Comment by graemep
8 days ago
> I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.
Other countries are moving in the same direction. The EU has repeatedly tried to push things like on device scanning or banning encryption.
> Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government.
Mostly a failure of democracy - we have two major parties that are hard to tell apart.
They are both cynical and scared, and have for decades believed the future of Britain is managed decline. They also strongly believe the hoi polloi have to be forced to do what is good for them - e.g. the sugar tax and other "nudge politics", or the currently Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is basically about imposing central policy on how children are brought up and educated.
The sugar tax is a strange example to pick as an example of British decline.
As of 2022, the WHO reported on SSB (sugar-sweetened beverages):
> Currently, at least 85 countries implement some type of SBB taxation.
It feels to me like this was a rare step in the opposite direction - recognising that industry is the driving cynical force and pushing back on its over reach where it has failed. Most manufacturers reformulated their drinks immediately to avoid the tax, with what net loss? (The class-targeting comments were a straw man)
https://www.who.int/news/item/13-12-2022-who-calls-on-countr...
In principle I support taxes that disincentivise production of negative externalities (in this case, adverse health effects).
However the way this works out in practice is a reduction in consumer choice, one that I'm reminded of every time I walk into a shop.
> Most manufacturers reformulated their drinks immediately
This is the problem, really. Rather than adding new "low sugar" product lines, in most instances they're modifying existing ones to replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners. The "original recipe" is often no longer available to consumers at any price.
As someone who struggles to consume enough calories to stay healthy, this sucks! (Mostly unrelated to pricing, just as a matter of practicality)
Cigarette smokers for example can still walk into just about any shop and purchase their favourite cigarettes, they just have to pay more for them - this seems fine.
Overall I'm quite on the fence about the whole thing, but on a purely emotional level it feels like an instance of government overreach.
Personally, I enjoy an energy drink here and there. But I loathe sugar in my drinks.
However, sugar sweatened energy drinks are much more available.
So I share your frustration in the opposite direction.
The said. Taxation is not for the individual but the society.
Whilr I am sorry to hear that you have issue getting enough calories, that is simply a non concern for the society.
So this seems to be a good use of tax for incentivizing.
> As someone who struggles to consume enough calories to stay healthy, this sucks! (Mostly unrelated to pricing, just as a matter of practicality)
Even without the price difference I have a hard time imagining how such an outcome would be necessary, maybe you can clarify?
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Its not an example of decline, it is an example of nudge politics and trying to control what the hoi polloi do. I was making two points which is why I said "they ALSO believe".
It is a prime example of class targetting because manufacturers of more expensive drinks still put sugar in them, its the cheap drinks that have switched to sugar substitutes.
The EU is also increasingly against free speech. It turns out banning hate speech was a slippery slope to government overreach after all. Huh.
Besides the never-ending back-and-forth between the EC and the EP [1] what are the latest anti-free-speech moves you've seen in the EU?
Germany's gotten more freedom online since the EU DSA forced them to abandon their idiotic strict liability law for online activities [2]. You can't criticize Israel, but you never could - that's not a new thing.
[1] basically "Can we have mass surveillance now, pretty please?" "No and fuck off" "Please please please please please?" "No" "How about now?"
[2] they would trace the activity as far as they could, and whoever they couldn't trace further beyond was automatically fully liable for that activity. Public wifi was effectively illegal, because you'd suffer the full consequences for anything anyone did with the connection, until a few years ago when they carved out an exception, but it still remained generally illegal to share a connection in other circumstances until the DSA.
> Mostly a failure of democracy
Is it though? Are other forms of government more successful while remaining respectful of privacy? Or is it more of a reaction to social or societal changes? Why would these social or societal changes be different than previous changes?
> They also strongly believe the hoi polloi have to be forced to do what is good for them - e.g. the sugar tax and other "nudge politics", or the currently Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is basically about imposing central policy on how children are brought up and educated.
A non insulting way to view that is that central goverments understand incentives, and in the same way there are child incentives for people starting families, having incentives for healthier eating is something a central goverment should use its taxation policy for.
More control over education standards is also a common purview of many good educational systems. Decentralisation is not necesirely better, with teh extreme being homeschooling failing every time its attempted. Centrally dictated standards was the method of the French revolution, believing that a society where everyone roughly understands the world the same way was a society that was more unified. French "equality , fraternity and legality " is a basis for modern liberal democracy almost everywhere, but they didnt get there without authoritarian imposition of their standards, with entire minority cultures getting trampled along the way.
The hyperbole and bad faith explanations of legislation is not a good representation or argument against why britain is more accepting of som legislation many feel intrusive.
A better argument is that this piece of legislation was passed late on the rule of a disastrous administration and the number of problems in day to day society largely are unaffected by it, so it got no time in the spotlight for people to complaint or know it was coming until it was days away from being implemented. Society is also largely technologically illiterate, this is pretty much the case everywhere in the planet, which means the nuances of tech legislation are lost even on the people writting and voting on it.
>with teh extreme being homeschooling failing every time its attempted.
I don't know where this is coming from; statistically speaking, homeschooled children do better on pretty much every educational outcome. Because the absolute number one factor determining student outcomes is the ratio of students to teachers; the fewer students per teacher, the better.
> Because the absolute number one factor determining student outcomes is the ratio of students to teachers; the fewer students per teacher, the better.
Home educated kids often teach themselves so the student teacher ratio is infinity so terrible!
Both my kids taught themselves some subjects (had tutors for other, had me for some, so lots of one to one too). They did just as well in the subjects they taught themselves (8 and 9 in GCSE Latin, which as they did not have a tutor and I am terrible at languages is very much self taught).
This is a very common fallacy repeated by people who are either interested in supporting homeschooling, or haven't thought much about the subject.
The most telling stats is that the percentage of homeschooling parents increases, specially in religious communities but the test takers in homeschooled scenarios almost always come from higher educated urban families.
There is a large case of selectin bias, in a public school every kid takes an SAT test. For homeschooled kids, the kid of two doctors who was homeschooled and aces tests for breakfast he takes teh SAT and smokes any underfunded public school near him (although he probably scores average or below prep schools that cost arguably less than his homeschooling, with additional socialisation benefits etc). Meanwhile the hyper religious family wanting their daughter to marry at 16 is not letting that barely literate girl take her SATs.
The two groups in favour of home schooling are hyper capitalistists who think the disruption of public schooling + their advantage will make their kid unstopable, and the niche fringe believes, usually religious who are scared of interacting with mainstream institutions for fear of disrupting their reality. Both are problematic, anti social and harmful groups and their over representation in goverment and media is largely a sympton of the inability of liberal institutions to fight against illiberal threats.
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If most of the public are in favour of the Online Safety Act, then how is it a failure of democracy to have it? I give you the top FT comment:
>I, for one, am glad that porn is being age-restricted online. It gives young people false ideas. You'll never get a plumber to come around to your house that quickly in real life.
The Online Safety Act has a reach and consequences than restricting access to porn. As has been mentioned on HN many times it is causing forums to shut down, and people to move to social media instead. It is causing forums in other countries to shut out British users. It is essentially making UGC something only businesses, especially the tech giants, can do. Even with porn age verification is a concern.
that is a joke comment
Yes, it is. Well observed.
Didn't there used to be a explainingthejoke user on here? Whatever happened to them?