Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 144 posts

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#121

Post by Drumlin »

rdtsc wrote: post #117
pjc50 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And people wonder why there's an anti-globalisation backlash.

Anti-globalization was always a hot topic for the left. Read Chomsky on NAFTA for example and free trade: https://chomsky.info/secrets03/ Here is Bernie Sanders being visibly upset at raising immigration levels and instituting "open borders" policy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0 I am kind of interested how the current liberals become pro-globalization all of the sudden. They went from organizing large a…

I suggest you read 'The Technological Society' by Jacques Ellul. It's not an easy read, the sort of book where you take lots of notes and then learn from the notes:

https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/d...

Recent generations have been conditioned by society to accept globalisation - amongst other things. The book, which I only recently read myself, describes what has been happening for hundreds of years and it's to do with progress - technical progress, of which technology is just the pinnacle.

Those people who were against globalisation on the left were the old guard, the people who were strong supporters of trade unions and were proud of their local communities. Sanders is an example in the US, Corbyn or Skinner are examples in the UK.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#122

Post by dibujante »

rdtsc wrote: post #117
pjc50 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And people wonder why there's an anti-globalisation backlash.

Anti-globalization was always a hot topic for the left. Read Chomsky on NAFTA for example and free trade: https://chomsky.info/secrets03/ Here is Bernie Sanders being visibly upset at raising immigration levels and instituting "open borders" policy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0 I am kind of interested how the current liberals become pro-globalization all of the sudden. They went from organizing large a…

> I am kind of interested how the current liberals become pro-globalization all of the sudden. They went from organizing large anti-globalization riots, and getting tear gased fighting it, to "What do you mean? We love globalization!".

There are a lot of groups under the "liberal" tent, like there are a lot of groups under the "conservative" tent.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#123

Post by rdtsc »

Drumlin wrote: post #121
rdtsc wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-globalization was always a hot topic for the left. Read Chomsky on NAFTA for example and free trade: https://chomsky.info/secrets03/ Here is Bernie Sanders being visibly upset at raising immigration levels and instituting "open borders" policy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0 I am kind of interested how the current liberals become pro-globalization all of the sudden. They went from organizing large a…

I suggest you read 'The Technological Society' by Jacques Ellul. It's not an easy read, the sort of book where you take lots of notes and then learn from the notes: https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/d... Recent generations have been conditioned by society to accept globalisation - amongst other things. The book, which I only recently read myself, describes what has been happening for hundreds…

Thanks for the tip. I just ordered it. Heard of it before but never got to reading it.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#124

Post by Frondo »

Mz wrote: post #38
finid wrote: post #37

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).

As someone who was uninsurable before Obamacare, no, it is not the worst of all worlds.

The worst of all worlds is when an otherwise-healthy 37 year old can't buy insurance because he had his gallbladder out in his early 20s. Which is what we had before obamacare.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#125

Post by iopq »

Retric wrote: post #99
iopq wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cauliflower is low in calories, so it would just be physically difficult to eat that much cauliflower but bananas? Yes, some people get fat eating too many fruits

Bananas have ~100 calories each and act as a Diuretic makeing eating large numbers of them on a regular basis unpleasant. So, I am going to call BS. You can gain weight on a high fruit diet, but bananas are an unusual choice. Fruit juice on the other hand is much easier way to gain weight, but like most processed foods less heathy.

Dried fruit is very high in calories, for example.

And it's not like you're only eating fruit. These people would eat a normal meal and then snack on fruits constantly. So if they didn't eat fruit they'd only be getting 2000 calories a day, but it's quite easy to eat 500 calories of dried dates or dried figs.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#126

Post by yazaddaruvala »

baddox wrote: post #87
concinds wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand, everybody would end up healthier, smarter, more productive, more attractive, richer (less healthcare spending), more psychologically healthy (the gut is the 2nd brain, bad diet means bad emotional health), will live longer, have their friends and family live longer. On the other hand, people will be unable to satisfy their sugar addiction (sugar is completely unnecessary from a nutritional point of v…

These two things could both be true: 1) Banning certain restaurants would have a positive net effect on society. 2) Any government with the authority to ban restaurants would choose which restaurants to ban incorrectly, due to honest mistakes, influence from lobbying, or other reasons, and the end net effect on society would be negative.

All rules should be quantitative. Not qualitative.

Qualitative: We are banning "junk food". (What constitutes junk food?)

Quantitative: We are banning any foods where the sugar content exceeds 1% (Where this number can become increasingly stricter) of the food's mass. eg. Coke is 9% sugar[0]; 39 / (355 + 39 + 39 + .045) = 0.09.

[0] http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/coca-cola-12oz-can...

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#127

Post by jimmywanger »

jhasse wrote: post #78
iopq wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cauliflower is low in calories, so it would just be physically difficult to eat that much cauliflower but bananas? Yes, some people get fat eating too many fruits

I doubt it. Maybe with fruit juice.

Definitely avacados. I know people who scarf down vegan guacamole.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#128

Post by baddox »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #126
baddox wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These two things could both be true: 1) Banning certain restaurants would have a positive net effect on society. 2) Any government with the authority to ban restaurants would choose which restaurants to ban incorrectly, due to honest mistakes, influence from lobbying, or other reasons, and the end net effect on society would be negative.

All rules should be quantitative. Not qualitative. Qualitative: We are banning "junk food". (What constitutes junk food?) Quantitative: We are banning any foods where the sugar content exceeds 1% (Where this number can become increasingly stricter) of the food's mass. eg. Coke is 9% sugar[0]; 39 / (355 + 39 + 39 + .045) = 0.09. [0] http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/coca-cola-12oz-can...

Of course, that's a somewhat better idea, but I was specifically responding to a claim that banning McDonald's would have a positive effect on society.

Your idea is inevitably going to have problems as well. What about selling table sugar itself? What about fruit, which can also be around 10% sugar? What about desserts and confectionery? Are we really wanting the government to ban those completely?

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#129

Post by pjc50 »

krisroadruck wrote: post #119
urda wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we drop the hyperbole, and no you don't definitely need to exaggerate.

He wasn't exaggerating he was being sarcastic. He was in fact poking fun at the notion that defending a soda ban was compared to stalinism. Your outrage is misplaced.

Yes. I'd forgotten there is no level of sarcasm, no matter how obvious, that HN commentators can fail to spot.

Re: As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food

#130

Post by ZeroGravitas »

baddox wrote: post #116
mrob wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already provide such an incentive by enforcing private property laws.

I was referring to a legal punishment for failing to maximize one's taxable income.

So was the parent comment. They could just help themselves to whatever they needed if the law didn't stop them. Poverty is legally enforced on people that don't earn enough.
Post reply on HN