Do not, my friends, become addicted to water

[Broomstick]

And Kane‘s a liar. Cane sugar is not sourced only locally in the First World, so by byuing soft drinks in the First World you are ruining the Third World.

We could use beet sugar - the US state of Michigan is already a major producer as it can be grown there without the need for irrigation (Michigan is not water stressed). After processing, the remaining pulp can be used as cattle feed in lieu of grains people could be eating instead, thereby getting double-use out of the crop. Sugar beets can be grown in temperate areas, unlike cane sugar which is a tropical item.

I'd also like to point out that in the US if you purchase a soft drink (other than a niche group of imports from Mexico and some specialty drinks) you're not getting cane sugar, you're getting high fructose corn syrup which is domestically produced and less expensive than cane sugar. Which doesn't make it healthy, of course, for either humans or the planet overall but a good chunk of that harm is being inflicted on the nation that uses it instead of being exported elsewhere.

There is still the problem of moving water from arid/stressed areas to the First World, whether through crop production, industrial products, or bottled as water.

There ARE times that water in a bottle makes sense, but not for the average person on the average day and not as a "gourmet" item made even more expensive by marketing. It's ludicrous to bottle water and ship it half way around the world when we have perfectly potable locally available water from the tap. If the local water is compromised (Flint, Michigan) then bringing in bottled water starts to make sense, but you can transport that from relatively local sources and bring it in bottles/containers larger than single-serve, you don't have to ship it from Fiji (which Fiji Water actually does - bottle water in Fiji and ship it elsewhere). Personally, I avoid soft drinks and bottled water, brewing my own tea for my lunch at work and using a re-usable bottle, but I'm just one person. Have fun convincing the other 299,999,999 Americans. I can also choose locally produced beet sugar (I consider Michigan local enough for our purposes) as opposed to cane sugar when buying sugar at the store. So on an individual level I can do something but it's just a drop in the ocean - myself alone will not make a difference, even if I feel better about not contributing even more to fucking up the environment.

[K. A. Pital]

Broomstick never have I questioned your personal consumer ethics, it was a general observation. The theory of small deeds does not work, I know that. It just makes you feel better yourself, as a non-contributor to the crisis. Coca Cola Life is made with cane sugar for example, so it is not only foreign brands, not sure if “specialty drink”.

Cane sugar is also used in processed sweets, which are a big factor in the obesity troubles. So not just drinks alone, other bad stuff made from it as well.

[Broomstick]

So its then okay to buy the suffering of another person?

Yes or no?

No, it's not OK.

There have been attempts made for centuries to promote products that lessen cruelty, but so far the results have been mixed. Before the US Civil War there were companies producing and selling sugar produced without slavery (that's how the beet sugar industry got started in the US). Today, we have "fair trade" products, eggs produced by a wide variety of means that claim to be less cruel to chickens, companies producing re-usable water bottles you can fill from your own tap, and so on.... but they haven't supplanted the products they compete against. In part, that's because such products often cost more, and price drives many purchasing decisions. The poorest folks (and the US has several million in dire poverty according to the UN) many simply be unable to afford less cruel products. The companies producing the luxury products have more money to promote how wonderful they are (whether they're wonderful or not - they might even be harmful but marketing sells poison like tobacco so there you are).

So even capitalism can have trouble selling products better for the planet and our fellow human beings. Not sure I have a good answer for that. How do you incentivize better choices?

[Broomstick]

Broomstick never have I questioned your personal consumer ethics, it was a general observation. The theory of small deeds does not work, I know that.

Wasn't taking it that way - but it WOULD be enormous help if the majority of humanity turned away from soft drinks except as an occasional treat and otherwise made better decisions for themselves and the planet

It just makes you feel better yourself, as a non-contributor to the crisis.

It also tends to make me healthier, which is a nice bonus. Problem is, we are programmed by our ancestors' survival traits to want sweet stuff and you have to learn to forgo the sugary stuff. Not everyone has learned that.

Coca Cola Life is made with cane sugar for example, so it is not only foreign brands, not sure if “specialty drink”.

It's considered a specialty in the US grocery business, just like Mexican bottled Coca-Cola (which is made with cane sugar). It's more expensive, it's not as sweet, and it's sweetened with a combination of sugar and stevia, stevia having an off taste to many consumers even if many others perceive it as sweeter than sugar. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the standard HFCS Coca-cola.

Cane sugar is also used in processed sweets, which are a big factor in the obesity troubles. So not just drinks alone, other bad stuff made from it as well.

True. Although, again, many processed foods in the US use HFCS for the simple reason it's cheaper here even as similar goods in Europe and Asia are made using cane sugar. Economics are a big factor here. Of course, there is also the issue of the perceived status and luxury of imported goods driving up demand and consumption of cane sugar products in the US, even as domestically produced products are drenched in HFCS.

Americans (in a general sense) simply consume WAY too much sugar in any form, often without realizing it because it seems to be added to every damn thing.

[K. A. Pital]

Yes, you are right, the poor are also forced to buy abusive products, by the fact of their poverty.

There are no easy answers. The one I offer would not be to your liking, I fear.

Unrestrained consumerism and unrestrained unlimited growth have to end. Western culture of individualism and absolute ignorance of community, pure “fuck you I got mine”, has to be rejected on higher levels of government. Ethics have to be considered. The locals must either be able to strike against the corporations (like in Kerala where Coca Cola poisoned and dried the wells, but the locals won’t stand for it, and stopped the factory), and for that corporate lobbying has to stop, or the locals must have enough to afford all the necessities.

Antiglobalization must happen, and predatory relations must be changed or stopped.

It may not be an easy path, but the alternative is the industrial perpetuation of abuses.

Also as it is possible to live a happy life without soft drinks and junk food, I don’t see a reason not to, well, tax them out of existence, for example.

[ray245]

So its then okay to buy the suffering of another person?

Yes or no?

Moral ethics has nothing to do with it. I'm saying humans are driven to commit actions of self-harm, not whether it is right or wrong to do so.

I don't think we are able to devise a system that could be morally just. We care too much about our self-interest at the expense of our common-interest. All it takes is one selfish person to get everyone else panicking and get into a mad competition to get their share of resources.

[K. A. Pital]

[ray245]

Because I'm not optimistic enough?

[K. A. Pital]

Because you mistake something conditional for an unconditional truth: "We care too much about our self-interest at the expense of our common-interest". You're already lost to the system, as it has convinced you the above, and not only has it done so, but you also think that this is a fundamental truth.

[ray245]

Because you mistake something conditional for an unconditional truth: "We care too much about our self-interest at the expense of our common-interest". You're already lost to the system, as it has convinced you the above, and not only has it done so, but you also think that this is a fundamental truth.

I mean do we have any psychological studies that prove otherwise?

[K. A. Pital]

Do you understand what you have to study, though, the psychology of which humans?

[ray245]

Do you understand what you have to study, though, the psychology of which humans?

I won't presume to know. Work done on Psychological egoism and whether there is an actual scientific consensus about whether true altruism exists?

[Broomstick]

There are no easy answers. The one I offer would not be to your liking, I fear.

Maybe, maybe not. One of my reasons for being uncomfortable in the current US climate is that I am both ruthlessly practical and prefer hybrid economic systems. Socialism is humane in regards to those less able and in avoiding harmful extremes of wealth. Capitalism provides motivation for individuals to perform better and be more efficient and productive. Seems to me they can compliment each other, each moderating the harms of the other while having their own strengths. I'm also not opposed to government encouraging beneficial behavior so long as there remains a voluntary element rather than coercion. For instance, mandatory real sex education and easy availability of birth control by a variety of means, but not forbidding individuals from reproducing if they choose to do so.

Unrestrained consumerism and unrestrained unlimited growth have to end.

Agreed. Where we differ will probably be the methods to achieve that end.

Antiglobalization must happen, and predatory relations must be changed or stopped.

Agreed. Again, I think the main differences between us will be in how to achieve those goals.

Also as it is possible to live a happy life without soft drinks and junk food, I don’t see a reason not to, well, tax them out of existence, for example.

Another suggestion great in theory but a bit more difficult in practice.

The Illinois county directly adjacent to mine instituted a "sweetened beverage tax" last year. This applied to ANY beverage sweetened by ANY means - pure orange juice did not fall under this tax, but "juice cocktail" or mixed juices did. Diet sodas were also included. They tried to portray this as for the health of the residents but in actual fact it was a means for the politicians to enrich themselves with large bonuses. Also, no adjacent counties had such taxes. Since no one is compelled to shop in their county of residence, and in the Chicago area (which is the county in question) mass transit extends outside the immediate borders of Cook County, many poor people have access to someone with a car, and both taxis and Uber are happy to drive people to the store the result was that purchases crashed in Cook County (including sales as fast food outlets like McDonald's, whose drinks were also taxed) but soared in every surrounding county (including sales at fast food outlets). The store I work at was ordering multiple truckloads of sweetened beverages and could not keep up with demand (we were selling out by 2 pm the first week, every day) - because 7 million+ people in Cook County, who outnumbered everyone in the surrounding counties combined, were suddenly shopping in those surrounding "collar counties". It didn't discourage soft drink consumption, and it sure resulted in more vehicle fumes being emitted as shoppers drove further. My store and its employees (including me) DID get some very nice bonuses for two quarters out of the mess. It was, most certainly, a mess. Which is why Cook County repealed the beverage tax on December 1. Then laid off a bunch of low-level employees because god forbid the people on the top give back those bonuses or take a pay cut, right?

Really, a brilliant example of how NOT to do this.

A more ideal solution would be to somehow or other get people to stop wanting to drink so much soda. I don't know how you do that. We are biologically wired to like sweet stuff, be it food or drink. It's readily available, unlike hunter-gatherer days when you had to actually physically work to get that stuff. I know what worked for me (and even so, I like some sweetness still - I didn't eliminate it so much as learn to keep it under control). I have no idea how to extend that to everyone else.

[Zixinus]

Also as it is possible to live a happy life without soft drinks and junk food, I don’t see a reason not to, well, tax them out of existence, for example.

You can also live without alcohol and its moderate, easily-consumable forms. But people like alcohol. They tried to outright ban them. It did not go well.

I get where you are coming from, but in your zeal to solve a larger problem you may be creating a another one by punishing people for living a certain way.

[K. A. Pital]

Do you understand what you have to study, though, the psychology of which humans?

I won't presume to know. Work done on Psychological egoism and whether there is an actual scientific consensus about whether true altruism exists?

You should study the psychology of people whose psychology is not in any way warped by property. It is hard to find them, and harder yet to perform studies on them. But you can start, and you can study different societies, their relations and maybe even how they answered to psych questionnaires.

I'm also not opposed to government encouraging beneficial behavior so long as there remains a voluntary element rather than coercion.

Well Australia's pretty harsh on tobacco companies and basically crushed the industry:



I mean, is it coercion to crush a market through a combination of punitive taxes, measures designed to reduce product visibility and such?

I don't hear much about it talked in the news. Even the tobacco companies are silent. Probaby afraid that other people can see that, take notice.

The Illinois county directly adjacent to mine instituted a "sweetened beverage tax" last year.

Well that's a failure. Seems like there are successful examples of the same, although not sure if they're not lying about own efficiency
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2016/08/yes ... pposed-to/

A more ideal solution would be to somehow or other get people to stop wanting to drink so much soda.

You could do a thought experiment and replace the US citizens with Japan's or South Korea's citizens. Consumption would fall rapidly and be slashed like 60-70%, in a more extreme case if you just destroy the corporations who push these goods, I think it can fall 80% or more.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271 ... y-country/
Or this as a simplified view:

Notice how low Japan, Korea & France are. It's not a simple "as soon as people get rich, they will overdose on soda and kill themselves". I mean, the Japanese and French, and the Koreans, are certainly human, so it should be possible. Notice how the US and the immediate US vicinity occupies the top of this chart - it's not a coincidence and not a general human thing. It's because of the activities of US-based corporations like Coca Cola & Pepsico.

Basically it's the Opium War but with sugar. The Sugar War!

[K. A. Pital]

You can also live without alcohol and its moderate, easily-consumable forms. But people like alcohol. They tried to outright ban them. It did not go well.

I get where you are coming from, but in your zeal to solve a larger problem you may be creating a another one by punishing people for living a certain way.

You'd rather keep cruelly and unusually punishing these people:

To help these people below live out their "lifestyle"?


I'm afraid my utilitarian calculator broke, is it a net gain in UTILITY or net loss?

[GuppyShark]

Unrestrained consumerism and unrestrained unlimited growth have to end. Western culture of individualism and absolute ignorance of community, pure “fuck you I got mine”, has to be rejected on higher levels of government. Ethics have to be considered. The locals must either be able to strike against the corporations (like in Kerala where Coca Cola poisoned and dried the wells, but the locals won’t stand for it, and stopped the factory), and for that corporate lobbying has to stop, or the locals must have enough to afford all the necessities.

Antiglobalization must happen, and predatory relations must be changed or stopped.

Ironically, when I thought about this my solution was more globalisation, not less. A global world government could regulate the world's water supply, ensuring all people have access to drinking water as a fundamental human right first and as a trade good second.

At the moment we have polities open to exploitation the world over.

[ray245]

You should study the psychology of people whose psychology is not in any way warped by property. It is hard to find them, and harder yet to perform studies on them. But you can start, and you can study different societies, their relations and maybe even how they answered to psych questionnaires.

Can you get them to participate in an experiment where they aren't warped by notions of property? Once you introduced the idea of property, it seems impossible to banish such a concept from society. And such a study is useless unless you can actually remove the idea of property rights from the world society as a whole.

[K. A. Pital]

Can you get them to participate in an experiment where they aren't warped by notions of property?

Yes, I think some people did studies on the Hadza, !Kung and some other hunter-gatherer societies, without disrupting their entire way of life. Must look for it.

And such a study is useless unless you can actually remove the idea of property rights from the world society as a whole.

How is it "useless" and why do you think there are no intermediate steps at all between, say, "remove the idea of" and "respect property rights at the cost of anothers life".

[ray245]

Yes, I think some people did studies on the Hadza, !Kung and some other hunter-gatherer societies, without disrupting their entire way of life. Must look for it.

I'll be interested to read it, but I'm not sure if those studies relate to human psychology about self-interest vs common group interest. And it's hard to imagine the majority of people in the world wanting to live the life of hunter-gatherer societies.

How is it "useless" and why do you think there are no intermediate steps at all between, say, "remove the idea of" and "respect property rights at the cost of anothers life".

Because I don't think it's possible to remove an idea once they have been introduced to the world? Unless you are trying to raise an entire generation of kids without such notion and in insolation from the existing world. Even then, it's hard to say people would value common interest over self-interest.

You need to show that:
1. Such a transformation is realistically possible
2. To what extent are human beings socially and psychologically willing to give up their self-interest for common interest?

I'm not saying you can't regulate common resources and reduce demand. I'm saying there is a massive difference between saying you can reduce demand and saying you can eliminate demand. Limited resources meant people who accumulate more resources for themselves would inherently be rewarded under any kind of economic system. Societies that are less able to accumulate resources tend to lose out.

Hunter-gatherer societies aren't in a position of power or influence in global politics. They can't be because of inherently limited resources at their disposal.

[Coop D'etat]

Yes, you are right, the poor are also forced to buy abusive products, by the fact of their poverty.

There are no easy answers. The one I offer would not be to your liking, I fear.

Unrestrained consumerism and unrestrained unlimited growth have to end. Western culture of individualism and absolute ignorance of community, pure “fuck you I got mine”, has to be rejected on higher levels of government. Ethics have to be considered. The locals must either be able to strike against the corporations (like in Kerala where Coca Cola poisoned and dried the wells, but the locals won’t stand for it, and stopped the factory), and for that corporate lobbying has to stop, or the locals must have enough to afford all the necessities.

Antiglobalization must happen, and predatory relations must be changed or stopped.

It may not be an easy path, but the alternative is the industrial perpetuation of abuses.

Also as it is possible to live a happy life without soft drinks and junk food, I don’t see a reason not to, well, tax them out of existence, for example.

The implications of your proposed reforms is massive global deindustrialization and poverty. Whereas the merits of industrial socialism was based on the argument that they were at least reasonably effective at transitioning peasant economies into the first rungs of industrialial society, your argument is that organization should revert to the localism and poverty of pre-industrial forms.

I can understand why your preferences might run this way and sympathize. What I find extemely questionable is the moral pedestal you put yourself upon and the extemes you will denigrate others for not sharing your preferences or moral intuitions. If Kane is the ethic of the animal in your view, in my view yours is the ethic of the Stalin-esque dictator who assumes he's preferences are the best and all who fail to share your views are defective.


I take particular notice of how this argument began about how unusual it was that a major city in a reasonably developed democratic country had severe water shortages, in contrast to how frequent that is in undeveloped countries. On the record, its the liberal democratic and capitalistic states that tend to have the wealth and reduced politicla corruption in public utilities to manage water effectively to prevent mass suffering from drought compared to other societies which struggle with this process, regardless of the red hearing tangent of soft-drink bottling. Your obvious antipathy to the currently most successful system of political economy has biased you against its ability to manage these issues better than the traditional societies you venerate.

[K. A. Pital]

Kane said that humans are basically just animals who push the weaker of their own kind away from water, and who will destroy their habitat just so that some can have a harmful sugar shot.

I said it before and I’ll repeat - if that’s “the truth”, then the scientific revolution happened for nothing - just to let the stronger eat the weaker on a global scale. The weak are meat the strong will eat is supposed to be a true depiction of society?

Also, what we do is no less important than how we do it. You can’t just excuse everything with consequentialism. These so-called “capitalistc states that tend to have the wealth” plundered their way to this wealth by genociding entire continents (Americas, Australia, parts of Africa), exploiting territories from India to China, drugging, killing, enslaving dozens of millions. They have no right to be where they are, no more than a school bully has a right to cash stolen from other pupils. That they now pose as some sort of city on the hill to those uninformed, simply doesn’t mean anything except a massive, in your face, triump of evil. It is still built on exploitation and offloading of all environmental costs to the Third World. They, these nations, dare not lecture anyone on anything.

I never said here that you have to share my views. Everyone has his own view on this. But I will keep them, and I will say what I think.

The implications of my proposed reforms suggest not a “massive deindustrialization”, but a realignment of industrialization to be more in tune with the local needs, as opposed to the nebulous “global needs” (read: excesses of rhe rich exploiters). If industries like Coca Cola perish, so be it. Asbestos plants also perished when it became clear what harm to human health they brought, conspiring to conceal studies on its toxicity and danger. If you cannot produce ethically, THEN PERISH.

Don’t accept anything about the modern world uncritically. Always ask “what are we producing, and why?” instead of just saying we need to produce more no matter the cost.

Finally, you do not make the poor rich by depriving them of water for the sake of your “unlimited growth”. You make them thirsty and angry.

[ray245]

Kane said that humans are basically just animals who push the weaker of their own kind away from water, and who will destroy their habitat just so that some can have a harmful sugar shot.

I said it before and I’ll repeat - if that’s “the truth”, then the scientific revolution happened for nothing - just to let the stronger eat the weaker on a global scale. The weak are meat the strong will eat is supposed to be a true depiction of society?

Also, what we do is no less important than how we do it. You can’t just excuse everything with consequentialism. These so-called “capitalistc states that tend to have the wealth” plundered their way to this wealth by genociding entire continents (Americas, Australia, parts of Africa), exploiting territories from India to China, drugging, killing, enslaving dozens of millions. They have no right to be where they are, no more than a school bully has a right to cash stolen from other pupils. That they now pose as some sort of city on the hill to those uninformed, simply doesn’t mean anything except a massive, in your face, triump of evil. It is still built on exploitation and offloading of all environmental costs to the Third World. They, these nations, dare not lecture anyone on anything.

And the issue is there's really nothing stopping them. Nation-states don't operate based on morality. The only thing stopping them is if they are challenged by another equally rich rival.

The implications of my proposed reforms suggest not a “massive deindustrialization”, but a realignment of industrialization to be more in tune with the local needs, as opposed to the nebulous “global needs” (read: excesses of rhe rich exploiters). If industries like Coca Cola perish, so be it. Asbestos plants also perished when it became clear what harm to human health they brought, conspiring to conceal studies on its toxicity and danger. If you cannot produce ethically, THEN PERISH.

Don’t accept anything about the modern world uncritically. Always ask “what are we producing, and why?” instead of just saying we need to produce more no matter the cost.

Finally, you do not make the poor rich by depriving them of water for the sake of your “unlimited growth”. You make them thirsty and angry.

I think other than Kane, no one is saying you're wrong about the issues with the current capitalist system. The problem is how can you realsitically change the global economic system? If there isn't a realistic proposal that could work, then everyone's complaints will merely be nothing more than complaints that people as a whole will ignore.

Hence why I think the points you're making suffers from the problem of being extremely unpersuasive. You can talk about the problems within the existing economic system, you can talk about the moral issues and how people are accepting it uncritically, but you've not actually make a point about ensuring nation-states operates on some sort of moral framework. How are you going to persuade Americans for example at large to be willing to relook at their way of life?

[K. A. Pital]

I said: more localism, more community, more orientation towards needs other than purchasing power of the rich. More cooperatives, more ethical relations between people, more family, community, friendship, more non-monetary solidarity relations.

Less megacorporations, less production of harmful goods at the expense of the poorest. Boycott, ban, tax, strike, expunge, sue them in court, fight tooth and nail for the rights of the poor.

Arm the poor. In the literal sense and as a metaphor. Give them a sense of resistance, so that they can shut down, and expel, harmful factories and invaders who poison their wells, so that they can push back.

Global structures - subvert, expose their lies. Find the unsatisfied who will leak the truth about lying corporate shills, and tell this truth to the poor of the Third World, inform them about what the enemies do. Tell them how the World Bank fudges statistics to make pro-corporate shills look better in power. Knowledge is power.

In essence, in one word - struggle.

[ray245]

I said: more localism, more community, more orientation towards needs other than purchasing power of the rich. More cooperatives, more ethical relations between people, more family, community, friendship, more non-monetary solidarity relations.

Less megacorporations, less production of harmful goods at the expense of the poorest. Boycott, ban, tax, strike, expunge, sue them in court, fight tooth and nail for the rights of the poor.

Arm the poor. In the literal sense and as a metaphor. Give them a sense of resistance, so that they can shut down, and expel, harmful factories and invaders who poison their wells, so that they can push back.

Global structures - subvert, expose their lies. Find the unsatisfied who will leak the truth about lying corporate shills, and tell this truth to the poor of the Third World, inform them about what the enemies do. Tell them how the World Bank fudges statistics to make pro-corporate shills look better in power. Knowledge is power.

In essence, in one word - struggle.

How are you really going to do that? How are you going to support such movements? How do you actually enforce this? Leaking information is not enough to convince people. People are extremely good at tuning out information that challenges their worldview.

We live in a post-cold war era, where there aren't rival political ideologies proposing a different economic system, and armed with the resources of the state to challenge anything. Communism failed in its struggle. Struggle for the sake of struggle isn't an actual policy that can lead to any long-lasting change.