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Comment by sillygoose | Hacker News Reader

You know, if EU countries were genuinely concerned about their beloved citizens coming into contact with damaging chemicals, they could warn them on the evening news or something.

    Hey there Dear Citizens, these products have been found
    to cause cancer. Please avoid using them, and tell your
    friends to avoid them too! 
    
    Best Regards, 
    Your Benevolent, Caring Overlords

Do you think that just might have an effect on the companies producing the toxic crap they force on us?

    "Those naughty companies haven't stopped putting cancer-causing
    chemicals in their products. You should still boycott them."

If they really cared, they could just keep informing the citizenry until they were safe.

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Uh-huh, right, because EU governments have editorial control of the evening news, and also have bigger marketing budgets than the companies producing such chemicals.

Sure.

If they really cared, they could just keep informing the citizenry until they were safe.

No, if they really cared they would ban or strictly regulate the use of such chemicals.

> Uh-huh, right, because EU governments have editorial control of the evening news

Well yeah, they largely do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98

But even if they didn't, surely news organizations would co-operate for a noble cause, yes?

> No, if they really cared they would ban or strictly regulate the use of such chemicals.

Sure, and if they really cared, they could do that even despite the TTIP, or they could reject or re-negotiate the TTIP. There's no way around that, regardless of whether you trust that governments are operating with our best interests at heart.

> But even if they didn't, surely news organizations would co-operate for a noble cause, yes?

As privately run corporations, news organizations go where the money is and I trust them even less than I trust the government. The number of ignoble causes they have cooperated on in the recent past leaves them with a very large credibility gap in my mind.

And while the government is not perfect, at least I live in a country where lobbying (aka bribery) is no where near as institutionalised and prevalent as you see in the U.S.

So while my government might not always have my best interests at heart, they are definitely more concerned and more trustworthy than a news organisation.

Didn't the 911 conspiracy theory video link make you think that maybe it's not worth speaking to silly goose?

To be honest, I didn't even click through to the video.

Your point has been noted.

He didn't have a point. He just signaled that he can't think independently.

The video is a summary of what we were told happened, through the mainstream media. The story is absurd, which means it's not actually true! That, in turn, means that there was, in fact, a conspiracy!

Here's a few videos of an invisible plane hitting a building, which then collapses seemingly on its own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWorDrTC0Qg .. but it wasn't on its own, of course, because an invisible plane hit it!

Feel free to start thinking for yourself any time now.

For the record, the video summarizes what we were told happened, through the media.

I shouldn't need to connect the dots for you, and you shouldn't dismiss me as some crackpot lunatic (even though you've been programmed to). Try independent thinking some time. It's pretty cool.

Alright, but if governments work for the people, as we're told, then they'd also erm.. "regulate" news organizations and make them actually serve the public. You know full well they could, if they wanted to.

That would include warning us of cancer-causing shit that we come into contact with all the damn time.

Strangely enough, they don't. What does that tell us?

Or they could, your know, ban the use of the dangerous stuff. That'd be a whole lot more efficient.

Dangerous stuff like, say, cannabis? That has been efficient.

Yes, that's exactly what I said. Let's have a debate about the merits of drug laws here, that seems on topic.

Or not.

Or maybe let's have a debate on the efficiency of outright banning stuff without regard for other potential applications of said stuff.

But this would surely open the governments up for lawsuits in the TTIP courts...

Well they could just reject or renegotiate the TTIP then?

"just"

Well, are they looking out for their citizens or not? Isn't that supposed to be their job?

There's probably nothing stopping the individual members from doing something about it and many of them probably will in the form of laws, not news. Sadly, assuming that it's evidenced based, it would be better if it was an EU wide thing.

Because there is freedom of transportation of goods within the EU, banning a substance in one country does nothing to prevent products containing the substance reaching consumers.

It might be forbidden to bar a product altogether, because you would be distorting the competitive landscape. That's the case with GMOs, there are a few temporary bans, but no solid and definitive legislation, because that would be forbidden.

You mean, in addition to regulations and taxes, right?

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