Only a minority of people can withstand an onslaught of determined, highly paid professionals, working together to basically harm them.
Our brains have flaws. These people know those flaws and work actively every day of their working lives to exploit them. What hope can the always tired, always stressed out average person have of resisting, long term?
Personal responsibility is failing, just look at obesity rates in countries with reduced malnutrition rates.
We need systemic solutions, not blaming the poor idiot.
That's how we solved other collective problems like air travel safety and road fatality rates.
Your approach was the old, antiquated one, where we always blamed the pilot or the driver. Guess what? Even if the person is an idiot, we're all idiots. Let's make stuff that doesn't kill us even if we're idiots.
Similar principle here.
Is that true? Most people aren't addicted to anything let alone social media..I really don't buy the claim that people have literally no control over their actions. What's your solution? Ban sugar, alcohol and social media? Padding on the sidewalks?
There isn't "one solution". And bans generally are not a solution.
But we need to fight with the same weapons they're fighting, for example, let's take sugar and unhealthy foods.
They're presenting their food as fun and glamorous, let's blow that up, like we did for tobacco.
No more mass advertising for it, anywhere. Horrible labels showing disfigured obese people that are suffering because of their addiction to junk food.
The food is cheap because they use crap ingrediens? Let's tax food based on universal standards agreed upon not by the industry, but by healthcare specialists. The more you're off the mark from healthy food, the more you get taxed (excises, same as for alcohol and tobacco).
Heck, I'd earmark those excises as funding for subsidies meant for producers of healthy, bio foods.
These junk food companies are making their stuff cool, so let's prevent that and they're making it cheap by passing their externalities to us (diminished long term health) so let's make their food more expensive and let's make the healthy stuff cheaper.
Ah, more than that, quotas of healthy food in every place serving or offering food. Get rid of food deserts. Poor people with low mobility should have access to healthy food at decent prices.
Yes, this is all very complicates. Yes, it's very political.
But doing nothing achieves nothing. Worse than that, doing nothing actively degrades the situation since these actors are actively harming people in very subtle ways.
I'm all for banning specific ingredients and processes that are known poisonous (like BPAs for example are banned in many countries, deservedly) but unilaterally deciding what's healthy and having quotas for healthy foods is extreme. It will be the sugar vs fat thing all over and only the rich will benefit.
Just to make sure I understand what you’re proposing, taco trucks and ice cream shops would be illegal in your ideal world yeah?
And we're 20 years from that and now we know better. Which lobby is it this time, the healthy living one, that's lying to us? ...
> Just to make sure I understand what you’re proposing, taco trucks and ice cream shops would be illegal in your ideal world yeah?
Did I stutter? Did I propose bans anywhere?
And why is having quotas for healthy foods extreme? Sell 20% healthy foods out of your entire stock. How hard is that?
We have quotas for all sort of things <<all>> the time. The roof hasn't fallen.
Separate note: I guess this is the risk of arguing with libertarians :-) I'd venture you're one.
Because there is no such thing as a universally healthy food. "Healthy food" is a buzzword used to make people feel good about the food choices they make that (usually) don't taste that great.
The primary concern with healthy eating is to eat enough and in a decent balance of a laundry list of things: protein, fats, (carbs), vitamins, minerals and probably some more. You can't eat all of them at once either, because some of the vitamins and minerals can end up blocking each other from absorption. Missing any of these for long enough in large enough quantities (or large enough imbalances) is going to cause health issues.
Some people like calling foods that have few calories and little nutritional value as "healthy", but the value those foods provide comes from limiting the average person from eating something else. Eating a cucumber doesn't give you much, but you're less likely to have those fries after you've had the cucumber. But you certainly wouldn't be fine with only eating cucumbers long-term.
But yeah, if you think forcing an ice cream shops to sell sides of broccoli (that nobody will order) to comply with some silly 20% law, we probably won’t get anywhere discussing. It takes a pretty active imagination to picture something like that having a positive outcome.
If you advocate for universal healthcare (like my country has), then it's ultimately in society's best interest to keep everyone as healthy as possible to avoid burdening the healthcare system, which does mean that government needs to step in and place limitations on advertising, sales to minors, laws, etc.
Just as a few examples, we (my country) currently has: no advertising to children under 13, seat belt laws, helmet laws, smoking packaging laws, alcohol advertising laws, and so on. It's odd that communities are spending millions on active living infrastructure, and simultaneously allowing companies to run ramshod marketing unhealthy and addictive products. And by 'odd', I mean that these organizations have enough backing to influence politicians to the detriment of society.
As I recall, tobacco companies only took action when laws changed or when they started losing lawsuits - given how destructive alcohol is for society it wouldn't be a stretch to make it less socially-acceptable to consume 'empty' calories. Some industries are mandated to spend part of their advertising budget on 'preventative' campaigns, but in almost 100% of the cases, these 'anti-whatever' messages are cleverly disguised to sell even more of their product (e.g., anti-gambling, soft drink recycling). There may be no perfect solution, but doing nothing isn't an answer either.
Even if it's just 5-10% (difficult to prove one way or the other, but some have estimated it's within this range) that's a massive amount of people on a global scale. That's enough to influence elections, for example. Scrutiny seems reasonable.
Not sure what you're getting at about elections, are you saying that's a reason to intervene? I don't really want the government making policy for the purpose of influencing election outcomes.
100% of people will need to give up some luxuries so that everyone can benefit, and especially <<vulnerable groups>> can benefit.
Taxes work the same way. Laws in general work the same way (otherwise we'd assume everyone is smart, fair and calculated heck, perfect, all the time).
The only thing I can really get behind is stricter controls on individual ingredients that are very clearly unhealthy and obviously don't need to be part of your diet (BPAs, trans fats, etc). Once you start messing with society's macros though it's fraught territory and very easy to do harm IMO.
> Only a minority of people can withstand an onslaught of determined, highly paid professionals, working together to basically harm them.
This sounds so dramatic, as if these pros have actual mind control abilities. You're being hyperbolic. Also, how do you know it's a minority? Sounds like you just made that up to suit your argument.
Personal responsibility is just one variable in this equation and a weak one at that.
What do all developed countries have in common? A large, well run (in comparison to developing countries) government and an active civil society that operates at scale, through various collective actions (voting, protests, etc).
Personal responsibility is maybe #5 on this list and is the number one thing being peddled by companies whose business interests are under attack.
Look up Ralph Nader and auto companies. Whistleblowers in tobacco companies and tobacco companies. Etc, etc.
Comments like this one are antithetical to the goals of HN - curious, reasonable, intellectual discussion (including about topics that may be somewhat political in nature).
We have obesity rates reaching 50% in many countries. Morbid (morbid comes from the Latin word for death...) obesity in the US is 7% and growing.
Pray tell, how are you going to solve this epidemic through personal responsibility?
But humans have changed. The information age has changed us in deep ways. When Facebook appeared, all of the problems that have manifested over the past 15 years or so were immediately apparent to me. Facebook was so clearly toxic that I never touched the service. And I was an enthusiastic first-on-the-bandwagon type back then.
Trying to warn others, which I embarrassed myself trying to do, was useless. It was senseless to try - I was under the assumption that people had control of their person. I was assuming that people had personal responsibility.
Personal responsibility implies control of your person, which we have inadvertently relinquished in the Information Age, as we outsource aspects of our minds and persons to the technology that 'makes our lives easier'. Add to this the fact that these companies have experts dedicated to undermine your control of yourself, and it's hopeless for most people.
Older, more exhausted me agrees with the parent comment. sigh
Until we are generally intelligent enough to understand this, the gun rights issue, and any other related ones like the parent here, will be played out as a surreal dance of contrasting political interests.
I've had, at different points in my life, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit, and Facebook installed on my phone. At no point did I ever feel like I was somehow compelled to use any those apps.
Android has operating-system-level controls on notifications. If you don't want to get Facebook notifications, and you turn them off, it is impossible for the application to notify you.
I have more of a problem checking Hacker News than I ever had with any of the above platforms, and there's no HN app, no notifications, no psychologists trying to control me. This clearly shows that Facebook-checking is purely a discipline problem.
Now, this obviously wouldn't be the case if, for instance, some big corporation was injecting some kind of addictive chemical into your food, and there was no way to limit your exposure to this chemical because, well, you have to eat. In that case, it's pretty clear that that company is doing something illegal and unethical and regulatory action should absolutely be taken.
But this isn't that. You can't survive without food. Facebook is entirely optional. You don't want to be addicted? Don't use Facebook. All of your relatives are on Facebook? Don't use Facebook; give them a call or text, invite them over, video call, share a meal, play a video game together.
Facebook. Is. Optional. If you get "addicted" to it, it's solely because you chose to repeatedly expose yourself to it without taking the proper precautions.
Ah, but what is full control? If I miss out on events and face passive ostracization... do I really have full control? We do not live in vacuums and self-control isn't solely concerned with the self, there are myriads of external factors that can have significant impacts.
I have the control to not give my 13 year old a cell phone, but I do not have control over the social consequences that creates for them. Therefore... could I claim to have full control over that situation? no, just a narrow aspect.
> This clearly shows that Facebook-checking is purely a discipline problem.
Maybe... but we know that Facebook attempts to undermine self-discipline. The average user spends an hour a day on Facebook. Are they all conscious of how much time they're wasting? are they conscious of the ways that Facebook attempts to get them to waste more time? are they aware of what it's doing to them psychologically? can one be expected to exercise control when the stakes have been intentionally obscured?
> But this isn't that. You can't survive without food. Facebook is entirely optional. You don't want to be addicted? Don't use Facebook.
Is this not true of drugs as well? I don't need caffeine to survive, but if I stop tomorrow I'm going to have some serious headaches.
I don't need Facebook to survive, but not having it may harm me socially, and I might even feel a psychological absence. Do I have full control at that point?
Sorry if this is too abstract or philosophical... but I don't think it's a binary situation at all. Reality is much more complicated. It's hard to say that anyone living in society has full control over anything, especially when they're deceived.
I'm sure many obese people would prefer not to die young, yet they do. Should I only blame them for the lack of self-control? Is it not fair game to scrutinize the powerful societal mechanisms that undermine their self-control?
I'm willing to bet it's not immediately obvious how scrolling through social media makes a person feel, unless they have experience with it (something psychologists teach to help their patients deal with situations.)
So, if it's something that can be taught, does it affect how responsible someone is with their social media usage?
Is their environment equipt to impart such information? Are they equipt to learn? Do they just enjoy it anyway?
Right, and the scary thing from my perspective is that a company like Facebook has actually experimented with manipulating emotion on real users. People don't understand to what extent they're being manipulated, but the manipulators often harvest this data for their own purposes.
People with little to no self-control stand no chance, but there are many people I’m sure that would survive psychologists, especially knowing that they work in a field where almost nothing is reproducible :)
Plus, if it's "only" 20% of people we lose to these addictions, that's still a major tragedy.
The dig at psychologists was funny, but this is a super serious topic, unfortunately.
You could say the same thing about illegal substances.
Pointing those out because in my current country (Australia), laws are being gradually introduced to - eventually - eliminate tobacco consumption.
eg plain paper packaging mandate, banning of smoking in more and more places, and potentially soon there will be banning of tobacco sales to people born before a point in time year (2005 maybe?) so they're never allowed to smoke
Minor typo: the ban will be for people born after a particular year, not before.
Also, vaping in Australia is illegal, making the ban even more impressive.
I assure that it isn't. (I'm Australian)
But it isn't illegal. The closest thing is that imports of nicotine vape products has been banned[1].
But you can still get them with a prescription and - more importantly - vaping itself is still legal with non-nicotine products. For example [2] is a story about how sweet flavored vapes are popular with schoolkids.
[1] https://www.tga.gov.au/blogs/tga-topics/nicotine-vaping-laws...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-25/qld-ecigarettes-vapes...
Don't you mean "legal"?
https://www.tga.gov.au/blogs/tga-topics/nicotine-vaping-laws...
Good. :)
You cannot rely on people being responsible with substances and mechanisms that make them behave irresponsibly. That's the whole point of regulating addictive things.
This statement is so profoundly simple and rational and true.
My childhood was severely impacted by addiction in the family, and “It’s A Disease” is a refrain I’ve heard from every doctor and group therapist and concerned friend and public health official.
The problem with “It’s A Disease” is that when you have a drug-addicted family member, you spend years or decades being trapped in extremely emotionally complicated and potentially catastrophic situations over and over again, and often the ONLY way to break free of it is to do things, say things, and make decisions that are very deeply hurtful to both you and your own family. Things you’re not proud of, that no reasonable or kind or loving person would ever say or do to somebody merely for having a disease.
“It’s A Disease” turns the addict into an innocent victim of their own family.
Anyway, I’ve always thought the cyclic part of drug addiction was desire -> gratification -> withdrawal, with negative behaviors as a consequence of that. Seeing drug addiction as a cycle of one’s behavior toward a substance being altered by that very same substance, literally never even occurred to me. I can accept that and not blame myself or my family. Thank you.
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2021/08/texas-man-wins-5-5...
They said: if you have a few people that are obese, that’s an issue with them. If nearly half of society is obese, you have an issue with the society.
Macro issues need to be addressed at the macro level. Yes, an individual can choose to not participate and be better for it, but that still leaves us with the same macro issue and it’s likely worth addressing that issue.