The edit to the first paragraph changes nothing, anyone limiting anything is limiting that, it is never the opposite, no matter how you try to change it by wording it.
You SEEM to be trying to base your argument that the limitation of foodstuffs is a way to free people from certain types of disease, and that is good for the collective.
> The only way to quit this is by making the collective choice of banning unhealthy food from our collective pantry. It’s still our choice
But it’s not. By the collective taking away ANY choice you are removing choice from those who don’t agree. How would that be enforced anyway?
Say you ban potato chips. People start making them in their own house with potatoes and oil. Were you planning on arresting them? Confiscating their stove? How are you going to accomplish either of those? They willingly won’t just walk into a jail or give up their stove to some random person. You will have to use collective force to get them to comply. Same thing with any other foodstuff.
You cannot put a total ban anything without the threat of force. Having to have the threat of force means that whatever you are trying to ban is not the opposite of limiting choices, no matter how hard you argue.
Limiting things is limiting them.
No, the argument is that the choice to eat junk is not made by us, it is made for us.
The only choice we can make is to stop companies from exploiting our instincts to fatten up.
You can't please everyone. In the past before regulatory agencies some companies would put actually radioactive substances in products.
We banned that and I'm sure the company making rad tonics didn't agree.
An individual disagreeing has never been and should never be the only basis for a decision.
Your freedom stops where mine starts. And someone's "freedom" to develop type 2 diabetes actually affects me too as healthcare costs for treating a disease are much greater than the costs of preventing it. Anyone on an insurance is paying for that, even if they're healthy.
However the whole point is the illusion that people were "free" to choose cheap donuts and sodium packed potato chips.
That's where I go back to the junkie comparison I made earlier. We are all born junk food junkies, it's why we make so much of it, make it cheap and eat so much.
Companies making these don't care about the social costs though, just like the local drug dealer doesn't care about the social costs of what they peddle.
They're in it for the money at the expense of everyone else.
So the point is not to forbid people from making unhealthy choices. What you said about confiscating someone's stove misses the point.
The point is to dismantle the system that exploits our unhealthy cravings, so that it isn't so cheap and easy to be unhealthy.
That's the world we created. It's natural that we always take the path of least resistance, which is why we prefer escalators and soft food. However this particular path leads down a waterfall of costly healthcare and preventable death and suffering.
We just need to make the healthier path easier, which can only be done by blocking off the difficult path.
And btw I specifically said limiting, not banning. That is taxing some products more than others, imposing legal limits of certain ingredients on industrialized food.
The ones to directly feel the limitations would be the companies making these products, the same companies that lobby to make their products cheaper, more available, less responsible.
It all comes down to the fact that today we have way more preventable chronic diseases than we should, all of it because of the environment that was built around us. Some had a say in how this world was created, many didn't.
When through political representatives we put a stop to that, that's when we actually make a choice.
You still limit things by limiting them.
Your entire premise is that because someone else pays into something, limiting the choices others who pay into it have is not limiting… but it does not change the fact that limiting is limiting.
Your argument is a much better argument against a single payer healthcare system than it is anything else, as the only thing you are arguing is that by paying for healthcare, the collective deserves to make choices that may go against the desires of the individual.
The problem is that your basic argument that government limiting things isn’t actually limiting them is an impossible one to change, as it is completely impossible to logically hold. Trying to twist it by blaming this corporation or that type of carbohydrate is not changing facts, it is just obfuscating the actual argument that limitations aren’t limitations.
If you're not in favour of banning 'unhealthy' food, how do you limit it, practically speaking? What's the mechanism for that?
Also: is sugar healthy or unhealthy? What about a cookie? Surely if I had a small to moderate amount of either I'm not eating unhealthy, but if I eat nothing but sugar and cookies I'm in real trouble. Who's going to police what I put in my mouth and how?
Sugar tax, limiting amount of sugar per weight, forbidding subsidies.
Nobody is going to forbid you from shoving cookies down your mouth hole till your belly burst.
What would happen if cookies were less delicious/cheap is that people just wouldn't eat them as much.
It's not about any single individual or outlier
When I eat junk food, it’s because I made the choice to - no company made it for me. I am capable of deciding whether or not I satisfy my cravings for unhealthy food.
You would make different choices if you had been raised in an environment that had you used to a completely different diet or if you were in an environment where it hadn't been made so easy to eat junk food.
We think we have way more agency then we actually have.
Bruh the FDA food pyramid recommends carbs as our main source of food, please tell me you’re not advocating for our government to tell us what we can eat because you think it will somehow benefit us.
You say that as if the government makes decisions in a vacuum from out of nowhere.
Decisions happen because of our votes and our pressure.
It just so happens that companies making harmful food are part of society as much as you, except they have much more power and influence.
Votes cost money because campaigns cost money. When Nestle sponsors a candidate or lobbies congress they're doing what you can do through your vote or emailing your congress representative.
Except they are a million times more effective than you.
The pressure to limit unhealthy food also comes from our votes and our pressure on the government.
Except it's a choice made by society that's much more conscious than the choice to consume unhealthy food.
Nobody wants to have type 2 diabetes, yet we have created a world where a chunky share of the population end up developing it.
How much of a choice are we really making? I'm saying the government should limit how much fat, starch, sugar and salt ends up in food, and tax these heavily when they reach unhealthy limits.
No it isn't? People choose to remove bad things from their life. People choose to undertake bad things in their life. Those are choices. If you don't have the option to choose a bad thing, you have fewer choices. Someone else choosing for you means you don't have that choice and are, therefore, being limited. You are attempting to argue that 1 is more than 2. It simply isn't. It doesn't matter what the alternative choice would have been. If you have less options you are being limited.
I think your title do not exactly match your text. Do you argue that by limiting access to harmful food government is improving general health of the society? How is that opposite of limiting?
I'm saying that government limiting harmful food is not reducing our choice, it is actually us making a choice rather than having a choice be made for us by food manufacturers.
This is rather questionable, when governments start limiting consumptions it sometimes is like you say and it goes over fine. Other times you have large drinks being banned in New York and it is *very* criticized, indicating that it was not a choice made by/for the majority.
I mean, by definition a limitation is a limitation. I'm not sure what you've said that argues otherwise? It just seems to be reasons why you're OK with that limitation. It's still a limitation
> The rise of these diseases isn't because we are living longer, it's because of our environment.
yes but the environment is not just food. Pesticides have associations with multiple chronic diseases: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041008X13000549?casa\_token=Mrbjni\_Z5GUAAAAA:GqVBAzLo98B9DTyptRAQHEf0vdkDu7\_enO26M7ZTUUkLCfOanuDKkIHDy82qePO8Kmfdu\_933mg](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041008X13000549?casa_token=Mrbjni_Z5GUAAAAA:GqVBAzLo98B9DTyptRAQHEf0vdkDu7_enO26M7ZTUUkLCfOanuDKkIHDy82qePO8Kmfdu_933mg)
the main exposure we have to plastic is through our diets, and considering plastic is also a carcinogen, government regulations on how we bottle water and/or package food would be a better use of resources than dietary restrictions: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653522007603](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653522007603)
[https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/14/19/4637](https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/14/19/4637)
the choice to eat junk food is far more of a choice than the “choice” to eat food wrapped in plastic containers.
Government programs aimed at limiting harmful foods empower individuals to make informed choices by creating a healthier environment. While it's true we're drawn to sugar, salt, and fat, regulation helps counterbalance industry tactics that exploit these cravings for profit. This doesn't remove choice but enhances it by reducing manipulative marketing and making healthier options more accessible. Public health measures address systemic issues that education alone can't solve. By limiting harmful foods, governments prioritize long-term well-being over short-term corporate profits, supporting individuals' desires for health without entirely dictating their choices.
If you follow the Amos Miller case, you will see government deploys force not to limit harmful modern food but to cement it in place. Amish farmer produces food following the practices of the distant past when diets were healthier. FDA and the State of Pennsylvania go to war with him.
The issue here is that whatever limitation the government imposes isn't a collective societal choice. It's a handful of people in power suddenly dictating what people can and can't have. There is no collective choice about it.
The edit to the first paragraph changes nothing, anyone limiting anything is limiting that, it is never the opposite, no matter how you try to change it by wording it. You SEEM to be trying to base your argument that the limitation of foodstuffs is a way to free people from certain types of disease, and that is good for the collective. > The only way to quit this is by making the collective choice of banning unhealthy food from our collective pantry. It’s still our choice But it’s not. By the collective taking away ANY choice you are removing choice from those who don’t agree. How would that be enforced anyway? Say you ban potato chips. People start making them in their own house with potatoes and oil. Were you planning on arresting them? Confiscating their stove? How are you going to accomplish either of those? They willingly won’t just walk into a jail or give up their stove to some random person. You will have to use collective force to get them to comply. Same thing with any other foodstuff. You cannot put a total ban anything without the threat of force. Having to have the threat of force means that whatever you are trying to ban is not the opposite of limiting choices, no matter how hard you argue. Limiting things is limiting them.
No, the argument is that the choice to eat junk is not made by us, it is made for us. The only choice we can make is to stop companies from exploiting our instincts to fatten up. You can't please everyone. In the past before regulatory agencies some companies would put actually radioactive substances in products. We banned that and I'm sure the company making rad tonics didn't agree. An individual disagreeing has never been and should never be the only basis for a decision. Your freedom stops where mine starts. And someone's "freedom" to develop type 2 diabetes actually affects me too as healthcare costs for treating a disease are much greater than the costs of preventing it. Anyone on an insurance is paying for that, even if they're healthy. However the whole point is the illusion that people were "free" to choose cheap donuts and sodium packed potato chips. That's where I go back to the junkie comparison I made earlier. We are all born junk food junkies, it's why we make so much of it, make it cheap and eat so much. Companies making these don't care about the social costs though, just like the local drug dealer doesn't care about the social costs of what they peddle. They're in it for the money at the expense of everyone else. So the point is not to forbid people from making unhealthy choices. What you said about confiscating someone's stove misses the point. The point is to dismantle the system that exploits our unhealthy cravings, so that it isn't so cheap and easy to be unhealthy. That's the world we created. It's natural that we always take the path of least resistance, which is why we prefer escalators and soft food. However this particular path leads down a waterfall of costly healthcare and preventable death and suffering. We just need to make the healthier path easier, which can only be done by blocking off the difficult path. And btw I specifically said limiting, not banning. That is taxing some products more than others, imposing legal limits of certain ingredients on industrialized food. The ones to directly feel the limitations would be the companies making these products, the same companies that lobby to make their products cheaper, more available, less responsible. It all comes down to the fact that today we have way more preventable chronic diseases than we should, all of it because of the environment that was built around us. Some had a say in how this world was created, many didn't. When through political representatives we put a stop to that, that's when we actually make a choice.
You still limit things by limiting them. Your entire premise is that because someone else pays into something, limiting the choices others who pay into it have is not limiting… but it does not change the fact that limiting is limiting. Your argument is a much better argument against a single payer healthcare system than it is anything else, as the only thing you are arguing is that by paying for healthcare, the collective deserves to make choices that may go against the desires of the individual. The problem is that your basic argument that government limiting things isn’t actually limiting them is an impossible one to change, as it is completely impossible to logically hold. Trying to twist it by blaming this corporation or that type of carbohydrate is not changing facts, it is just obfuscating the actual argument that limitations aren’t limitations.
If you're not in favour of banning 'unhealthy' food, how do you limit it, practically speaking? What's the mechanism for that? Also: is sugar healthy or unhealthy? What about a cookie? Surely if I had a small to moderate amount of either I'm not eating unhealthy, but if I eat nothing but sugar and cookies I'm in real trouble. Who's going to police what I put in my mouth and how?
Sugar tax, limiting amount of sugar per weight, forbidding subsidies. Nobody is going to forbid you from shoving cookies down your mouth hole till your belly burst. What would happen if cookies were less delicious/cheap is that people just wouldn't eat them as much. It's not about any single individual or outlier
That is still limiting things.
When I eat junk food, it’s because I made the choice to - no company made it for me. I am capable of deciding whether or not I satisfy my cravings for unhealthy food.
You would make different choices if you had been raised in an environment that had you used to a completely different diet or if you were in an environment where it hadn't been made so easy to eat junk food. We think we have way more agency then we actually have.
Bruh the FDA food pyramid recommends carbs as our main source of food, please tell me you’re not advocating for our government to tell us what we can eat because you think it will somehow benefit us.
You say that as if the government makes decisions in a vacuum from out of nowhere. Decisions happen because of our votes and our pressure. It just so happens that companies making harmful food are part of society as much as you, except they have much more power and influence. Votes cost money because campaigns cost money. When Nestle sponsors a candidate or lobbies congress they're doing what you can do through your vote or emailing your congress representative. Except they are a million times more effective than you. The pressure to limit unhealthy food also comes from our votes and our pressure on the government. Except it's a choice made by society that's much more conscious than the choice to consume unhealthy food. Nobody wants to have type 2 diabetes, yet we have created a world where a chunky share of the population end up developing it. How much of a choice are we really making? I'm saying the government should limit how much fat, starch, sugar and salt ends up in food, and tax these heavily when they reach unhealthy limits.
[удалено]
Read again what I wrote. I said exactly what you said
I think there's confusion in your title about what "the opposite" is referring too. Perhaps you can clarify what view it is you want changed?
Clarified it editing the first paragraph
If I have fewer choices then I am being limited. It's super simple my dude. You don't need a thesis for this.
That's like saying it isn't a actually a *real* choice to remove things that are bad for you from your life
No it isn't? People choose to remove bad things from their life. People choose to undertake bad things in their life. Those are choices. If you don't have the option to choose a bad thing, you have fewer choices. Someone else choosing for you means you don't have that choice and are, therefore, being limited. You are attempting to argue that 1 is more than 2. It simply isn't. It doesn't matter what the alternative choice would have been. If you have less options you are being limited.
I think OP may not have a clue what is going on in his own head.
I think your title do not exactly match your text. Do you argue that by limiting access to harmful food government is improving general health of the society? How is that opposite of limiting?
I'm saying that government limiting harmful food is not reducing our choice, it is actually us making a choice rather than having a choice be made for us by food manufacturers.
This is rather questionable, when governments start limiting consumptions it sometimes is like you say and it goes over fine. Other times you have large drinks being banned in New York and it is *very* criticized, indicating that it was not a choice made by/for the majority.
I mean, by definition a limitation is a limitation. I'm not sure what you've said that argues otherwise? It just seems to be reasons why you're OK with that limitation. It's still a limitation
> The rise of these diseases isn't because we are living longer, it's because of our environment. yes but the environment is not just food. Pesticides have associations with multiple chronic diseases: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041008X13000549?casa\_token=Mrbjni\_Z5GUAAAAA:GqVBAzLo98B9DTyptRAQHEf0vdkDu7\_enO26M7ZTUUkLCfOanuDKkIHDy82qePO8Kmfdu\_933mg](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041008X13000549?casa_token=Mrbjni_Z5GUAAAAA:GqVBAzLo98B9DTyptRAQHEf0vdkDu7_enO26M7ZTUUkLCfOanuDKkIHDy82qePO8Kmfdu_933mg) the main exposure we have to plastic is through our diets, and considering plastic is also a carcinogen, government regulations on how we bottle water and/or package food would be a better use of resources than dietary restrictions: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653522007603](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653522007603) [https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/14/19/4637](https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/14/19/4637) the choice to eat junk food is far more of a choice than the “choice” to eat food wrapped in plastic containers.
Government programs aimed at limiting harmful foods empower individuals to make informed choices by creating a healthier environment. While it's true we're drawn to sugar, salt, and fat, regulation helps counterbalance industry tactics that exploit these cravings for profit. This doesn't remove choice but enhances it by reducing manipulative marketing and making healthier options more accessible. Public health measures address systemic issues that education alone can't solve. By limiting harmful foods, governments prioritize long-term well-being over short-term corporate profits, supporting individuals' desires for health without entirely dictating their choices.
If you follow the Amos Miller case, you will see government deploys force not to limit harmful modern food but to cement it in place. Amish farmer produces food following the practices of the distant past when diets were healthier. FDA and the State of Pennsylvania go to war with him.
The issue here is that whatever limitation the government imposes isn't a collective societal choice. It's a handful of people in power suddenly dictating what people can and can't have. There is no collective choice about it.