Originally Posted by Maelochs

Mobile 155 (is that a reference to elf-propelled artillery? The Long Tom or the Paladin?) has it more right I think.

People invent “rights” to do all kinds of stuff … but if you are in the middle of the ocean, you have no “Right to Life.” Swim, or drown. If you feel your “rights” are being violated … cry in self-pity or shout with outrage as you drown.

I will save my energy for swimming.

No one has a “right” to clean air, or clean water, or enough food, or even life. What we mean by those supposed “fundamental rights” outlined in the Constitution (that’s the U.S. Constitution, for you foreigners from Maple Syrupville ) are simply things the Founders stole from Europen Enlightenment philosphers like John Locke (I hear) and which they Founders believed no Government should be able to legally take away without Due process (life, liberty, and property were the actual “rights,” but some one of the Founding Fathers considered how handy Eminent Domain might be.)

Those “rights” were3 are remain legal fictions. They are terms of art associated with the equally fictional “Social Contract” which none of us have ever read or signed.

Lots of smart people have discussed, described, invented “rights.” The UN has a Bill of Rights which includes food, shelter, and education … where did those ‘rights” come from?

They just used the familiar term, “rights,” to describe things they found desirable. “Desires” didn’t sound so compelling, but “rights” carried weight.

You have no right to anything you don’t have, and only for so long as you have it—in reality. In jurisprudence, which is a fictional world which only vaguely rests on the real world, (as Cooker notes) one’s rights do no tend where object meets nose … because air and water pollution are ubiquitous. Polluted water ends up in all our plants, which means it is in all our foods 9which makes the whole notion of “organic” a little comical.)

Yes … if you don’t like the polluted air in a city, move.

But I really don’t want to hear Any More Whining about the choices people have to make. Part of being an adult is realizing that the world demands Constant compromise, and dealing with it. If you cannot … go away and come back when you are grown.

For one thing … we Share this world, with people who hate us and don’t care about us and don’t know about us and a very few who think like us—in a few waysm, and disagree in others.

When I hear a person talking about compromise and the cost of choice, I hear an infant whining because s/he cannot get Everything the way he or she wants it. Guess what? None Of Us Can.

Be glad, too, because some people probably want you dead. And some other definitely want to enslaved.

Life demands hard choices and sometimes isn’t fun? Someone had to go to college to learn that? All I had to do was look at TV and see starving kids in Africa, dying in front of us. Their parents sit there, holding the dying kids, Knowing they kids are going to die. Nothing they can do,… too weak to walk to food, n0 one around to help.

Didn’t take much to realize that life could demand harsh choices.

But people who have almost everything and complain because they only have 94 percent … so?

Get off your butt and learn to organize. Learn to work the political realm, or learn to work philanthropists. Or both.

The people who Really wanted to get stuff changed, devoted their lives to it … and a very few made a visible difference, and a Whole lot more lived, labored, and died just moving the whole show a little bit closer to a place where that one more effort could push things past the tipping point.

Think how many people, Black and White, worked for literally Centuries to get legislation favoring racial equality passed in the U.S. The effort started before the nation was founded, continued after the 13th Amendment was ratified, and continues to this day. A Lot of people worked all their lives and saw basically no progress, knowing that massive social change takes a Loooong time.

Don’t come here and whine. You think something needs to change … get to work.

We are all Superman behind the keyboard, but we spend all our energy on long, pointless screeds on obscure websites, and feel satisfied if we produced a good one.

The next day, the world is exactly the same as the day before, because we didn’t actually do a damn thing to improve anything.

Yeah … this world is not set up to please any one individual …. So Everyone will have to accept some compromise.

If you can’t hack it, die or change things.

Originally Posted by cooker

Actually, Mobile 155 is the one who brought up rights. If as he suggested, one person's right to swing his fist ends at another person's nose (which is a bad analogy to begin with) then by his logic, one person's right to discharge diesel particulate into the air should also end at the other person's nose, but for some odd reason he doesn't see the obvious parallel.

Originally Posted by Rollfast

I don't think elf-propelled artillery gets very far though

I guess they could kill me by shooting Fudge Stripe cookies in my mouth.

If Ernie from Keebler is going to take you out, what a way to go.

Originally Posted by Rollfast

Chocolate is not evil, it's the BAKERY.

Originally Posted by tandempower

Maybe some economics geniuses will be able to explain why it costs more to get the same ingredients with a fraction of the sugar.

Originally Posted by tandempower

The funny thing is that some specialty bakers are 'custom-designing' barely-sweetened sweets that reset your palate to be sensitive to much lower levels of sugar, but because they are specialty items, all the other sweets will remain packed with sugar to justify their affordability. Maybe some economics geniuses will be able to explain why it costs more to get the same ingredients with a fraction of the sugar. Maybe because it threatens pension plans with more old age payments for longer. Still, you would think health in old age would cost less than sickness.

Originally Posted by cooker

Because the purpose of a business is to make a profit and if people are willing to pay more for less, go for it.

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Unless the business is making cars, paving freeways, or building suburbs?

Originally Posted by jon c.

Economies of scale.

Originally Posted by cooker

Because the purpose of a business is to make a profit and if people are willing to pay more for less, go for it.

Originally Posted by tandempower

So this doesn't really add up. If companies can produce fake-sugar (artificially sweetened) products, then why can't they make some that are lightly sweetened without cancer-causing chemical sweeteners?

Originally Posted by jon c.

They could, but they don't think enough people want that to make it worth the effort. Whether or not they're correct I can't say. There are products I think I'd prefer if they had less sugar,

But for many such products, the actual cost of ingredients is a pretty small fraction of the sale price. There are a lot of other costs involved in running an additional product line so adding a 'lower sugar' version would represent substantial extra cost even if the ingredients are a bit less. And there's competition for space in the retail sector, so vendors don't necessarily want to carry an additional item if the sales don't justify it. Mass marketing is most efficient if you maximize uniformity.

Originally Posted by cooker

Because the purpose of a business is to make a profit and if people are willing to pay more for less, go for it.

Originally Posted by indyfabz

I remember shopping in a grocery store and seeing canned vegetables. May have been peas. Same brand, but one version touted lower sodium. The lower sodium version cost more. I thought to myself "It has less of one ingredient so shouldn't it be less expensive?" But then I realized that some people will pay more for less if they think the less is better for them.

Originally Posted by indyfabz

I remember shopping in a grocery store and seeing canned vegetables. May have been peas. Same brand, but one version touted lower sodium. The lower sodium version cost more. I thought to myself "It has less of one ingredient so shouldn't it be less expensive?" But then I realized that some people will pay more for less if they think the less is better for them.

Originally Posted by prathmann

I presume both products had the same total weight. Therefore the one with less sodium (i.e. less salt) would need to have more weight in peas. Peas are more expensive per pound than salt so it's reasonable that the less salt/more peas version would cost more. But I'd guess that the price difference was greater than justified by the difference in ingredients.

Originally Posted by Dahon.Steve

Does being carfree force you to live an indoor life?

Originally Posted by Walter S

Why would living carfree force you to stay indoors??

Originally Posted by Roody

You all need to get outdoors more often. Seriously!