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Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary drinks

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

#171

Post by audiometry »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #160
bbanyc wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore is famously the country that banned chewing gum. Personal freedom has never been a priority there. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or a good thing, it's just different. There are a number of ideas they've successfully implemented there that would never fly in other countries - ethnic housing quotas, for instance. It undoubtedly works in reducing residential segregation, but I don't know if it's worth the c…

While the stated goal is indeed reducing residential segregation, it also has the suspiciously convenient side effect of ensuring that every voting district has a Chinese majority.

The population is something like 70% Chinese. How are you going to randomly assign locations and NOT have a Chinese majority............

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

#173

Post by pimmen »

refurb wrote: post #165
pimmen wrote: post #63

I had the pleasure of holding a talk at the same event as Saeid Esmaeilzadeh, a rockstar entrepreneur and chemist in Sweden, and one of the questions he got during his talk was how he could reconcile his drive to be an ethical businessman and supply stuff to the military. His response was pretty long but it made a comparison with the sugar industry (paraphrasing here, sorry Saeid if you're reading this and I got some…

That’s a pretty self-serving attitude. He sells weapons used to kill people, but is disgusted with the sugar industry?

I think he produces ceramic plates for body armor, but he could very well be making weapons too. Either way, he profits off of war.

So, yes, he sees the sugar industry as worse and as something without any sort of utility. Militaries bring security and are necessary, at least in his view, and thus he sees them as a net benefit. Personally, as a software developer, I would not build software for the military especially not anything based off of machine learning because it would be against my ethics, and I think that was his point too; don’t ape his morals, but do at least think whatever you choose to do through.

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

#174

Post by tus88 »

abdulmuhaimin wrote: post #172
tus88 wrote: post #103

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

Why do you say it doesnt work?

Because advertising is about the cool factor, that's not why people drink soft drink. Conversely it is why tobacco advertising bans did work.

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

#175

Post by budabudimir »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #158
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

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…

FWIW, Singapore gained some notoriety a few years back for being the least happy country in the world, worse than eg. Syria, Haiti and Afghanistan: https://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/world/asia/singapore-leas... This seems a bit extreme, but neither would I describe it as a utopia. Life is great if you're rich, and noticeably better than most of neighbors if you're not, but there's an awful lot of pressure on all lev…

This pool seems to be completely out of touch with reality. Venezuela in the top 10 happiest countries?

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

#176

Post by odiroot »

redact207 wrote: post #128
greggman2 wrote: post #85

In 2010-11 Singapore there used to be close to zero non-sugary drinks at convenience stores. Even all the teas used to be sweet. Lately they started carrying Japanese brands of non-sweetened tea but for a while if you wanted non-sweet tea you had to make it yourself. Which of course is probably better for the planet but if you're just out and about and wanted a drink from a 7/11 your options were pretty slim. The big…

Try just getting a traditional "Kopi C" with some Kaya toast, that's probably your sugar needs for a day. Then add in the sugar-water soaked fruity, plus the added sugar in most hawker food and you're not exactly on a stunning diet. I lived there for 5 years and my word it was tough to cook for yourself. Lucky I lived near a wet market, but otherwise your choices aren't greay

I ordered Kopi-O last week and was annoyed to realise they pre-mixed their coffee with sugar. So literally no option to get "pure" coffee at that stand.

I actually try to remember the eating houses that offer ice lemon tea without sugar (very rare). Usually it's even better quality/fresh at that.

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

#177

Post by nojvek »

jaclaz wrote: post #72
squarefoot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is like forcing motor cycle riders to wear helmets." Which is the case in many countries including mine. When they enacted the law I was still a youngster driving his motorcycle, constantly speeding and doing those things people do in their 20s. I hated that law, then a few accidents and fractures later I realized that the "stupid" law probably saved my parents from the horror of outliving me. I'm also for 100%…

Only as anecdata, I got my first motorcycle at 14 and that was several years before any Law made helmets compulsory. My dad (who also was a motorcyclist) when giving me the bike told me that the helmet and gloves were the keys to start the engine: "no helmet, no gloves, you cannot start the bike." A lot of friends didn't have the same imprimatur , and since it was not compulsory, rode happily their bikes without prot…

In my 20s I was into extreme sports. Motorbikes, skydiving, freediving and the shebang. Just loved the adrenal rush.

One of my motorcycle instructors told me “motorbikes are insanely dangerous. They are essentially crotch rockets. Not wearing helmets is a deathwish and I’m pretty sure i’ll outlive you if you ignore the safety. Think about helmets and guards as those extra Mario lives. Your helmet will crack but your brain will be fine.”

Sane advice, i’ve cracked multiple helmets. Brain is doing fine.

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

#178

Post by anticensor »

BubRoss wrote: post #163
anticensor wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you admit the corporation one vote or as many votes as total number of shares divided by number of shares held by smallest shareholder?

Is this a serious question? Are you talking about voting for politicians? Anyone can start as many corporations as they want. Also corporations have roughly 100 million shares and anyone can buy a single share, so your formula would give one corporation more votes than the number of people who participated in the 2016 US election. Do you really think corporations are under represented in the political process?

I wanted to illustrate sillyness of the idea. Partners of a corporation are already represented, no need to represent the whole partnership.

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

#179

Post by alkonaut »

gdhbcc wrote: post #143
alkonaut wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, few restrictions are off the table. In reality, people don’t want more restrictions than necessary, so it’s usually not a problem. Here we even had resistance to mandatory helmets on bikes, settling for a law only for children.

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

#180

Post by easytiger »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #130
easytiger wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site you are commenting on is effectively an Ad for yc. Should that be banned?

How about - Banning all color in ads, all images/videos in ads, all ads in public (busses, billboards, etc), music in ads. Simply black and white text information (which is what YC adheres to). Any step in that direction I support.

Government dictated shop fronts for all. Death to design.
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