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Comment by combobyte | Hacker News Reader

When was the last time you saw an ad for cigarettes?

Those second-order effects are easy to mitigate with sensible public policy. And it's not like we have to invent the solution from scratch — we've done it before, very effectively.

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This is the correct reply to the constant "but whatabout" replies, that inevitably come up whenever you suggest regulation. "You've regulated bad thing X, but then they'll do Y!" So regulate Y! It's not like legislators only get one crack at a law. We should elect a government willing to move fast and iterate when loopholes are uncovered.

I mean if you're arguing an edge case you've already accepted the central point, so it's not like a response needs to be made. We handle edge cases.

The thing is that US Congress can't make laws. It just can't. It's nonfunctional. When it does that's the rare exception, and it better be perfect the first time because you won't get so lucky twice.

https://legiscan.com/US/legislation?status=passed

Seems like they can, or you mean they can't 'make laws' that you personally care about?

IMO this link proves the poster’s point. We are passing 1-2 laws a week. So far the 119th congress has passed 104 laws

100 years ago, the 69th congress passed over 1500 laws, plus hundreds of continuing resolutions, treaties, etc https://www.loc.gov/collections/united-states-statutes-at-la...

Cloudflare block page - I'm a bot. What does it say?

> Those second-order effects are easy to mitigate with sensible public policy.

Regrettably, sensible public policy seems to be in remarkably short supply these days.

> When was the last time you saw an ad for cigarettes?

Today at the gas station on the outside of the pump and the store door.

I was at a gas station today that sells tobacco. No ads. Its because even displaying tobacco products, let alone advertising them, is not allowed in that jurisdiction.

I'll bet you didn't see any cartoon camels or doctors recomending a brand though, because even where tobacco ads are legal, many tobacco ads are no longer legal.

Whether you see ads, and what kind of ads you see is highly regulated. That's the whole point,

> I was at a gas station today that sells tobacco. No ads. Its because even displaying tobacco products, let alone advertising them, is not allowed.

We clearly don't live in the same states.

Sorry for the ninja edit about jurisdictions.

I live in a different country since we don't have states here.

after the first fifty years? :)

biological organisms develop addiction much faster than political processes

Do you watch movies?

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