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by throwawayffffas 1 day ago
Can you blame them? Would you sue if the government suddenly decided your industry has to pay extra taxes, or they tried to restrict your advertising?

Honestly coca cola should probably thank the UK government for the sugar tax. They are the only ones that had the courage to keep the sugar and pay the tax, making their original soda the only potable soda in the UK.

2 comments

> Can you blame them? Would you sue if the government suddenly decided your industry has to pay extra taxes, or they tried to restrict your advertising?

No. I'd probably try to understand the purpose of the tax and what it was being used to fund, but a lawsuit wouldn't be my first stop. There are plenty of industries that get new taxes all the time and don't cry about it. Frankly the behavior on display here is right out of the Phillip Morris playbook on "how to keep profiting from a product you know is terrible for the people you're selling it to."

Comparing soda to cigarettes is ridiculous. People like soda, and in moderation, it is completely fine. There is no reason to single out sugary sodas to try to "solve" obesity. It is a consumer problem, not a product problem.
We all know individual consumer action could technically make the difference between an obesity epidemic and a healthy country. We all also know that individual consumers will literally never take that action, be it health or any of the other myriad ways that corporations are fucking us over. It's time to stop suggesting it. The point of governments and other central organizations is to coordinate, because large groups of people can't coordinate, and without coordination collective action just doesn't happen.
Sorry, I don't need collective action to tell me what soda to buy, or what beverage to consume. What a silly notion. I take action myself to moderate my soda intake all the time. Your assertion that this is not possible is simply absurd.

The aspect you are missing, as always in these discussions about government regulation, is the role of parenting and family in the job of nurturing healthy lifestyles.

And no, corporations are not "fucking" anyone over. They are making something people want. The problem lies elsewhere.

> potable soda

There is no such thing.

> potable in the UK

Now you’re getting silly.