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Comment by sakisv | Hacker News Reader

Not the original person you replied to, but as far as I'm concerned there are a few questions that could very easily indicate which side of the line is something.

E.g.

- Is it addictive?

- Does it have the potential to destroy lives?

- Does it have the potential to destroy lives in seconds?

- Does it have a strong lobbying mechanism behind it? (n.b. things that are good and nice rarely need someone to bribe people to accept them)

or simply:

- Would you be worried if your child did it?

I think the number of "yes" that you get draws a very clear line.

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Your question ramp makes sense to me except in two ways: 1. why this "destroy lives in seconds?" question? 2. where do you see sugar sitting here?

He's obviously talking about alcohol (it takes seconds to consume an amount of alcohol that can result in death, yours or someone else's from a fight or car crash) and firearms (should be obvious).

Sounds like you're implying some sort of mischaracterization of sugar here which minimizes the former in a weird way.

I wanted to draw the distinction between something that destroys lives over a longer period of time (smoking) VS something like gambling where you could lose your life's savings in seconds.

The alcohol mentioned in a sibling comment also ticks the box.

For the sugar, I'd say yes, no, no, yes and "not too much, but I'm keeping an eye out".

These questions sound very rational until you realize that sugar, performance cars, military technology and history lessons can tick all those boxes.

Can you recommend a history lesson that will destroy my life in seconds? Book, podcast, youtube would all be acceptable formats.

Tim Snyders videos

Maybe I haven't seen enough of his videos. They seem generally informative? Perhaps a bit depressing but I wouldn't say that watching a Tim Snyder video can ruin your life like gambling can.

Not sure if the history lessons are a joke, but sugar is rightfully taxed or otherwise disincentivized in many countries, because it is highly harmful to society as a whole. Sports cars definitely get some yes answers, and are also rightfully taxed in several countries.

Military technology may be an exception as "necessary evil", but also is a bad example because it id not consumer-oriented.

As a Ukrainian I can tell you that deaths from history lessons are pretty much not a joke.

Ok, so add "is it easy / quick / cheap to acquire?". Performance cars (I take measured risks at the race track) and track days / race tires aren't cheap. Not in any sense of the word.

Unsafe driving in ANY car? Yes - but that's already illegal.

Performance cars are very cheap to acquire temporarily.

I can literally book right now, for 4 long laps, for £99 any of the following (and that's a a very small subset of 30 similar cars): Lotus Evora / GTR 1200bhp / Lamborghini Gallardo / Dodge Viper SRT VX / Huracan... Unless you'd say these are not performance cars?

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