Hacker News Reader

Comment by PostOnce | Hacker News Reader

The outcomes of going outside without a hat and sunscreen are a drain too; in Australia, skin cancer kills thousands of people per year and requires hundreds of thousands of people per year to be treated.

Should going outside without a hat on be ticketable?

And what about people over 70, falls cause many bone and brain injuries, and many deaths in the elderly, and it's expensive and dangerous. Should we require a helmet and kneepads for anyone over 70 to be work at all times when walking?

And what about salt? Heart problems come from more places than obesity, and it's heart problems that are a huge drain on the healthcare system; will we also ban salt?

How about a sedentary office lifestyle, this is also bad for your health, will we tax sitting? Will the gym, like voting, become compulsory in Australia?

View on HN

You can make up all these outrageous examples which don't correlate to what I said in any way shape or form at all as much as you like, but just know you aren't convincing anyone or making a compelling argument.

Skin cancer and heart disease are major issues as is the elderly falling over, and if there were predatory organisations which were peddling products that abused human weakness to capitalize on addiction, or running around pushing old people over, I think we should look into handling those organizations. However salt and sunshine are absolutely vital to the proper functioning of the human body, whereas eating a bag of skittles and downing six bottles of coke is not. And corporations are out there peddling sugar because it sells, and that is predatory behaviour and the bill is footed by the Australian public for the profit seeking of a tiny minority. That is what this recommendation seeks to stop.

A good argument, and a reasonable one, but we do have game, TV, and social media companies doing whatever they can to ensure a sedentary life of staring at screens, since the more you sit and stare (and develop mental and physical health problems) the more ads or iaps they can feed you and profit from. No one suggest we tax sitting or screen time.

I'll concede sun and salt are in a different category, but it seems morally wrong to tax my sugar because someone else can't moderate their own intake. Why is it our position anyway, to tell someone what they can't do if it doesn't affect us? If we tax sugar, alcohol, salt, etc, then the man who has these each in moderation, once a month or whatever, is now paying higher taxes not on one product, but across the board, where none of it harms him because he partakes rarely of any one category.

If you eat less than the average amount of sugar then a sugar tax is equivalent to giving you money by reducing your tax burden at the expense of others.

That's true, but limiting someone else's freedom to save yourself some money seems to me to be pretty evil. -- I guess what you said doesn't conflict with that idea.

We are not telling someone what they can’t do, why do people keep saying that? I like a sugary drink as well, and I am happy for everyone including myself to pay more if it imporoves health.

Tax at some point is so burdensome as to be an effective ban. If a can of Coke is $250 then you're not really free to drink it.

It's been done with cigarettes.

Australia already has some of the highest taxes on cigarettes. They have nationalized healthcare also, so a sugar tax can be seen more as reducing society healthcare costs, which are born by everyone more equally, rather than anything else. So the sugar tax can lower your taxes even if you don’t impuslively eat sugar, by lowering your burden in supporting nationalized healthcare (the goal behind the cigarette tax as well).

If this was America where much of the healthcare wasn’t socialized and it was every poor schlob for themselves, then you might have a point.

Income inequality has adverse effects on the economy and quality of life in a country, should we throw the top 1% in jail?

No, because that's some crap I just made up to sound ridiculous. You could, however, tax the top 1% more than the bottom 99%.

The severity of the negative incentive has to match the severity of the action/inaction. This includes whether the negative incentive is passive or active, i.e. taxing someone is less severe than fining them.

I don't think these are equivalent at all.

Sugar is incorporated into almost every food by corporations to increase addiction & taste. It's a slippery slope, thus, taxes makes sense.

Similar to tobacco.

people ate loads of sugar before modern processed foods. the consumption of sugar is not something that was forced upon us by evil corporations.

taxes don't make sense because people will just substitute sugary foods for other types of food. isocaloric exchange of sugar for other nutrients doesn't lead to weight loss. so the end result is that consumers pay more for something they enjoy (sweet food and drink) without any public health benefit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com