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Comment by Jdam | Hacker News Reader

Is it just me who's thinking that individuals in modern societies are not capable anymore of making meaningful decisions, including how much to drink? We're sacrificing freedom here because we became incapable. That scares me.

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It's not about"modern societies", man has been proven by several dozens of studies to not be able to consistently do rational decisions when it comes to long term. This is just about that. Also, how is that "sacrifying freedom" lmao, it just means instead of paying for infinite refill you pay for a drink, which was already the case in most French fast food restaurants. And tell me more about "freedom" when you eat in a fast food restaurant that pays their employees like, treat them like shit, bypass most working laws to pay them less and make them work more and in bad condition. If your definition of "freedom" is "doing whatever the fuck I want without any limitations no matter the consequences", then I fail to see how this is a value worth pursuing.

Why are you scared about an idea that our society has been based on throughout modern history? We live better collectively than we do alone, and living collectively requires compromises.

In a system where everyone pays for everyone else's health care, they have to act to keep that affordable and avoid widespread obesity and heart disease. This is a light touch. They're not going to make Coca Cola illegal altogether next year.

We've never had total freedom. Different countries draw the line in different places. The line gets nudged back and forth over time. I accept it because I could live on a plot of land with total freedom and the quality of my life would be significantly worse than a life without rules and without benefits.

Even though my government (the US) is currently undergoing a body horror I'd seek out another country like France with some other set of rules before I'd live in total freedom and anarchy.

I don't have a strong opinion on the ban itself, but it doesn't surprise or scare me that people don't know how to deal with unlimited quantities of food. Until recently, food was scarce, and evolution hasn't caught up to free refills. It takes a lot of education and willpower to make healthy choices.

> Until recently, food was scarce

Ever read Ishmael?

Giant and strong Industries are manipulating us. They invest billions for this. We are too weak to fight against this, these overwhelming number of battlefronts : it's too difficult, too complex, too time consuming, so we give up. We have no choice but to give up on so many of them. We have no choice. This regulation will help us take less sugar in. And that's a good thing.

No its not a good thing. Nothing stops people from following people like Stallman. This is a poor execuse for over-interfering statism and it will backfire with event like Brexit/Trump.

I agree. If I, as an individual, could opt out of having sugary drinks shoved in my face on the TV, in every shop, vending machine, newspaper and cafe, then I would agree there was no need for control.

It's not that people are incapable, it's that they're being given ever increasing and complex decisions to make in their daily life without being given the education to support it. Some people do receive such an education or are aware enough of the knowledge to seek it themselves but that's not the case for everyone.

Lots of educated people make bad choices about health. It doesn't take education or sophistication to know that you're better off without a lot of Coke. We're bombarded with messages about drinking Coke and not drinking Coke and we've made our choice.

An completely optimal diet does get very complex, and probably subjective. Definitely over my head. But we shouldn't pretend will power isn't a problem where the low-hanging fruit is involved.

Certainly will power is an aspect, there's no doubt about that. But how many people really know that it's not healthy? After all, it's advertised as low calorie or sugar free, isn't that good? I don't think common sense about food is as common as you think it might be.

>sacrificing freedom

People can still pay for sugary refills, this will simply protect the uninformed and the poor who take this as an opportunity to fill up to the detriment of their health.

The freedom of having a society full of overweight people? This decision looks quite reasonable to me and has nothing to do with freedom.

Think about the normal-weight (or underweight) normal-blood-sugar minorities who happen enjoy soft drinks.

I'm not saying the regulation is right or wrong, good or bad.

But I'd say such regulations most likely do impact their personal freedoms.

And even if that's for the good of others (no arguing with that), and even if it's in another country - I guess, it still can't be helped to not feel somewhat disappointed.

Culture hacking works. Sugary drinks have lots of culture hacking behind their popularity. Done individuals are impervious. Many are not. We're "sacrificing freedom" because someone pumped poison into the collective consciousness. Anti pollution laws world be the alternative.

when were we capable?

Beat me to it. Before we were obese, we were already smokers, alcoholics, gambling addicts, sex fiends, violent thugs, opium lovers... if there is anything we can abuse, we will. Animals don't know when they're having too much of a good thing, evolutionary instincts are honed on getting as much as you can today because you could get none tomorrow.

And modern psychological research have shown the corporations just how to game those instincts for profits...

What profits? If they're charging you the same whether you get three refills or zero, that sounds like a pretty shitty way to get people to spend more on soda.

We have free refills in Canada and they're basically just abused by teenagers and poor people so three people can drink from one soda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_lunch

How is filling people up with soda going to make them buy more food?

Honestly, I think free refills were invented because soda is cheaper than the fast food guy's time filling your cup. Therefore, they moved the soda fountains to the dining room and just started handing out cups with meals to save money.

Problem is that we get lured into doing things we shouldn't do.

now you're really generalizing.

So suddenly people became incapable of making meaningful decisions? We're perfectly capable of making "meaningful" decisions, but nanny-state, authoritarians know that they can get away with it now, rather than 30 year ago, when they would've been "run out of town" with stupid laws like this.

We're not sacrificing freedom. Places like France and NY are.

Idiocracy. IRL.

Is there evidence that lack of capability is the culprit? Is it possible that people are perfectly capable, but make informed unhealthy choices because it's what they want to do?

I can't stand even 8oz of sugary soda, but I also can't imagine judging or restraining someone (let alone with the violence of the state) who wants to.

They are hooked. What they want is not based on informed unhealthy choices.

You're asking for evidence of cognitive biases ? There's a WHOLE discipline that documented it in several thousands of articles. If you still believe humans are perfectly free of their choices, I have bad news for you : they are not.

Also, sugar is addictive.

The whole advertising industry is built upon the evidence you're asking for.

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