Hacker News Reader

Comment by lockhouse | Hacker News Reader

> They need to tax the shit out of added saturated fat and sugar so it slowly dies off economically like cigarettes.

What is the appeal of the nanny state? Why would I want or need big brother to tell me what to eat?

I wholeheartedly disagree with everything about this. Let the government ensure that nutritional data is accurate and robust enough to empower me to make healthy decisions. Provide us with the necessary education to be able to read these warning labels. However, why is it the government’s job to prevent a grown adult from making unhealthy choices?

If I want to eat ice cream for breakfast, deep fried cheeseburgers for lunch, and have a 6-pack of beer for dinner, why can’t I? Who am I harming other than myself?

View on HN

In a society with socialized healthcare, you would be harming others by making it more expensive to care for you in the future.

In a society where the price of healthcare is set by market forces alone, perhaps you should have unlimited freedom to make bad decisions.

It seems like a lot of people would prefer socialized healthcare over that unlimited freedom.

This is the slipperiest of slopes. Where do we draw the line then if we’re talking about personal decisions that make it more expensive to care for you in the future?

Should the government prevent people from being sexually promiscuous since contracting HIV would harm others by making it more expensive to care for you in the future?

Should they sterilize women after a certain age since the likelihood of pregnancy complications gets higher the older they get?

Maybe we should limit couples to having only one child. Safe child birth and pre- and post-natal care is very expensive.

Is just wearing a cloth mask enough? Maybe we should wear an N95 mask and full universal precautions PPE everywhere we go just to make sure we don’t harm others.

> This is the slipperiest of slopes.

It really isn't.

Drinking and eating crap is a choice. One may as well be addicted to it, but addiction may be treatable.

You are comparing a biological drive like sex and reproduction, with a desire for Coke, cigarettes, and fatty beef.

Also, societies will survive without sugary drinks. Without sex and children? I doubt it.

The government dictating that I can only eat in a healthy manner at all times is one of the most dystopian things I can imagine. Many evils have been unleashed upon society with the justification that it is for the greater good.

You are expanding the scope of the original suggestion to make it seem more extreme. Taxing activities that damage society as a whole (and funneling that money towards mitigating that damage) seems to me like a good solution.

What about if the government made it illegal for food producers to use the worst offenders e:g adding high fructose corn syrup to food, giving cows growth hormones, spraying glyphosphate? So the consumer's freedom would be un-curtailed, but businesses have to abide by certain ethics. Does that make things work for you, or still no good? :). (I mean , maybe you should still be allowed to buy a bottle of corn syrup and add it yourself if you really really want to.. although perhaps parents shouldn't be allowed to feed their kids that).

I disagree that this is a slippery slope. The line should be drawn by the people living in the society that draws it. As that society (and the cultural, technological, and environmental context around it) changes, the position of that line might change as well.

Many in the USA would choose a world with more expensive junk food and socialized healthcare than the reverse.

(I'm assuming your questions are rhetorical. Each of them has their own set of trade-offs.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com