DistressedDrone

Why would that even be a problem?

It's almost like we can't force them to do things our way.

I suspect it can be solved in many different ways, but when you sell food by the pound, it's much more advantageous to distribute your limited quantity of nutrients in as much produce as possible.

This seems really, really hard to regulate.

You think the OP has never heard this before? This is the attitude that creates the guilt that weighs people down in the first place.

You, like most people, are talking about the future. I'm sure you're about the 1000th person telling this person to turn their life around. But this future is a projection, it's imaginary, whereas the pain is very real in the present moment. So start with the present.

Could be. I hope the intent is still encouraging!

The other commenter takes this somewhere interesting, but to me the main point is to not get trapped by guilt. That's why I say "you now" and not just "you". I'm not implying that you're the best you ever were, only that guilt (or pride) does nothing to change what you are in the present.

In other words, it's okay to just be you. In fact, the world is only better for it if you can live without guilt. Achievement and ambition are much less real to me.

This was always the problem with capitalism based on short-term gain, it will inevitably sacrifice loyalty for a quick buck. The same will happen or is already happening to online stores who do the same, eg by showing ads.

That said, at some point a failing business will realize the end is coming and cash out as much as possible, accelerating its own end in a calculated profit maximization scheme. Brick and mortar stores might as well self-destruct if they also believe they're going down anyway... It's not like anyone works there for the fun of it.

It's literally a therapist's job to help you figure this out, I don't want to undermine this.

Please speak to a professional, you are not alone.

In the meantime, here are some of my own "no bullshit mantras" I found comforting in similar times, mostly from Zen Bhuddism :

* You are not supposed to be anywhere. Your only real obligation is to be you, now.

* There is no "better" version of you now. There is no other way to be you now. In fact, there is no other way to be, but to be what you are.

* What you are is beautiful, no matter who you are. I don't mean the Aguilera song, I mean it's literally a miracle that you're here now.

* Everything is as it is. There's no point in feeling guilty for things being the way they are, rather than the way you or someone else would have them. In a world where time only flows one way, every "ought" is an illusion.

If you like these ideas, I highly recommend meditation, such ideas are much easier to contemplate with a calm mind. I hear Alan Watts has good talks about this available on Youtube. Mindfulness meditation has also been associated with improvements in mental health (you can find many studies about this on Google Scholar).

I'm pretty sure they've been trying, but our bodies have evolved to distinguish actual sugar from anything else for a very long time.

I can't read the article, but the fact that they include suicide in the list indicates a strong possiblity that they did not control for socioeconomic factors.

Maybe richer people drink more coffee, and also tend to die less?

Sorry if it's an easy critique but it's hard to believe the substance that basically only raises your heart rate is actually doing anything (good) long term.

Well, it's all relative. Assuming all corporations are equally amoral (or close enough), defense means war profiteering, whereas (traditional) media is a blight on our society that has largely abandoned any pretense of social function and actively holds us back by playing on our collective fears.

On the other hand, pharma as a concept certainly needs to exist to save lives. As a Canadian, pharma is not so bad here, but I believe their existence as a for-profit* entity is contrary to the purpose of universal healthcare, which I think is a common enough sentiment. American pharma, however, actively profits from the inequality inherent to the (rather evil) lack of universal healthcare system. Any positives for society seem strictly incidental, as exemplified by the price of insulin.

As a programmer with morals, I would never work in pharma, defense or media. I can't be the only one.

> (b) they'd know you'd done it.

That depends entirely on how exactly you do it. And knowing something and being able to prove it are two very different things.

I tend to agree, although I hate ads on principle.

But there are a lot of things I hate and don't have to think about. I don't go around protesting the war because in my country that's not something I have to care about, for example.

But advertisers made me have to care. If I didn't have adblock, I'd be running JS from some unverified third party on every other site. Couldn't they restrict it to pictures? Of course not.

So now I have to care, and I'm not going to cooperate with advertisers, who - before adblock got so mainstream - were content to serve us literal viruses as long as someone paid them.