YSK: Regulations don't exist because governments like them...

Old saying "Fire and flight regulations are written in blood." Food regulations are likely written in various excretions?
- There have absolutely been deaths due to unsafe, mass produced foods.
  
  Jack in the Box killed 4 kids in the early 90s.
- Excretions with blood?
  
  They're the best excretions...
  
  Puss is an option too

Bleach, actually. A small amount of bleach added to spoiled milk makes it taste brand new. The government actually suggested this in a few countries for a while.
Plaster in flour was common enough that after the miller, the middle men, and then the baker all added a cut, there were loaves being sold with less than 20% flour in them. The result was mass malnutrition.
Also, and this is a spicy one but backed by basic economics, regulations are a required element to capitalism. The notion that deregulation is pro capitalism is a misinterpretation of the idea that markets are self regulating. A free market is one that is free of corruption and unfair business practices. Which cannot exist without regulations and the enforcement of those regulations. All our current economic woes are the result of straying away from proven economic theory (mostly deregulation) to the right allowing the corruption of the marketplace and emergence of a strong oligarchy.
- That second paragraph is a pretty concise explanation on why ancaps and their ideas are stupid.
- Saw dust was also added to flour. Various heavy metals would be added to food to enhance their color.
  
  Also added to grated Parmesan.
- A free market is one that is free of corruption and unfair business practices. Which cannot exist without regulations and the enforcement of those regulations.
  We've had numerous laws precisely because companies couldn't play fair, and made things worse for all involved. The government didn't pass laws against company towns, scrip, and predatory pricing because they decided to ban things for fun.
- is plaster bread low calorie
  
  Technically. The constipation would probably balance out the weight loss though

What is so incredible is that we are living st a time with such massive food surplus that it would blow the mind of anyone living in the past... but they will let all of it go to waste and just add bullshit to the food just because they can...
- And make it unaffordable, because fuck it why not

That's just the free market working as intended. Collateral damage.
Maybe people should do research on the available milk brands before giving it to their children if they didn't want them to drink bleach.
Edit: I tried to resist adding the "/s," but we live in crazy (stupid) times, so...
- The Free Market (holy be thy name) gives you the choice between $1/bottle for milk with chalk and bleach, or $10/bottle for one with less chalk and bleach. If you want one without chalk and bleach, you'll need to find your own cow.
  Also, the cows all have birth defects and need uranium-powered antibiotics to stay alive.
  Now, let us open our song books to number 34: "Praise Hayek and His Perfect Mustache".
  
  Blasphemer! In our house we praise Wittgenstein, not that Austrian hack
- With no regulation there will be no other milk brands.
- Excellent idea! I'm sure that information will be readily available from independent trustworthy sources that are not the government! Failing that, I always have my trusty mass spectrometer in my kitchen and I run all my foods through it just in case!
- Maybe people should do research on the available milk brands before giving it to their children if they didn’t want them to drink bleach.
  Without regulation, the company could also just lie. Nothing would dictate that they would have to tell the truth about their product.
  
  Well that's why you need to do your own research. As in looking at products under microscopes, doing physics equations, etc.
  If you're not an expert on every product you purchase (and the science behind them), well then that's on you and your kid deserves getting lead poisoning from his band-aids.
- Poe's law and all that

To continue with the argument of "the market will self-regulate and people wouldn't buy that brand anymore so they would never do it again"
Okay but how many people died, how many people are suffering long-term effects, and what's stopping them from adding a different deadly thing to our food?
- To continue with the argument of "the market will self-regulate and people wouldn't buy that brand anymore so they would never do it again"
  Turns out the parent company owns every other brand of that product, so going to another brand is meaningless
- And also they're already basically Monopolies. You don't have real options. Most food products come from like 3 mega corps who own hundreds of brands.
- wouldn’t buy that brand anymore so they would never do it again
  Assuming there is perfect information in the market. In reality there is heavy information asymmetry.
  It also assumes free competition while we have every market dominated by a few players buying up everyone else, often with cartel like behavior.
  
  It also assumes it is immediately deadly poison, and doesn't do something like cause early dementia 25 years later.
- Market self regulation assumes informed consumers that are smart enough to know what things mean. Also it assumes healthy competition and companies that are competing to make the best product at the chrapest price. It ALSO assumes brand lotalty isn't a thing, and consumers are judging things purely objectively.
  Like, i understand the idea, but in practice there are a ton of caveats.
  
  Market self regulation assumes informed consumers that are smart enough to know what things mean
  Not just smart enough, but informed enough. That means every person spending literally hundreds/thousands of hours per week researching every single aspect of every purchase they make. Investigating supply chains, performing chemical analysis on their foods and clothing, etc. It's not even remotely realistic.
  So instead, we outsource and consolidate that research and testing, by paying taxes to a central authority who verifies all manufacturers keep things safe so we don't have to worry about accidentally buying Cheerios that are laced with lead. AKA: The government and regulations.
- Also, if you want inspections to make sure there isn't bird shit in the milk, then you need regulation. Otherwise people are just drinking bird shit and they don't know.
- Also the evidence shows this isn't really true, anyway.

This is true, but it's important to remember that some regulations were not written in blood, but instead in racism - see R1-zoning as one of the most significant examples.
Regulations are just tools, really. They can evidently be used for good, and should be used for good, but some are being used for bad and should be reformed.
- Sure, and such regulations should be reformed. We should not just start turning stuff off and seeing who breaks!
  
  I wish that would go without saying, but current events are unfortunately evidence of that not being true.

Regulations are written in blood
- But I'm an alpha man child and I need to make people bleed to prove it!
  
  Don't worry I'm sure we'll find some place that lets you feel the bleeding edge of unregulated capitalism in an alpha release.

Speaking of Americans, at least half of us are criminally uneducated and watch literally nothing but Fox News. You can't teach them even with indisputable proof. If the talking heads say it's bad, then it's bad.
- Framing one half of the population as beyond saving or inherently evil is not just lazy - it’s historically dangerous. It reduces millions of individuals into a caricature and gives people permission to treat them with contempt, as if that’s somehow virtuous. That kind of thinking has been used to justify some of the worst things we’ve done to each other as humans.
  When you actually talk to people outside your bubble, you quickly realize that most of us want the same basic things - stability, safety, meaning, a fair shot in life. We just have different beliefs about how to get there. Writing off entire groups as irredeemable only erodes any future possibility of understanding or change.
  
  I agree with you. No one is beyond saving, education, or help. Some people seem irredeemable, and they may decide to act that way, but the option is always there. This idea is the core, it's fundamental to my moral code my beliefs, my ethics. Everyone can learn and grow, and it takes serious damage to remove that capability.
  However, we're dealing with people who are denying our right to exist and don't engage in good faith. Until they can take those basic steps affirming the social contract, I see no reason debate with such people needs to take place with words.
  
  For fucks sake, this whole "let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya" response is pure garbage. They're trying to pull that "oh, it's just different opinions" crap, but that's a load of bullshit. We're not talking about whether pineapple belongs on pizza here. We're talking about a movement built on lies, hate, and actively trying to undo hundreds of years of suffrage and civil rights movements that allow you to have free speach.
  This ain't about "different beliefs on how to get there." Half these people are living in a fantasy world where facts don't matter and anyone who doesn't look or think like them is the enemy. You can't "understand" someone who thinks immigrants are poisoning the blood of America or that the last election was stolen with zero proof. That's not a "belief"; that's a dangerous delusion.
  And this whole "tolerance" nonsense? Please. You don't tolerate people who want to strip away your rights or incite violence against your neighbors. That's not virtuous; that's being a damn doormat. Some ideas are just plain wrong, and some people are so far gone on the Fox News Kool-Aid that they're beyond reason. Pretending otherwise is just enabling the madness.
  The Paradox of Tolerance is akin to an invading force telling the insurgence that no one else has to die as long as they comply.

just to point out the other side of this...
(and I already know I'ma be downvoted for just saying that)
Some regulations are bad. Many are good and we actually need them, but some are bad. For example, when there's a few large companies in an industry, they often lobby for regulations designed to increase the cost of doing business. While the big fish can pay the costs of these extra regulations, smaller companies cant, and just cant compete with the big fish, lowering the amount of competition in the industry and promoting more monopolistic behavior. We saw Openai try to do exactly this back when they went to Congress to warn the senators about the dangers of 'agi' and how it quickly needed to be regulated. Well they failed, and now there's tons of companies with their own products that rival Chatgpt in every way other than the brand recognition.
- There's also regulations that actually hurt the things they are intended to protect. It's generally called perverse incentives. The example here is related to endangered species. It's in the interest of those that find an endangered species on their property to "shovel and shut up" as the presence only creates problems for the owner.
- you don’t solve this by having less regulations lmao
  
  its solved by getting money out of politics, along with removing regulations that don't make sense and keeping the ones that do
- The tweet itself limits its scope to food safety regulations specifically. The title of this lemmy post was condensed for brevity, which might create the impression that it's trying to make a larger point about regulations in toto. But I figured I could get away with it because I figured that surely people would read the tweet before commenting.
  
  I know, but pretty much every comment on this point about regulation isn't just discussing food regulations, their talking about regulations as a whole. Also my point about some regulations not helping can still be applied to foods.
  I mean look at the stuff they say about ketchup:
  The consistency of the finished food is such that its flow is not more than 14 centimeters in 30 seconds at 20 °C when tested in a Bostwick Consistometer in the following manner: Check temperature of mixture and adjust to 20±1 °C.
  https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-155/subpart-B/section-155.194 - section B, part 1.
  the flow of ketchup does not matter in the slightest to anyone
  
  People? Read? Never.
- Reminds me of car startups (in the US) taking off one wheel, turning them into moto/autocycles, so they wouldn't have to go through expensive car certification processes

Pure unadulterated capitalism means adulterated bread, wine, and milk.
- KEEP THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY BREADED MILK-WINE!

Hands up if you didn't already know that. Or intuited it. To me this seems to be something only US-Americans who argue purely ideologically for a "small government" need reminding of. They're paradoxically often the first in line calling for government intervention when their drinking water is full of poop or something.

“But what about my rights?? Drinking spoiled milk with chalk probably cures cancer or something, of course They don’t want you doing that! Why do you hate freedom?”
- You're free to add your own chalk.

I will link to the 1858 Bradford sweets poisoning.

Republicans: But we are the ones selling the spoiled milk.

And pure unadulterated something-else-ism would not, lol. The concept of responsibility that hard to grasp?
- The concept of responsibility that hard to grasp?
  For companies that seems to be case yeah
  
  Right. And how does capitalism have anything to do with it?
  Edit: companies do not exist. Humans do

Surely you could've come up with a better example.
Chalk is just calcium carbonate. Modern medicine uses calcium carbonate to as a calcium supplement.
We are still adding things to milk. Any milk that's "calcium fortified" or "extra calcium", and a lot of nut-milks, have calcium carbonate as an ingredient to this day.
I mean, I get your point...honestly, I do...but it's coming across nearly as the same sort of anti-science drivel you'd expect from the counterargument.
- In your examples you know those things are being added to the milk because it's in the ingredients, the case OP mentioned you didn't know. Are you able to see the difference?
  And there were many other things added to food besides chalk
  
  Exactly. There are better examples. Chalk is a bad one because it is, technically, edible, and still being used as an additive to this day.
- It's not the chalk that's the problem.
  It's using it to disguise the fact that the milk you're selling is spoiled.
  
  In big cities like New York, some dairies fed cows leftover grain mush from distilleries, called swill. The cows were sick, the milk was watery and bluish, and to make it look normal, some sellers added stuff like chalk, flour, even plaster. It wasn’t about hiding spoiled milk like you suggest - it was about making terrible milk from unhealthy cows seem drinkable.
  
  Yeah. I get that...but the way it was phrased by OOP it was as of "chalk" was used by an example as if that makes it somehow worse. We still put "chalk" in milk, though.
  Better example is like those people who say "eww" to hotdogs because there's a regulation limiting how many bug parts are allowed in them...not even considering the alternative of "no limit on how many bug parts".
  Or my wife, who refuses to eat a cherry tomato if it fell on the ground.
- Industrial chalk that was used as adulterants wasn't nearly as pure as the calcium carbonate you are imagining
  
  Plus I can't imagine that a company who is adulterating their milk with chalk dust is going to stop to find and choose a food-safe chalk dust and supplier. They'd just scoop a bunch from whoever's cheapest, and if they adulterate their chalk dust with bleach or something, that'll be going straight into the milk.