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by mjmahone17 1837 days ago
There’s a road between those views: people are sometimes free agents, but often do not actively choose their own path. So while we should allow people to make their own choices when they’re actively choosing them, we can do a lot to make the default choice one that is relatively beneficial over the long term.

So things like requiring sugary drinks to carry a label that makes it obvious when a juice is as sugary as a soda. Or modifying sidewalks and parking to make walking or biking short distances more pleasurable than driving. Some of how you do this is by removing dangers from their environment, for instance by separating bike lanes from roads. And by allowing people to break from a habit cycle, for instance by establishing rules for gambling like enforcing periodic breaks in play to give people opportunities to reassess their actions.