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Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

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141–150 of 197 posts

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a ‘slippery slope’ fallacy, and your example even demonstrates its unlikelihood. That's the point. Change happens either through a revolution or a "slippery slope". You can call it a fallacy all you want, but think about how successful political change happens. Almost every instance starts small and keeps pushing the boundaries until the political change has happened. This is how you change people's values,…

> keeps pushing the boundaries until the political change has happened ... so you made a conclusion that political change happened because of small changes? That conclusion is incorrect. The change happened because of underlying need for that change. In case of smoking, because smokers are much more likely to die from cancer. In case of sugary drinks, the need to change is not as strong. That is why restricting adver…

>... so you made a conclusion that political change happened because of small changes? That conclusion is incorrect. The change happened because of underlying need for that change.

But that's not true. We're talking about most cases of political change. A lot of it doesn't happen because it needs to happen, a lot of political change happens because it's beneficial (profitable?) for someone for it to happen. Do you really think that companies selling juice are unhappy with "sugary drinks" being demonized? Of course they aren't, because those sugary drinks are their competition. If society cared about the health impact of sugary drinks then juices would be right there next to soda on the chopping block, because they have the same sugar in the same amounts in the juice as the soda does. Yet essentially all of the bans on sugary drinks conveniently don't affect juice at all. The only thing juice has over soda is that it might contain vitamins. That's it. In every other aspect, even minimally processed juice (just fresh pressed fruit into juice), is as bad as soda.

When somebody tells me that this whole thing is for our benefit and that we make decisions based on analysis, then I don't believe them, because the decisions that have been made clearly aren't based on fair analysis. The decisions that have been made are clearly benefiting some people over others and crusaders carry out their will. Then decades later they will complain about how they were lied to.

>Well, may be they will tax sugary products, but banning sugary products will NOT happen.

MAYBE? This is already reality in a lot of places. That ship has already sailed years ago.

Of course they're not going to straight up ban sugary drinks, because that is literally impossible. What they can do and what they actually do, is target certain types of "undesirable" goods/vices to pick winners and losers in business.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#142
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost any kind of change starts small and then builds up. I don't see anything to indicate that banning ads isn't just the first step in the process. Cigarettes have become more and more restricted over time and they also started with banning ads. If this doesn't alarm you yet, then will you be alarmed once they start banning ads for meat?

> Almost any kind of change starts small and then builds up. I don't see anything to indicate that banning ads isn't just the first step in the process. Cigarettes have become more and more restricted over time and they also started with banning ads. Cigarette commercials have been banned in the USA since 1969[1], but smoking is still allowed. So I cannot agree with your concerns. The advertising ban and taxation of…

So you would be in favor of banning advertising of meat products and levying a sin tax on meat? While we're at it, why don't we just make being poor or sick illegal? Sorry, I mean that we should impose a tax on them, because they impose externalities on society.

I'm just wondering, are you in favor of such schemes that would target things you like and enjoy too? Say, computer use. Extended computer use is harmful to people's health, so we should levy a tax on it.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#143
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is like forcing motor cycle riders to wear helmets. Maybe this is a petty, pointless distinction, but I think they're quite different. Singapore banned the ads , not the actual consumption. Not wearing a helmet chiefly harms yourself, and it's hard to argue that it's immoral. Encouraging others not to wear a helmet, though... that seems pretty objectionable, just like ads for tobacco etc. (Of course there are…

People being injured or killed harms other people. Especially in countries with some form of universal healthcare (i.e most of the developed world).

By that argument you could justify any restriction of peoples freedom.

Ultimately if the state chooses to provide such services, then it must accept the costs that come along with it.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#144
How adout we stop arresting non violent offenders? Then I'll be impressed. This is fake crap news and hn upvoters should be ashamed of themselves. Furthermore, in Seattle, the sugar tax doesn't apply to the home town hero, further sealing their monopoly as they hand wave through social issues.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#145
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost any kind of change starts small and then builds up. I don't see anything to indicate that banning ads isn't just the first step in the process. Cigarettes have become more and more restricted over time and they also started with banning ads. Cigarette commercials have been banned in the USA since 1969[1], but smoking is still allowed. So I cannot agree with your concerns. The advertising ban and taxation of…

So you would be in favor of banning advertising of meat products and levying a sin tax on meat? While we're at it, why don't we just make being poor or sick illegal? Sorry, I mean that we should impose a tax on them, because they impose externalities on society. I'm just wondering, are you in favor of such schemes that would target things you like and enjoy too? Say, computer use. Extended computer use is harmful to…

This conversation has completely gone down its own slippery slope and I shouldn’t be piling on, but: if the choice is between taxing income (which is literally people contributing to society in the most direct way) and something like meat or, hell, unhealthy amounts of computer use (whatever that is) then yes please.

Don’t forget we’re currently taxing income at obscene levels, in absolute terms. It means we disincentivise people from working, which is absolutely wild, considering. If you could start with a clean slate and tax anything, what would you choose? Sin taxes or income taxes?

Government revenue is fungible, and the more income from other sources, the less is needed from income. Until we have income tax (at least lowest bracket) down to 0%, I say tax the hell out of everything actually unwanted.

(Signed: a meat eater who would gladly pay meat tax)

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#146

Usually I am for freedom to do anything you want as long as it does not impact other people. I am OK though with banning ads for sugary drinks because society pays a high medical cost for damage due to excess sugar addiction/use. This is like forcing motor cycle riders to wear helmets. BTW, I worked in Singapore for a while in 2016. Wonderful place! People just seemed happy there, from business people to laborers. If…

There's a point there that I don't think gets enough discussion: As healthcare becomes increasingly socialized, personal unhealthy choices become an attack on society at large. Why wouldn't we ban sugary drinks altogether? Motorcycle riding even with a helmet? Maybe get rid of pasta. It's not clear to me where we should stop, if medical costs to society are a valid justification for reducing personal freedom...

Erm, we just killed the food pyramid which was held up as a standard of health for 30 years. Are you sure you want to enact bans on what the government thinks is unhealthy?

There are a whole bunch of materials in the natural world that we just assume are safe because they've been around 'forever'. If you're going to use science as your standard for bans, there are billions of dollars of tests to do.

There's some dark math to be done on the benefit of a human life vs the cost of saving it. Maybe ten guys drinking infinite soda are keeping 100 at work in soda companies, providing for their families.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning all ads is wrong. Ads help promoting good products and services. If you ban all ads -- less people will be using good products and services, and that will make our economy less effective.

No. Everything we see advertised is crap. All of it. The more it's advertised the worse the product.

I like professional advertising. Some of the producers of very specialized equipment are very hard to find online and have horrible webpages.

If they didn't show up at conferences and posted ads in the relevant journals and websites nobody would find them even when they're desperately looking for exactly their product.

I asked some people at ESA how they find suppliers and they basically said their predecessors left them them a bunch of catalogues and lists.

What I really hate is advertisement unrelated to what I'm trying to do. When I'm looking at cake recepies I don't want my focus highjacked by camera ads even though I wouldn't mind them when looking for photography tips.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#148

I would like to see a ban on all ads. I am sick of them. I resent with all my heart that wherever I go I'm bombared with propaganda for products. Nobody should have the right to hijack other peoples attention.

In the absence of official advertising I have a feeling companies would just move to "native advertising", or sponsorships, or paying people to make comments on HN. Being influenced without knowing who the influencer is.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#149
post #21

Usually I am for freedom to do anything you want as long as it does not impact other people. I am OK though with banning ads for sugary drinks because society pays a high medical cost for damage due to excess sugar addiction/use. This is like forcing motor cycle riders to wear helmets. BTW, I worked in Singapore for a while in 2016. Wonderful place! People just seemed happy there, from business people to laborers. If…

Should we stop people from doing high risk activities in general? Mountain climbing? Sky diving? Those impact society as well, and my medicinal expenses are higher when they get hurt.

Well, we know that:

Expected payoff = Probability * Impact.

Extreme activities have a low probability of resulting in anything bad (especially with the gear and protocol we have today), but the impact can be high when it happens -- though if we take the summation across the population the overall impact is low because only a small sliver of society will participate.

Sugar consumption has medium probability of leading to poorer health outcomes, and impact is also medium, but I suspect the overall payoff (or harm in this case) is much higher when summed across the population.

So yes, from a purely rational perspective, we should try to stop people from doing things that harm the system as a whole.

If they want to do things that harm themselves at a localized level (with no 2nd or 3rd order effects -- though this is rare), then on balance policies should allow them to.

Re: Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

#150
post #103

Why not do something that might actually work, like ban the sale of high-sugar carbonated drinks?

Banning products that a sub-population of people are effectively addicted to has a long, multi-instance history of not working and instead contributing to crime (see various drug prohibitions). A product being banned can actually be a form of advertising (or at least production of demand) by suggesting it is risky, cool, or potent in some way.

On the other hand, banning advertising for a category of products, or restricting the advertising to fact-based, or forcing risk factor inclusion, can help produce or accelerate cultural shifts that reduce the demand for the product.

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