Dilemmas

More Than A Parlor Game

A classic dilemma is situation in which one of the two choices presented is more ethical and the other more practical. Should you try to keep your driverless new Lexus from rolling over a cliff, or leap to the rescue of your mother-in-law, who is standing in its path?

To make things dicier, there’s no way you can do both.

Sometimes your parentally oriented government will make a choice easier for you, by making it illegal for you to take the path you might happen to prefer, like taking a hit on a doobie or whatever they’re called in polite circles.

In many schools in our country, children have had one of their dilemmas resolved by the removal of tempting and sugary soft drinks from vending machines on school property. Government to the rescue! Now they get to choose among milk, water, and sugarless fruit juices. Not much of a dilemma remains, unless you have issues with milk.

From time to time, one horn of a dilemma is financially rewarding, the other being a feel-good sensation, like a social conscience thing. Here’s an example.

The obesity epidemic in youngsters in our world is fueled primarily by sugar in a variety of comestibles. Obesity in childhood is associated with obesity in adulthood, and all of the well-documented complications of that condition. Sugar sales are very good, and our government even makes it possible to keep the price high by taxing foreign competition.

A hundred bucks or so invested in C and H in 1990 would probably be worth a few thousand by now. Wow! What a great investment that is! And the C and H people are very nice people, and my stockbroker says put more right there with them, because it will do nothing but multiply.

Here’s your social conscience speaking: “Hold on a minute. Think about all of those kids out there who are going to be disabled early on, or maybe even die early on as a direct result of consuming large amounts of sugar, sales of which are making you wealthy.” Is your response, “Hey, I’m not their mother / father / protector. Not my problema, buddy.”

Absolutely right on, you are not their parent, and neither is the government their parent, and maybe they don’t even have an effective parent, but that’s not your problema is it?

I have a friend who is the CEO of a large grocery chain, who, with his wife and kids, is slender and healthy, and probably they never eat the Little Debbies, and the Ding Dongs sold in his stores. Do you think he ought to discontinue sales of junk food because there are people out there too addicted / ignorant / lazy to eat better? Should the government start putting warning labels on Twinkies: “Consumption of this will lead to ----“?

One possible solution to this dilemma is to take most of the sugar and turn it into automobile fuel, thus removing it from the food chain. Sugar would get scarce, the price would rise more, investors would make lots more money, and we would all get skinny again due to reduction of dietary sweets.

Dilemma resolved with a double bonus! More gas, less fat.

(For another item on the list of institutional interventions, click here)