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Comment by ACV001 | Hacker News Reader

why did they invent this word "lobbying" when it has to be called to what it is - corruption.

Lobbying: >In politics, lobbying or advocacy, is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials

Corruption: >Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with companies trying to influence government policies. It's only a problem when government officials abuse their office for personal gain (eg. taking bribes). In this case it's not really obvious that such improper behavior has occurred, other than a vague kneejerk reaction of "pesticides bad, therefore the only possible reason why the regulators approved it was that they were corrupt".

Pesticides are bad.

Government officials are trading increased cancer rates for higher profit margins.

How that can ever be acceptable is beyond me.

Pesticides allow millions of people to not starve to death. A generalized statement like "Pesticides are bad" is simply ridiculous.

On top of that, pesticide application and environmental effects are the dangers of pesticide application, not human consumption. Most pesticides are just CO2 by the time they get to the shelf and ALL pesticide residues that don’t become co2 must be verifiably 100% safe for people to eat.

More great food science from the folks that brought you aspartame, hydrogenated vegetable oils, red-40, and canola oil as the healthy alternative to eggs, dairy, fruits, vegetables and meat

We’re talking about farm raised salmon. It’s a luxury good, not a staple food source.

99% of supermarket SKUs are luxury items, at least salmon is one the healthiest choices you can make.

I am sorry, where do you shop? Half of my local Tescos is essentials like potatoes, chicken and canned beans.

What makes salmon a luxury goods? Its very affordable within the space of non-processed foods and healthy.

Heck it compares with processed foods!

I went to "www.webstaurantstore.com" (?) and compared salmon to a cheap mass produced ham (that is both are animal protein).

$10/lb for salmon vs $8/lb for the ham. Hardly a huge difference, but one is very processed with lots of salt and nitrates.

lb for lb, it would not surprise me to learn that farmed fish has a lower all-in pollution output than pork.

> $10/lb for salmon vs $8/lb for the ham

you can find $2/lb ham, but you can't find salmon for that price.

lb/$10 will be transformed into something like 300g after cooking process, and for person with minimum wage, it means he needs to work for 1h after taxes to get 300g of product, this is like pre-industrial level of productivity and income.. And there are people outside US with even lower wages.

All that means is that US wages are too low. But, be they what they are:

- 300 grams is not a bad serving.

- for the folks on minimum wage, its only 12% of their income which Im not sure if its a bad ratio historically.

- "man does not live on bread alone" ie, you can't eat cheap ham everyday, nor should salmon be a daily staple. But variety of food is a necesity, not a luxury.

- ham at $2/lb sounds disgusting and probably causes more health problems (nitrates) than just eliminating animal protein.

- My wife used to live on minimum wage with no external help padding her income. She still ate a serving of fresh salmon every week.

Im sorry, but if farmed salmon is a luxury, as a society our standards of living have collapsed.

> Im sorry, but if farmed salmon is a luxury, as a society our standards of living have collapsed.

yes, in the last two decades wealth gap became larger, and poor became poorer.

nah, in this case lobbying "pesticides" is done to pack even more fish in the hellish conditions. Which is bad because it increases chances to get some new viruses/bacterias. Alternatively, it is to fight new infections which are already "bullet-prooffed" against the old amount of pesticides.

It is bad. Only one species destroying ecosystem all other species, does not matter if only one species got benefit. Period.

Humans thinking, they own Earth and can do whatever they want even if it kills everything else can never be regarded as good.

This smacks of conspiracy, & is unfounded.

Lobbying just means advocating for your interests by trying to influence people in power. It's part of democracy.

funny how people with more money get more democracy - and people with less money get the end of a baton.

Money can buy higher quality and higher amplified speech, in fact there's an argument that is the primary reason for accumulating money for anyone interested in politics, at least in the US.

And it's not surprising that most people pay more attention to whatever they perceive to be better value for their time.

So it's not really those with less money getting 'end of a baton' but those with less convincing speech. It's unfortunate that the least convincing and credible are at best treated as outcasts, and at worst as criminals.

But how could a democratic society be structured differently? People can't be forced to treat every single individual the same.

My take on US democracy is that the level of representation needs to get back to the levels seen in the 18th century.

35000 people per representative. That would mean we would need a larger capitol building - but at least it would be harder to gerrymander and to bribe/lobby all of these people.

In this day of technology we could manage a large congress quite well.

In the US it’s a bit different than in other countries though. There it’s not “advocating” - it’s “paying”.

Legitimacy by jingoism: funneling trips, gifts, money, and jobs through an intermediary is a curtain of complexity patronizing credulity to misdirect and conceal criminality.

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