
A Public Option for Food - prostoalex
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/11/a-public-option-for-food
======
js8
I think both options together are good. Both capitalist and government-planned
economies have inefficiencies, but at different areas.

If you have some service provided by government, then it's sometimes
inefficient. These inefficiencies can only be reduced by better governance,
i.e. people actually getting involved politically and forcing the management
to straighten it out.

If you have some service provided by only private companies for profits, then
perhaps the production is efficient, but this efficiency can become lost for
the end customer in the form of profits. In theory, this shouldn't happen due
to competition but in practice it happens a lot (almost no private company
operates at marginal costs).

So if you have a choice of both options, in theory you should get optimal
results. In practice, it is difficult for societies to keep both options, for
reasons:

1\. If the public option is too good (too efficient), no private companies
want to compete (no profit). For example, look at some state-owned European
companies, such as Swiss post or railways.

2\. If the private option is too good (only decent profit), then there is no
reason to have the public option. People want to avoid governance, if
possible. The people who pay for private option will question if they actually
need to fund the public option from taxes if the private ones are comparably
good.

So I think the big problem is that system with both (the best one) is
unstable.

~~~
fvdessen
Worst case scenario is that the private's solution is too good and the state
thus regulates the private competition to be as bad as the public.

~~~
js8
Do you have some examples? I can only see the obvious extreme example of
communism, which forbade private competition at all.

But I am not clear who (which party) would push for such a regulation. The
benefit to the public is obviously bad, and the private industry would
certainly oppose it.

~~~
timthelion
I have the opposite example. In the Czech Republic, the national railway was
sued by the private railways for being too cheep. And the private railways won
in court!

~~~
ajmurmann
Similarly: in Germany you used to bed able to watch the entire back catalog of
public broadcasting companies. They got sued by private broadcasters and now
are only allowed to show two weeks back. I think it's ridiculous, since the
tax payer paid for and owns the content.

------
Doji
> Food companies such as Procter and Gamble, Kraft, and Campbell Soup were
> also curious about Lands’s work and invited him to give presentations. “But
> they didn’t want to touch the idea that they might be selling foods that
> were harmful to people with a ten-foot pole,” says Lands. “Bill, we sell
> foods that people ask for,” Lands recalls one executive explaining. “We
> don’t tell the people what to eat. If you convince the public that our food
> should have a different balance, we’ll change it.”

\- The Queen of Fats by Susan Allport

Corporations are not guilt free in this mess, but they are not the root of the
problem. The high carb, high omega 6 guidelines that have caused our health
crisis were instituted in haste and ignorance by the government. The
government corn subsidies have distorted the market and make junk processed
corn products cheaper than healthy food. Guidelines to reduce saturated fat
and cholesterol have caused people to move to industrial seed oils, causing a
overconsumption of omega6 fatty acids and consequential inflammatory disease.
Corporations have simply provided what we have asked for. The author of this
argument is ignorant of the real causes of disease and chooses to blame cheese
and salt for our problems. I'm much happier with corporations and the ability
to make my own, well informed health choices than government interference.

~~~
jbarciauskas
The guidelines created by the USDA have always been and continue to be the
product of corporate lobbying, not science.
[https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/7/10726606/2015-us-
dietary-g...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/7/10726606/2015-us-dietary-
guidelines-meat-and-soda-lobbying-power)

~~~
Doji
I believe there is likely a lot of truth to this. I'm sure we can all agree
crony capitalism is awful. However, I do not agree with this article that red
meat is a cause for health concern. Such claims tend to be based on weak
associations from flawed epidemiological studies, which cannot prove cause and
effect.

~~~
undersuit
I think there is very strong evidence that replacing "red meat" in the
Standard American Diet is healthier, and that is as far as the Verge is going
to dive into that particular argument.

I do agree the red meat in the Standard American Diet is a health concern, but
that's because the healthiest options to consume red meat in our collective
dietary preferences are still going to be laden with sugary dressings or
carbohydrate rich mashed potatoes. Meat always comes with additional and
excessively plentiful carbohydrates.

~~~
yarden
That's because people in the United States as a general rule eat tons of
cheap, processed meat. When removed, there's a slight chance it'll be replaced
by actual vegetables, of which their diet has tremendous lack of, so in almost
any case it will be a win-win for their digestive system and cholesterol. It's
not the meat it's you

------
DoreenMichele
I imagine this author has never been to a soup kitchen. One experience with
your typical soup kitchen should cure anyone of the notion that this is a good
idea.

The food is appalling. The service is terrible. If your stuff gets stolen
while you eat because they insisted you leave it elsewhere, not their problem.
They assume they know what is best for you, never mind they have no idea what
your diagnosis is and no idea about the doctor ordered dietary restrictions
that go with it. So the assumption is both flat out wrong and monstrously
insulting.

I would literally rather fast for a day or so than ever go back to a soup
kitchen. That is not hyperbole. I have made that exact choice on a number of
occasions while dirt poor.

~~~
jbarciauskas
Like any government program, or anything really, it could be operated well or
poorly. We can examine what about the proposal might make it hard to implement
properly, such as the wide variety of dietary restrictions as well as peoples'
personal tastes and the fact that food for many people is a central part of
their family and culture. Maybe that means such a program should focus more on
the raw ingredients than delivering prepared food. I'm not sure because some
soup kitchens are bad, we should discount all publicly funded food. For one,
it does in fact feed lots of people today via free school lunch programs.

~~~
fvdessen
The difference is that when a private program is run badly, it goes bankrupt
and is closed. When a public program is run badly, it keeps going on forever.

~~~
jbarciauskas
I think this is a bit naive. Badly run corporations find ways to keep
themselves alive, it's not like owners and shareholders look at a bad
situation and just say "Oh well, we tried" and go home. I think there's a
strong case to be made that shareholders should be much more willing to just
close up shop and cut their losses when the world changes around them, but
that's not how people work.

~~~
Doji
You are of course right, but it is nevertheless mostly true, and in this case
mostly true happens to be sufficient. Evolution works despite the fact that
unfit animals don't always die.

More importantly, private companies preserve choice (assuming no monopoly).
Government provides no choice. My ability to make my own choice is what is
most valuable to me.

~~~
jbarciauskas
I don't mean to be too harsh, but you might value your ability to choose less
if you didn't know when your next meal would be.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I was homeless for a long time. Valuing my agency above all else helped me
solve my problems and get off the street.

When you start eroding rights on the excuse that someone is too poor to have
any right to care about such high minded frivolities as rights, you deprive
them of hope of resolving their problems.

~~~
jbarciauskas
I don't think anyone here is talking about taking away anyone's rights. The
implication above was that government providing free food might lead to less
choice as government crowds out business, but not removing someone's "right"
to choose. The tradeoff between more choice in food and people starving
doesn't seem to be much of a tradeoff. There's plenty of room for a middle
ground.

~~~
DoreenMichele
My comments are in regards to your statement here:

 _but you might value your ability to choose less if you didn 't know when
your next meal would be._

I am telling you that when I was so poor that I often had no idea when my next
meal might be, I valued my own agency -- my right to choose and to make
choices -- tremendously. But it looks to me like, overall, most folks here
don't want to hear the opinions of someone who actually ate regularly at soup
kitchens for a time. They want to say nice things about being generous people
who will feed the hungry, and let's not let actual facts get in the way of our
pretty ideas that this is always a good thing with no down side.

It is a form of virtue signaling. It is also a form of pity, which is
fundamentally disrespectful. You assume you are in a better position than the
people of whom you speak to decide for them, while completely dismissing the
opinions to the contrary of someone still poor enough that food security is an
ongoing question mark.

This seems to be par for the course.

~~~
jbarciauskas
While I value your experience and perspective, I don't believe you speak for
all people who are food insecure. There is lots of evidence, given the success
of food banks, meals on wheels and other programs, that many would welcome
this type of universal free food. You also assume that I am somehow in favor
of paternalistic policies and against the agency of poor people, when that is
not at all the intent of my comment and does not reflect my personal beliefs.
I am personally strongly in favor of a universal basic income and other
approaches that enable people who do not earn wages or have other sources of
income to make the best decisions for themselves. I also think this is a good
idea. I think there are a lot of different ways to improve the quality of life
of a lot of people, and I don't think just giving away food to everyone
(rather than means-testing the program or something) is particularly
paternalistic or highly choice-limiting.

With regard to "virtue signaling", that is a derogatory term used to imply
that a person is only promoting an idea to appear good to others, without a
genuine care or interest in effecting the change they are promoting. I think
we have a fundamental disagreement about what sorts of policies would be
effective, and using that term is unnecessarily dismissive.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_I think we have a fundamental disagreement about what sorts of policies would
be effective, and using that term is unnecessarily dismissive._

Using that term mostly indicates that I feel incredibly dismissed most of the
time on Hacker News.

This is a new handle, but I am not new here. I have had college classes on,
for example, homelessness and public policy. I got myself off the street on my
own efforts, not through some program. As best I can tell, I am the only woman
who has ever spent any time on the leaderboard of HN.

None of it seems to make any difference. I continue to get no traction. I
continue to not get substantive feedback on my projects. I continue to have no
connections. My income remains extremely low.

I can't help but feel that sexism and classism are factors and I am just
incredibly frustrated. Trying to do something good against long odds, etc
begins to seem totally pointless and fruitless. I increasingly understand the
very angry feminist types. I don't agree with their approach, but no approach
seems to actually work.

You and I do fundamentally disagree. I am not pro UBI. I think that is a
polite means to crap all over the have nots and increasingly cut them out of
ever more access to money, rights, you name it.

I don't intend to engage further. I don't think this is in any way whatsoever
productive. It is yet another exercise in me trying to engage in good faith
with someone who seems to fundamentally be incapable of genuinely respecting
me. Everything you say is another ever so politely dismissive thing done in
accordance with the rules such that me getting offended just makes me look bad
in the eyes of everyone here.

I have been facing this sort of thing with, I think, quite a lot of aplomb for
more than 8 years, to no avail at all. And I just am not coping well with that
fact at the moment.

------
peatmoss
> We don’t have government-run grocery stores like we have government-run
> schools. And yet most people in the country seem pretty happy with their
> grocery stores. They can get whatever they want there, and if they can’t
> afford it, we subsidize it with a “voucher” (i.e. food stamps). The profit
> motive hasn’t led to a rapacious system of exploitation.

This isn’t strictly true for poorer areas. Grocery stores that have a
predominately captive clientele (i.e. can’t afford to drive long distances and
have big kitchens to store bulk purchases from discount big box stores) do
tend to charge more for the same goods than stores in more affluent / mobile
areas.

~~~
kiliantics
As a European that has moved to the USA, I find these "food deserts" here
appalling. In order to have access to local, fresh, quality ingredients, you
need to be in an outrageously high income bracket. There is absolutely a food
supply problem.

------
mrob
>Every town has an American Free Diner in it. The music is great and there’s a
buzzing neon sign.

I think that latter sentence is telling. No music is "great" to everybody. In
some cases any music at all may make the diner unusable, eg. for autistic
people with sensory processing difficulties. The author appears not to have
considered this. Centralized food provision will necessarily reduce choice,
and reduced choice will harm many people.

Of course capitalism isn't perfect either, for all the reasons described, but
it makes more sense to address specific market failures with regulation than
replace the whole system. Eg. I don't see why corporations should be
considered people with free speech rights, so I'd support heavy restrictions
on advertising.

~~~
mattmanser
That's a big jump from a tiny percentage to "many". How many autistic people
with sensory problems would even attend a general populace diner and not their
own state run diner attached to their adult care home?

I think you should put aside your music objection. Of course, the NHS, which
he used as an example, accommodates a wide range of people. I'm sure as they'd
be so many diners needed they'd have rooms available without the music you've
latched on to. I would imagine in the UK you might have one room on radio 1,
another on radio 2, some silent, etc.

While I doubt it would ever happen I'm pretty certain he's right that this
would help far, far more people than it would hurt. And, bonus, if they don't
like it they can go buy their own groceries and cook.

~~~
mrob
The music will affect only a small minority, but the music is just one of many
choices the author proposes the government make for people. The number of
people affected by at least one of those choices will be much higher.

Even if there's a private option, the public option has to be funded somehow.
If you can opt out of paying in exchange for losing access to the service then
it's no longer "free".

And in my experience, while the NHS is superb for common physical ailments, if
there's anything unusual wrong with you then they're close to useless.
Healthcare is in any case an atypical market because it's already so heavily
regulated.

------
thisisit
> That’s because I tend to think that when a service is for profit rather than
> for the public’s benefit, all sorts of perverse incentives arise. If schools
> operated for profit, with education subsidized by vouchers, the companies
> running the schools would have an interest in spending as little as possible
> actually educating the students, because every dollar they could save would
> be a dollar they could keep.

The problem with this kind of argument is that it forgets the incentive of a
government run or public's benefit is that they too have a different metric to
adhere to - politics. They then lead to a cumbersome system with nearly zero
responsibility. This then gets picked up by people on the opposite side of the
fence as failures of public benefit, government run system.

So, unfortunately things have to seen on a case to case basis. Public benefit
schooling is a great thing. But public benefit food option? That is debatable.
For some it will come off "government controlling what we eat" and hurting
fundamental rights.

~~~
sandworm101
>>> because every dollar they could save would be a dollar they could keep.

Which is why they shouldn't operate as corporations. They can still be "for-
profit" but under a different corporate scheme. Make all the kids/parents
shareholders/members in the association and keep those profits internal.

~~~
kiliantics
So a cooperative model? I like that. I think pretty much everything would be
better off and we would all benefit more if our institutions were structured
as worker-owner and worker-consumer cooperatives.

------
golergka
> Americans live on junk food; they have terrible diets, with too much sodium,
> too many calories, too much sugar, and too few fruits and vegetables.

Yes. That happens because they are able to execute their own free will and
choose for themselves - and of course, most people are easily manipulated and
choose poorly.

But here lies the fundamental difference between "left" and "right" positions.
"Left" tends to optimize for the best utilitarian value from some objective,
authoritative point of view (like how good a person diet's is) and would favor
a situation where a well-intended authority would choose what's best for the
people. Meanwhile, the "right"-wing objective is to optimize a person's
individual freedom - which, of course, usually leads to most people making
poor choices and having less total utilitarian happiness.

Which of those values we should optimize for, and what is the best compromise
is a complicated question that lies at the basis of a lot of modern political
debates. In this particular comment I'm not trying to take any sides. But why
am I talking about it at all then? Because it seems surprising to me how
people on the "left" side of such arguments naively assume that we all want to
optimize for the same total utilitarian value, completely disregarding that
the other side tries to optimize for a different metric.

~~~
pwinnski
Phrased this way, it starts to sound like an ML problem. Optimize based on a
cost function, now what cost function do we use?

Having people choose to maximize happiness seems to be leading to worse
outcomes by many objective standards. The monetary costs are high for the
society in aggregate (and the externalities are not distributed according to
the costs), health outcomes seem to be getting worse even to the extreme of
lowering life expectancy, and so on. Purely seeking individual happiness seems
like the wrong cost function based on that.

Of course, focusing only on economic cost to society would be even worse, and
health outcomes tend to be based in large part on individual happiness.

I guess I'm saying that as you've characterized things, you make it sound like
the "right" position is the correct one, but there seem to be a lot of things
about that position that aren't so great. To be fair, you said "less total
utilitarian happiness," but I thought it might help to give examples.

~~~
golergka
> Phrased this way, it starts to sound like an ML problem.

Which, I think, it pretty soon well be, and in some sense, already is
(trading).

> I guess I'm saying that as you've characterized things, you make it sound
> like the "right" position is the correct one

While this is indeed my position, I tried not to express it in this particular
comment, because it's not about who is right in this debate but rather about
acknowledging it's existence and importance in the first place.

------
twoquestions
One thing I was talking about with some other people is to have a community
kitchen. You could buy prepared food, or if you have more time than money you
could buy the ingredients sold there and make it yourself in the kitchen. This
could be really great for people that lack a kitchen (like college students)
or for people who weren't taught how to cook.

The major problem with this is who's responsible for cleanup, and how would we
divide labor for this place. What do y'all think?

~~~
pythonaut_16
I have had similar thoughts. Also just an option for people who don't have
families or live far from their families (e.g. single and moved to a new city
for work) to prepare and share meals together. Like maybe I know that I'm
cooking for ~6 people every Tuesday as part of a meal sharing, and someone
else is cooking on Thursdays. Or maybe one night a week, I know that I'm
cooking on the first Tuesday of every month, and someone else is cooking the
second, etc.

------
PatientTrades
> I went to a public school. I enjoyed myself there. I believe it taught me
> some things.

My mom switched me from public to private school in elementary school. Without
a doubt the quality of the private schools' facilities, teachers, staff, and
education were much better then the public school. I ended being held back in
the 3rd grade simply because I was so far behind my other classmates in terms
of knowledge that was not stressed at the public school. Yes, private school
can be expensive, but if you have the resources and can find a good school
with a track record of success, I highly recommend enrolling your kids in a
private school.

~~~
madsbuch
Come to a Scandinavian public school. Then you'll see working public schools.
Evidently, this has nothing to do with publicness or privateness, but rather a
culture. The big question is: in what direction should we push the society?

------
peterwwillis
In 2010, 18 million people lived in a food desert, without reasonable
accessibility to any grocery store, and 41.2 million people live in a food-
insecure household.

That's _10 percent of the population with no access to healthy food_ , and _1
in 7 Americans going hungry every year_.

And this guy wants to build Diners (where no grocery stores exist) and not
only collect food there, but cook and serve it to people. And thinks this will
solve our nutrition problems.

Sorry, but this guy is a fucking idiot. Besides the fact that this would be a
bigger infrastructure project than fixing all our ailing bridges and roads,
How are you going to handle thousands of people all wanting to eat at the same
time? Are you going to provide transportation for them all? Leftovers? Handle
all possible allergies, dietary and religious restrictions? Is the food going
to cover a range of cuisines, since people in the US all come from varying
backgrounds and traditions?

There's probably a thousand different problems with forcing people to go to a
specific place every single day just to get a meal, besides the fact that this
would _never get funded by the government_ , because almost all food banks and
soup kitchens are privately funded, because the government won't.

------
jriot
I understand the article is more about feeding in mass.

However, how hard is it to eat healthy?

I don't understand why people have trouble here. It is fairly simple concept
we can apply logic to:

if food is prepackaged:

    
    
        if food has ingredients you can't pronounce:
    
             bad for you
    
        else:
    
             probably bad for you
    

else:

    
    
         good for you
    

Do I eat salads everyday? No. I get my chickens from a local farm up the road,
killed the day I buy them. I fry them up with collard greens on the side. The
collard greens are made from the pig I bought from the same farm and had
slaughtered - its understand collard greens are made with bacon slow cooking
all day.

Does everyone have access to these farms? No. Though you can still buy quality
food at the super-market.

I look at people's carts, and its full of soda, chips, frozen food, Starbucks
coffee cans etc... Literally none of the food requires any type of cooking -
heating in the oven or microwave does not equate to cooking. Plus this stuff
is not cheap, chips are $3, soda is $3 - 5 a 12 pack etc... Drink whole milk
at $2 a gallon or brew ice tea at $0.50 a gallon. Buy popcorn kernels at $8 a
bag (expensive from local farmer, $3-4 is more likely), melt Kerrygold butter
pour over top and add salt.

If you do not know how to cook I recommend starting with 'The Essentials of
Italian Cooking' by Marcella Hazan. You can make sauce and pasta (not
required) from scratch in under an hour. Inexpensive, fair better tasting and
healthy. Most recipes are simple and teaches you how to cook - Italian cooking
at least.

~~~
mattmanser
This thread is full of victim blaming.

The simple, completely obvious, counter-argument to this is that if it were
that easy, every person would do it. There would be no obese people. Virtually
no-one wants to be fat.

Instead the problem is getting worse. Telling people to eat less and move more
is simply not working.

~~~
jriot
There are no victims because it is a personal choice. If you want to be fat
and lead a horrible life, so be it.

Eating healthy is very simple. People research which TV to buy, what
television show to watch, what political news story to be enraged about etc...
But can't spend five minutes how to eat properly?

There are no victims here, just people unwilling to accept responsibility for
their choices.

~~~
mattmanser
Again with the victim blaming, no matter how many different ways you say the
same thing, you're completely wrong.

It's not a personal choice, it's like claiming smoking is a personal choice.
40 years ago it really wasn't, it was a social normal, and then when it became
clear how badly the tobacco companies had misled the world, it took a lot of
struggle and effort and huge public policy initiatives to reduce smoking.

A large section of society has been attacked by companies for profit using
lies, addictive substances and manipulation and simply saying "stop smoking"
or "start spending inordinate amounts of time researching every thing you eat
to find out if it has added sugar, even though it's presented to you as
healthy", didn't/hasn't worked.

That you're still trying to peddle the obesity crisis as a moral failing of
some huge swathe of the population is really sad and disappointing.

~~~
jriot
You are completely wrong.

What you eat is a personal choice, such as smoking is personal choice.
Regardless of societal norms, it is still a personal choice.

Not every issue in society requires a victim. Victim for example is someone
who was raped because they didn't have a choice in the manner. Going to the
store, and choosing which items to purchase does not equate to a victim. Just
because a large portion of society makes poor choices does not equate to a
large portion of society being victims.

If all of society jumped off a bridge, are they all victims?

------
theBuess
> If schools operated for profit, with education subsidized by vouchers, the
> companies running the schools would have an interest in spending as little
> as possible actually educating the students, because every dollar they could
> save would be a dollar they could keep.

How can someone actually believe this?

That point of view makes the rest of this article hard to take at face value.

~~~
ctdonath
My kids have been in 3 schools. Public (among the best in the area) has proved
far worse than private. "Keep" too much, and the money walks.

------
zeveb
> That’s because I tend to think that when a service is for profit rather than
> for the public’s benefit, all sorts of perverse incentives arise. If schools
> operated for profit, with education subsidized by vouchers, the companies
> running the schools would have an interest in spending as little as possible
> actually educating the students, because every dollar they could save would
> be a dollar they could keep. That strikes me as dangerous, and I can’t help
> but think that it will lead inexorably in the direction of giving children
> iPads rather than teachers.

The trouble with a public system is that all sorts of perverse incentives
arise. Civil servants' unions have an interest in maximising benefits to their
members, and in the U.S. they spend their dues (taken, ultimately, from the
taxpayer) to lobby politicians to increase their members' benefits (taken,
ultimately, from the taxpayer). A public system mandates that everyone
contribute, regardless of his or her beliefs: in Tennessee an atheist might be
forced to spend on a school which teaches creationism, while in San Francisco
a theist might be forced to spend on a school which teaches that there is no
God.

There would be similar problems with a 'public food option.' The author notes
'I could give you a dozen people who could run a nutritious, delicious, and
decidedly non-dreary nonprofit diner given a sufficient budget': what would
prevent those dozen people from each building their own little empires on the
taxpayers' dime? Who is to determine what is a sufficient but not exorbitant
level of non-dreariness? Is it okay for the Free American Diner to serve meat?
Non-kosher food?

None of this is to say that private firms don't _also_ have perverse
incentives: he's right, they do. But I think that the answer is generally to
try to fix that (e.g. by regulation) rather than to go public. At least with
competing firms one _might_ have a choice: with a public option, only the very
wealthy can opt out.

------
chiefalchemist
> "Then I remembered that nutrition in America is a total disaster, that ⅔ of
> the country is obese or overweight, and that half of the country either has
> diabetes or is at high risk of having diabetes soon. If we start providing
> education like we provide nutrition, then God help the little children…"

The irony here is (pardon the hyperbole) literally deadly.

If we're going to prevent obesity then more people need to be educated on the
causes. In many (read: all) of the non-medical condition based cases, the
individual is their own best enemy. There is nothing more choice based than
what you put in your mouth.

No doubt, there's room for improvement in the food system. But I've seen
people with choices consistently choose badly. To blame the system is blaming
a symptom.

~~~
mattmanser
This is discussed extensively in the article, and is in fact the main argument
of the article.

The thrust of his argument is that capitalism forces companies to play to
biological triggers that are bad for us, and to play them hard. And then use
psychological tricks to make you feel ok for falling for them, even though you
logically know you shouldn't.

If they don't their competitors will.

So the system is deliberately exerting pressure to become obese, it's not a
symptom, it's a direct cause.

He even uses examples of how Brazil and other countries have been targeted
deliberately by companies selling sugar and salt and have suddenly developed
obesity problems, after US companies ran around giving away desserts and other
sugar laden food.

I would re-read the article and pay attention to the parts about Coke, Raisin
Bran and Minute Maid juice, plus him discussing Brazil, if you missed the
arguments.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yes. I got all that. I see it everyday. My point is that when we've reached a
point where it's acceptable to blame anything but ourselves for what we buy at
the supermarket...for what we put in our mouths...then we are in very bad
shape.

Fixing the system isn't going to fix The Problem. The lack of self
responsibility will only manifest itself elsewhere.

Put another way, in the bigger scheme of things, we can't keep complaining
about the power of the overseers (i.e., the 1% et al) and make every solution
one that champions the Nanny State.

~~~
mrguyorama
At a certain point I think it's reasonable to say that a company spending half
a billion dollars on psychology research and manipulation (advertising) MIGHT
just have the upper hand.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Pardon my non-HN tone but...does that reasonable point come before or after I
look down and can't see my own penis when I pee? How isn't that a trigger for
"something is wrong"?

Yes, there is a well-armed enemy. But most people I've come in contact with
are in denial that enemy exists. You can't stop a problem if you're unwilling
to admit it exists. You can't improve your health if you're more committed to
the idea that you have a God-given right to a sugar frosted donut. __

Is it unreasonable to expect people to look in the mirror, literally? I 'm not
suggesting it's easy, but why is trying a bad thing?

 __Furthermore, and not to get too off-topic, but aside from too many sugars
/carbs the average American diet includes too much factory farmed animals -
whether that's milk or meat. Those animals are VERY resource intensive. Those
animals also produce green horse gases (i.e, they fart, a lot).

So when was the last time you heard ANYONE of significant leadership say
"America! You need to change your diet - for your own good, as well as the
good of the planet"? Sure Obama got us ACA but he never met the much bigger
(no pun intended) - less politically beneficial - root problem head on.

That's. Not. Leadership. Is it?

~~~
mattmanser
We're not talking about sugar coated donuts are we?

We're talking about a supposedly innocuous looking water that turns out it's
sugar laden and a healthy looking breakfast cereal that again has huge amounts
of added sugar.

While in the us/UK/etc. there is now widespread knowledge that coke and sweets
are bad for you, the healthy looking alternatives also have tons of sugar
added, deliberately, with manipulative packaging. But in poorer countries
they're just using the old cheaper tactics, showing deliberate malice even
though they know their product is generally damaging.

In my supermarket in the UK if you want to buy sugar free yoghurt you have to
inspect the fine print. A large number have sugar as their second biggest
ingredient. They're out to trick you all the time, with things that look like
they have no sugar in them.

Not sure how your Obama beef is relevant.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Maybe this will help as it's a perfect example of the arc of my point.

In my supermarket in the USA, if you want to buy sugar free yogurt you go
right for the plain knowing you can add anything you want; and that you'll
know EXACTLY what you're adding, how much, etc. Personal responsibility to my
body & mind trumps convenience (and a sugar high); it's my pushback against
blaming The System when I already have and use the tools I need.

Plus, it also reduces shopping stress. There is no decision, just get the
plain. (BTW, I'm not vegetarian / vegan but I do try to avoid yogurt as much
as possible.)

Food is for nourishment, and occasionally to stimulate the senses (read:
strictly for enjoyment). The problem is, too many have inverted that ratio;
too many are unwilling to modify their relationship with food so they are
healthy. There is nothing more personal than that relationship (i.e., what
goes in your mouth). The System offers temptations. That doesn't make it okay
to cheat on yourself.

p.s. My beef isn't with Obama. It's with (so called) liberals. Healthcare
(which rightfully includes personal health), as well as the environment are
both said to be liberal hot buttons. They are also connected. But all we get
is ranting about the ACA and the Paris Accord? That's not leadership, at least
not the type of leadership we really need at this point.

~~~
mattmanser
When did you learn that plain yoghurt is ok, but all the others are not ok?
The packaging makes all the others look ok. Plain yoghurt vs strawberry
yoghurt sounds like, and is presented like, a taste choice. Not a choice
between 0 spoonfuls of sugar and 10 spoonfuls of sugar.

How did you learn it? And this is one example in a myriad of food choices!
Almost every cereal, "whole grains and nuts", has sugar listed as the third
ingredient. _Including_ the healthy looking ones. In the UK, Special-K,
advertised by thin women in red swimming costumes, presents itself as a diet
cereal. Third ingredient? Sugar. " _specifically tailored for women with a mix
of ingredients to give you a positive, healthy start to the day and help you
feel strong from the inside_ ". Healthy start my ass, it's just carbs.

What about all these other little rules and gotchas and tricks that you've
learnt manipulative companies are trying to play on you?

How many articles did you have to read?

And why do you think the rest of society has this same level of education
about food? You, I assume, are well paid, have time to sit at your desk
reading articles about yoghurt and added sugar. You have a vastly different
level of education than most of your country, access to much higher levels of
pay, have different exposure to revealing stories about the tactics of
companies adding sugar came from.

We haven't even touched on how carb laden, added sugar food is vastly cheaper
and easier to cook than nutrional food, making it extra seductive in two ways
to poor, overworked people.

You've fallen into the classic trap of "I know this, I act like this, I have
this level of money, I have time to act on this, therefore everyone else
should be able to".

------
JustAnotherPat
There's one huge flaw with the American Free Diner, and it's that it would
inevitably be supplied by a place like Sysco or Aramark. Not only that, it
would be the cheapest option with the lowest quality ingredients, and it would
still wind up being relatively expensive to run.

I remember the Malcolm Gladwell piece ripping Bowdoin for serving good food,
and thinking how he got it all wrong. There are so many schools that wind up
with garbage from Aramark, and they still pay an arm and a leg for it.

------
Nelkins
"I’ve also always been suspicious of privatization schemes. That’s because I
tend to think that when a service is for profit rather than for the public’s
benefit, all sorts of perverse incentives arise."

Holy crap, how can anyone take this piece seriously with this zinger in the
opening paragraph.

Neither private nor public are by themselves a panacea. Everything has trade-
offs. This kind of polemic is not contributing to any kind of rational
discourse.

------
crankylinuxuser
I agree with this. However there's a different way I'd look at it.

It takes 25 sq ft of vegetation to feed a person. Along with this, you can
also raise tilapia. Aquaculture. But this is backbreaking work. Farming sucks,
and hurts the body.

So, don't farm. We can instead use Farmbot.io as a platform of what to build.
So we have a basis of how to automate farming. It still requires killing fish
when they mature, but im sure even that can be automated.

Now, back to 25 sqft. If there's 30k people to feed, that's 750k sq ft to feed
everyone. Now, if we construct a building 3 stories tall, that's 250k sq ft
per floor.. square root of that = 500ft x 500ft floor size...

We need a building 550'x550' 3 stories tall to feed 30,000 people. And that
would be climate controlled for the food you're producing, and ideally free
for any to eat.

I call it food security. It may be "communist" for some definition of
communism. But I don't care. This provides a right to live, by the very fact
that you now have a guarantee of a share of food. No compulsion or anything.

~~~
ctdonath
You were doing great until "free". It's not free. It's hard work, using
resources of value. There _is_ compulsion, whereby others must sacrifice
(under threat) their own wealth & resources to facilitate what is falsely
advertised as "free".

You have a right to live, insofar as nobody else may unduly take your life
from you. That you live, comes the responsibility to provide for yourself -
and suffer the consequences of your choices.

We've seen communism tried time and again. The death tolls & misery are
staggering. Many of us will make sure it's not "tried", aka imposed by threat
& violence, here; this is not up for debate, and you'd do well to understand
why.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
> You were doing great until "free". It's not free. It's hard work, using
> resources of value. There is compulsion, whereby others must sacrifice
> (under threat) their own wealth & resources to facilitate what is falsely
> advertised as "free".

Initially yes, it is an expenditure. It would cost tax dollars, which I'm
guessing by your tone, is "theft by a gun from state entity". Yes, ive heard
the normal libertarian trappings. But this provides guaranteed food. And for
those preppers, it's also local production. And it's provided to all.

> You have a right to live, insofar as nobody else may unduly take your life
> from you. That you live, comes the responsibility to provide for yourself -
> and suffer the consequences of your choices.

Yes, and the law is equal, in that it bans both the rich and the poor alike
from sleeping under bridges.

The rich can afford whatever food they want. The poor cannot. This would
provide a buffer for every living person in this country to get healthy food.
Where you talk of "Self Actualization" ideals, there's people in this country
starving. That itself should be abhorrent and disgusting. But I'm sure you'll
have excuses why they should deserve to starve.

> We've seen communism tried time and again. The death tolls & misery are
> staggering. Many of us will make sure it's not "tried", aka imposed by
> threat & violence, here; this is not up for debate, and you'd do well to
> understand why.

Communism has useful tools and ideas. So does capitalism.

Communism's been tried and gets stuck at military dictatorship on its way to
stateless egalitarianism, every time. Capitalism goes the other way with large
monied interests turning into their own dictatorships. It's not like many of
the robber barons enacted company farms and company stores, and kept strikes
from happening by violence... Oh, they did. Quite a few were killed by
companies and National Guard.

And the big difference that you fail to cede to, is that with computing,
machine learning, and artificial intelligence, we can start changing:

    
    
         "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" 
         --TO-- 
         "To each according to his needs".
    

And that would entail nobody "by threat & violence". Try looking past 1850's
political theory. I know I try.

~~~
ctdonath
_Communism 's been tried and gets stuck at military dictatorship_

Of course it does. It has to. You're compelling people to engage in behavior
they don't want to. That "to each" unavoidably requires "from each", decided
by people no better than others, denying producers the full fruits of their
labors, and blessing the idle with those fruits. Superior productivity becomes
intolerable (as "inequal") and thus suppressed. The only way to enforce this
unnatural state of affairs on people is thru threat of force leading precisely
to military dictatorship. It's unavoidable.

Capitalism, however, lets people work out what is mutually beneficial
_without_ being bossed around by uninvolved strangers. Yes, some become
powerful and persuade trade, but people always have the option to not -
nobody's going to get fined, jailed, exiled, or killed not buying Brand Mega
products. I've seen many massive corporations collapse - nobody died in the
process, everyone had the choice to not associate with them.

(And yes, you always have the option to buy some cheap seeds, buy some cheap
land, and go live off the land yourself. That's basically how I grew up.)

"Large monied interests" do NOT turn into "dictatorships". Any worker who
doesn't like the work/pay exchange can walk away. Any customer who doesn't
like the product doesn't have to buy it. (The strikes you reference involved
wanton physical disruption & destruction; obstructionism, vandalism, and
violence gets met with likewise.) However, in communism: mutually beneficial
contracting without state sanction gets one jailed; walking away from
communism gets one shot.

And yes, there will _always_ be a need for "from each". Food doesn't grow &
harvest itself in, no matter how automated. Buildings don't construct
themselves. Work will need doing by humans. There will always be something for
someone to do, so long as the state doesn't interfere. And ONLY capitalism
will bring the price of food/shelter/etc down to the point that one need work
very little to earn those basics.

------
foxhop
TL;DR the CrossFit of permaculture

Yes! We need this and I dream about dedicating my life towards this work.
Permaculture fits in this. It might be tricky to keep the stigma of food
kitchen out of this idea, or maybe expand and fund food kitchens some how.

I want to farm healthy food and give it away. I want to cook healthy food and
show people a better way of eating.

I think the MVP of this idea is to sell food as close to cost as possible.
Make it taste amazing. Make the atmosphere not feel like a cafeteria but more
like a Starbucks.

Invite people to stay as long as they like, invite them to help.

The biggest expense would likely be the commercial kitchen (hopefully buying
the building and land). The first versions of this idea could be private but
substidised. Government gives me 100k and I use 100k of my own money to buy
and setup the facility.

Another idea is to treat it like a gym membership, like those crossfit clubs
that have sprung all over the United States.

Pay $150/mo for all you can eat healthy choices.

------
canjobear
Also check out the interesting response from Slate Star Codex.
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/21/contra-robinson-on-
publ...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/21/contra-robinson-on-public-food/)

~~~
pjc50
The argument seems to be that "government can also be bad" and that "food
industry is distorted by subsidies". Which is valid as far as it goes.

Getting to choose your own food and housing? Great, far better than being
allocated by the government.

Getting to choose your own healthcare and education? Do you really have enough
information to make an informed choice there? Are people who are unconscious
or under 5 really good at being informed consumers? Or are they just having
the decisions made for them by someone else?

Not getting any food or housing because you can't afford it? State option
starts to look really great.

------
jbattle
Sure seems like something our society could experiment with and see what
happens. Step A - build one (1) of these in a city somewhere, maybe another in
a sub-urban location and see if people show up. Don't cut any benefits or
anything, just see if people are interested in the setup.

If that works, scale it up in a single large city, then a single state.

The place where I see this most likely to fail is that the organization will
be under constant dual pressure of budget restrictions (pressuring them to
serve cheaper foods) and 'usership' (pressuring them to serve less healthy ==
tastier foods). As with any system, the incentives have to be set up properly
from the start.

~~~
ctdonath
Similar has been done. "Pay what you want" restaurants featuring healthy
options have all failed.

------
Zarel
This is a response to an earlier article by Scott Alexander, and he's already
written a response to this one, too:

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/21/contra-robinson-on-
publ...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/21/contra-robinson-on-public-food/)

The general idea is "you can't compare real capitalism with a fantasy
government, you have to compare real capitalism with a real government, and
real governments are worse than real capitalism"

~~~
bad-joke
You can absolutely compare the real with a fantasy. That's how innovation
happens.

~~~
Zarel
Well, yes, but you generally have to have a plan for how your innovation
happens, rather than "my version won't have any of the problems the existing
versions have" without having an explanation for how you achieve this.

------
jnordwick
Markets are incredibly good at giving people what they want, not what they say
they want, but what they actually want (economists call this revealed
preference).

Some people, like the author, see this as a problem. He had no viable solution
to the problem. We have actually tried to the "free healthy alternative" in
schools, and what happens is either the healthy parts are thrown away or
traded away.

~~~
Retric
Schools with health breakfast and lunch options are strongly correlated with
academic success. It's actually one of the most efficient uses of school
funding even if many students don't partake the difference is staggering.

[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-
chalkboard/2017/...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-
chalkboard/2017/05/03/how-the-quality-of-school-lunch-affects-students-
academic-performance/)

~~~
jnordwick
There seems to be a single study that looks at what children were given - not
what they ate - and I'm not sure how they controlled for other factors (i
doubt this is the only change). I will read about it later though.

~~~
elicash
How can you say there's only one study? Why would you cast doubt on a study
you admit you haven't read yet? What studies are you citing to back up your
_own_ claims?

------
adamwong246
Soylent- the UBI of nutrition!

Soylent distribution machines in every school and prison cafeteria, on street
corners, any place where food scarcity exists. Each has a single button which
dispenses a soylent, free of charge. No limits, no strings. All the soylent
you can carry! Do away with food stamps- send 150 bottles of soylent a month,
by mail, to any human being who can ask for it.

~~~
geodel
Moreover to reassure people it will be completely optional once they have
consumed their first four bottles for the day.

------
jacknews
You can take a look at the English-as-a-foreign-language schools in a few
Asian countries to see what a private education system would look like and it
is just as described, even despite the results being fairly measurable (can
you speak in English or not).

------
padobson
Attacking the profit motive is insane.

There were a billion people on this planet 200 years ago and now there are 7
billion people. The main reason for that is profits.

When someone grows a bushel of wheat for $3.75 and sells it for $4.30, they're
able to grow 13% more wheat in the next harvest. That profit makes the growing
of wheat self sustaining and scalable.

Now apply the logic to every crop, every home appliance, every energy source -
every endeavor human beings pursue. The result is 6 billion people who didn't
die of starvation, disease, or exposure.

The biggest problem with lefty attacks on the profit motive is they simply
don't realize that the profit motive could be used to solve the problems they
describe!

Upset about the education options in this country? Create a profitable
alternative and you can scale it out to every student in America.

Don't like the obesity problems developed countries face? Find a profitable
way to turn fat people into skinny people and watch the pounds of every
population dwindle.

Profits are like magic. They make solutions to difficult problems available on
a mass scale. There have no doubt been some growing pains as humans have
learned to harness this magic, but the solution to those growing pains is not
to eliminate the profit motive - the best solution is always profitable.

