> they just cannot help themselves

Said every despot in the history of the world. Once you start trying to save people from their baser instincts by restricting what you can and cannot do by force, you are infantilizing them.

Seatbelts, motorcycle helmets, ensuring food is free of contaminants (rather than relying on people to read the label and decide), ensuring that pharmaceuticals and other procedures are safe (rather than relying on people to shop around and decide for themselves), building codes to prevent homes and buildings from catching fire due to cheaper, shoddy wiring. People's baser instincts will often not drive them to make decisions in their own best interest—even if you were to ask them themselves—in the short term.

"Once you start" implies drawing a line that any kind of regulation is infantilizing them. There are some people who think that this is wrong. However, many more understand that there are some forms of regulation that help not only society as a whole but individuals themselves. Yes, there are questions as to the degree and kind of regulation. And reasonable people can discuss this. And these people are not asking for despots.

> "Once you start" implies drawing a line that any kind of regulation is infantilizing them.

I never said infantilizing was a bad thing. Most people aren't really able to make the optimum decision in their lives about most areas.

For instance, some of the most proficient programmers I know who make otherwise good decisions neglect their diet and exercise.

Should we enforce mandatory vegetable and exercise regimens for them? On a more prosaic level, should we limit the size and shape of knives that private citizens should be allowed to own because of violence concerns?

Realizing that there is nothing qualitatively different about these measures from the measures being described is a first step on evaluating all measures of this sort.

You are right and that is a difficult problem. When I was younger (15-20 years ago) I was against any government control; now that I met many people and read many books and lived a few decades more, I think the government should govern far more than it does; basically I became very sceptical about the ability of many people to run their lives in almost every way. I have no clue (as I am that programmer who does not exercise enough; diet is good though) how to have free people mixed with a despot(meaning the absolute ruler, not abusive ruler)-like control without it running into abuse fast. But yes, I would not be opposed forced exercise regimes for people like me. I do not believe that kind of freedom is good for me or anyone else. Besides the basic concept of freedom which great thing, but then you get into what you say; what do you and what don't you enforce.