Free will
I cannot understand this modern obsession with health.
Every day the papers carry some story, each one more ridiculous that the last claiming that picking your nose causes knee cancer or that using a telescope will cause your eyes to drop out. Some claims are so patently absurd that you have to laugh, but they are still printed in that air of frenzy that would have you believe they have discovered the meaning of life.
Why?
What is the point of all this garbage?
In an ideal world, the WHO or whatever would inform us that Professor Fred has discovered a possible link between sugar and obesity, or that the University of Narnia thinks cigarettes may be bad for you, and they would then leave us to make our own decisions. After all, it’s my body, my health and my life. That’s called free will.
One of the latest bits of blindingly useless bits of information to emerge is that Ireland is to have a 72% increase in cancers by 2030. Apparently Bulgaria is the place to be with a 2.2% increase. What use is this information? Instead of wittering on about future trends, why don’t they just devote their time to finding cures?
Why has the WHO published these figures? What possible purpose can they serve except to cause depression amongst the gullible few who actually believe the claptrap? Are we all supposed to suddenly change our lifestyles? Are we all supposed to switch from high sugar to sugar free? On second thoughts, sugar will kill you and so will sugar free, so you can’t win there. It can serve no purpose whatsoever except to justify some grossly inflated salary somewhere.
Of course in the last few years, governments have taken it upon themselves to force us to live their lifestyle of choice. Smokers have taken the brunt of the greatest “denormalisation” programme since Hitler decided he didn’t like Jews, and now they are turning their attention to drinkers and eaters. They won’t be happy until we are all eating government regulated food, drinking government approved drink and exercising following an exercise regime laid down by… [you’ve guessed it] government. Even then, people are still going to fall ill and die so what will they have actually achieved, apart from making society miserable?
Possibly the last paragraph in the WHO statement is the most telling –
“We need to urgently look at introducing fat and sugar taxes and how these unhealthy foods are promoted, and even greater restrictions on the advertising and sale of tobacco”
So having failed to “educate” us, they want reams of further government control on how we live our lives. [Though I would love to know how they intend to further restrict tobacco advertising here in Ireland – the only places where you ever see any sight or mention of tobacco is in the breathless press releases by ASH and on the little signs in tobacconists about not selling tobacco to under 21s.]
I just cannot see the point to it all.
I think George Orwell may have got it just about right !!
““We need to urgently look at introducing fat and sugar taxes” …
There’s yer answer Grandad ..
Mossy – I think future generations will see Orwell less as an author and more as the greatest prophet of the 20th Century?
Haddock – But why? Why are they so desperate to cut sugar and fat levels? What is the obsession with health all about? They claim that it’s to “reduce the burdens on the health systems” but if finance is their problem, why are they spending billions on useless health research? It just does not add up.
Sugar & fat levels are merely the latest fads ..
What they squander now, in setting up the mechanisms of control & taxation, the financial rewards which they will bring them, will be recovered ten-fold from generations yet unborn, who never knew any different ..
Giving politicians & the fake charities/researchers etc whom they support, money to spend on their pet subjects .. which in turn will generate even more revenue ..
Its a symbiotic relationship .. the only people getting screwed are those not on the bandwaggon ..
And once you have taxed tobacco (to reduce its useage and harm of course nothing do do with tax revenues) and taxed alcohol (to reduce its useage and harm of course nothing do do with tax revenues) you have to go somewhere new. So why not tax sugar (to reduce its useage and harm of course nothing do do with tax revenues), and fat would be a good target (to reduce its useage and harm of course nothing do do with tax revenues). And you could tax salt (to reduce its useage and harm of course nothing do do with tax revenues)
I wonder how much money I can get for my new study, “living causes death”. The premise, 100% of people who have lived, will die. To reduce the death rate by 50% simply find the median age of the population at death and kill everyone older then that cut off age. Of course to reduce future death rates the cut off age will keep getting younger. There is also the pesky issue of propagation once the cut off age gets below puberty, but that issue will be several years in the future and none of us will be around to be bothered by it.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to forget all the crap they spout and just put up the taxes? Nothing has put them off this course in the past?
Jim C – That should be worth a couple of million in EU grants. Want me to do any epidemiological studies for you?
It’s a case of “follow the money” Grandad. The (so-called) charities lobby the Government for money to begin with. When a previous Government upped the funding to the Irish Cancer Society and The Irish Heart Foundation, they used the increased funds to set-up ASH.
ASH used the money to lobby the Government to overtax smokers and when they got their way, the ICS and the IHF came back and said to Gov, “Now that you have more money, we want more too’. So, the politicians gave it to them, thinking that would get them more votes somehow. The charities lobbied the Government to steal even more money from the smoker and the roundabout took another twirl. The charities paid researchers to produce bullshit that clearly showed the gormless politicians that more needed to done, i.e., more public money needed to be wasted on them.
We’ve had over ten years of this merry-go-round and the losers are smokers and non-smokers alike. Then, the ugly, dangerous smuggler entered stage left and fearing somehow that his opportunity could have been created by them, the charities are switching to boozers and fatties. No dirty smell of criminality in that quarter until they create it themselves by social engineering, called tampering by the rest of us. By the time the black economy is booming in contraband of all sorts of stuff, the charities and their lobbyists will have retired in luxury to a villa on the Continent and will only be induced out of their comfort zone for a speaking engagement with a fat fee. Here they will take the plaudits of other sad puritans like themselves for their “expertise” and “wonderful work” in the field of something or other we all used to enjoy.
Sadly I think you’re right. One baffling thing though is that every indicator points to a total lack of success. Not only is there no change in the smoking rate but there is no change in health either. The only effect is the closing of so many pubs and the resultant unemployment, and also the massive loss in revenue due to smuggling. Surely the powers that be must see this?