41–50 of 144 posts
In 2011, as a condition for joining, the World Trade Organization ordered Samoa to eliminate the ban within a year. Eliminate a policy designed for the betterment of the population! So that's one of the aims of the WTO, to promote corporate interests, even when it's bad for the general population.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not. Well, if you have to receive public assistance because of your bad eating habits, then that's a "quantifiable effect" on my pocket book.
Under Obamacare, their increased health care costs also costs everyone (in part because Obamacare is the worst of all worlds -- it would be difficult to intentionally design something worse).
The obesity situation on Pacific islands is a complex interaction of genetics, economics, and geography/geopolitics: a small genetic predisposition to larger frames and more efficient fat storage (described in multiple papers, like this one [1]), poor and underdeveloped economies increasingly unable to compete in a globalized world, and a shift [2] to energy-dense diets driven by affordability, convenience, and long…
There's an alternative opinion (espoused by some in medical research community and author Gary Taubes) describing the situation as simple and straigtforward - islanders developed obesity (and diabetes, and gout, and heart disease) after gaining access to sugar in various forms, including soft drinks. Remove sugar and its substitutes from the equation, and high obesity rates disappear. Blaming "modern" lifestyle rarel…
Yet in this short span of time, traditions haven't adjusted for the altered diet, air-conditioned comfort, and sudden lack of need to perform manual labor (which is now done by foreign migrant workers instead). So far in Qatar, government spending on healthcare has not been able to stem the rise in obesity, so other social health promotion programmes are being deployed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not. Well, if you have to receive public assistance because of your bad eating habits, then that's a "quantifiable effect" on my pocket book.
Under Obamacare, their increased health care costs also costs everyone (in part because Obamacare is the worst of all worlds -- it would be difficult to intentionally design something worse).
I mean, if one person makes a bad decision, you can say, OK, we all make mistakes, but a room full of smart? people...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a significant distinction between polluting the environment, which harms other people directly and making unhealthy decisions in one's own life, which has only indirect effects on others.
In countries that provide publicly-funded healthcare you are arguably directly effecting other people's lives by the cost of the medical treatments you'll end up needing if you are obese - these treatments will be funded out of the taxpayer's pocket, when that money could be going to better schooling, infrastructure, or some other use.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Under Obamacare, their increased health care costs also costs everyone (in part because Obamacare is the worst of all worlds -- it would be difficult to intentionally design something worse).
I always wonder how a group of people can come together and made a bad decision. I mean, if one person makes a bad decision, you can say, OK, we all make mistakes, but a room full of smart? people...
In 2011, as a condition for joining, the World Trade Organization ordered Samoa to eliminate the ban within a year. Eliminate a policy designed for the betterment of the population! So that's one of the aims of the WTO, to promote corporate interests, even when it's bad for the general population.
And people wonder why there's an anti-globalisation backlash.
Stan Efferding, a prominent bodybuilder, powerlifter, and YouTube fitness celebrity does a great talk on how first changed on the islands after they started picking up on American food trends: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s86DJ1pVF0U
In 2011, as a condition for joining, the World Trade Organization ordered Samoa to eliminate the ban within a year. Eliminate a policy designed for the betterment of the population! So that's one of the aims of the WTO, to promote corporate interests, even when it's bad for the general population.
I'm asking because I genuinely don't know: did Samoa apply bans to unhealthy locally produced food too or just to unhealthy imported food?
In general, countries like that don't have unhealthy, locally-produced food. And the article agrees with that assertion. We have a patent on junk food.
In 2011, as a condition for joining, the World Trade Organization ordered Samoa to eliminate the ban within a year. Eliminate a policy designed for the betterment of the population! So that's one of the aims of the WTO, to promote corporate interests, even when it's bad for the general population.
What other decisions would you like the government to make for you? For your own good, of course.
Fire exists, wheelchair ramps, smoke alarms, fire rated building materials.
Emission targets, waste control.
Air traffic, RF spectrum, earth orbit satellites.
Minimum wages, social security, health care, school.
Defence, police, emergence services.
We are not savages. In fact, it could be argued that the system we have is a result of having anarchy in our distant past. We rather like being governed and having institutions and civil society.