I just want to clarify I am not accusing the OP of being an industry shill, they might just simply adopting arguments seen at other places (and they are very common). And it is incredibly easy to be led into this, I certainly have done this as well and only realized later. It is an important thing to be aware of.

I'm rejecting the type of argument, because they do not foster an honest debate. It's really classic FUD.

[Edit]: some further clarification

When your entire argument is “you’re wrong because this pattern-matches to what shills say”, then yes, you are accusing the OP of shilling and it would be better to say what specifically is wrong with the arguments.

But why is it not on the OP to give some evidence, instead of making wild assertions? This is the problem that comes up again and again in lots of these discussions (be it climate change, health...), someone posts some assertions without evidence, people respond by dismissing it because it has been debunked again and again and they then get accused in not engaging in an honest debate.

Why are you not accusing the OP of not having an argument?

It is on the OP to back their arguments! And I would have preferred a better argument there with better backing.

But the thing is, it was an argument, in terms of specifying a logical mechanism by which the conclusion would be unwarranted, even if the evidence doesn't bear it out in the way OP needs. And it's on you to make more substantive contributions than "you pattern-match to bad people" if you're going to respond at all.

I replied to you rather than the OP because your comment more obviously doesn't belong here. A culture of "you're wrong because you sound like bad people" is more toxic to this forum that a dubious counterpoint. (cf. "You know who else went vegetarian?")

I don't drink sugary "soda" drinks at all, so I don't have a horse in the race, but I think it is a valid question to ask whether the tax really decreased sugar consumption or people just bought bunch of cookies instead.

Directly taken from the article:

>But the researchers didn’t stop there. They also wanted to know if shoppers might be getting sugar from other foods instead—a possibility that soda tax opponents have argued would become commonplace. Were Seattle residents simply swapping out Mountain Dew for candy bars? To find out, the researchers also analyzed sales data for untaxed drinks like flavored milk, sweets—which the team defined to include candies, desserts, and baked goods—as well as loose sugar. Over the course of months, Powell’s team painstakingly coded each product sold by its sugar content, and then calculated just how much sales of these products changed after the soda tax went in place.

>They found a slight increase in sugar consumed through untaxed drinks in 2018, which then dissipated in 2019. They also noticed a small, sustained increase in sugar consumed through sweets. In both cases however, those upticks were not large enough to overcome the significant reduction in sugar sold through taxed drink

So they did exactly what you asked for and found that while there was a small increase in sugar intake through other means, it was much less than the decrease from reduced sugar intake from soda.

Well, technically that is what OP asked and I just chimed in to defend it as a valid question. So did the community became less overweight overall? (otherwise what is the point)

Or what are the effects of artificial sweeteners...

Neither OP nor a sugar industry shill, but it may well be possible that we need to cut down on zero calorie soda as well.

Even though zero calorie soda does not directly contain any energy, it may mess up our feelings of hunger and make us more hungry. [0] So far, scientific studies indicate that people who switch from sugary soda to zero calorie drinks do not lose weight [1].

Feelings of hunger and satiety are complicated, driven by hormones and only somewhat correlated with total energy intake.

[0] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/medical-myths-all-...

[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/zero-weight-loss-from-ze...

Edit: downvoted for what? Linking to Harvard health blog? If zero calorie soda had a slimming effect, we would have seen it a long ago, it is not exactly a new invention.

People get angry and down vote when they don't like what you have to say, rather than making a point why you may be wrong.

I’m tempted to downvote mainly because at best this is besides the point and at worst is a distraction from the point.

I don't feel this is beside the point. Human nutrition is complicated and tax incentives based on simple rules may have unintended consequences downstream.

Yes, and sometimes fools say the sky is blue. That doesn’t make it red.

Do you have actual arguments? The reasons for me giving these points above is that this way of arguing has become standard PR practice from industries that want to prevent outcomes that would be detrimental to their bottom line (tobacco sugar, oil...). They actually are not interested in a debate that finds the actual truth. In fact they often know that the facts are correct from their own studies, but want to cast doubt on them nevertheless.

I'm perfectly ok with someone giving actual arguments (ideally backed up by some scientific evidence) why that study might get the correct result. I didn't even make any judgement about the validity of the original conclusions.

Your “actual argument” is to (in contravention of HN guidelines) impugn motives and accuse others of shilling. Once there’s a substantive discussion to be had, I’ll join it!

Honest question, what are you trying to achieve?

Productive exchange on the merit of the ideas here, as opposed to scoring good PR against the bad people.