non-consensual advertising (consensual being things like steam discovery queue, where I actively want to be advertised to), “lobbying” (bribing), fossil fuels and friends, gerrymandering (US), the electoral college (US), publically trading your company
Most advertising is non-consensual, but I’m still whole-heartedly in agreement. One could argue that ads that are shown to a person consuming media without paying (podcasts, YouTube, etc), are kinda consensual.
Surprised to see no one has said cigarettes yet. Not only are you poisoning yourself, it’s harmful to everyone else around you that has to inhale that shit.
I would vastly prefer that gas cars be phased out. But I believe that this is a bit different:
Cigarettes don’t offer any benefit beyond making you “feel good.” And you don’t need cigarettes to feel good, and, in fact, literally any other option is better for both you, and everyone around you, save for harder drugs.
Gasoline cars, while poisonous to the world around us, also offer us far greater benefits: supplies and logistics, we can carry goods further, wider, and faster than we ever could without them. And because of that, without them, sure we’d pollute a lot less, but then we’d have a far harder time carrying critical resources to more remote parts of the world where trains and planes can’t reach, and people would starve or lack critical medicine.
As it stands, EVs are not a reliable substitute. They’re getting there, I want them to get there, but I disagree with the notion that cars should be made illegal as things currently stand. I don’t think it’s nearly as cut and dry as cigarettes are. I can only hope to live long enough to see a world where gas powered cars could be outlawed without leaving hundreds of millions of people high and dry.
Anyway, there are some good reasons to ban very addictive drugs. And riding motorcycles without helmets. It is an interesting ethical discussion that starts with the observation that self-destruction and death affect more than one person.
When traveling in south asia like Thailand or Indonesia I was a little disappointed that it was that much more expensive relative to everything else. Like it was a hardcore drug or something.
I’m personally not a fan or alcohol. But I do think it’s just a “people are gonna want it” kind of thing. I think it should be regulated in a way that discourages abuse and boosts local economies.
I see modern alcohol companies just funneling money out of communities (especially on weekends). Stuff like wines coming out of vineyards might be one thing, but global conglomerates selling cheap beer worldwide is definitely another.
I wonder if it would be beneficial to regulate tobacco and alcohol products so that they were produced locally and thus harder to get, with lower marketing budgets, and limited supply. The added perk is that the money stays in the community.
Over and over again we have to have the discussion about how alcohol consumption has been a massively important social practice across the planet for thousands of years, and despite the significant health effects, prohibition always does more damage because people do not accept being told that they aren’t allowed to imbibe.
Over the past few decades it’s become very clear this is needed. The problem is that by making LBOs illegal you are saying that a controlling stake of the company’s stock isn’t the same as owning a controlling stake in the company. So at that point the value of stocks becomes a bit more speculative and likely much less stable. Given that basically the entirety of our economy is built on the stock market I think this is incredibly unlikely to ever happen.
while I generally agree with you, lots of things that are legal could be called predatory and people don’t seem to have a problem with them, but somehow MLM crosses the line.
Everyone has a different definition of what is acceptable and I don’t think there is enough of a majority consensus one way or the other to do something about it.
I watched a very smart person I worked for get sucked into an MLM and it was disturbingly cult like the way it played out. One day literally everything about was this Lev-el Thrive vitamin shit. Which around $300 a month to take caffeine laced vitamins with willow bark. Which they were told was safe for everyone by the company… but willow bark is more or less asprin. People with heart issues shouldn’t be taking that shit.
I used to think only stupid people fell for mlms, but my previous boss successfully ran a business for around 15 years(the one I was employed at). I had to leave that job because my boss couldn’t pay me anymore. All their money went into this ‘side business’ that the company kept saying they’d make it back. They did not.
That whole experience was like a fever dream to me. It felt like my boss had been body snatched by some mlm greed demon, and ever since i just see mlms as culty life ruiners that should be illegal.
Because the system under which wealth concentrate privately, called the free market, results in a steady increase of wealth, improving health, steady reduction in hunger and privation generally.
The system under which wealth concentrates socially, ie is controlled and redistributed by the government, tends to produce mass starvation. It is also associated with government controlled labor camps where political purge victims toil away until their own deaths, or are outright executed en masse.
These outcomes are, ultimately, a reflection of the fact that the former system is based on consent and the latter is based on forcing people into economic relationships they wouldn’t otherwise choose.
Under our current free market system, billionaires get their billions one consensual purchase at a time. Under socialism, the government gets is billions by wielding power at the end of a gun.