[Setzertrancer]

Okay I saw a report on some current affair program, they all look the same and I heard a question that I thought was a very very good topic for discussion. It was simply

"A law should be passed that would only allow fast food and other unhealthy indulgences to only be allowed to be sold one day a week?"

A pretty silly statement overall but it does have merit. Obesity is getting worse and worse every year and apparently 20 years ago there was no such thing as type 2 diabeties. Aparently it was created by our change of lifestyle and the food we eat.

Here are some statistics from the USA, but Australia is second only to them in obesity and we are apparently very close to them in our figures.

"Between 1980 and 2000, obesity in Australian men rose by 80 percent, while the rate among women rose 2½ times.

Experts estimate 25 per cent of children and young people are overweight or obese, taking the number to about 1.5 million" http://www.ourcivilisation.com/diet/fatkids.htm

Would limiting public avialibility of Fast Food fix or cause more problems? I think it would definately help make people less obese and bring down diabeties dianosis. But it could cause Fast Food to become something that would be illegally trafficed just like drugs and like alcohol in America during the 1920's.

Even if this is a stupid idea, the severity of the problem it is trying to fix isn't. The normal socially acceptable bodywieght is becoming larger and larger and scientist beleive that it is a tread that could lead to nearly everyone being obese in the future, oh no what about the women?

For those who don't care if you are less healthy another argument comes up in the fact that it will effect our economy. Because more people will be going to hospital for an increasing amount of health problems. Taxes are going to get higher and higher.

Last point is that this bad health is already being passed down in our genes. It has been reported that kid have been born that very quickly developed diabeties without even developing much of a lifestyle that causes it. These kids became sensitive to bad food because their parents had basically changed the pattern of behaviour in the genes they passed down.

So as well as discussing the statement, has anyone got anyone got any better ideas about how to address the obesity epidemic?

[Chez Daja]

Well, since this would severely cut corporate profit, I seriously doubt the fast food industry would argee with cutting down to one opening day.

To stop fat people from consuming fatty foods, you have to find people who are willing to lose weight.

As a child, I was overweight, but have since slimmed down to a healthy size 12. I feel it's up to people to control their own weight. And those who are thinner and wish to eat out at a fast food resturant shouldn't be limited to this option just because overweight people can't stop eating.

I hate to be blunt, but at the end of the day, there are ways to NOT eat unhealthily. This starts by NOT going into fast food resturants. It's easy. Trust me. I've done the whole weight loss thing, and as hard as it is at first, you have to be determined and push yourself into not eating all the crap you usually would.

I think this idea is good for some, but for the most part, I think it's silly to cut out fast food just because some people can't control themselves.

Not to be mean, though.

I do think that more healthy food resturants should be opened to the public, though. We don't have enough veggies!

[Georg Prime]

I have to agree, I don't think fast food restaurants will agree to that but i think people have to just stop being such pigs and take control if they have weight problems

I have always been a big eater myself but i never have been overweight, guess i'm kinda lucky that way. My senior year i ate fast food literally just about every day but even then though i wasn't getting fat i saw how unhealthy it was. I'm still a big eater, but i've always been a healthy eater, i love snacking on fruits and vegetables and other healthy items, and tend to eat a lot of low fat organic foods (mostly because that's what my parents buy). I'm basically the exact opposite of a picky eater, i love just about everything, and i love eating good tasty food.

I basically don't eat fast food at all anymore, every once in awhile and sometimes on certain occasions like stopping for food on trips. I like eating healthy, and most fast food is simply gross. I would much rather see a bunch of healty restaurants around and not so much fast food. I think it's up the people to control what they eat though.

I've seen in Europe what a little problem obesity is..Ireland especially. I literally saw close to nobody there was who was actually overweight, and nobody who was obese. Probably part of that is because the lack of fast food restaurants everywhere..i live in a big city, and on some of the major streets there are like 4 or 5 of the same fast food restaurant! It's sick to me, makes me feel so lazy, that any fast food i want is within like 5 or 10 minutes of where i live.

I honestly wouldn't care if it was the end of fast food but i don't think it will happen. I'd rather spend the extra money on some GOOD food, or if not just make something healthy at home.

[Setzertrancer]

This topic is very relevant to me because I am someone who is gaining weight and I'm finding it very hard to stop. I don't agree with such drastic measures but I do beleive It would help people like me who have become addicted to fast food and soft drink. I'm not actually fat yet, but I have a 2 inch belly I didn't have before and a ring of flab that is forming around my waist. This only happened in 2 years and when I joined up to the gym they said I was in very bad health and that I was going to kill myself at 30 if I didn't change my diet and activity. For 2 years I nearly ate Hungry Jacks (Burger King) and Mcdonalds for breakfast, lunch and dinner and had more then 2 litres of Coca-cola a day. Big Mistake, I now have a condition called Tachycardia (Rest Heart Rate of 100+) which could cause serious heart problems later. Before 2 years ago I was Very fit and Athletic having won medals in Teakwondo and having great health. Which is why I was so panicked that my stomach had grown so much after I quit.

Sorry to make this about me, but my point is Fast Food is addictive, I still eat it even though it is killing me, but it is so great they have the salads, they are great, I actually get them instead of big macs every time now. Something needs to be done because it is hard for people to stop this lifestyle and even though I acted early, some damage is already done and the worse and fatter you get the less you can be bothered doing something about it. I mean It is still so hard for me. I aimed to go to the gym 3 times a week and drink only water, but I've gone down to 1 time a week and a litre of soft drink a day, I least I'm doing alot better with the food.

Something needs to be done I really beleive this will be a huge problem and some people just have more willpower then other, but most have less.

Edit: You posted at the same time as me Leo so let me add....

Originally Posted by GeneralLeoCristophe

I have to agree, I don't think fast food restaurants will agree to that but i think people have to just stop being such pigs and take control if they have weight problems

I have always been a big eater myself but i never have been overweight, guess i'm kinda lucky that way. My senior year i ate fast food literally just about every day but even then though i wasn't getting fat i saw how unhealthy it was. I'm still a big eater, but i've always been a healthy eater, i love snacking on fruits and vegetables and other healthy items, and tend to eat a lot of low fat organic foods (mostly because that's what my parents buy). I'm basically the exact opposite of a picky eater, i love just about everything, and i love eating good tasty food.

I basically don't eat fast food at all anymore, every once in awhile and sometimes on certain occasions like stopping for food on trips. I like eating healthy, and most fast food is simply gross. I would much rather see a bunch of healty restaurants around and not so much fast food. I think it's up the people to control what they eat though.

I've seen in Europe what a little problem obesity is..Ireland especially. I literally saw close to nobody there was who was actually overweight, and nobody who was obese. Probably part of that is because the lack of fast food restaurants everywhere..i live in a big city, and on some of the major streets there are like 4 or 5 of the same fast food restaurant! It's sick to me, makes me feel so lazy, that any fast food i want is within like 5 or 10 minutes of where i live.

I honestly wouldn't care if it was the end of fast food but i don't think it will happen. I'd rather spend the extra money on some GOOD food, or if not just make something healthy at home.

Luckily thanks to my efforts so far i've actually found a lot of fast food disgusting now, My last big mac was foul. I don't think you have to change for long to start noticeing the improvements to how you fell and your body starts interpreting the bad food as poison like it was meant to. When I drank a lot of water I felt so energetic and happy it was unbeleiveable and I only did so for about 3 weeks.

[Georg Prime]

I agree that it can be addictive. I think people just have to look at the bigger picture though, their health and wellbeing.

Fast food can be very tasty, but in a very greasy fatty kind of way. I think people need to try healthy foods, fruits and vegetables can be very good and you can good quality food from smaller restaurants for not that much more than fast food. I'm not talking like Friday's or Chilli's, honestly big chain restaurants like that barely are step up in quality from fast food. My friend who has worked at fridays say that nothing is fresh, and a lot of the meat is microwaved.

You can even get healty sandwiches, etc. from your local grocery store delis. People just have to find healthy and tasty alternatives, because a lot of people have the concept that eww healty food just means it tastes bad which isn't entirely true.

[Setzertrancer]

The other issue for me is money, Healthy food is expensive. Yes you can make it yourself, but me and many others are too lazy. This is mainly because I was just in school and I only had a 8 hour a week job so I was more interested in saving it for video games. I think this is another reason the problem is increasingly evident in kids because they don't have much money, and the parents who buy all the cheap 25 packs of potato chips. That reminds me I know a lot of obese people and one use to buy 25 packs of potato chips just to collect the Tazos and stuff and then eat the chips because they were there. She is severely obese by the way and drinks 3 2 litre bottles of coke a day.

[Nin`]

Ban sweetened "breakfast cereals", introducing cooking classes at schools, increase the time available for meal times, and brutally cutting television will solve this - and many other issues too.

Try to figure out my reasoning. Ask if you don't think you can. Now consider the likelihood of such a program being introduced.

Of course, the extreme availability of sweet products was and is driven by cheap corn syrup, which was and is driven by cheap fuel. So it seems likely that one consequence of the coming "Long Emergency" is that we can expect to see the problem of obesity being solved, shortly before people start dying of malnutrition. Everyone else will then be too busy trying to survive to be able to afford time to sit in front of a TV set.

[Casanova[OCAU]]

As interesting an idea this is, it's near useless in effectivness. Fast Food isnt the main cause of obesity. I have to say I've developed a bit of a gut, and I steer well clear of any fast food. Primarily because I'm vegeterian and there's usually nothing there for me that doesnt taste like shit, but I just prefer the whole sit down experience a lot more.

For a 'real' change, there needs to be a significant advertising campaign, lots of health based information freely, gyms shouldnt be so wallet bleedingly expensive.

Besides, it's not like the fast food restraunts will agree to this and will campaign heavily against it. Not only that, its not really legally enforcable. If everyone is made to get a punch card that has to be input everytime you go to the same joint, people will start migrating to small business fast food locations. There needs to be a fundamental shift in attitude, not just this babying of the population.

At the end of the day, this proposal sounds more like something for the government to say 'hey look we care.. and stuff.. NO MORE CHEESE!' rather than an actual well thought solution to the problem.

[Psiko]

Fast food doesn't sell good because it is good food. It sells good because it is convenient for those people who are too lazy to go home and cook some real food. Seriously, hamburgers are not hard at all to make and a decent, home-grilled hamburger can beat out ANY fast food burger for taste. And that is just a decently prepared one. I've had great burgers, and am getting myself to the point where I can make great burgers on my own. The difference in taste is obvious. AND it is healthier, even.

I admit, I go through the drive through far more often than I should. Like all these other unhealthy habits, like drinking soda, it takes time to cut these things out of your life. It isn't easy at all to remove them completely all at once, therefore if we start by cutting back a little bit at a time it'll eventually dwindle into near-nothingness. The only times I drink soda are at work and when I go out to eat. At home I consume milk, juice, or water. That has not only made me look healthier, but feel it too.

But as far as the topic at hand goes: it will never happen. That would be like trying to limit casinos to being open just one day or tobacco sales to only one day per week. People would seriously go over the edge on that one day to make up for the week, and that sort of binging will likely end up being more hurtful than when it was spread out over time. Who is to stop them from spending $100 that day and putting it all in the fridge to eat during the week?

[Angantyr]

I eat pretty much exactly the same as I always have but because I don't work I have put on a gut. I used to drink 1.5ltrs of coke a day but I've kind of changed to Energy Drinks though I dunno how healthy they are, but buying a meal cost $6.50 with coke, $10+ with the energy drinks. The problem is that they healthy stuff is so expensive, and there is not enough of it, I mean sure... go and say Fast Food is bad for you, so long as its cheap people will buy it. I go to Subway once a week, I would go more often if it was cheap as Fish and Chips but it isn't so I won't. I love home cooked meals, I prefer them to the junk at McD's by far... but at the same time I am normally too lazy to coke so I just cook up some noodles or spighetti on toast. The solution? Make healthy food more accessible and cheaper.

[Georg Prime]

Originally Posted by Wintermetal

I eat pretty much exactly the same as I always have but because I don't work I have put on a gut. I used to drink 1.5ltrs of coke a day but I've kind of changed to Energy Drinks though I dunno how healthy they are, but buying a meal cost $6.50 with coke, $10+ with the energy drinks. The problem is that they healthy stuff is so expensive, and there is not enough of it, I mean sure... go and say Fast Food is bad for you, so long as its cheap people will buy it. I go to Subway once a week, I would go more often if it was cheap as Fish and Chips but it isn't so I won't. I love home cooked meals, I prefer them to the junk at McD's by far... but at the same time I am normally too lazy to coke so I just cook up some noodles or spighetti on toast. The solution? Make healthy food more accessible and cheaper.

I have to agree that we have to make healthy food more accessible and cheaper.

I know people can be lazy, i am myself a really lazy person. I know on top of that it's hard having so many fast foods restaurants. Basically my senior year it was either fast food or the school lunch which was just as bad and tasted like crap. If we had cheaper heathly alternatives to fast food around, it wouldn't so much of a problem for sure. There's just too many fast food places around if you ask me. I also think part of the problem are the people though, like you said people can be lazy that's half of if it there. Even if you don't want to spend the extra money on eating out, people could atleast pack healthy food to eat if they were that worried about it. Or just wait until you get home to make food? Where there's a will there's a way, people just have to learn that their health is more important than some juicy burgers. Even if you don't get fat, it's not good for your heart among many things, plus all that pop..

[Nin`]

*Looks over Geomancers reply*

Mmm,

Your getting there. Breakfast cereals are how most people are taught to prefer insanely sweetened foods (and note that even the "healthy", "reduced calorie" breakfast cereals in the US are likely to contain more sugar than the same brand of regular cereal in the rest of the world. Research. The Internet is your friend.

Obesity in the US is strongly linked to the introduction of cheap cane sugar, and developed as a problem as people who ate this crap grew sideways. In addition the explosion of people living in front of their TV was a late 1960s and early 1970s phenomenon. When watching American TV, you continuously see people eating, drinking and marketing high calorie substances (that should not be called food), laden with salt, sugars and fats. In addition to this "hunger inducing" visual fare, when watching TV the likelihood is that you are not getting much exercise. The combination is deadly.

Most people don't have a clue about nutrition, energy needs, calorie intake, food preparation or presentation. All of which can make a critical difference in combating obesity. Most people don't want to be hippos, they just grow that way because they don't know any better. In addition, school lunches tend to be lousy from both a presentation and a nutritional perspective. If schools taught proper food preparation - and I'm talking cordon bleu here, as well as nutrition, they would have to up their standards dramatically. Home cooking would take a turn for the better too. So the improvement would occur at multiple levels.

When you eat off properly sized, properly presented plates, and eat in a civilized manner with knife and fork, savoring the food and drink, and discussing things between bites, it takes much longer. But you enjoy it more and eat far less. Do some digging on how long the French take over lunch and you will begin to understand why seeing a fat person in France - at least, in urban France, is unusual, while in America, where everyone seems to snatch bites from hamburgers while doing something else - or gobbles off trays on their laps while lounging in front of TV sets, the opposite is the case. Like most of the things I say here, which are not qualified, there is research supporting these statements.

As for subsidizing food, this may not necessary in the short term (if the above steps happened quality foodstuffs would drop in price), and may not be possible in the long term (when the long emergency is going to change more things than just food availability), although a simple tax charged at the till on the worst food and a rebate - also applied to the till on the best food makes sense. Indeed, in most places it already exists, although poorly implemented. Sales Tax/Value Added Tax tends to be lower or absent on "staple products." You might consider how this could be implemented. Hint, think about how one might overcome the massive opposition you would face from the existing calorie-pushers.


Lucifer

[Dune]

Legislation is seldom the solution to social problems, especially victimless "crimes" like obesity. It seems advocates forget that legislation is enforced by force. Laws give the right to law enforcement officers to use violence or the threat of violence against transgressors. Do you really want to use that against people that consume too many calories? (I mean other than the entertainment value of watching an episode of Cops where they take down a guy eating a cheeseburger on the wrong day.)

[Nin`]

Dear Dune,

The cost of obesity related disease is currently borne by society as a whole, where the profits are made by the shareholders and owners of the producers, purveyors and proliferators of obesity promoting products. So the "benefits" of sale are private, and some portion of the costs of sale are public, as we are already heavily taxed for obesity in the form of health and mortality costs. The tax is just indirect and thus not particularly visible to those paying it (or the bulging consumers ingesting it).

It is my opinion that the state is justified in intervening under such circumstances, in order either to prevent the loss of usable beneficent commons or to prevent too great a diversity which leads directly and along remarkably short paths to social instability. The cost of which is again borne by all of society and which is almost invariably greater than the costs of intervention. This being the case taxation is in fact justified, and naturally, enabling legislation is required to manage that in order to minimize the cost and the harm of collection.

It is also my opinion, that while indirect, very low rate, widely collected and flat rate taxes are preferable for general revenue generation, direct and visible taxation is always preferable for behaviour management as that, once the cost becomes sufficient, tends most rapidly to result in the desired behavior modifications. This is why I strongly advocate tax revenues being raised through transaction taxes, alternate capital taxes (which apply if the total transaction tax paid by an asset holder is less than the transaction taxes on some portion of the assets held, when an "asset camping" tax becomes payable), use taxes (i.e. rate[current use]*area in use or rate[current use]*tonnage extracted or rate[current use]*volume extracted), and sales levies, with the transaction and alternate taxes being an invisible, flat, money collection mechanism and the use and sales taxes intended primarily to regulate social behaviours.

In such an environment, disbursements from the public purse should always take the form of a direct payments, making subsidies visible to all. Subsidies may be used to encourage or discourage behaviours, as well as to alleviate special hardships. The general tax base should be used for tax-source-neutral public goods (hospitals, government, security, pensions, welfare, etc).

The transfer of tax revenues to subsidize "staple foods" is already a legal reality that might be improved without requiring enabling legislation if it were necessary. As such, legislation affecting the price of obesity stimulating products and behaviours requires no more violence than is already inherent in any tax system.

Violence, sure. All government is merely institutionalized violence, but up to some fairly high degree of ineptitude and brutality, it is better than all of the alternatives we have recorded attempting. The noble savage is invariably more savage than noble.

Regards,

Lucifer

[Dune]

Originally Posted by Lucifer`

The cost of obesity related disease is currently borne by society as a whole, (...) as we are already heavily taxed for obesity in the form of health and mortality costs.

This argument doesn't make sense to me. Whatever costs this "society" incurs when I go to the hospital are only charged to the group because its directors have decided they want to cover those costs. If the costs are judged to be too high, management simply needs to take a step back and announce they won't be covering these particular expenses... just like any other insurer would do.

Leaving me to cover the costs incurred as a consequence of my actions would provide me with a perfect incentive to think before acting. This is called taking responsibility for oneself.

Instead, I am being fed a paternalistic rhetoric about how I do not eat, drink, dress, drive, work, entertain, etc., properly and how I supposedly hurt "society" when doing so. Lysander Spooner would be quite distressed! (see: http://lysanderspooner.org/VicesAreNotCrimes.htm)

Originally Posted by Lucifer`

Violence, sure. All government is merely institutionalized violence, but up to some fairly high degree of ineptitude and brutality, it is better than all of the alternatives we have recorded attempting. The noble savage is invariably more savage than noble.

Very nice words, but in the end, violence is violence. Just because we have institutionalized it in a giant rabid bull-dog called "government", doesn't mean we should make any more use of it; after all, I'm sure most of us would agree that the "noble savages" who run this institution are invariably more savage than noble. Excusing violence done to me just because it is being performed by the particular group of people who claim to have a monopolistic right to it, simply stinks of Stockholm syndrome to me.

[Nin`]

Dune.

I understand you are talking primarily about the US system rather than a publicly funded health system, so I'll address just that. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Let me begin by saying that in the USA, obesity is considered a handicap, so avoiding hiring, insuring or providing services to the obese is considered discriminatory, against Federal law and can be steeply penalized if proven. The cost to anyone proved to have engaged in discrimination (including a pattern of behaviour type proof) is likely to outweigh any relatively small benefits obtained.

Cost of treatments, even palliative treatments, are invariably cheaper than the cost of premature death to society, particularly as even the morbidly obese tend to imagine that they have a right to whatever life they have. When society deprives them of it, by refusing them treatment and support, like anyone else, they and their nearest and dearest tend to cause trouble, trouble which costs far more than the cost of providing care - so long as we are talking a reasonably small fraction of society. When it becomes a larger fraction, the costs escalate, but the necessity to provide care also increases. Which is one reason why we live in societies.

Now let us evaluate how this forms a tax upon all the members of society.

First, from a simple tax perspective, all hospitals are subsidized in innumerable ways. These costs are shared by all tax payers. Thus an individual's risk-taking is effectively distributed across the population. When sufficient people engage in high risk activities, our costs increase and tax revenues need to be increased or funding for other activities decreased.

From a micro-economic perspective, any dollar spent on health care is a dollar not spent on the expansion of production. Health-care, like the provision of security services, is not productive. Indeed, as I said, it is a tax upon productivity. An unavoidable tax at that. Every time somebody with management or production skills dies or retires or even worse, is unable to work for random periods of time at unexpected intervals, without working his or her full expected life, a tax is imposed upon the whole of society, because investments in schooling, training and many other life-expenses are subsidized by society and are effectively amortised over the full expected working career*. Reduced lifespans severely skew those equations due to the exponential effect of the time value of money.

Then too, the company for which s/he worked loses access to his or her skills and has to train somebody else. While the direct cost is born by the employer entity, the company, coworkers, shareholders and ultimately the customers or clients and thus society as a whole are taxed by the discontinuity, transitional period of inefficiency and ultimately, all the costs involved. Usually insurance companies become involved (not speaking of medical insurance yet, but rather of term insurance) and because insurance is predicated upon averages, those people without problems sponsor those who have problems - and given enough people with issues, every-one's premiums will increase, while the benefits undoubtedly will not.

Another significant factor is that so long as coverage is continuous, medical insurers are generally prohibited from excluding people from coverage or charging variant rates for differentiated risks. Even when new insureds and people with interrupted insurance are taken on with preexisting conditions, there are routes, expensive but available, to obtain state assisted coverage for a period, usually a year, irrespective of condition, where-after the insurers have to accept those people without exclusions and without differentiated rates. This means that when someone eats their way to an early grave, that their fellow insureds end up funding their stupidity. In effect, we are all taxed for any-one's poor choices.

I should add perhaps that there are some other unavoidable obesity taxes born by society. For example, we don't like having to step over dead or dying people, on our way to and fro upon our business, besides which corpses are unhygienic and need taking care of in order to prevent worse catastrophes, even, perhaps especially, when they are obese; which, nolens volens (willy-nilly), induces others to care for them, if for no other reason than the pragmatic. In addition, like it or not, widows, widowers and orphans also tend to run to high maintenance, and so tend to be much more expensive to society than non-bereaved families. So we can't avoid the "costs" by simply refusing to pay them while the obese are alive. Even if society does not possess any empathy beyond its wallet, the taxes continue and indeed tend to become heavier, after the uncared-for afflicted shuffle off this mortal coil. Which is why societies with numerate citizens tend to provide social benefits including health care. It is cheaper (as well as nicer) than the alternatives.

I agree that it is possible that somebody might attempt to advance the argument that exiling the obese would be cheaper than caring for them. This goes for infants and the elderly too. Some might even agree that this makes perfect sense from an aesthetic perspective, but the net financial effect on society is similar to death. In any case, if there were enough people prejudiced against, the cost of policing and managing the resultant unrest stemming from dissatisfied relatives and friends will probably exceed any savings that might be effected by such a policy.

Which is what I said, and you disagreed. Now that you have my argument in more detail, would you reconsider your disagreement?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then Dune spattered some pixels in order to say, "in the end, violence is violence."

Now it is my turn to disagree. Like most things in life, violence comes in many shades and usually we are in a position of choosing not between black and white, but between murky and murkier shades of grey.

The Parable of Bubba

Let's say that a group of large savage, syphilitic rapists, all possessed of huge, exposed, throbbing tools, clearly much bolstered by years of taking or applying potions and engaging in practices described all too graphically in emails that arrive in an unending stream at every server on the Internet, have surrounded you in a dark alley. Let us further assume that they all find your *ss hole irresistibly attractive, and having spent all their money ordering penis enhancement products, they have nothing left over for lubricant.

Through this motley crew, somehow reminiscent of a convocation of lawyers, steps a tax collector, embodying all the violence of the state should you not cooperate with him. He delicately avoids the bobbing, dripping dicks surrounding you, as he is nicely attired in a grey silk suit (impossible to remove semen stains). He requests, very politely, a contribution to his coffers - after which, he assures you that he will dispatch some appropriately violent people to take care of the gang surrounding you. He assures you that plastic is acceptable. How many seconds will you hesitate before deciding that one form of violence might not be equal to another???

The "Moral"

As I said, not all violence is equal. We may be brutal apes, but we are brutal apes who have learned (and it is programmed into us), that socialization is much cheaper and infinitely safer than playing the rogue. All social experience has a cost. As the graphic parable above was intended to show, some costs are much easier to bear than others. It is all a matter of choice.

Regards,

Lucifer

PS: Please don't attempt to argue that rather than absorbing these costs, that the subsidies should be withdrawn, because it is conclusive to all but the innumerate and willfully ignorant (and possibly some Republicans, but I repeat mysef), that e.g. the entire population profits when the average level of education increases, and the benefit to society in actual dollar amounts far exceeds the relatively small investment required to allow anyone in society to maximise their education in so far as this is possible.