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Comment by cowboysauce | Hacker News Reader

>And it's sad that people associate having a sugary beverage as a 'good time with friends.' Lets enjoy poison together?! :-/

Oh boy, just wait until you learn about alcohol.

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Alcohol isn't as big of an insidious detriment. It is bad, sure, but we are aware of that. The biggest difference is the mutual understanding that society has about the negative effects of alcohol. It's understood to be a drug. Soda on the other hand doesn't have that cultural awareness.

I might be able to compartmentalize slightly better than GP, but as much as that machine is charming as hell and brings warmth to my heart, soda has more or less been a plague on humanity.

Unlike soda, alcohol has a lot going for it, because unless you abuse it, it can be a pretty wonderful, unique inebriant.

Soda can make you fat and brown your teeth. It doesn't create addicts who destroy their lives over it. Soda doesn't kill people via Drunk Driving. Soda doesn't contribute to violent crimes and domestic violence.

That's right!

"Might as well go for a soda; nobody hurts, nobody cries."

- Kim Mitchell

It’s not fair to write off the harm caused by soda as just causing brown teeth and fatness and to then to juxtapose it with domestic violence and drunk driving. That’s a basic strawman, which I sought to exclude by carving out “alcohol abuse” in my OP. Because alcoholism is terrible, especially when it affects a close loved one, and was not the subject of my comment. Fortunately, the vast majority of people who consume alcohol are not alcoholics. But many people, if not most people in 2021 United States and other parts of the world are obese. Of course obesity is not alcohol-fueled domestic violence, but that’s obvious.

The majority of people who consume alcohol are not alcoholics however the majority of people who consume soda ARE unhealthy. Quite the disparity yet the above posters are trying to use the parallel as a strawman.

Alcohol contributes to obesity as well though. Alcohol, like soda, is unhealthy to drink and it causes the more serious problems I alluded to previously.

Indeed but not in children. You're comparison is a red herring. Two things can be bad in different ways.

Alcohol is very unhealthy for children as well. So toxic, in fact, it's illegal to sell alcohol to children or for them to consume it.

Alcohol and soda are both drinks that cause health problems. There is nothing wrong with the observation that alcohol is considerably worse than soda.

There are laws prohibiting kids from getting access to or drinking alcohol. No such laws exist for soda. Soda has a huge negative impact on young children, whereas alcohol doesn't. I'm discontinuing this conversation as you clearly have maligned intentions as evident by your uncharitable interpretations of my points.

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

I mean, I didn't come here to fight about soda, but metabolic disease is a real problem, and people do seriously consider whether the way our brains respond to sugar constitutes addiction.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/

Sugar doesn't contribute to violent crimes, but a coca cola bottling company in Colombia may have killed labor organizers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co.

Talking about compartmentalization, the earnestness of you anti-fizzy-dinkers struck me as a little silly, and then I realized that outside of childhood I avoided carbonated beverages and sort of hold a mental prohibition on them for some of the reason you allude to. I do enjoy the rare root beer or ginger-ale, though.

Now, where did I put my cigarettes?

I agree with you. A good beer like Guinness is full of micronutrients and if you only have a few, it's not a bad tradeoff for the stress relief. Soda on the other hand, because it's not associated with drugs, is overdrank and made into a habit.

Why is it that alcohol be a wonderful unique inebriate but soda can't be? It used to be my preferred source of caffeine. If you don't abuse soda, it has a lot going for it too. It's basically liquid candy that also makes you more alert and attentive.

If there's a problem with sugar filled soda it's how it has been aggressively advertised in ways which normalized it as something to drink regularly and included filling schools and restaurants with the stuff crowding out or even forbidding other options.

> Why is it that alcohol be a wonderful unique inebriate but soda can't be?

It definitely can be. I meant to say that for me, caffeine isn't in the same league of inebriants as alcohol. It's definitely a lot less subtle for me. I'm sure that varies from person to person though, so maybe it can be? I don't know.

> that also makes you more alert and attentive.

This must also be a subjective experience-based thing. I've never felt more alert or attentive from soda, but of course that's just me. And I may have ADHD, which may be a factor.

> If you don't abuse soda, it has a lot going for it too. ... If there's a problem with sugar filled soda it's how it has been aggressively advertised ...

Yeah, I agree with this. I think if there is a problem, that's the problem. Also the serving sizes, which used to be much smaller when soda first came about. And the degree to which people lead sedentary lifestyles, and a bunch of other factors.

For what it's worth, I'm not promoting alcohol here, either. I'm not a big fan because it's hard to get it right (but when I do, it's great) so in the last ten years I pretty much only consume alcohol like 5-10 times a year, max. It just goes wrong too easily for me.

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