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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

However smoking is still legal, in Denmark and the US. In the US, tobacco use kills 7x as many as the oft-cited opiate “epidemic”, yet you don’t even need a prescription for cigarettes.

Either we need a nanny state, or we don’t. Pick one and be consistent.

Personally I’d prefer the world where we mandate labels and remove all restrictions on sale/distribution/use of chemicals for ingestion, along with HARSH penalties for causing others to ingest your byproducts without consent (ie secondhand smoke). Let adults make their own decisions (both for what they ingest, as well as how they plan to finance the subsequent healthcare required for bad choices).

We have no freedom if we’re not free to make choices that others regard as “bad” (that hurt no one but ourselves).

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> Either we need a nanny state, or we don’t. Pick one and be consistent.

So full blown dictatorship or pure anarchy ? nothing in between...

Sitting 8 hours per day also is very harmful, as is not walking enough, or eating meat, or looking at screen for too long, or drinking alcohol, or exercising too much, driving a car also is risky, walking in the streets too, you could even choke on a peanut so be careful...

What's the end goal ? Matrix like coma pods ? because it probably is the best way to live extra long

>What's the end goal ? Matrix like coma pods ? because it probably is the best way to live extra long

Yes that is what the longtermists have planned for us. 10^58 humans in virtual reality. Now go and donate to the anti rogue AI center and save billions of lives!

I don’t think “people should be allowed to smoke if they want to” === “pure anarchy”.

You said

> Pick one and be consistent.

If smoking is bad, alcohol is bad, cars are bad, etc. you can't be consistent here because life is a cause of death.

Every single person who drinks water dies.

your argument is "if smoking should be allowed, then everything should be allowed", so yes

A charitable reading of GP comment sounds like it'd be more like "we shouldn't ban things where the only reason is protecting people from themselves".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom - there's no clear separation between protecting people from themselves and protecting people from others:

"To expand the number of women smokers Hill decided to hire Edward Bernays, who today is known as the father of public relations, to help him recruit women smokers. [...] In 1929 Bernays decided to pay women to smoke their "torches of freedom" as they walked in the Easter Sunday Parade in New York."

"Philip Morris even sponsored a lecture series that taught women the "art of smoking""

The association of smoking with coolness, James Dean, Hollywood stars, it's clear that a lot of people wouldn't smoke "for themselves" if it wasn't for other people manipulating them to do it, for profit.

I would accept that, if we lived in a world where people were buying big jars labelled 'Trans fat' at the supermarket, the way they buy tabacco.

But I have never met anyone that has knowingly bought trans fats, and I doubt such a person exists. It's more analogous to food poisoning

The difference is:

If you ban cigarettes your population will revolt and you will lose votes.

If you ban trans-fats, only health-aficionados will think "good", and the rest of the population will think "what fats"?

> If you ban cigarettes your population will revolt and you will lose votes

I'd bet the majority of voters might be against a total ban if you ask them, but wouldn't actually mind much if it was implemented.

There's no chance the population revolts over this issue. Now a total alcohol ban on the other hand...

You have it backwards. The majority wouldn't understand but the nanosecond your banned it they'd know you made things worse for them. See for example gas can spouts.

Furthermore, if you start banning oils I can see industry just doing what the chemical industry does when you ban stuff and using a very similar compound that isn't on the naughty list and might even be worse because it's not as studied so there needs to be some way to be assured that won't happen.

The majority doesn't smoke (anymore - this would have been false 40 years ago and so different results), and so won't care.

Most people have gas cans, but didn't know that they cared about the spouts until a change was made that caused them not to work. People have better things to do than keep track of all the details that congress is doing, and I'm not sure anyone anticipated that the change would result in making gas cans unfit for the purpose of getting gas from a pump the your lawn mower. I can't blame people for being mad about it though, new gas cans either don't work or are very expensive for what is in the end just a container.

My point is that nobody cares about abstract oils but if you make everything in the junk food isle suck compared to last year they'll be pissed off, kinda like they didn't care about gas cans until the government made the spouts a pain in the ass.

I'm genuinely amazed how little resistance there was over us raising the smoking/vaping age to 21.

It's generally easy to avoid smoke, or at least you're aware of it (in case of someone smoking nearby).

Meanwhile if you eat at a restaurant, takeout, etc, you don't know what they put in your food.

I think it would be fine to allow it in the cases where it's properly and visibly labeled, and ban it otherwise. But it would be hard to inspect all restaurants and so on to check they are following the law.

Health inspections are already a thing and they would only need one (or a few) extra checkbox(es) for this.

But health inspections are a joke already.

Where you live maybe.

Actually Denmark was considering completely banning selling cigarettes to anyone born after 2010, but seems like this is unlikely to happen due to EU rules: https://www.thelocal.dk/20220407/eu-rules-dampen-danish-gove...

New Zealand is currently doing this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59589775.amp

Good, I say.

Being raised knowing in your soul that your generation was chosen to be permanently infantilized by a decaying nanny state is an excellent recipe for a revolutionary cohort.

Which NZ is likely to need.

I think perhaps you vastly overestimate the median person’s propensity for violence and resistance to the edicts of the state.

Listening to a podcast[1] a while ago and the interviewee talked about the pervasiveness of the tobacco industry in our culture. At the risk of misrepresenting him: I think he would probably argue that the tobacco industry has manufactured peoples choice to use cigarettes, and should be reined in. One anecdote that stuck with me was something along the lines of "in the 50s everyone seemed to agree that if smoking caused cancer, it would be banned, and yet here we are now".

[1] https://lexfridman.com/robert-proctor/

A difference I've realized in nutrition: we don't always know what's in what we eat. Whether this is a nanny state move or legit consumer protection from misleading producers isn't as obvious as smoking, where the risks are widely understood and documented directly on the product.

> Either we need a nanny state, or we don’t. Pick one and be consistent.

Why the dichotomy? You give no reason. And whats a nanny state anyway? A state that actually cares for its citizens and wants them to prosper? Somehow I think you have another definition in mind.

I'm forced to inhale all the pollution caused by industrial farming, by people who feel entitled to burn wood for fun, industrial pollution, cars, etc. I'm forced to drink PFAS, micro plastics and a boatload of other toxic chemicals. I need a so-called nanny state to be able to even have a choice of living in a healthy environment, which is nowhere to be found anymore.

Its also smaller things that the so-called free world is forcing on me. Like having to work long days and commute, to be confronted on my way back home by the smell of cheap fast-food that is easily available. An endless amount of kiosks and food stalls are seducing me as I have to walk past them, offering no healthy alternatives, and each office day I have no choice but to battle them. I am a weak man, yes, not a robot. Like many of us there are only so much things I can resist in a single day, especially as I struggle to even get by.

Is this freedom? It sure doesn't feel like it.

To be fair, you do state that you want people to be able to do bad things for themselves, but penalize them if that affects others.

That makes sense, ethically, but only if A) people are actually fully aware and accountable for the consequences of the 'bad thing' and B) the 'bad things' are side-effect free and/or the people who cause bad side effects for others can be deterred by harsh penalties - which actually only happens if the chance of getting caught is high enough.

I think A and B aren't actually feasible for most things, except some classes of drugs maybe. For A you would need such restrictions that the market will revolt or simply die off. Things like obtaining a license after doing an exam or something like that. As for B, the vast majority of bad things have unavoidable effects on others, and for some the potential for abuse calls for unreasonable policing.

In practice, I think humans function much more as a collective than they like to admit, and individual autonomy is a kind of window dressing of the status quo, rather than anything substantial. Like the fairly trivial choice for product A over product B, where they are nearly the same. But its really hard to choose to work for 3 days and accept less wealth, or something meaningful like that.

Thus, I can't really perceive a lot more freedom in the current neoliberal market than the hypothetical nanny state, especially as this so called free market is full of rules and the consequences of other peoples 'freedoms' are forced upon me.

> In practice, I think humans function much more as a collective than they like to admit, and individual autonomy is a kind of window dressing of the status quo, rather than anything substantial.

This is so well put.

Problem is smoking is very obvious what you are doing.

Then you should argue: "Food safety laws should be very limited in it's restriction and it should be up to the consumers to carefully read and study all ingredients to pick what they eat".

The problem with the epidemic was/is that you can’t easily decide whether you want to take the risk of getting ill or not.

And trans-fats are often used in places where you may not be aware of them.

Smoking is a clear choice, and you are aware that you are smoking and increasing your likely hood of getting ill from it.

So I don’t think the three things are exactly the same or should be treated identically.

Nanny state in my opinion is mostly the government telling the individual what or what not to do, not regulating companies.

Regarding regulations towards companies, for sure too much regulation can be stifling, but I wouldn't call it a nanny state.

> In the US, tobacco use kills 7x as many as the oft-cited opiate “epidemic”, yet you don’t even need a prescription for cigarettes.

The people cigarettes kill are disproportionately older, and they are not killed by any single act of smoking a cigarette, as can happen with opiate overdose, but instead by the cumulative health effects of smoking. That difference is consequential for societies and communities.

Smoking is also more broadly distributed across society, and not nearly as demographically targeted as the opioid situation, debilitating particular types of communities.

A more valid comparison for the opioid situation was the crack situation.

Why ? It's a lot easier to ban trans fats from stores than it is to get smokers to suddenly quit.

And most folks aren't going to go to a black market to get trans fats - a black market for cigarettes already exists and banning it entirely would only prop it up.

True, but people might get pissed off if they notice there food tastes different.

Kraft Dinner pulled off a real marketing coup here: they removed artificial flavors and colors, and some other less popular ingredients, from the recipe for Neon Orange Macaroni Powder, and quietly pushed it out to markets for a few months.

Followed by an advertising blitz along the lines of "Will your kids like the new Mac & Cheese? They've already had it!".

To a point - it isn't like this doesn't happen without regulation though. Folks get over it.

Exit the fantasy world of libertarian ideology and talk to real people.

I am willing to bet my house that you won't find 10 people who are annoyed about this ban on trans fats.

If you are smoking you know you are smoking, you make that choice, for good or bad reasons.

No consumer ever chose to eating trans fats on purpose. Do a referendum and the will of the people will be to toss this shit out

I too find seatbelts oppressive.

“Mandate labels” —-> Nanny state “Remove restrictions” —-> Not nanny state

Pick one and be consistent

I don’t agree that mandating documentation of the ingredients in the food/medicine products sold commercially really falls under the “nanny state” category.

It’s more just standard consumer protections. Good decisionmaking on the part of the end user has accurate information availability as an essential prerequisite.

It’s not onerous to require sellers document plainly what they are selling.

It is very onerous to tell them “you’re not allowed to sell that”.

Some would argue that consumer protection is nanny state. Or general health insurance...

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