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https://www.yahoo.com/food/san-francisco-oks-health-warning-on-sugary-drink-121146186666.html

Thought we already have too many extremely obvious warning labels? well, now we have even more!
Apparently people don't understand what the nutrients label means. Soon we'll have to explain everything the same way things are explained to chief wiggum

What are your thoughts?

So Coke ads will have the words, Please Drink Responsibly now?

So long as this isn't evidence of them planning to go banning shit later down the road, I suppose no harm done. Though it's rarely not concerningly obnoxious when a government acts like an overbearing parent towards its citizens in such trivial matters.

According to the article, "soda cans and bottles would not have to carry the warning", so the warnings only appear on advertisements. Still, it is dumb; I'm with 0.9999…=1 in that it's patronizing but I can't really care. What is annoying is when the mayor bans soda drinks of a certain size, literally denying a quantity of a product over 'concerned mother'-style health policy. But Bloomberg's anti-soda regime lost in the end, as it got overturned by the NY supreme court. So justice was done.

lmfao shut up if you're even trying to justify this at all.

{ "Requiring health warnings on soda ads also makes clear that these drinks aren't harmless -- indeed, quite the opposite -- and that the puppies, unicorns, and rainbows depicted in soda ads aren't reality," Supervisor Scott Wiener, one of the 11-member board that unanimously approved the measure, said in a statement. "These drinks are making people sick, and we need to make that clear to the public." }

Why not warnings on everything? Why not lists of approved foods? Why not restrictive calorie limits for school kids?

Oh wait, Michelle's already got us covered.

San Fransisco is a cesspool of liberal "progress", hope they enjoy.

As someone who has relatives in Brooklyn, Bloomberg can go fuck himself with an Onix.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that happens. Ever since someone sued and won against McDonald's because they didn't know hot coffee was hot, I figured that stupid stuff like this would continue.

Did you even fucking read the article you just linked?

^ tbf that does happen all the time to McDonalds/Starbucks/etc and it's rarely a legitimate lawsuit.

Here's a cop who sued Starbucks after he spilled the free coffee they gave him for being a police officer. He drove himself home to take pics of his "injuries" while they looked the worst instead of going to the hospital, and then waited two more hours before having it checked out at urgent care, then said the hot coffee activated his Crohn's disease which required intestinal surgery. A jury found Starbucks not liable last month.

It's become a stereotype to think Americans sue each other all of the time because of stupid stories like this. Alas, desperation for cash appears to be prevalent through most societies.

@Topic: If California starts to worry about drinks like this, just you wait until they ban alcohol lol

After watching the documentary on that, I was shocked at how thuroughly misinformed virtually people- including myself beforehand, of course- were about the very basic facts of the case.

@lisalombs

"…rarely a legitimate lawsuit."

Say Liz, got any actual statistics on that?

Anyhow, I wasn't surprised at all when I just looked up and found that North Carolina (where that whole business with the cop and Starbucks took place) is indeed one of only four remaining contributory negligence states. So, unless the guy's legal team could prove by the preponderance of the evidence that he did not contribute to his damages in any way, he gets nothing. With comparitive negligence, the fact that he went home to take pictures instead of going straight to get treatment would certainly have guaranteed that he would have been tacked with some liability, I have a hard time believing that he would have failed at tacking Starbucks with at least 50%.

Yes I did, in fact. I know that there was some shaky stuff going on with the liquids temp, but who the hell would think its a good idea to uncover a cup of boiled water? Hell, even normally brewed coffee would hurt you if you drank it right away. This is like saying "I sliced my finger open while cutting fruit. I'm going to sue the company that made this knife now". Scenarios like this are unfortunate and unpleasant, but the way I see it, you can't point fingers when it comes to accidents

{ Say Liz, got any actual statistics on that? }

Why do you guys think there are ready-made numerical statistics for everything??

Wiki says:

{ Since Liebeck [that's Liebeck vs. McDonald's, the original case], major vendors of coffee, including Chick-Fil-A,[27] Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, Wendy's, Burger King,[28] hospitals,[29] and McDonald's[30] have been defendants in similar lawsuits over coffee-related burns. }

When you actually pay attention to the news, you know this kind of random trivia off the top of your head and don't need to confirm every statement with Google just to be sure~ it shouldn't be my job to source common knowledge for you guys all the time.

No, what it's actually comparable to is if you were using a butter knife you bought recently, which is of course supposed to be dull but is actually razor-sharp without any kind of warning to indicate this, and you accidentally sliced your finger off. (Seriously, go look at the pictures of those burns, if you think you can bear it.) You would be seen as partially liable, but the knife company would also be- enough to have to pay up.

"Scenarios like this are unfortunate and unpleasant, but the way I see it, you can’t point fingers when it comes to accidents."

That's actually the whole point of the civil court system, dude.

Beatie wrote:

Yes I did, in fact. I know that there was some shaky stuff going on with the liquids temp, but who the hell would think its a good idea to uncover a cup of boiled water?

Oh yes, how stupid of her to take the lid off to put cream in her coffee. It's not like everyone does that or anything. She should have stuck a funnel into the opening of the lid to pour her cream inside like any sane person would do it. If you haven't noticed yet, I am absolutely dripping with sarcasm here. I am honestly shocked that anyone who read the real facts about that story would still side with McDonald's. Although this is the internet, where we see all kinds of opinions.

And yes, 0.9999…=1's analogy is way more accurate than yours. I want you to think about the last time you spilled coffee on yourself. The skin probably got a little red and hurt for a little bit, right? I can not stress enough that this woman got third degree burns from the spilled coffee. If the company brews the coffee so hot that it created third degree burns when spilled even though they were previously told several times to not brew their coffee that hot, then the company should compensate the customer for the horrific injuries they recieved. Period.

But the coffee wasn't ice coffee, was it?
A regular knife is obviously sharp, just like a regular cup of coffee is obviously hot.
right?

If it was labeled as iced coffee or something, i could understand the metaphor.

I'm bored. Let me get lisa to stop bullying people so people can speak up.
 
 
My degrees include public health, psychology, and sociology, and I can (and will) properly defend this. I can be a bit of an ass too, but I at least, have a degree from a school to back it as opposed to simply believing that whatever ignorant and uneducated stance I take is right just because im smrt. So you're arguing less against me and more against the centuries of combined education and research my professors have. But first:

When you actually pay attention to the news, you know this kind of random trivia off the top of your head and don’t need to confirm every statement with Google just to be sure~ it shouldn’t be my job to source common knowledge for you guys all the time.

It is your "job."

When you make an argument that relies on facts (i.e., it is immediately debunked and discredited if facts are shown to be the contrary), then we can simply say "I don't believe focal fact" and the discussion can go no further. Sometimes, a fact should appear reasonable enough. But other times, you have to show that a fact is a fact or why it's a reasonable statement, at least. Otherwise, we have different understandings. Sociologically speaking, shared understandings is the basis of language (and is also the basis of discussion and debate on any online forum.) So you can make a statement. A strong one, actually.
 
But anyone who doesn't believe in the statistics you use can just ignore you and rightfully so. You have to show a solid source for such facts if someone doesn't reasonably believe it or let people argue around it. You can't be all "But I just said this." Or what you say here: I saw it on television.
 
…Further, the fact that you say that you're citing news outlets for facts is concerning in and of itself. I get it's a hassle to run down every single source for every single factoid. Just state your facts, say you can't find it but you believe the source, and go from there.

lmfao shut up if you’re even trying to justify this at all.

 
 
 
 
 
…You're the one talking outside of your field. I could more readily and reasonably tell you the same thing.
 
 
 
 
 

From what I saw with you and Particle Mare on another health/food related debate on Facebook, most of what you say is just harshness meant to antagonize those opposed to your stance. It doesn't make your stance any stronger, but you just strongarm yourself into angering someone else, and that just makes for good entertainment as opposed to a good debate or discussion. You have outstanding logic and somewhat questionable values that make for great commentary.

But no one will even deal with you if you're beating them down by saying they don't even get to have a say.
 
What then? Are you here just to have people upvote your opinion? Are we here on the board "Serious Debate" just to agree with each other?
 
Just showing how smart you are does nothing. It becomes a thread where anyone who opposes your opinion, right or wrong, doesn't even contribute anymore. And if people aren't able to contribute, then they'll up and leave out of boredom (because that's why we're all here originally.) You may like that if you don't think the opposing opinion is valid in the least, but being right and being wrong isn't the end-all of debate and discussion.

Especially on a rarely seen and even less frequently noted forum about memes. It ain't that serious, and no one should take anyone here that seriously unless they're whipping around a banhammer.
 
 
You can take that shit back to Facebook if you don't want people to disagree with you.
 

• First, there's no harm here.

The worst thing that can happen for the "oppressed" companies is that sales for sugary drinks drop. And no one is going to say that people drinking less is a bad thing. Your best argument here is that the government is unnecessarily restricting a business's ability to turn a profit, but that's not the only or even primary purpose of the US government. It is to reasonably protect the people and its liberties. So whereas businesses have liberties, there are also people that are to be protected. And I don't necessarily just mean to protect from obesity: people do have to make good health decisions for themselves.

That also includes the US massive health costs. Right now, business (by their private nature) have a ton more resources to sell the things that affect health, which affect health costs, which in turn affect all of us in taxes and/or insurance costs, which in turn affect who's employed and at what cost, which affects unemployment, underemployment, etc., etc. Because of the overwhelming power of marketing that are tapping into psychological means of persuasion that the average Joe isn't even aware of, government can step in within most people's ethics to protect people when needed. That's not always an easy call, but it's a call that needs to be made sometimes. And sometimes, you can expect the government to get it wrong, even on big issues.

The US can't be taking on this much in health costs with an already massive deficit. And if something as small as a label on a billboard can somehow (doubt it) lower sales and soda consumption, then I'm perfectly willing to have it slapped on the ass of every Coca-Cola employee if we got to.

• Second, there is (or there was a chance for) a benefit to this.

Tobacco has long been known to have a negative affect on people. It's much more obvious than that of excess sugar and its affects on obesity, but both are known (that's why this legislation seems overkill; people should know what happens if you drink too much soda and don't burn off those calories.)

But it wasn't until governments, here in the US but mostly abroad, added proper labels to tobacco products did they have an effect on sales. You need moving labels, you need more than just the text "This is bad for your health, heard?," you need pictures of the effects of a particular, related health condition…

The Truth campaign was effective in lowering adolescent tobacco use rates, because it was more than just a boring ad that you learned to ignore no matter if you used tobacco or not.

So given how smart big tobacco is, I wouldn't be surprised if this decision was actually a compromise from soda companies to buy time in order either to minimize the effect of the warnings or to even increase sales of such drinks. Big tobacco was able to get children to smoke by turning their campaign from stuff like cartoon images to a sign of being "older" and "more mature." The warnings merely helped tobacco create that marketing.

I'm betting that these warnings will merely be vague text, will not include pictures of anything, and they won't move to different areas of the ad. That can be tweaked to a benefit, but it's more likely minimized to have little to no effect on sales.

Psychologically speaking, pictures will work better than lengthy text (the immediate and lasting stimulus).
Moving labels prevent overexposure (i.e., getting used to ads on the side of a page).
And specificity does a better job of reminding the consumer what can happen with overindulgence.

Here's a fact sheet from an anti-tobacco organization of some note about what ads work and what doesn't.

• And third, it may actually prevent the slippery slope

• of banning such drinks in the future.

My experience is anecdotal, but I followed an indoor smoking law in a state county during my grad school practicum and during a class in its curriculum. Many people were opposed to it, because there was already an ordinance saying that all smoking establishments, and many called for the full legislation to ban any indoor smoking.

Some though were calling for something in the middle. But my field advisor and professors most certainly didn't want that, because it would be harder to pass more effective, evidence-based legislation later on.

“WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay. This is a message from the City and County of San Francisco.”

Putting this in an ad or on a billboard won't do anything but give companies more of a leg to stand on.

"We already put up a warning. We already say what's in the drink. We don't need to do anything else." And ruling bodies who just know law will think of the liberties of the companies (and reasonably so,) but it'll make it harder to pass anything else to those ends.

The next, actually effective legislation (i.e., banning drinks, psychologically effective warnings) will be much harder to bring about, because even people who are advocating for public health will have to acknowledge that companies are already providing some form of warning.

That's a common flaw of public health professionals who don't often know law. "Let's get this legislation in, and then we can build from there." The problem is that passing any legislation takes time, and once you've passed one, it takes years to get people to pass another stronger one, especially when local and state legislators can be elected repeatedly, and they keep their same values and opinions throughout their political careers, making large change very difficult over the course of several, increasingly stringent laws.

Business have tons of lawyers, and they know they can buy time for the marketers to figure out how to minimize the effectiveness of the mandatory ads. Make it a certain color. Put it on the right side. Put it on the left side. Create action in the ad/billboard to draw the consumer away from the ad. Keep the ad in the same spot on all ads to increase and expedite overexposure so it becomes more easily ignored.

(That's why you'll hear about "interdisciplinary" and "multidisciplinary" public health approaches, because companies selling unhealthy stuff have interdisciplinary tactics. But that's a tangent.)

Anyway, to sum, It's not likely to work. And if it did, nothing bad is going to come from it. If anything, they should have aimed for the best, evidence-based deterrent instead of trying to implement a piecemeal legislation that can be picked apart or is ineffective without proper supplementary legislation. But it has a chance to work, and I'm more concerned about the massive health care costs than the well-being of Coca-Cola. So yeah, give it a shot.

Finally, blockquoting:

<blockquote>_Text you want to quote here._</blockquote>

=

Text you want to quote here.

Nothing to do with the argument.
 
 
It just looks jank.

{ I am honestly shocked that anyone who read the real facts about that story would still side with McDonald’s. }

Despite the court siding with McDonald's, everywhere still serves coffee at at least 180 degrees by default. That's the proper temperature to serve hot drinks, it's why all these places still get sued all the time, but those bigger warnings on the cups pretty much removes liability in the courts eyes. Now you know it's hot, you should have been more cautious when you were taking off the lid, they can't be found at fault for a genuine accident. Anyone who genuinely gets hurt usually settles out of court for medical fees and a few k hush money.

This is all actually pretty interesting.

Well, actually, if you read that article…
“McDonald’s operations manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
This isn't unusual. However, it's simply ludicrous to serve it at that temperature, especially to someone in a vehicle, as multiple expert testimonies at trial affirmed. And this is how they did it.
Now the reason for that policy is actually somewhat sensical- for the coffee served at the drive-through, they expected that people would be drinking it later on once they arrived at their destinations. But in this case it doesn’t matter, because they provided no warning whatsoever.

oh okay nigga, you wanna fuckin go, let's fuckin go peach.

{ When you make an argument that relies on facts }

"^ tbf that does happen all the time to McDonalds/Starbucks/etc and it’s rarely a legitimate lawsuit."

is not an argument and is not presenting any facts. It is not a statement that needs a source. If the statement sparks your interest in going out and compiling the pinpoint-accurate report, by all means, do so.

{ the fact that you say that you’re citing news outlets for facts }

Google is a search engine, not a news site. The only news site I have linked to in this thread is a report on the conclusion of the trial I was referring to.

{ From what I saw with you and Particle Mare on another health/food related debate on Facebook }

Has absolutely nothing to do with this thread, what I did on facebook is not what I do here, plz stay relevant and on topic~

{ boring basic bullshit about my personality }

{ Are you here just to have people upvote your opinion? }

is this nigga srs are you new here?? Have you seen my karma?
yeah I'm here for all those upvotes

bitch that was not even worth the minute thirty it took to respond to that little ass blurb, I thought your whole rant was for me. yawn

You just said a couple posts ago that statement was "common knowledge", but now suddenly it's "not presenting any facts". Loving the consistency.

And since you're apparently okay with petty name-calling, I guess I'll join in- repeatedly saying "nigga" makes you sound like an obnoxious 12-year-old FPS player. You know, someone like this:

Common knowledge isn't "facts" that require sources, that's why it's common knowledge, are you serious??

I don't give a fuck what you think of my speech habits bruh
if a little bitch wants to call me out like I'm bullying anybody then I'm gonna respond to them like they're being a little bitch. everybody up to that point managed just fine before miss white knight came in to defend the honor of the poor oppressed victims of my ~bullying~

Common knowledge isn’t “facts” that require sources, that’s why it’s common knowledge, are you serious??

It's common knowledge that excessive masturbation causes blindness.

{ Common knowledge need not concern one specific subject, e.g., science or history. Rather, common knowledge can be about a broad range of subjects, such as science, literature, history, and entertainment. Often, common knowledge does not need to be cited. } – wikiiiiii

It has not been "common knowledge" that masturbation causes blindness since the late 1800s.^

^ do not even consider it

Common knowledge need not concern one specific subject, e.g., science or history. Rather, common knowledge can be about a broad range of subjects, such as science, literature, history, and entertainment. Often, common knowledge does not need to be cited.

It has not been “common knowledge” that masturbation causes blindness since the late 1800s.

Neither of these statements proves the other, or are even related to each other.

Way to miss the point.

1. Your statement wasn't common knowledge in the first place.
2. You claiming that it's common knowledge means nothing.

Now children, here is a perfect example of what to do what losing an argument. Rather than respond to any of your opponent's specific assertions, try these helpful tips:

•Use racial slurs in an attempt to offend your opponent into not responding or to shift the topic of conversation from actual discussion.
•Remember to try to shift the burden of proof off of yourself. It frees up your resources to continue arguing and weighs down your opponent if they feel the need to actually try to know the material being discussed.
•A google search itself is a legitimate source. Do not question this.
•Don't think too hard about the paradox of "something not being worth your time," yet still spending time on it, you may hurt yourself.
•And most importantly: Act casual. Try using emoji/emoticons and an informal tone. Deep down you may actually realize that they may have a point, and that you are seeking attention (be it positive or negative) to fill a void in your life. But you must shrug off their criticisms. Be strong, be strong for daddy.

This concludes today's lesson.

Why would I take any of what she posted seriously?

Are we casually ignoring that she opened with { I’m bored. Let me get lisa to stop bullying people so people can speak up. }

I addressed everything that wasn't an irrelevant attack on my personality, as you can read yourself, most of her post consisted of "wahhh if yer mean ppl aren't gonna wanna talk 2 u ya know, y dont u go back 2 fb kk?"

You guys know by now that I use emoticons and the word nigga on a regular basis, don't act like this is the first time like this is something special. PSA: the neighborhood I grew up in wasn't the pretty middle class white suburbia you guys imagine, whites were the minority, I have some speech and writing habits that reflect that (nobody has said a damn thing about how often I say ya'll tho). I'm not going to censor myself for you guys, but I expect you know that already.

This thread will be locked if this irrelevant squabbling continues. Please return to the topic.

Now, now, children, let's settle down and try to act like actual adults mmmkaaay?

This thread is just spiraling into petty insults and posts getting way off topic. You people are literally acting like children. If you all don't get your shit together this thread is getting a lock

EDIT: Well, I guess Particle Mare beat me to it. Good teamwork, I guess

I have a nice day outdoors, come home to check up on how things are in the forums, and I find this shitfest. I suppose it was inevitable considering this was such a non-issue thread (I want to mention for those who didn't read the article that not only does the sugar warning only appear on advertisements and not cans/bottles but the law only applies to soda ads on billboards and taxis but not newspapers, TV, the internet, etc).

@ Erin ◕ω◕: I owe you a beer for that post, A+.

@ Everybody: What do you say we talk about the responsibility the government has in protecting us from damaging consumables/substances? Soda, fast food, alcohol, marijuana; anybody have any opinions on limitations (for or against) or even prohibition of these things?

Edit: I will never get this textile crap right on my first try.

The government is meant to have an incredibly limited in "protecting us" from substances. I hope the Constitution and other federally significant documents I'm about to refer to are common knowledge enough not to need a direct link~

Before the Constitution, though, there's the very simple fact that scientific progress is halted by the expensive, redundant, time-wasting regulations surrounding research on and with controlled substances. Like every other industry that has to deal with the federal government. It doesn't only effect their research, but if the research is positive and scientists want to get a substance off that list and out of their regulatory control? Hah.

Actually let's not go into the Constitution/etcetc, the legality of the "war on drugs" debate is so tired from the religious freedom and the 18th Amendment angle. I don't even want to imagine people actually believe the government should play mommy and daddy and regulate our food consumption, which crosses the line from government obligation to Soylent Green, so scientific progress it is!

PopSci did a piece on why it's so hard to study pot specifically. I found a nice study on the effects of schedule I drug laws on neuroscience research and treatment innovation in one of the journal databases I use, but I pay for full access. The PopSci article pretty much goes over exactly the same things anyway.

I find the warning labels to be unnecessary, but they shouldn't be that big of an issue, at least as long as they don't lead to bans or something.

I find what San Fran's doing to be utterly ridiculous and pointless. There's already nutrition facts on sugary foods. It's at the point companies are putting that information on the front of the packages just in case people are too lazy to flip it around.

I don't think there's a single person in the country that doesn't know drinking something with a lot of sugar isn't the best health decision. Wasting time and money reminding people of the obvious isn't how to go about it. You can't force people to do something. It's been shown time and time again. They have to want to do it.