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Can't we say the same things about just about any business?

> "but there's a difference between an occasional indulgence"

Indeed...

> "and the business model that depends utterly on persuading the most persuadable people to harm themselves, for no other reason that they were persuadable"

You've lost me. You compare McDonald's to Philip Morris - even though one produces a highly addictive substance and the other produces (crappy) hamburgers. Last I checked, burgers are non-addictive.

In what way is McDonald's core business model dependent on something more than "occasional indulgence"? If we are to play the game that a business can only succeed if people are mindlessly, constantly, repetitively consuming its products, then we should be beating down the doors of, say, Redbox. After all, their business model works best if everyone sat on their asses all day doing nothing but watch movies.

I do not see the argument at all that McDonald's business hinges on the abusively high consumption of their foods. They are in no way worse than any number of peddlers of less-than-healthy foods. Where is the outrage for Ben & Jerry's? Frito Lay? Campbell's?

Nobody lives on Ben & Jerry's.

Frito Lay is possibly even more morally fraught than McDonalds, since a large part of their business involves marketing themselves into kids lunches.

I'm not sure where Campbells comes into this. It's not great soup, but it's soup.

Obviously, there are people who think there's nothing wrong with a particularly successful marketing campaign for an unhealthful product. There are plenty of people who think there's nothing immoral about selling cigarettes.

I don't think less of those people, but I strongly disagree with them.

The real issue is that individuals lack self control and maintain ignorance, which leads to poor health related decisions. I see where you are coming from, but I insist that people should rely only on themselves in these cases. Placing the blame on businesses or government is particularly irresponsible. Note that I am not insinuating you make these poor health decisions, because clearly you are aware.

Businesses have thrown billions at turning the psychological research on persuasion into money and in the process have turned propaganda from an art into a science. They have a significant edge over the individual on this and have done it quite deliberately and in full knowledge of the aims, process and outcomes of these actions. I think they can afford to take some of the blame for the consequences.

Indeed. It seems reasonable to hold partially accountable for customers' choices any business that employs psychologists for the purpose of creating new or cementing existing customers.

I think what you're trying to illustrate is the systematic risk many of these companies fail to recognize. Or they recognize them and its in the best interest not to do anything about it.

This is the same thing as pointing to the banks for selling CDOs. Risky for the banks? No. Risky for the whole system to collapse? Yes. Since systematic risks are largely not direct risks they never get counted as risks to begin with, and therefore do not impact decision making.

> Last I checked, burgers are non-addictive.

"A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks made by the likes of PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. aren’t simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs.

“The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”"

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-11/fatty-foods-addi...

Not saying the science is done, but there's a strong possibility that burgers are addictive.

The fries are probably more perilous (unfortunately, also the one thing they do really well). The full-sugar soda is probably just straight-up toxic.

Toxically delicious!

Surprisingly, Sweet Tea (otherwise known as would-you-like-some-water-with-your-sugar in the south) has about 15 grams less carbs in the large than a Coke. I think I might never order another coke again.

The burgers are addictive, man. The craving, the feeling of being overcome by the desire to consume when you get one, the shitty feeling you get afterwards and yet still continue to eat it - that's addiction, bro.

And like the other guy said - it's backed up by science too. The insane amounts of fat, salt, and sugar spike the reward processors in the brain WAY past what they're built for. They are hacking you.

> Last I checked, burgers are non-addictive.

Well fats are addictive. Not in the you will die from withdrawl like heroin or alcohol way, but in the way that gamblings and sex is.

> Also their burgers are pretty gross.

Some people must think they taste "good enough", given their popularity. Convenience and price obviously play big roles here, but they are also likely choosing McDonalds over other options on at least some basis of taste.

> But make no mistake that McDonalds is a business that is, if not as harmful as Philip Morris, gradable on the same scale. For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".

In Australia, they actually [no doubt due to social pressures] a large range of "healthy options" that are actually half-decent. I'm not sure whether they offer this stuff in the US, but compared to the numerous fried chicken, roast chicken and Burger King restaurants here, they are leagues ahead.

Note that I'm not defending their past behaviour-which I think we can agree was abysmal-but they have at least tried to reform and for a business of their size and brand, is no easy feat.

Their burgers are (deliberately, carefully engineered to be) hyperpalatable. There are plenty of hyperpalatable foods that also happen to be gross.

In Australia (and Canada for that matter), McDonald's food is far better than it is the the US.

I think it's better in most of the world than the US. It's almost considered classy in Thailand, and to me, it seems to taste better, too.

Obviously you've not tried them in the UK. We've been to Vegas in the US and thought the burgers there were amazing. Like, "oh my god, this actually looks a bit like real beef!"

Rubbish. As an Aussie who has tried both, I have not noticed the difference. I deliberately tried the ones in the US to see if they were better, as people had said. They were the same tasteless garbage.

I can't eat at McDonald's in Canada, but I really like to go there when I'm in Eastern Europe. It tastes so much better there.

UPDATE: And I didn't like it in the US either.

I only have experience with McDonald's in Western Europe, and here the food is not good. The pattys seem like the meat was thoroughly grinded to a smooth paste. The bread doesn't have any flavour, and because it's in a closed package with the rest it becomes soaked and soft from the steam. The worst part is the cheese (if you can call it that -- it doesn't look or taste like cheese at all). The fries are okayish. On the rare occasion that I'm with a group of people who want to eat something at McDonalds, I usually take a salad with the sauce in a separate package, because even the salad sauce doesn't taste good.

This was surprising to me. You can make a much better burger than McDonalds in 10 minutes with standard equipment. Just take some minced meat, form it into a flat cylinder, rub some olive oil salt and pepper, cook it in a frying pan, after you turned it around add (real) cheese on top and cook the other side, slice a bread in two and roast it a little in the same pan, and stack up the burger with some lettuce, tomato and some mustard and/or ketchup. Why can't a company whose primary purpose is to make burgers not make a burger half as good? It's not like the ingredients here are more expensive. Or do people really prefer McD's burgers?

Don't get me started on restaurants that use canned peppers and mushrooms that make the whole pizza wet and acidic. Also: http://popsop.com/wp-content/uploads/kraft_cheese_snack_befo... WTF? "Natural cheese made with 2% milk no added growth hormones"

The price of beef varies pretty dramatically around Europe.

The cheese on a fast food hamburger is really more a condiment than an ingredient, serving a purpose somewhere in between "cheese" and "mayonnaise".

The ones I've had both in Romania and the UK have been excellent.

Can't comment about US ones.

> For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".

They don't coerce anyone to eat their food. What a ridiculous hyperbole.

Depends whether you accept emotional manipulation in the definition of coercion, or use the more strict definition and restrict the concept only to actual or threatened force.

If you are accepting advertising as emotional manipulation, then say your real point: advertising is immoral coercion.

Or are you seriously going to argue that McDonalds has ads that are considerably more emotionally manipulative than other typical advertisers?

My point was as I said. There are two main definitions of coercion, one of which is stricter than the other. I was just replying to the statement that McDonalds does not employ coercion by pointing out that it rather depends on which definition you choose as if you choose the wider definition then most advertising is coercive to one degree or another. I wasn't really talking about the moral angle, just the semantics.

Also their burgers are pretty gross.

Yea well that's just your opinion man.