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Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

Well my first question was going to be how are they enforcing a recall when (to my knowledge) it was illegal to sell in the first place.

But apparently California is one of the states where it is legal... why?!?

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Because free adults should be allowed to choose whether or not they want their milk pasteurized. Obviously it needs to be labeled so people can make an informed decision, but otherwise there's no problem.

Free adults make decisions for children, and there is a long precedent( imo well justified ) of regulating decisions wrt to children: see vaccinations and mandatory schooling.

After the introduction of pasteurization, almost all adults freely chose pasteurized milk for their kids, without needing a law to force their hand.

If anything, the federal government trying to ban it has only made it more popular than it was before.

No, it was made more popular because of new technologies - the internet. The decentralization of information meant that idiots could be pastors.

It's not just raw milk - we're seeing this populist phenomena with everything. Anti-vax, moon landing is fake, QAnon, flat earth, crystals, sacred geometry, and on and on.

You tell people "The Establishment" serves one principal that's bad, but THEY serve an opposite principal, and you can get people to believe just about anything.

There's a whole culture and subsection of society who believes things purely because they think it's contrary to what "The Establishment" wants them to think. They reject anything with evidence or backed by institutions - that means medicine, food, policy.

This new-wave populism is fueled by our new communication technologies.

"The internet" is just a network. What did they say on the internet? "Raw milk is so good, our evil lying disreputable government doesn't want us to have it."

And the printing press is just a stamp. This is an incredibly disingenuous take. The internet opened up the world. It's been a groundbreaking technology. However, it has also lowered the barrier of entry to spreading stupid ideas to large audiences, and we are seeing the consequences of that.

The addition of search engines and recommendation algorithms is significant too. It's not just the ability to spread arbitrary information at zero cost, there's also a strong feedback loop where any information a user/rube engages with will become an increasingly large portion of what's presented to them.

I disagree. The phenomenon is reactance and people declaring flat-earthers a serious epidemic only made it far more popular. It is assumed that the same happened with vaccination and other topics as well. And people that like freedoms are especially vulnerable, because some start to demand to ban flat-earthers, which certainly creates an understandable reaction because of a vast horizon of implications.

This is a problem with communication, but the medium is irrelevant. That people tend to dislike smart asses is a factor here.

RFK, who is backed by our president elect, is an anti-vaxxer. Our soon to be head of the department of energy doesn’t believe in climate change.

The medium matters a lot. Any idiot can get on a soapbox now. Decentralized communication to the masses like never before.

You can see the spark of populism after each new medium. The printing press, radio, television - all accompanied with a populist movement of their time.

> The decentralization of information meant that idiots could be pastors.

So you'd blame this on pastorization?

Perhaps, but California generally doesn't look fondly on personal agency, especially on non-liberal topics like gun ownership/self defence, not participating in public education system, using gas vehicles, not getting vaccinated, etc.

I’ve lived in California and Indiana for 20 years each and recently discovered this explanation isn’t satisfactory.

You’re right in how you describe California; however they do look fondly on personal agency for liberal topics like birth control, abortion, marriage, drug usage, pissing on sidewalks in SF, etc.

I’ve concluded that different states value different forms of agency, but for some reason when people start pointing fingers they claim the other state doesn’t value agency.

it is highly regulated, but legal in some states. The inspection process for the dairies is pretty intense as well. I would not buy it to drink, but I have used it to make some really good yogurt (and I pasteurized the milk myself).

Raw milk is like tap water without fluoride. In the context of America people talk like it's an affront to civilization itself, yet in much (not all) of Europe its available with various restrictions and regulations.

Edit for factual context: In the 19th century before the advent of pasteurization and refrigeration, raw milk used to kill lots of kids. But raw milk in America wasn't banned in America until 1987 and 1991 in Canada. Refrigeration made raw milk mostly safe (albeit still gross, IMHO) and most consumers chose pasteurized milk anyway without the government forcing them to. People who think raw milk should obviously be banned like to talk about the Victorian era but not the (far more relevant) 1980s.

And, for the purposes of liquid milk, those restrictions are pretty tight [1] .

In most countries there are a _very_ small number of licensed suppliers and raw milk may not be sold in conventional distribution networks. Raw milk is used by the French for some cheeses but I'm not sure about liquid milk. With respect to cheese, those made in France with raw milk are, according to wikipedia, "the major source of staphylococcal food poisoning".

I mention this not because I'm sure that raw milk is always bad in all circumstances, I don't know enough to say, but to point out that the degree to which it's available within EU+UK is really quite limited.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_milk#Europe

> In most countries there are a _very_ small number of licensed suppliers and raw milk may not be sold in conventional distribution networks.

So it is also in the American states which permit it. It's a very niche product which is subject to numerous regulations, in some states harsher than others. Generally it's not allowed to be sold in normal stores, you have to go to farms or special dairy stores to get it, state agencies regularly test it (hence this recall), etc.

>albeit still gross, IMHO

are raw fruits/vegetables yucky to you too?

Why do you make that comparison? It seems absurd to me.

pasteurization is just a heat treatment to remove bacteria. it isn't some fancy filtering process to remove the yucky bits.

fruits and vegetables are covered in bacteria too.

Fruits and vegetables are not liquid.

And uncooked vegetables are indeed a large source of food borne illness.

Rare steak is fine, rare chicken is not.

Your analogy is really bad.

>Fruits and vegetables are not liquid.

and that is relevant how?

>And uncooked vegetables are indeed a large source of food borne illness.

so they are yucky too, after all?

>Rare steak is fine, rare chicken is not.

and that is relevant how?

>Your analogy is really bad.

thank you for your valuable input

> and that is relevant how?

Because it demonstrates some raw things are fine, and some raw things kill you? Like... duh?

I mean what are you really arguing here? We eat some raw stuff so that means anything raw, including milk, is perfectly safe to drink?

Just on it's surface that's such an absurd argument that I honestly doubt any human beings on Earth believe that. We're all well aware many raw substances are dangerous.

>I mean what are you really arguing here?

I'm arguing that if you find "raw" milk gross, then raw fruits and vegetables are gross too. washing them (i.e. splashing them with cold water for a few seconds under the sink) doesn't eradicate the bacteria crawling all over.

I don't understand why do you and the other poster sperg out about raw meat. I never said a damn thing about raw meat. no one eats raw meat, but millions of people drink "raw" milk. we drank "raw" milk for a few thousand years. "raw" milk is just milk.

and people died of dysentery and cholera and brucellosis and tuberculosis and typhoid and listeria and and anthrax and scarlet fever for those thousands of years. Then, we figured out that bacteria causes those diseases, we can kill that bacteria with a process, and now there's milk that is safe to drink, and milk that is not safe to drink, creating the concept of raw milk and pasteurized milk. raw meat is pink and cooked meat isn't but unfortunately for us, raw milk and pasteurized milk are both white

as far as eating raw meat, I ate sushi a few days ago.

Some of them. It's a personal preference thing.

I don't drink raw milk because it weirds me out, but if other people want to I'm not going to tell them they can't. I'm not going to drink raw eggs like Rocky, but if somebody else wants to they can have at it as far as I'm concerned. And I certainly don't think the sale of raw eggs should be banned to stop them.

Absolutely WILD response. Its easy to was the dirt off a fruit or vegetable. Drinking raw milk is like eating fruit or vegetable with feces on it still.

There is a consistent movement that raw milk is healthier for you than pasteurized milk, in the influence sphere of Wellness(tm).

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