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Topic: Is it the end of fast food as we know it? (Read 2543 times) |
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Bass
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Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« on: 2006-11-05 13:12:36 » |
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Here is something interesting to consider, and perhaps which I am more able to understand better then most of the other things I often bring up here.
Okay I saw a report on some current affair program, they all look the same and I heard a question that I thought was a very very good topic for discussion at some point in time. It was simply
"A law should be passed that would only allow fast food and other unhealthy indulgences to only be allowed to be sold one day a week?"
Isn't this against human rights in some way?
A pretty silly statement overall but it does have merit. Obesity is getting worse and worse every year and apparently 20 years ago there was no such thing as type 2 diabeties. Aparently it was created by our change of lifestyle and the food we eat.
Here are some statistics from the USA, but Australia is second only to them in obesity and we are apparently very close to them in our figures.
"Between 1980 and 2000, obesity in Australian men rose by 80 percent, while the rate among women rose 2½ times.
Experts estimate 25 per cent of children and young people are overweight or obese, taking the number to about 1.5 million" http://www.ourcivilisation.com/diet/fatkids.htm
Would limiting public avialibility of Fast Food fix or cause more problems? I think it would definately help make people less obese and bring down diabeties dianosis. But it could cause Fast Food to become something that would be illegally trafficed just like drugs and like alcohol in America during the 1920's.
Even if this is a stupid idea, the severity of the problem it is trying to fix isn't. The normal socially acceptable bodywieght is becoming larger and larger and scientist beleive that it is a tread that could lead to nearly everyone being obese in the future, oh no what about the women?
For those who don't care if you are less healthy another argument comes up in the fact that it will effect our economy. Because more people will be going to hospital for an increasing amount of health problems. Taxes are going to get higher and higher.
Last point is that this bad health is already being passed down in our genes. It has been reported that kid have been born that very quickly developed diabeties without even developing much of a lifestyle that causes it. These kids became sensitive to bad food because their parents had basically changed the pattern of behaviour in the genes they passed down.
How to address the obesity epidemic...free diet pills for all?
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Hermit
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #1 on: 2006-11-05 14:15:08 » |
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Ban sweetened "breakfast cereals", introducing cooking classes at schools, increase the time available for meal times, and brutally cutting television will solve this - and many other issues too.
Try to figure out my reasoning. Ask if you don't think you can. Now consider the likelihood of such a program being introduced.
Of course, the extreme availability of sweet products was and is driven by cheap corn syrup, which was and is driven by cheap fuel. So it seems likely that one consequence of the coming "Long Emergency" (Refer [ "The Long Emergency", James Howard Kunstler, Grove Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8021-4249-4 ]) is that we can expect to see the problem of obesity being solved, shortly before people start dying of malnutrition. Everyone else will then be too busy trying to survive to be able to afford time to sit in front of a TV set.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Bass
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #2 on: 2006-11-07 08:55:04 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-11-05 14:15:08
Ban sweetened "breakfast cereals", introducing cooking classes at schools, increase the time available for meal times, and brutally cutting television will solve this - and many other issues too. |
I would agree somewhat, but add, yeah, start young, now. Make programs available that promote such healthy eating and lifestyle.
And for sure make it more accessible and more low cost, to help in that.
To promote such lifesyle, they could bring up a program that helps in “less developed” nations, where you could be buying certain items, or from certain places that actually donate or bring up the fact that there are millions (or even billions) of other people less fortunate and malnourished, and so make them look at themselves in a different way. Since, sometimes it’s like people in more “developed” places are “spoiled” and don’t even think that, or don’t care.
Either way, we would have to start now, in small steps to address this issue, among a whole lot of other “developed” issues, or issues ignorned, and to bring it about in a positive way, that would help children learn to respect one another in what they do, how they are, etc. Because it’s always seems like the old “dinosaurs” that are so called running countries are just looking for ways to help themselves, monatarily, for longer terms, or shortcuts to obvious answers.
Pretty much everything always comes down to what propanganda is going around, whether it’s through the media or what people call advertising. That’s what it is, just some company trying to sell you something. And that’s kind of sad that people seem lost in this imaginary state or society, where people may get lost in themselves or not care about others. And to remedy that advertising (by Governments and such) could play a role in helping people be more aware of what’s really important, insert your thoughts here, that could be advertising good healthy living with themselves and others.
Quote from: Hermit on 2006-11-05 14:15:08 | Try to figure out my reasoning. Ask if you don't think you can. Now consider the likelihood of such a program being introduced. |
Don't really know if what I said would be your reasoning here, but hey I tryed.
Cheers.
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Hermit
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #3 on: 2006-11-07 12:11:38 » |
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You are getting there. Breakfast cereals are how most people are taught to prefer insanely sweetened foods (and note that even the "healthy", "reduced calorie" breakfast cereals in the US are likely to contain more sugar than the same brand of regular cereal in the rest of the world. Research. The Internet is your friend.
Obesity in the US is strongly linked to the introduction of cheap cane sugar, and developed as a problem as people who ate this crap grew sideways. In addition the explosion of people living in front of their TV was a late 1960s and early 1970s phenomenon. When watching American TV, you continuously see people eating, drinking and marketing high calorie substances (that should not be called food), laden with salt, sugars and fats. In addition to this "hunger inducing" visual fare, when watching TV the likelihood is that you are not getting much exercise. The combination is deadly.
Most people don't have a clue about nutrition, energy needs, calorie intake, food preparation or presentation. All of which can make a critical difference in combating obesity. Most people don't want to be hippos, they just grow that way because they don't know any better. In addition, school lunches tend to be lousy from both a presentation and a nutritional perspective. If schools taught proper food preparation - and I'm talking cordon bleu here, as well as nutrition, they would have to up their standards dramatically. Home cooking would take a turn for the better too. So the improvement would occur at multiple levels.
When you eat off properly sized, properly presented plates, and eat in a civilized manner with knife and fork, savoring the food and drink, and discussing things between bites, it takes much longer. But you enjoy it more and eat far less. Do some digging on how long the French take over lunch and you will begin to understand why seeing a fat person in France - at least, in urban France, is unusual, while in America, where everyone seems to snatch bites from hamburgers while doing something else - or gobbles off trays on their laps while lounging in front of TV sets, the opposite is the case. Like most of the things I say, which are not qualified, there is research supporting these statements.
As for subsidizing food, this may not necessary in the short term (if the above steps happened quality foodstuffs would drop in price), and may not be possible in the long term (when the long emergency is going to change more things than just food availability), although a simple tax charged at the till on the worst food and a rebate - also applied to the till on the best food makes sense. Indeed, in most places it already exists, although poorly implemented. Sales Tax/Value Added Tax tends to be lower or absent on "staple products." You might consider how this could be implemented. Hint, think about how one might overcome the massive opposition you would face from the existing calorie-pushers.
Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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David Lucifer
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #4 on: 2006-11-07 14:14:01 » |
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Legislation is seldom the solution to social problems, especially victimless "crimes" like obesity. It seems advocates forget that legislation is enforced by force. Laws give the right to law enforcement officers to use violence or the threat of violence against transgressors. Do you really want to use that against people that consume too many calories? (I mean other than the entertainment value of watching an episode of Cops where they take down a guy eating a cheeseburger on the wrong day.)
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Mermaid
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #5 on: 2006-11-07 15:24:06 » |
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Quote from: David Lucifer on 2006-11-07 14:14:01 Legislation is seldom the solution to social problems, especially victimless "crimes" like obesity. It seems advocates forget that legislation is enforced by force. Laws give the right to law enforcement officers to use violence or the threat of violence against transgressors. Do you really want to use that against people that consume too many calories? (I mean other than the entertainment value of watching an episode of Cops where they take down a guy eating a cheeseburger on the wrong day.)
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it really upsets me when the govt starts telling people what and how to eat. in the us, the govt has banned the sale of foie gras in chicago. the foie gras drama just ended in california. i find this unacceptable.
on the other hand, use of transfats is now banned in nyc restaurants. which means that fast food chains are no longer using the 'bad fats' for the deep fried items in the menu. i am somewhat in favour of this rather than the foie gras ban. when a govt bans transfats in restaurants(as opposed to the sale of transfats or use of transfats in home kitchens), there is some amount of legislation towards healthy eating..and yes, the govt decides what is healthy for the general public which is not an ideal situation...but restaurants as licensed eateries are bound by certain regulations and i am ok with that kind of legislation.
i am also in favour of the ruling that bans soft drinks in schools. i applaud that kind of govt interference. children shouldnt be guzzling soft drinks. maybe a little diluted wine at the dinner table...that would keep them 'calm' and well behaved, but i digress. obviously, parents in america are not in control. i recall a woman telling me how she was inspired by a mother from norway..she was interviewed on television and something came up about child rearing. the american interviewer was surprised that she doesnt have peanut butter in her pantry and the woman replied..'why should they have peanut butter'...or something to that effect suggesting that children dont need peanut butter and it wasnt healthy for them. compare this to the average northern american child for whom PBJ is the daily lunch fare. i think something fundamental has to change upon the tables of america.
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Hermit
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #6 on: 2006-11-07 16:30:16 » |
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Dear David,
The cost of obesity related disease is currently borne by society as a whole, where the profits are made by the shareholders and owners of the producers, purveyors and proliferators of obesity promoting products. So the "benefits" of sale are private, and some portion of the costs of sale are public, as we are already heavily taxed for obesity in the form of health and mortality costs. The tax is just indirect and thus not particularly visible to those paying it (or the bulging consumers ingesting it).
It is my opinion that the state is justified in intervening under such circumstances, in order either to prevent the loss of usable beneficent commons or to prevent too great a diversity which leads directly and along remarkably short paths to social instability. The cost of which is again borne by all of society and which is almost invariably greater than the costs of intervention. This being the case taxation is in fact justified, and naturally, enabling legislation is required to manage that in order to minimize the cost and the harm of collection.
It is also my opinion, that while indirect, very low rate, widely collected and flat rate taxes are preferable for general revenue generation, direct and visible taxation is always preferable for behaviour management as that, once the cost becomes sufficient, tends most rapidly to result in the desired behavior modifications. This is why I strongly advocate tax revenues being raised through transaction taxes, alternate capital taxes (which apply if the total transaction tax paid by an asset holder is less than the transaction taxes on some portion of the assets held, when an "asset camping" tax becomes payable), use taxes (i.e. rate[current use]*area in use or rate[current use]*tonnage extracted or rate[current use]*volume extracted), and sales levies, with the transaction and alternate taxes being an invisible, flat, money collection mechanism and the use and sales taxes intended primarily to regulate social behaviours.
In such an environment, disbursements from the public purse should always take the form of a direct payments, making subsidies visible to all. Subsidies may be used to encourage or discourage behaviours, as well as to alleviate special hardships. The general tax base should be used for tax-source-neutral public goods (hospitals, government, security, pensions, welfare, etc).
The transfer of tax revenues to subsidize "staple foods" is already a legal reality that might be improved without requiring enabling legislation if it were necessary. As such, legislation affecting the price of obesity stimulating products and behaviours requires no more violence than is already inherent in any tax system.
Violence, sure. All government is merely institutionalized violence, but up to some fairly high degree of ineptitude and brutality, it is better than all of the alternatives we have recorded attempting. The noble savage is invariably more savage than noble.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Ophis
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #7 on: 2006-11-09 17:25:33 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-11-07 16:30:16
The cost of obesity related disease is currently borne by society as a whole, (...) as we are already heavily taxed for obesity in the form of health and mortality costs. |
This argument doesn't make sense to me. Whatever costs this "society" incurs when I go to the hospital are only charged to the group because its directors have decided they want to cover those costs. If the costs are judged to be too high, management simply needs to take a step back and announce they won't be covering these particular expenses... just like any other insurer would do.
Leaving me to cover the costs incurred as a consequence of my actions would provide me with a perfect incentive to think before acting. This is called taking responsibility for oneself.
Instead, I am being fed a paternalistic rhetoric about how I do not eat, drink, dress, drive, work, entertain, etc., properly and how I supposedly hurt "society" when doing so. Lysander Spooner would be quite distressed! (see: http://lysanderspooner.org/VicesAreNotCrimes.htm)
Quote:| Violence, sure. All government is merely institutionalized violence, but up to some fairly high degree of ineptitude and brutality, it is better than all of the alternatives we have recorded attempting. The noble savage is invariably more savage than noble. |
Nice words, but in the end, violence is violence. Just because we have institutionalized it in a giant rabid bull-dog called "government", doesn't mean we should make any more use of it; after all, I'm sure most of us would agree that the "noble savages" who run this institution are invariably more savage than noble. Excusing violence done to me just because it is being performed by the particular group of people who claim to have a monopolistic right to it, simply stinks of Stockholm syndrome to me.
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Hermit
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #8 on: 2006-11-09 20:35:59 » |
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Ophis,
I understand you are talking primarily about the US system rather than a publicly funded health system, so I'll address just that. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Let me begin by saying that in the USA, obesity is considered a handicap, so avoiding hiring, insuring or providing services to the obese is considered discriminatory, against Federal law and can be steeply penalized if proven. The cost to anyone proved to have engaged in discrimination (including a pattern of behaviour type proof) is likely to outweigh any relatively small benefits obtained.
Cost of treatments, even palliative treatments, are invariably cheaper than the cost of premature death to society, particularly as even the morbidly obese tend to imagine that they have a right to whatever life they have. When society deprives them of it, by refusing them treatment and support, like anyone else, they and their nearest and dearest tend to cause trouble, trouble which costs far more than the cost of providing care - so long as we are talking a reasonably small fraction of society. When it becomes a larger fraction, the costs escalate, but the necessity to provide care also increases. Which is one reason why we live in societies.
Now let us evaluate how this forms a tax upon all the members of society.
First, from a simple tax perspective, all hospitals are subsidized in innumerable ways. These costs are shared by all tax payers. Thus an individual's risk-taking is effectively distributed across the population. When sufficient people engage in high risk activities, our costs increase and tax revenues need to be increased or funding for other activities decreased.
From a micro-economic perspective, any dollar spent on health care is a dollar not spent on the expansion of production. Health-care, like the provision of security services, is not productive. Indeed, as I said, it is a tax upon productivity. An unavoidable tax at that. Every time somebody with management or production skills dies or retires or even worse, is unable to work for random periods of time at unexpected intervals, without working his or her full expected life, a tax is imposed upon the whole of society, because investments in schooling, training and many other life-expenses are subsidized by society and are effectively amortised over the full expected working career*. Reduced lifespans severely skew those equations due to the exponential effect of the time value of money.
Then too, the company for which s/he worked loses access to his or her skills and has to train somebody else. While the direct cost is born by the employer entity, the company, coworkers, shareholders and ultimately the customers or clients and thus society as a whole are taxed by the discontinuity, transitional period of inefficiency and ultimately, all the costs involved. Usually insurance companies become involved (not speaking of medical insurance yet, but rather of term insurance) and because insurance is predicated upon averages, those people without problems sponsor those who have problems - and given enough people with issues, every-one's premiums will increase, while the benefits undoubtedly will not.
Another significant factor is that so long as coverage is continuous, medical insurers are generally prohibited from excluding people from coverage or charging variant rates for differentiated risks. Even when new insureds and people with interrupted insurance are taken on with preexisting conditions, there are routes, expensive but available, to obtain state assisted coverage for a period, usually a year, irrespective of condition, where-after the insurers have to accept those people without exclusions and without differentiated rates. This means that when someone eats their way to an early grave, that their fellow insureds end up funding their stupidity. In effect, we are all taxed for any-one's poor choices.
I should add perhaps that there are some other unavoidable obesity taxes born by society. For example, we don't like having to step over dead or dying people, on our way to and fro upon our business, besides which corpses are unhygienic and need taking care of in order to prevent worse catastrophes, even, perhaps especially, when they are obese; which, nolens volens (willy-nilly), induces others to care for them, if for no other reason than the pragmatic. In addition, like it or not, widows, widowers and orphans also tend to run to high maintenance, and so tend to be much more expensive to society than non-bereaved families. So we can't avoid the "costs" by simply refusing to pay them while the obese are alive. Even if society does not possess any empathy beyond its wallet, the taxes continue and indeed tend to become heavier, after the uncared-for afflicted shuffle off this mortal coil. Which is why societies with numerate citizens tend to provide social benefits including health care. It is cheaper (as well as nicer) than the alternatives.
I agree that it is possible that somebody might attempt to advance the argument that exiling the obese would be cheaper than caring for them. This goes for infants and the elderly too. Some might even agree that this makes perfect sense from an aesthetic perspective, but the net financial effect on society is similar to death. In any case, if there were enough people prejudiced against, the cost of policing and managing the resultant unrest stemming from dissatisfied relatives and friends will probably exceed any savings that might be effected by such a policy.
Which is what I said, and you disagreed. Now that you have my argument in more detail, would you reconsider your disagreement?
Then Opis spattered some pixels in order to say, "in the end, violence is violence."
Now it is my turn to disagree. Like most things in life, violence comes in many shades and usually we are in a position of choosing not between black and white, but between murky and murkier shades of grey.
The Parable of Bubba
Let's say that a group of large savage, syphilitic rapists, all possessed of huge, exposed, throbbing tools, clearly much bolstered by years of taking or applying potions and engaging in practices described all too graphically in emails that arrive in an unending stream at every server on the Internet, have surrounded you in a dark alley. Let us further assume that they all find your *ss hole irresistibly attractive, and having spent all their money ordering penis enhancement products, they have nothing left over for lubricant.
Through this motley crew, somehow reminiscent of a convocation of lawyers, steps a tax collector, embodying all the violence of the state should you not cooperate with him. He delicately avoids the bobbing, dripping dicks surrounding you, as he is nicely attired in a grey silk suit (impossible to remove semen stains). He requests, very politely, a contribution to his coffers - after which, he assures you that he will dispatch some appropriately violent people to take care of the gang surrounding you. He assures you that plastic is acceptable. How many seconds will you hesitate before deciding that one form of violence might not be equal to another???
The Moral
As I said, not all violence is equal. We may be brutal apes, but we are brutal apes who have learned (and it is programmed into us), that socialization is much cheaper and infinitely safer than playing the rogue. All social experience has a cost. As the graphic parable above was intended to show, some costs are much easier to bear than others. It is all a matter of choice.
Regards
Hermit
*Please don't attempt to argue that rather than absorbing these costs, that the subsidies should be withdrawn, because it is conclusive to all but the innumerate and willfully ignorant (and possibly some Republicans, but I repeat mysef), that e.g. the entire population profits when the average level of education increases, and the benefit to society in actual dollar amounts far exceeds the relatively small investment required to allow anyone in society to maximise their education in so far as this is possible.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Ophis
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #9 on: 2006-11-10 23:05:13 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-11-09 20:35:59 | I understand you are talking primarily about the US system rather than a publicly funded health system, so I'll address just that. Please correct me if I am wrong. |
My previous post was not specific to any particular country or system. If anything, my comments are even more relevant for countries with a government that forces its population to adhere to a socialized health system.
Quote:| Cost of treatments, even palliative treatments, are invariably cheaper than the cost of premature death to society, particularly as even the morbidly obese tend to imagine that they have a right to whatever life they have. |
What is this "cost of premature death" you speak of? Also, if individuals do not have a right to live, what other rights might we have? That being said, one's right to live does not automatically become someone else's obligation to provide.
Quote:| When society deprives them [obese individuals] of it [the right to life?], by refusing them treatment and support, like anyone else, they and their nearest and dearest tend to cause trouble, trouble which costs far more than the cost of providing care |
There is a difference between depriving and not providing. Once again, if society's regents no longer have an appetite for funding health care, they are under no obligation to do so. That would be "not providing"; and that is totally acceptable.
When these same bureaucrats decide to use their weapons to forcefully prevent someone from getting care, that would fall under the "depriving" category. It would also be the initiation of violence, which is totally unacceptable.
Quote:| Now let us evaluate how this forms a tax upon all the members of society. |
Let's.
Quote:| First, from a simple tax perspective, all hospitals are subsidized in innumerable ways. These costs are shared by all tax payers. Thus an individual's risk-taking is effectively distributed across the population. When sufficient people engage in high risk activities, our costs increase and tax revenues need to be increased or funding for other activities decreased. |
I don't disagree that hospitals are subsidized, but nothing is forcing the government to do so. The bosses who run the government justify imposing their taxes on individuals by offering some set of services; but when these services turn out to be too costly, instead of adjusting the offer to what they can cover, these bureaucrats decide to take out the stick again and tell us what to and what not to eat. This is perverse.
Quote:| From a micro-economic perspective, any dollar spent on health care is a dollar not spent on the expansion of production. Health-care, like the provision of security services, is not productive. Indeed, as I said, it is a tax upon productivity. An unavoidable tax at that. |
This is neither here nor there. Using the word "tax" in this different context (tax on productivity vs. imposed government taxation) only adds confusion to this discussion.
Quote:| Every time somebody with management or production skills dies or retires or even worse, is unable to work for random periods of time at unexpected intervals, without working his or her full expected life, a tax is imposed upon the whole of society, because investments in schooling, training and many other life-expenses are subsidized by society and are effectively amortised over the full expected working career*. Reduced lifespans severely skew those equations due to the exponential effect of the time value of money. |
Forgive me for dying too quickly, I don't mean to! But thank you for providing a good example of the socialist calculation impossibility. I'm a little taken by surprise by the content of this quote and the few paragraphs that followed it... My understanding of your argument is this: Government bureaucrats (aka "society") want to help me, by subsidizing hospitals, subsidizing schools, regulating insurance companies, etc., but I'm not making this task easy on them by being sick, different, fat, intelligent, dead, vegan, disobedient, etc. So the solution is for government to slap me with a stick in order for me to fall back in line so I can be helped efficiently? I'd like to cancel my subscription please.
Quote:| In effect, we are all taxed for any-one's poor choices. |
That sums it up pretty well. The solution is simple: stop meddling in everyone's personal business and you won't be impacted when their choices turn out to be "poor". Besides, who's to tell me a-priori that my choice is "good" or "poor"?
Quote:| Now that you have my argument in more detail, would you reconsider your disagreement? |
I still think that taxing and legislating against fast food is an unnecessary and harmful act of coercion against the actual people who make up "society".
Quote:Then Opis spattered some pixels in order to say, "in the end, violence is violence."
Now it is my turn to disagree. Like most things in life, violence comes in many shades and usually we are in a position of choosing not between black and white, but between murky and murkier shades of grey. |
I didn't say that there cannot be different degrees of violence. What I'm saying is that regardless of the degree, violence is something we want to minimize in our lives.
Quote:| The Parable of Bubba(...) |
Your parable of Bubba doesn't do a very good job at highlighting the fact that that someone initiates the use of violence against someone else. The person being violated will most likely need to resort to the use of violence in order to deter his/her attacker. Again, if you value peaceful cooperation and exchange, what you want to do is minimize the use of violence. That doesn't mean there won't be any, but it does imply that you'll have a hard time to justify *initiating* violence against someone else.
Quote:The Moral
As I said, not all violence is equal. We may be brutal apes, but we are brutal apes who have learned (and it is programmed into us), that socialization is much cheaper and infinitely safer than playing the rogue. All social experience has a cost. As the graphic parable above was intended to show, some costs are much easier to bear than others. It is all a matter of choice. |
Forgive me if I'm too tired after a long productive day in the service of "society", but I'm just not able to find a line of reasoning in this paragraph. Yet, I agree with your final message: "It is all a matter of choice".
So please don't take away my choice of what I want to eat for breakfast. And if you think that my unhealthy lifestyle has an impact on your finances, I am happy to relieve you of any obligations you might feel you have towards me.
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Hermit
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #10 on: 2006-11-11 02:03:07 » |
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[Hermit] Please understand any tone that follows a consequence of this:
[Ophis] My understanding of your argument is this: Government bureaucrats (aka "society") want to help me, by subsidizing hospitals, subsidizing schools, regulating insurance companies, etc., but I'm not making this task easy on them by being sick, different, fat, intelligent, dead, vegan, disobedient, etc. So the solution is for government to slap me with a stick in order for me to fall back in line so I can be helped efficiently? I'd like to cancel my subscription please.
[Ophis] My previous post was not specific to any particular country or system. If anything, my comments are even more relevant for countries with a government that forces its population to adhere to a socialized health system.
[Hermit] Odd. I've stayed in many countries, and I can't remember any that "forced" me to "adhere to a socialized health system", not that I think I would have minded particularly, but can you give an example of a country like this? Does the degree of "force" include not permittting people to leave the country for treatment? The way the US has barred its citizens from seeking the benefits of stem-cell therapies or obtaining low cost pharmaceuticals or even effective pain suppressants? Or did you mean something else?
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[Ophis] I don't disagree that hospitals are subsidized, but nothing is forcing the government to do so
[Hermit] I can always tell a person who, when somebody can't say which medical insurance will be covering their fees (whether due to a lack of insurance or consciousness), suggests that rather than loading the patient into an accident, s/he be left to bleed in the road (moving the victim to the gutter could be construed as providing a service). Do you have your medical insurance number tatooed somewhere, or did you take the more cost effective approach of having DNR tatooed across your chest? Either way, please arrange to donate your cornea after you are dead and no longer need them? Or is that also too socialist an idea for you to swallow (society prevents you from selling them in order to protect you from the dreaded cornea thieves, so they have no market value.).
<snip>
[Ophis] This is neither here nor there. Using the word "tax" in this different context (tax on productivity vs. imposed government taxation) only adds confusion to this discussion.
<snap - pointless discussing at cross purposes.>
[Hermit] I suggest that it most certainly is both here as well as there. "Tax" as originally used in this thread was meant in the sense of "burthen." An unnecessary load we all bear. I thought this was quite clear from the context, as while most every country I have lived in has had income taxes, sales taxes or value added taxes, excise taxes, etc. I never yet heard of an "obesity tax." Not that that it might not be a good idea.
<snip>
[Ophis] That would be "not providing"; and that is totally acceptable.
[Hermit] Actually, medical ethics prevent this. Needed care cannot be denied. Should this case arise, ethical doctors would have to cease practice and even the quasi-ethical would have to have their calls filtered by somebody who is not a medical professional (already being done on a fairly wide scale) who performs the necessary financial triage.
<snap>
[Ophis] What is this "cost of premature death" you speak of?
[Hermit] The costs of premature death are many. Here is an easy one to figure out; most other costs are much higher, but somewhat trickier to calculate (e.g. Assuming insuffcient insurance (usually, especially when young) what happens when daddy dies and mommy has been staying at home looking after kids? A tax is imposed, no? A brief glimpse at some actuarial tables tells you that this happens horribly often). Now go to a few funerals. Count the cars in the procession. Observe the average age. If of working age, then figure $7.58 ((Calculated as $54,061 median family income 2004/3,566 median family working hours 2002)/2 working family members) * 2 ppl (people tend to go to funerals with others) * 4 hrs (average time off for a funeral) * number of cars, yielding a reasonable approximation of direct economic loss. Econometrix data obtained from http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm?id=2499
[Ophis] Also, if individuals do not have a right to live, what other rights might we have?
[Hermit] Do you have a right to medical treatment? Let's think. Median US income, about $15,000 (2004). Average cost of Medical Insurance, $ 2,400/year - just a little less than unaffordable. About 45% of American households have no insurance. In the Ophis model, if they break a leg do they have to be shot? Now consider that a simple and common procedure, a straightforward bypass with no complications - Average cost of bypass surgery (CABG): $24,000 (2000). Does the median American have a right to life?
<chomp>
[Hermit] Perhaps now we hopefully have a common perspective you might like to try again. Then again, we might agree that our views are cross grained and leave it at that.
[Hermit] Sorry you found the parable too convoluted, but as long as we can agree, chacun à son goût (that every man has his own preferences (choices)) and that this is a good idea , then I'm sure that you can also recognize that the predictable violence delegated by the population to be the province of the state, in order, largely, to attempt to prevent worse, is, in any reasonable society, likely to be rather less brutal, even though it is probably more certain (at least should the conditions releasing it be met), than the violence offered by random wandering Alpha males, and therefore state violence is more likely to leave you with viable choices after a close encounter of the violent persuasion. If you can't then perhaps you should stock up on weapons and seek an hermitage, as society is, by and large, consequential on making precisely this choice.
If we can't agree on at least this, then I suspect we should just agree to disagree, lest we bore the world and ourselves.
Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Bass
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I'm a llama!
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #11 on: 2006-11-11 11:42:56 » |
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Well this has become....interesting. Alittle more then I was looking for but interesting none the less.
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Ophis
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #12 on: 2006-11-11 14:14:34 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-11-11 02:03:07
[Hermit] Please understand any tone that follows a consequence of this: |
There was no intent to offense in my reply, nor did I feel offended by the tone of your reply. Please accept my apologies if indeed you find that I was unduly aggressive in my previous posts.
Quote:| Odd. I've stayed in many countries, and I can't remember any that "forced" me to "adhere to a socialized health system", not that I think I would have minded particularly, but can you give an example of a country like this? |
Try to withhold payment of the taxes that the government demands in order to provide you with health care services and you'll soon witness what I mean by the use of force.
Quote:| Does the degree of "force" include not permitting people to leave the country for treatment? The way the US has barred its citizens from seeking the benefits of stem-cell therapies or obtaining low cost pharmaceuticals or even effective pain suppressants? Or did you mean something else? |
The particular use of force I refer to is the use of the government's might to impose arbitrary restrictions on the voluntary exchange of healthcare services and on personal actions (like eating fast food) that do not have any direct consequences on other people.
I understand that you have been wanting to convince me that my illness or my death could be considered a "cost" to "society", but I don't buy it. Any action has its opportunity cost and it is not up to "society" or up to a bunch of congressmen to decide how I value my actions. The costs of my actions falls squarely on me. If my choice of action causes any harm to someone else, that person is entitled to demonstrate that harm and claim compensation for damages I might have caused. I cannot agree that I cause you harm by shortening my life-span when eating Captain Crunch cereals in the morning (I tried to pick the worse cereal brand I could think of here). If that were the case, then there would be such a impossible web of mutual liabilities as to make even the most benign action an act of aggression against someone else. Come to think of it, I'm sure I'm not helping my eyesight by staring at an old CRT monitor all day.
Quote:| [Hermit]I can always tell a person who, when somebody can't say which medical insurance will be covering their fees (whether due to a lack of insurance or consciousness), suggests that rather than loading the patient into an accident, s/he be left to bleed in the road (moving the victim to the gutter could be construed as providing a service). |
Ah, but this is a different debate. Here you talk about providing charity (services at no fee) for people who might not be able to provide for themselves. We probably wouldn't agree on how that should be done either, but it is not the same discussion as whether or not the government should legislate against fast food. I realize that as soon as the government takes on the mandate of subsidizing health services it then has an incentive for convincing people to live healthier lives. But once again, wanting to provide charity is not an excuse to justify the initiation of violence (that is the perversion I referred to in a previous post). Having defined the "cost" of obesity to society in terms of the impact that a more or less obese population has on state-subsidized services, if we authorize that government to then forcefully seek to minimize these costs by means of legislation, then the government is allowed to mandate any arbitrary diet of its own choosing on the population. Any deviation from the state-approved diet for any single individual could be considered a "cost to society".
Quote:| [Hermit] Actually, medical ethics prevent this. Needed care cannot be denied. Should this case arise, ethical doctors would have to cease practice and even the quasi-ethical would have to have their calls filtered by somebody who is not a medical professional (already being done on a fairly wide scale) who performs the necessary financial triage. |
Ah, so you are saying that doctors who wish to maintain their reputation and good standing within their profession voluntarily accept to adhere to a code of ethics, which --amongst other things-- would prevent them from letting someone die on the side of the road as you mention in a previous example. I'm starting to detect a possible alternative to having an omnipotent government clumsily attempting to use coercion as a means manage everything.
Quote:| [Hermit] The costs of premature death are many. Here is an easy one to figure out; most other costs are much higher, but somewhat trickier to calculate (e.g. Assuming insuffcient insurance (usually, especially when young) what happens when daddy dies and mommy has been staying at home looking after kids? A tax is imposed, no? A brief glimpse at some actuarial tables tells you that this happens horribly often). Now go to a few funerals. Count the cars in the procession. Observe the average age. If of working age, then figure $7.58 ((Calculated as $54,061 median family income 2004/3,566 median family working hours 2002)/2 working family members) * 2 ppl (people tend to go to funerals with others) * 4 hrs (average time off for a funeral) * number of cars, yielding a reasonable approximation of direct economic loss. Econometrix data obtained from http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm?id=2499 |
Nice. This is the cost of death to the family. Excuse me if it sounds harsh, but I don't see why you and I have to pay for it.
Quote:| [Hermit] Do you have a right to medical treatment? Let's think. Median US income, about $15,000 (2004). Average cost of Medical Insurance, $ 2,400/year - just a little less than unaffordable. About 45% of American households have no insurance. In the Ophis model, if they break a leg do they have to be shot? Now consider that a simple and common procedure, a straightforward bypass with no complications - Average cost of bypass surgery (CABG): $24,000 (2000). Does the median American have a right to life? |
As mentioned in my previous post, your right is not my obligation. We can discuss charity if you want, but I suggest we start another thread for that.
Quote:| If we can't agree on at least this, then I suspect we should just agree to disagree, lest we bore the world and ourselves. |
I agree that we disagree :-) Hopefully without any harsh feelings towards one another.
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Hermit
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #13 on: 2006-11-11 14:51:40 » |
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[Hermit 10] Do you have a right to medical treatment? Let's think. Median US income, about $15,000 (2004). Average cost of Medical Insurance, $ 2,400/year - just a little less than unaffordable. About 45% of American households have no insurance. In the Ophis model, if they break a leg do they have to be shot? Now consider that a simple and common procedure, a straightforward bypass with no complications - Average cost of bypass surgery (CABG): $24,000 (2000). Does the median American have a right to life?
[Ophis 12] As mentioned in my previous post, your right is not my obligation. We can discuss charity if you want, but I suggest we start another thread for that.
[Hermit 13] If you benefit from living in a society, then you have a responsibility to maintain that society. In "civilized" societies, we assume the obligation to care for one another, and in turn can reasonably expect society to care for us. Labeling this relationship as "charity" which raises the concept that it is somehow optional suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of why we live in societies.
[Hermit 10] If we can't agree on at least this, then I suspect we should just agree to disagree, lest we bore the world and ourselves.
[Ophis 12] I agree that we disagree :-) Hopefully without any harsh feelings towards one another.
[Hermit 13] No. No harsh feelings at all. Harsh feelings generally mean that somebody has taken offense, and as offense can never be given (although it can be inferred to be intended), but only taken, it generally reflects a failure on the part of the offended to manage their emotions. Adults know this.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Is it the end of fast food as we know it?
« Reply #14 on: 2006-11-11 16:02:39 » |
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[Hermit 13] If you benefit from living in a society, then you have a responsibility to maintain that society. In "civilized" societies, we assume the obligation to care for one another, and in turn can reasonably expect society to care for us.
[Blunderov] It's done all the time. Compulsory crash helmets and seatbelts save the larger society from avoidable expense and preserve the lives and abilities of accident victims. Anti-smoking legislation is similarly motivated. There are other examples too numerous to mention of the state prescribing what citizens may and may not do in the interests of public safety.
Rationing is a common measure in times of privation. ISTM it would be difficult to demonstrate that it is not equally justifiable in times of plenty ; in both instances it can be claimed that the objective is to ensure that as many people as possible have "enough" to eat in the interests of the greater good. ("Enough" could be thought of in both a positive and a negative sense.)
Best regards.
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