Comment by inetknght

> None of that forces people to do anything or makes any decisions for them. Coke doesn't force itself on you. Consumers choose it.

You really do think that people make their own decisions. Good for you. I know that many people are incapable of making decisions and businesses abuse that to make decisions for people. Advertising is one big way that happens.

> But that doesn't take away their complete responsibility for their decision.

I never said it does. You're moving the argument.

> Learning to cook isn't that hard

Maybe for you.

Not for me either. But I know several people who couldn't cook if their life depended on it. I know someone who burned a pan trying to boil water. Oh goodness the incompetence...

> and the reward in time and money saved is enormous

I disagree. It takes me a lot longer to cook for myself for negligible monetary savings and negative time savings.

> You are slow when you start off, but you get a lot faster once you have done it a little bit

I've been cooking for myself for decades. That doesn't make me faster. I'm glad it does for you.

> On this website I see many comments from people claiming that it is more expensive to cook because you have to buy ingredients. Ingredients are cheap!

Ingredients are cheap! Well, unless they're not. Vegetables are generally cheap, meat is generally not.

But the time for buying them is not. Spend an hour driving to the store, going around the grocery store to get all of the ingredients, coming home, and putting them away. There goes an hour, an opportunity cost.

Then spend another hour to chop, cook, and clean afterward. Every day. That's a lot of time. And if you're not doing anything else for that time, great! You're "saving" money! And hopefully you're eating healthy too, but cooking at home doesn't guarantee eating healthy.

But if you could have done something else for that time, would you? Go to the gym, for example? More time with your kids. Or catch up on a book or a movie. Work on your hobby -- and add that hobby to your resume. Or, stay later at work for an extra hour of pay.

> It is easy to see someone voting ... and assume

It's better to talk to them and try to understand how or why they vote. Most of the people around me try to avoid thinking.

Down the party line because it's easy. This candidate because the other candidate is bad. That candidate because this candidate is bad. Very little thought is ever put into their own actual opinions, because all of the thinking is done for them and they're "done thinking" about it. Have you talked to people who vote?