Maggie's Farm

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Wednesday, June 20. 2018

QQQ

We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it’s in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they’ll do you harm, why isn’t it all right to say you must not eat too much because you’ll do harm? Why isn’t it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you’re likely to die? Why isn’t it all right to say, “Oh, skiing, that’s no good, that’s a very dangerous sport, you’ll hurt yourself”? Where do you draw the line?


Milton Friedman (h/t Ace)

Posted by The Barrister in Quotidian Quotable Quote (QQQ) at 13:59 | Comments (17) | Trackbacks (0)

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If you're a nanny stater, the line is drawn where either there is too much push back from the public (and then you instigate PR campaigns to denigrate the activity and then try again later) or it impacts something you or your friends like to do.
#1 mudbug on 2018-06-20 14:06 (Reply)
Friedman QQQ: "Where do you draw the line?"

What a stupid statement.

You draw the line where it hurts other people and the community. Overeating doesn't do that. Skydiving doesn't do that. Skiing doesn't do that.

Drugs do. Massively.
#2 Jim (Link) on 2018-06-20 14:17 (Reply)
To say "Drugs do. Massively." is to paint with too broad a brush.

Opioids do.

Marijuana and psychedelics do not.

In fact, we are learning that pot, and magic mushrooms can be extremely effective in helping people get off of opioids.

See, e.g., "Legal marijuana is saving lives in Colorado, study finds" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/16/legal-marijuana-is-saving-lives-in-colorado-study-finds/?utm_term=.b98d4873cb83
#2.1 peacelovewoodstock on 2018-06-20 14:26 (Reply)
You obviously haven't seen or had to deal with people with marijuana psychosis. The only good thing, as opposed to the meth tweakers, is you can generally smell them before they get too close to you. Marijuana use also causes schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Don't believe me? Just google it. Another contributor to the brain-damaged homeless overrunning our streets.
#2.1.1 Jim (Link) on 2018-06-20 15:59 (Reply)
There has been an increase in schizophrenia which could be accounted for by the increased drug use since about the 1970's.

It would be interesting to find out how people who chronically use or abuse drugs like marijuana are impacted. It seems to me that some users become less industrious, but I don't have anything to back that up, just observation.
#2.1.1.1 LP on 2018-06-20 16:39 (Reply)
In 30 years we are going to hear that marijuana causes all the same physical harms to you that smoking tobacco does, e.g., lung cancer, COPD, emphysema, etc.

But right now Big Marijuana controls the dialogue, and has everyone believing that somehow smoking marijuana is "medical" and good for you.

Just like Big Tobacco used to do.

https://www.google.com/search?q=smoking+is+good+for+you+old+ads&rlz=1C1CHMO_enUS582US582&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=v4FNQ1YgvWwYjM%253A%252Cq4ebjzKqZqNlAM%252C_&usg=__ExgfAJzsi8Ppu4VMbgb0pcGTTmg%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6m-6ijuPbAhWSKHwKHejwBIQQ9QEIPjAA#imgrc=xNJnlbRcXwtJEM:

Actually, some of these old ads send chills down my spine, especially the one with Ronald Reagan talking about how he is sending all his friends a carton of Chesterfield cigarettes for Christmas. I flashed on my Mom and Dad always giving each other a carton of cigarettes for Christmas, neatly wrapped up under the tree. My Mom smoked Chesterfields, my Dad smoked Camels.

My Dad had two strokes and then eventually died of throat cancer in his early sixties, thanks to smoking. My Mom fortunately stopped smoking when my Dad had his first stroke, and is still alive today in her nineties.
#2.1.1.1.1 Jim on 2018-06-20 16:59 (Reply)
If you have nationalised healthcare, and the US has nationalised healthcare for part of the population, it DOES hurt others.

If you get sick others pay (part of) the cost through their taxes.

That's the reasoning ever more politicians and insurance companies are using to want to directly control what people are allowed to eat, when, and in what amounts.

It's just control freaks of course, when they have you on your ration cards they'll find something else they want to take your freedom to decide upon away from you.
#2.2 JTW on 2018-06-20 15:08 (Reply)
It is arguable that overeating and other unhealthy choices such as smoking can hurt families and communities as bad as illicit drugs by causing the people who engage in such habits to undergo a longer period of morbidity and dependency than they might otherwise experience. Morbidity and decrepitude result in dependency that can be even more costly to families and communities than that resulting from drug dependencies.
#2.3 Abelard Lindsey on 2018-06-20 15:27 (Reply)
They already do...what do you think the horrible Food Pyramid is? Michelle Obama's tinkering with school lunch menus? The FDA telling schools what is considered a vegetable and what is not. Holding rules over their heads and withholding federal $ if they don't comply? What do you think a required safety briefing is for before a skydive, plus equipment checked, licenses to operate as a business, I'm sure OSHA's in there somewhere. If he think the government isn't involved in the things he listed, he is so wrong.
#3 MissT on 2018-06-20 14:51 (Reply)
"the horrible Food Pyramid"

I'm just not sure you can prove that. Arguably it has been tilted towards the latest fad in health eating by those with an agenda. But 100% of the advice for "healthy" eating is tilted towards someone's agenda. The food pyramid merely recommends a ratio of vegetables, grains, fruits and proteins. 95% of Americans eat vegetables, grains, fruits and proteins. So where is the problem? If it recommended a vegan or vegetarian diet I would agree with you but it doesn't. Besides it's just a suggestion that you individually can modify to fit your situation and preferences.

What would you recommend in it's place???
#3.1 Anon on 2018-06-20 18:49 (Reply)
A number of researchers, chiefly Gary Taubes, have throughly debunked the Food Pyramid fallacy that a 'low fat' diet high in carbohydrates and low in animal protein is healthy. Basically every single claim driving 'low-fat' eating (cholesterol control, weight control, diabetes prevention, heart healthiness) has been proven either greatly exaggerated or outright false. Just a couple of days ago the study claiming heart health benefits for the so-called Mediterranean Diet was shown to be improperly conducted, thrown its support of 'low-fat' eating into question.

The fundamental problem is that the cheapest way to obtain the mouth-feel of full fat foods in the 'low-fat' versions is to substitute some variation on High Fructose Corn Syrup, especially if you also want to avoid a high transfat content. Look at the ingredients and nutrition information on 'low-fat' salad dressing. You might as well pour Karo syrup on your lettuce.

The Food Pyramid propaganda is a huge advertising boon to 'low-fat' food makers and the companies that make the ingredients for processed food. Just look at some of the foods that get a proment 'low-fat' label, like Jello, if you doubt that this is not a consideration in advertising. This advertising drives increased consumption of supposedly healthy high carb foods. The effects of high carbohydrate diets are well known, and mirror the problems we see now. High carb diets lead to insulin resistance, weight gain, and adult onset diabetes.
#3.1.1 Christopher B on 2018-06-20 21:36 (Reply)
Gary Taubes is not a researcher he is simply an author with an opinion.

“researchers have debunked that …a 'low fat' diet high in carbohydrates and low in animal protein is healthy.”
I think what you really intended to say is that meat and animal fat is good. But what you have done, as many biased food advocates do, is exactly what you accuse the authors of the pyramid do, that is insist that some common and good foods MUST be bad for you, well because that’s your bias. I do not think potatoes and rice are bad for you and I doubt that you or anyone can prove that they are. Simple as that. Put up or shut up. Yoou don’t get much more high carb than potatoes and rice.

Then you go on a rant about ” High Fructose Corn Syrup”. HFCS is simply sugar, not poison , not something unique to corn and intended to kill you it is pure sugar. Ironically sugar is absolutely essential for life. Your keyboard thumping rant about HFCS was powered by sugar in your blood. Wiithout that sugar in your blood you would die within moments.

“The Food Pyramid propaganda is a huge advertising boon to 'low-fat' food makers”
I agree it is tilted that way just as it has always been tilted and that is why I say it is a recommendation not the ten commandments. It could be better BUT in spite of it’s faults it’s still better that what Gary Taubes recommends.

“High carb diets lead to insulin resistance, weight gain, and adult onset diabetes.”
This is pure myth. Diabetes is genetic, you get it from your parents not your food. If you do not have genetic diabetes you can eat whatever you like including HFCS and never get diabetes. Ditto for your weight. It is “generally” determined” by your genes. If you have a fat belly at 40 more than likely your dad/mother had a fat belly at 40. If you are obese, more than likely your mother or father was obese. Your body wants to store fat and it will try to do this even if you eat what Gary Taubes recommends.
#3.1.1.1 Anon on 2018-06-21 10:58 (Reply)
"We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do."
=====
Since when ??
Show me the data.
Then show me the ingredients in the drugs, and the studies that say they are safer than a BigMac.
#4 u.k.(us) on 2018-06-20 15:22 (Reply)
I will not cede that "over eating" kills more people than drugs. I think what you are saying is "statistical" data shows a loose correlation between obesity and "early" death. That death typically is well after 65. Drug deaths are at all ages, even preteen. Not statistic correlation (which may or may not be meaningful) but exact determination that a drug use caused death. That is one hell of a difference; living a long life vs dying at 16 from fentanyl laced street drugs.
#5 Anon on 2018-06-20 18:36 (Reply)
I was going to point out the same thing. As we fix things, people don't die of them, and live longer to die of other things. The downstream effects of chronic overeating are only killing more people because they didn't die of things like drug overdoses, influenza, motor vehicle crashes, and infections.

Not the point of the post, I know. I agree with the sentiment, and note that the dangerousness of skiing or mountain climbing is also an answer to those who say that you don't "need" a particular type of gun or car. Who needs a boat? Or a yoga class? Or decorative shrubbery? None of your damn business.
#5.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2018-06-20 19:50 (Reply)
Whenever I go in for a checkup, they always ask me if I smoke cigarettes. But they don't ask me if I engage in risky sexual behavior; and they don't test me for HIV.

This happens because the black and homosexual lobby have successfully argued that HIV is not something to be avoided, it's something to be treated. They don't want to be "stigmatized."

I would stop offering free HIV medicine, and test every single person in the United States. It's time to treat the HIV epidemic like an emergency, which is what it really is.
#6 Ron Liebermann (Link) on 2018-06-20 20:59 (Reply)
I believe you are 100% correct and it is surprising that no one ever says this. The reason we have so much HIV is exactly because we continue to ignore the cause.
#6.1 TheRiver on 2018-06-21 11:02 (Reply)

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