| "Put directly, the sugar industry lied and is now responsible for tens of millions of deaths." Frankly, the dishonesty of the Sugar Industry and the effects of its deception are utterly appalling. Tragically, this industry is not alone in deceiving both public and supposedly august (professional) authority—the tobacco industry is yet another, and there are many more. The question I keep asking myself is why are both experts and governments so easily hoodwinked by these miserable Cretans when it's not that difficult to see though or undermine their bad arguments. Scratch the surface of false and or propped up arguments and they quickly fall apart. If any key proposition is proven false then it's likely the whole argument/case is a sham. With regard to sugar, I'd have thought the long history of diabetes together with patient histories and their lifestyles ought to have been enough evidence alone to bring the Sugar Industry edifice down. No doubt the playing field wasn't level. Re the Guardian article in your link, why for example was the author of Pure, White, and Deadly, John Yudkin so ostracized by his professional colleagues? If they had his or similar training and had checked the evidence then they would have known that he was correct and come to his defense. Given the enormous implications—the death of millions—they all should have been up in arms against the Sugar Industry, but they didn't act. In a way I hold these professionals almost as culpable as the Industry itself. I've asked myself for years what motivates people to be such utter bastards (trouble is one of my subjects was philosophy but unfortunately I didn't study its other half—psychology, perhaps if I had I'd be somewhat the wiser). You've mentioned millions dead, little doubt this is correct, although it'd be good to firm up those numbers with factual evidence. Perhaps over time AI could crunch the numbers together with all relevant docs and history and we could end up with a statistically accurate number of deaths together with error bars. A definitive number of deaths would put an actual measure on the Sugar Industry's culpability and those companies still in business would be forever tarnished. But to conclude the Sugar Industry alone is responsible for the harm and deaths is not good enough, we also need to link to those people who were actually responsible. Whether dead or alive we need to tarnish and destroy their reputations as a lesson for others. These corporate bullies need to learn that they can no longer hide behind corporate walls. This is not the first time this week I've raised this matter, if interested see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=42629712. Also, note its thread below. Incidentally, the post received both up and down votes and currently stands at just one vote. It seems the notion of holding those responsible to account isn't overly popular with a significant percentage of the population. Perhaps guilt racks too many and this could be part of the reason why so many professionals failed to come to John Yudkin's defence. I've also posted a similar rave about this in reply to mlyle. |