Comment by MatekCopatek

Great examples!

Polluting vs. not polluting sounds super straightforward, but then you look outside and we often pollute rivers, so it's clearly not that simple.

Personally, I'm fully with you on not polluting. But that immediately puts us in an ideological position - we value preserving the environment and staying healthy.

A neo-liberal might come along and say we're wasting economic potential. Keeping the river clean means not building a factory near it. If the products from that factory and the jobs it provides offset the negative effects, they'll argue we _should_ pollute the river.

Same with taxing sugary drinks - uncertain results aren't the issue. The issue is we have different opinions on how much a government should be able to regulate certain aspects of life in the pursuit of improving public health.

Even if you have reliable statistical data from countries that implemented such a policy, some people will argue their freedom to drink whatever they want is what's important here and your bean-counting of medical expenses is completely missing the point.