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Comment by mindfulhack | Hacker News Reader

Education or information is not control or nannying. Decision != informed decision.

I think any regulation that at minimum benefits consumers when it's hardly anything for corporations to add to their existing labelling is good for society and a great allocation of resources.

This is different to the forced wearing seatbelts when driving, which genuinely forces the restriction of one's physical freedom, and yet benefits no one else but you (within the scope of your own decisions) if you have a car accident.

Mere information, backed by science, is good.

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A lot of commonplace stuff can cause harm above a certain dosage. Which is partially why Prop 65 is failing.

99% of things in Prop 65 are fine in moderation. And the 1% that isn't (I would love to be warned of that myself) - well, it's lost among everything else.

Right. Obviously if they put the sign on nothing, no information would be communicated. And the same if they put it on "50% of things" (defined however you like) because everyone knows the median thing isn't a real cancer risk. Maybe it could communicate the breaking of some threshold, but not a meaningful one.

To be truly informative, binary cancer warnings should be rare -- they should appear near a threshold where reasonable people are likely to be swayed by them (but not certain to be swayed by them -- at that point we're probably labeling too few things.)

But enough about binary labels, though. They should have to put figures on them: "Scientists believe that the cancer risk of this cup of coffee is statistically expected to decrease your lifespan by 5 minutes, plus or minus a day, with 95% confidence."

I think my favorite Prop 65 item is my broom, which apparently is cancer causing.

Really no idea what would be in it that is worth being worried about.

I got a rake like that. There were no non-cancer rakes for sale.

I could only think maybe there is something used to assemble it with lead in it?

The issue isn't that the regulation is providing education. It's that the state mandates everyone put idiotic signs that are obviously meaningless everywhere.

If the state wanted to be useful they should maintain a useful and easy to understand list of common substances and explain in simple terms exactly what the risk is.

More creation, less control of people for no benefit.

OK, thanks for the education. That makes sense. Didn't know that. I do not live in CA.

But where should we draw the line and balance the scales of helping or promoting human health (including education, which can save lives), restricting businesses who don't care about human health, and allowing citizens to have the freedom to be as unhealthy as they want (which I'll agree should be a human right)?

With cigarettes, the most alarming label messaging doesn't seem to stop its most determined users from enjoying them. Was a fierce cultural war fought against that regulation? IIRC, yes. (From a documentary.)

One factor here seems to be a war for freedom of diet and lifestyle, extending to the desire to not even have to see messages that tell you your lifestyle may be unhealthy for you (or your children), even if the science is clear.

I agree that education and information isn't nannying, but the Prop 65 warnings are so broad that they're useless.

What information are you getting?

If there's no mention of dose and the warning is based on substandard, uncontrolled evidence, what are you really learning? That if you repeat a small-N "experiment" enough times with the toxin of our choice, some rodent will develop cancer?

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