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stevenAthompson10/12/20241 replyview on HN

I interpreted your original comment differently. Based on the votes so did others. At no point did you suggest banning Coca-Cola, or otherwise limiting calorie dense foods. Instead it seemed that you were advocating a return to some mythical past when food was more like it is for wild animals.

I wonder if you confused this thread with another? Or maybe your sarcasm was misinterpreted?


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jodrellblank10/15/2024

I didn't confuse this thread with another; from the parent comments we have "diet and exercise works but nobody can do it because it's really hard" to "we can't do it because we have to think all the time about resisting ultra processed junk food" to my comment "we wouldn't have to think all the time about it, if we didn't have it".

I do see how it looks like a return to caveman times, and was unnecessarily sarcastic. Practically, the times when I don't have junk food in the cupboards, I don't have to think constantly about resisting junk food because there isn't any to eat and that makes a difference. Extending that out to national levels, schools shouldn't have vending machines full of junk food, hospitals shouldn't have coffee chains, coffee chains should have restrictions on how much sugar can be in coffee, soda shouldn't be a thing, breakfast cereals shouldn't be a thing, and keep going as far as necessary. In the argument between Nanny state and Laissez-faire it's very clear that the food industry will kill millions of people and ruin the quality of life of billions millions, hiding behind smiley friendly packaging, exploiting human biases in ways we have no defenses against, and it's not nanny-stating to regulate killers harshly.

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