Comment by stahorn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stahorn | Hacker News Reader

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I grew up in Sweden, where strong alcohol is only sold in a state owned company and the same for gambling, so this probably make me have another view of this than people from other countries. I do believe that there has to be some sort of laws around how social media, or really "endless scrolling of content" is done. It's seriously addictive, I feel it myself, and just letting people "be free and choose what to do" results in addicts in real life. If people and society is hurting because of this, it would be good to fix it.

I think that an easy start is to require every platform that has addictive endless scrolling, or endless suggestions for what to watch next, to have a soft limit. After some regular time, information is shown that "you are on an addictive platform and taking breaks from it is good for your mental health". "Algorithms are made to keep your attention, often by making you angry and upset. Remember that this is easily fixed by stepping off this platform". It is basically a version of "smoking kills", or "don't drink and drive", but for the digital age. I think it is an easy thing to legislate (as easy as those things get), still allows people to be "free", and that could actually have a positive effect on the world.

> I grew up in Sweden, where strong alcohol is only sold in a state owned company

It worked so well, that alcoholism rates in Sweden are higher than in some countries where the sales of strong alcohol are not a state monopoly. A closer look shows that even the neighboring Scandinavian countries are doing better..

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcoholis...

if you're implying causality by saying it worked well, that's probably backwards.

a country with no problems with alcohol consumption won't have any need to create strong regulations.

the implication that deregulating alcohol in sweden would decrease consumption seems bizarre.

I'm replying to the postulate made by OP that potentially addictive items need to be regulated strongly, using the example of strong alcohol restrictions from the country he grew up with.

The sarcastic comment that "it was going well" was made to highlight that the very example cited was unfortunate, with many, many countries with unregulated strong alcohol having notably lower alcoholism percentages. Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, etc.

So perhaps the root of the problem is not the lack of prohibition, or the lack of monopolistic state control, as, clearly, other countries have done better without. Which bring the thought that perhaps, it is not much more than an unsatisfactory, overbearing measure due to a lack of more fundamental approach to "healthy" alcohol consumption, whatever it might be.

Your comment makes zero sense. Are you implying that the sales restrictions are causing the high alcoholism rates?

If so: that's an absurd contention.

If not: perhaps the regulation is a response to the levels of alcoholism? Or is entirely independent of them? You present no evidence that the monopoly is either harmful or ineffective.

Yeah, but you have to remember that people answer questions such as "are you an alcoholic" a bit different in different countries. Go to any polish person drinking beer every day and they will say they are of course not an alcoholic (real example).

On the page you linked there's another link to just alcohol consumption: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-c...

It paints a different picture. Also good to know is that Norway and Finland has similar setup, with Vinmonopolet and Alko.

The closest neighbouring country, Norway, also have a state monopoly, only with even higer taxes on alcohol.

And the just as close (sea borders are borders too) Denmark has low alcohol taxes and no state monopoly.

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