The Right to be Stupid

gizmo

southsiderosie wrote: »

...but is it really a crime to go to a national park with some beer and sing around a campfire? Isn't that kind of the point?

Given the fact that you're referring to California here, this little bit of info indicates that you aren't in the subset of people which you think you are. :pac:

mawk

aye, and in a sufficiently large sample size, IQ values will tend to form a bell curve making it very likely for half to be above and half below. Being normalized at 100 and all..

southsiderosie

gizmo wrote: »

Given the fact that you're referring to California here, this little bit of info indicates that you aren't in the subset of people which you think you are. :pac:

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gizmo

southsiderosie wrote: »

?

Exactly.

southsiderosie

gizmo wrote: »

Exactly.

I've never been camping in California, but I've never had problems camping out with a fire, friends, and CASES of beer in state and national parks in other parts of the country. So I don't get your point, unless it's to say that California is weird, which I already knew.

starbelgrade

southsiderosie wrote: »

To a certain extent I agree. There is no reason to subsidize corn production, either for feed or human consumption. And the way most food is mass-produced in the US is appalling.

That said, there are plenty of people who drink 6 cans of soda a day and eat at McDonald's five days a week. At a certain point, people need to take responsibility for what they put in their bodies. In addition, the expansion of major chains like Wal-Mart has made buying cheaper healthy food a realistic option for a lot of people who wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise - yet people are still overweight, and even more so in areas where Wal-Marts are everywhere. In general I've found that groceries are a lot cheaper in the US than they are in Europe, and even if you don't have great choices in a given area, you still have choices. It's just that too many people make bad ones when it comes to food.



Amen.

There's always an element of personal choice to everything. Some people will always go for the less healthy option, but the problem facing the US & most of the developed world these days, is that our choices are being reduced, not increased and many of the previously thought of "healthy" options are becoming less healthy by the day, due to the food production & labelling practices of the biggest players in the food supply chain.

And Wal-Mart is one of the biggest players in this game. They are now the biggest sellers of organic food in the States.

While this may be a good thing in theory, unfortunately, because Wal-Mart has a major history of abusive practices, their entry into the organic food market is set to devestate small, local organic farmers.

They are the largest organic food retailer in the United States but they’re also China's eighth-largest trading partner – a country where organic enforcement standards are close to non-existent. Just how fresh and organic can food shipped from China be?

You have to remember, just because someone slaps an organic label on a food product, that label does not somehow magically transform a junk food into a health food.

Einhard

southsiderosie wrote: »

A recent article claimed that what public officials were calling a "crime wave" was really due to increased citations for relatively minor infractions in California state parks: not wearing lifejackets, nude sunbathing, drinking, etc. Granted, much of the increase in ticketing activity is really about budget cuts, and certainly park rangers need to be on the lookout for forest fires and such, but is it really a crime to go to a national park with some beer and sing around a campfire? Isn't that kind of the point?

While it's easy to dismiss California as just being wacky, there does seem to be a trend in heavily regulating adult decision-making. For example, helmet laws: many will argue that helmets save lives, but if you are willing to ride a motorcycle without one, then you are putting your life at risk, not anyone else's. Others will argue that there is a public health cost, so the law should act in a way to discourage risky behavior, but why only address behavior with an immediate risk (riding without a helmet) and not behavior with a long-term risk (obesity, for example).

Clearly behavior that can cause great harm to others - drunk driving for example - should be regulated. But at what point do we accept the fact that the state can't - or shouldn't even try to - prevent bad things from happening sometimes? I guess the real question is, do we really need to regulate everything that adults do? At a certain point, can't we just sit back and let people be stupid?

Agree with you to a point, but quite often the consequences of a person's idiotic decision place a financial burden on the state. The motor cyclist who goes without a helmet might end up paralysed, need hospitalisation, rehibilitation, and then receive some from of disability benefit for himself, and possibly his family. I remember reading somewhere that each road death costs the state a huge amount of money. I can't remember how much exactly, but it was quite surprising.

In relation to your other point, targetting immediate risks is basically simpler than longer term threats. It's easy to take action against someone driving without a seatbelt or helmet, but how can the state take action against the obese, or just those who live unhealthy lifestyles. The former are also easily remedied, the latter, unfortunately, incredibly difficult.

southsiderosie

starbelgrade wrote: »

There's always an element of personal choice to everything. Some people will always go for the less healthy option, but the problem facing the US & most of the developed world these days, is that our choices are being reduced, not increased and many of the previously thought of "healthy" options are becoming less healthy by the day, due to the food production & labelling practices of the biggest players in the food supply chain...

..You have to remember, just because someone slaps an organic label on a food product, that label does not somehow magically transform a junk food into a health food.

You seem to be saying that healthy food = organic food, and that's not the argument I'm trying to make. I think the main thing is to not eat so much processed food. Organic food is also very expensive - it would strain middle class budgets (not just poor people) to mainly buy organic groceries. My point about Wal-Mart (and their sister company Sam's Club) is that it is possible to buy fresh produce and basic grocery staples relatively cheaply, so there is less of an excuse to say healthy food is out of reach for poor people.

Einhard wrote: »

Agree with you to a point, but quite often the consequences of a person's idiotic decision place a financial burden on the state. The motor cyclist who goes without a helmet might end up paralysed, need hospitalisation, rehibilitation, and then receive some from of disability benefit for himself, and possibly his family. I remember reading somewhere that each road death costs the state a huge amount of money. I can't remember how much exactly, but it was quite surprising.

In relation to your other point, targetting immediate risks is basically simpler than longer term threats. It's easy to take action against someone driving without a seatbelt or helmet, but how can the state take action against the obese, or just those who live unhealthy lifestyles. The former are also easily remedied, the latter, unfortunately, incredibly difficult.

I've addressed this earlier in the thread, but I'll say it again: I highly doubt that the cost of high-risk activities taken by the young and foolish outweigh the public cost of high-risk lifestyles taken by a third of the adult population in some developed countries. TBH, I'm getting a little tired of the 'it costs the state' argument for everything. If there is going to be a universal health care system, then we need to accept that people are going to use the system for different reasons. Should the state ban alcohol because emergency rooms are full of drunken idiots every weekend? - certainly this costs the state a fortune.

Just because it is simple to target immediate risks doesn't mean it is the right thing for the state to do. And if those risks don't put anyone else at risk, then why bother?

starbelgrade

southsiderosie wrote: »

You seem to be saying that healthy food = organic food, and that's not the argument I'm trying to make. I think the main thing is to not eat so much processed food. Organic food is also very expensive - it would strain middle class budgets (not just poor people) to mainly buy organic groceries. My point about Wal-Mart (and their sister company Sam's Club) is that it is possible to buy fresh produce and basic grocery staples relatively cheaply, so there is less of an excuse to say healthy food is out of reach for poor people.

My point about organic food may have sounded like a sidestep away from the argument, but it is actually part of the bigger debate. In to eat proper fresh, healthy produce, it is only possible to do so, if the produce has been produced without the use of heavy, industrial chemical fertilizers (in fruit, vegetable & bean and pulse production) & has ripened without the use of chemicals.

The big supermarkets like Wal-Mart aren't interested in naturally grown fresh fruit & veg that are in season, which is why you see tomatoes avaiable all year round & carrots in summer. To eat fresh food, it should be grown in season & allowed to grow and ripen without artificial means.

Organic famers have long been the anthithesis of this process & their produce has become a lot more attractive to those who want healthy food & can afford it. However, Wal-Mart - and others - have realised this & have taken over the market & by using underhand methods like dishonest food labelling (importing so called organic foods from China) - are slowly pushing these farmers out of the market.

In that way, the produce of real, unprocessed foods are slowly becoming a luxury for the wealthy & the food educated.

Meanwhile, the majority of people are left with an ever decreasing selection of gentically crops, heavily industrialised and chemically induced plants & increasingly unhealthy and engineered meats. Processed foods are no longer just the unhealthy products as all foods sold by the food giants are now all processed in some shape or form.

The staple diet of today is far less healthy than it was 50 years ago. Even though the actual food types haven't changed - the production methods, processing & food engineering that has now become an integral part of the process between the food that comes from the farm, to the food that arrives on your plate - has altered the food radically.

Einhard

southsiderosie wrote: »

I've addressed this earlier in the thread, but I'll say it again: I highly doubt that the cost of high-risk activities taken by the young and foolish outweigh the public cost of high-risk lifestyles taken by a third of the adult population in some developed countries. TBH, I'm getting a little tired of the 'it costs the state' argument for everything. If there is going to be a universal health care system, then we need to accept that people are going to use the system for different reasons. Should the state ban alcohol because emergency rooms are full of drunken idiots every weekend? - certainly this costs the state a fortune.

I actually disagree. If the state is to be expected to shoulder the financial cost of an accident, then I think it has a right, and a responsibility to seek to minimise the odds of such an accident occuring. Also, getting people to belt up or wear their helmets requires minimal state intervention, which cannot be said for the idea of similarly targetting obesity which would require massive, intrusive state interference in the lives of her citizens. The notion that the latter could be at all successful also misses the point that obese people themselves are often desperate to lose weight. If it were so simple an issue that state intervention could resolve it, then there wouldn't be an obesity problem in the first place. As regards alcohol, most states would probably ban it if it were discovered tomorrow. But to do so now, after millenia of consumption, would require such a social upheaval as to make it unviable. Just look at Prohibition in America and how that turned out.

Just because it is simple to target immediate risks doesn't mean it is the right thing for the state to do. And if those risks don't put anyone else at risk, then why bother?

I think if the state can reduce the financial burden on itself, and reduce the risks to her citizens, with minimal interference, then it should do so. I also happen to believe that the state has some responsibility towards safegaurding her citizens, if the measures she employs are reasonable. It's all very well to state otherwise in the abstract, but I'm sure bereaved family members of those who were killed through their own negligence would disagree with you. With regards to obesity, alcohol and other such issues, which would require massive state interference, then education is a far more reasonable alternative.

gizmo

southsiderosie wrote: »

I've never been camping in California, but I've never had problems camping out with a fire, friends, and CASES of beer in state and national parks in other parts of the country. So I don't get your point, unless it's to say that California is weird, which I already knew.

Well no, my point was that, in the context of people having the right to be stupid, you were saying that people should be allowed to go to national parks, light a camp fire and drink beer. Except this is in California, a state which is notorious for forest fires which have caused billions of dollars of damage, destroyed thousands of homes and have been responsible for over 50 deaths in the last ten years.

Due to the fact that you were saying people should be allowed to do this, I was insinuating (in a joking way) that perhaps you shouldn't be labeling other people as stupid when you just demonstrated amazing stupidity yourself.

southsiderosie

gizmo wrote: »

Well no, my point was that, in the context of people having the right to be stupid, you were saying that people should be allowed to go to national parks, light a camp fire and drink beer. Except this is in California, a state which is notorious for forest fires which have caused billions of dollars of damage, destroyed thousands of homes and have been responsible for over 50 deaths in the last ten years.

Due to the fact that you were saying people should be allowed to do this, I was insinuating (in a joking way) that perhaps you shouldn't be labeling other people as stupid when you just demonstrated amazing stupidity yourself.

In the original post, I noted that I absolutely thought that rangers should have the right to intervene when it came to forest fires. Obviously if there are drought conditions, fires should be banned; a forest fire would have devastating consequences for untold numbers of people. Who does canoeing without a lifejacket hurt?