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Comment by ptah | Hacker News Reader

yet again society pays the price whilst corporations selling sugary drinks reaps the benefits

Society is not forced at gunpoint to buy those drinks.

No, there's no need for that. People are taught and molded to do so from birth. Ever see a toddler with a soda? You think they bought it?

So if our free will can’t extend to soda we clearly need new discussions on guilt and individual responsibility. We’ve been molded since birth.

it's worse than gunpoint: they use subliminal advertising https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/marlboro-coke-kfc-use...

Society was not forced at gunpoint to buy cigarettes either, but with masterful marketing, corporations exploded cigarette smoking from 100/capita/day in 1910 to 5000/capita/day in 1960.

Humans are not random decision-making machines. The ease of manipulating our consumption decisions is well documented. If you think your decisions aren't affected by external manipulations, it just means you haven't noticed.

Even 100 cigarettes per person in a day is not believable least 5000 - people did not smoke more than 10 packs per hour in 1960 or ever.

*per year

editing mistake from changing source from this graph

https://ourworldindata.org/smoking

to this graph

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p4ECPyex_cY/TzSalazW2XI/AAAAAAAAA2...

In this case it looks like merely switching between different methods of tobacco consumption due to changes in the society. Cigarettes win vs pipes and cigars both in price and in time requirements.

This would imply that humans are completely unaffected by environmental factors.

Then buy sugary drinks companies.

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