsibility for your life choices. Including giving yourself cancer or diabetes by only drinking cola and eating chips.

by saganus 13y ago

sgift 13y ago

The only thing this tells me is that your acquaintance has a good working "moral deflection" system. What? Cigarettes are bad? No, no, I wouldn't work on a bad product. All is good in moderation! What? I spam people with ads all day and that could be bad? No, no, I wouldn't work on a bad product. I only inform people! And so on. No one thinks he does bad* things. Your mind forbids it or you would probably go insane. That doesn't change the reality. * For various values of bad

saganus 13y ago
I actually never thought of it that way. You could be right to some extent in that he is indeed a good "moral deflector", but the main point I was trying to make still stands, in that one bag of chips is not something that will significantly change your chances for cancer or whatever other disease could be associated with eating a lot of the stuff. Same with cigarettes. Indeed they have been undoubtedly linked to cancer, but still, if I smoke only one it really won't make a difference. Same with spam, one email every few months, as has been my experience with gmail for the past several years for example, really does not annoy me more than a mosquito could. There's a difference between working on a bad product such as, let's say hand grenades or other stuff actually made to harm, and working on a product that is definitely bad but only if you actually let it be, i.e. abuse it. My point is that the blame is not on who makes the product, as the product maker does not make said product with the intention to harm, even if they do know that if you cross a line it will be harmful. The blame is on the person that lets this product ruin its life. Just like any drug. If I hit a joint right now, I guarantee that it won't harm me. But if I let it run my life and I stop working because I want to smoke weed, then the blame's on me, not on whoever grows the weed or even the one who sells it to me. Precisely the reason as to why we usually put age restrictions on certain things, as we deem children to be not capable of drawing this line between use and abuse of things that could end up being very harmful. However as we grow up we believe that we are then capable of taking responsibility for your life choices. Including giving yourself cancer or diabetes by only drinking cola and eating chips.