"But behind closed doors, they have taken governments to court" -- uh, I guess courtrooms technically have doors??
yes, closed ones.
Technically correct! The best kind of correct.
Big Food vs. the People
161–170 of 196 posts
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can you blame them? Would you sue if the government suddenly decided your industry has to pay extra taxes, or they tried to restrict your advertising? No. I'd probably try to understand the purpose of the tax and what it was being used to fund, but a lawsuit wouldn't be my first stop. There are plenty of industries that get new taxes all the time and don't cry about it. Frankly the behavior on display here is right…
Comparing soda to cigarettes is ridiculous. People like soda, and in moderation, it is completely fine. There is no reason to single out sugary sodas to try to "solve" obesity. It is a consumer problem, not a product problem.
We all know individual consumer action could technically make the difference between an obesity epidemic and a healthy country. We all also know that individual consumers will literally never take that action, be it health or any of the other myriad ways that corporations are fucking us over. It's time to stop suggesting it. The point of governments and other central organizations is to coordinate, because large groups of people can't coordinate, and without coordination collective action just doesn't happen.
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the 50's you'd buy it in an 8-oz can. The sizes we're getting out of vending machines are pretty absurdly large for something that basically started out as a dessert you'd buy to top off your small sandwich and cup of water for lunch.
8-oz was glass bottles I think. 12-oz cans were a thing in the 50s, we still have 12-oz cans, there are 8-oz cans out there and the vending machines typically carry 12-oz cans or at most 16-oz bottles where I live. Everything bigger is clearly meant to be consumed over multiple sittings or by multiple people. I will grant you that fast food restaurants especially and restaurants in general do offer ludicrous amounts…
> Everything bigger is clearly meant to be consumed over multiple sittings or by multiple people.
The same thing happened with crisps (potato chips). The small bags that were standard when I was a kid in the 90s can now only be found in the big multipacks, while the standard size is now the old "grab bag", which is 2+ servings. Of course, since you can't buy the old size as separates anymore, everyone eats the whole grab bag these days.
I don't think the whole "multiple sittings or multiple people" thing holds up in reality.
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#164Is it REALLY that hard for so many people to just stop drinking sugar water? I just don't get it. I can drink a soda or whatever once a year and thats more than enough for me, I usually don't even finish it. Is there something wrong with me or everyone else?
Good for you. Can you please convince anyone to do the same?
If someone wants to cut out sugar or addictive foods, they can try making those foods harder to get—sometimes it’s just a matter of eating out of habit, and you don’t necessarily need to have them that often. As for Coke, I drink about 6 to 12 cans a year, all during the hottest part of the year; the rest of the time, I hardly ever think about it.
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
People have to learn to recognize the patterns. In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid o…
I don't get it, whats up with all the scare quotes when what you're describing is basically what a think tank or advocacy group does?
People have loved this kind of content-slop for a while now. It’s a genre of entertainment writing that has replaced celebrity gossip but is no more meaningful. I suspect it’s because there are demographics where the word ‘study’ or ‘paper’ has some cachet.
It’s true that think-tanks and advocacy groups have used the fact that a certain style of writing signals legitimacy for their own ends for quite some time now. Perhaps the realization here should be that Marlboro-paid scientists also did so and that these kinds of science cuckoo articles are common even in science.
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is only within the context of economics. Outside of that it is fine to use the common literal meaning. Professions don't get to dictate that their jargon is used by the rest of us, even if they coin the phrase.
I don't think that's the case; "moral hazard" doesn't have a conventional colloquial meaning. If you use the term outside it's technical meaning you're just going to confuse people.
This particular phrase has long gone the way of “begs the question” as far as online conversations are concerned.
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Comparing soda to cigarettes is ridiculous. People like soda, and in moderation, it is completely fine. There is no reason to single out sugary sodas to try to "solve" obesity. It is a consumer problem, not a product problem.
We all know individual consumer action could technically make the difference between an obesity epidemic and a healthy country. We all also know that individual consumers will literally never take that action, be it health or any of the other myriad ways that corporations are fucking us over. It's time to stop suggesting it. The point of governments and other central organizations is to coordinate, because large grou…
Sorry, I don't need collective action to tell me what soda to buy, or what beverage to consume. What a silly notion. I take action myself to moderate my soda intake all the time. Your assertion that this is not possible is simply absurd.
The aspect you are missing, as always in these discussions about government regulation, is the role of parenting and family in the job of nurturing healthy lifestyles.
And no, corporations are not "fucking" anyone over. They are making something people want. The problem lies elsewhere.
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#168"Senators don't have the luxury that a research scientist has of waiting for evidence." - 1977 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFQc2kxm9c FYI obesity 1977 ~14% 2026 40%+ T2 Diabetes 1977 ~3% 2026 ~12%
I would say the idea aged poorly in the USA. Older generation of politicians were more welcoming to experts in their fields. Now they reject the experts. Either to a please their voter base or for personal profit. Big grocery has more money for political donations / legal bribery. USA Supreme Court conservative judges have ruled that expertise has no value in a ruling against protecting the environment from toxic che…
It’s an adaptive system. Once you know that politicians can be influenced by an appropriately placed expert you can wield political power through the expert. At that point the logical incentive is for the politician to cut out the middleman and be directly influenced by you.
After all, the expert can manufacture a snail-darter on demand. Why wait for that manufactured science when you can simply deliver the outcome yourself?
To try to go back to the past is like thinking that the UK would rule the seas once more if only they returned to building sail ships of wood to do battle with.
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#169I'm about as hippie with my food as you can get, but this "article" is badly written propaganda that conceals more than it reveals. Half way down the article you learn that ~80% (193 out of 239) of the lawsuits are in Mexico and > many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights But the art…
People have to learn to recognize the patterns. In this case, lighthouse reports is an international NGO which receives on the order of ~1MM in income per year (an extremely common pattern for these NGOs), which was directly given to them by (unspecified) government grants and (unnamed) private donors (can see all this in their openly published annual reports). In exchange for the funding (80.38% of which they paid o…
I feel like it ends up being heavily emotion/perception driven. NGOS are "good" and "scientific reports" always tell you the truth. Combine the two and you have a recipe for serving information with reduced backlash. Compare that to "big bad corporations" and its not even a fair battle. People figured this out a long time ago and have been using it for awhile now. I feel like now more than ever a healthy dose of pessimism goes a long way towards understanding reality.
Note: I am not suggesting these labels are universally true. I'm simply commenting on what I think is the most common perception of these two groups.
Re: Big Food vs. the People
#170I'm about as hippie with my food as you can get, but this "article" is badly written propaganda that conceals more than it reveals. Half way down the article you learn that ~80% (193 out of 239) of the lawsuits are in Mexico and > many of them were against the country’s labelling regulation. Quinto Elemento Lab reveals the companies’ arguments: that the laws were a violation of their constitutional rights But the art…
I don’t know that the lack of information should lead you to assume that the Mexico lawsuits are justified. From what I’ve read, they’re contesting (among other things) the mandated black octagon on the front of packaging that says “exceso calorías” or “exceso azucáres” (excessive calories and sugar) and also bans on advertising to children. The cases that have already been decided have overwhelmingly been in favor o…
> I don’t know that the lack of information should lead you to assume that the Mexico lawsuits are justified.
Gricean implicature.[1] The article wants to make the food companies look like the bad guys. If the lawsuits were clearly unjustified, the article could've made the food companies look worse by explaining the details. Since it didn't explain them, that means the lawsuits were probably justified.