Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

It's not a question of moral standing or identity but rather that public transport (and vegan) advocates would like to force you to live like they do. Those things gaining too much popularity threatens the way you do things.

We have examples of this happening, eg smoking. It has become unpopular enough that governments pass nonsensical bans like banning flavored cigarettes or just making it entirely illegal for only a certain year cohort (literal age discrimination).




> public transport (and vegan) advocates would like to force you to live like they do

Is there a citation for this claim?

> governments pass nonsensical bans like banning flavored cigarettes

Is it nonsensical? There is research[1][2] showing that flavoured tobacco is one of the primary factors used to attract younger users. We know that tobacco is bad, and also that flavoured tobacco increases its usage, so unless you are against public health policy measures themselves, it follows logically that flavoured tobacco should be covered by public health measures.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9007155/ [2] https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/26/6/709


When public health measures turn into "hello, we're now making your life worse" then yes, I am against them.

Imagine you drink coffee your whole life. You rely on it. Now your government comes in and goes "coffee is now illegal, you're welcome!!!"

It changes your life against your wishes and you can't do anything about it. The only action that realistically works is preemptive - don't let coffee become disliked enough to enact such a ban. That's why people argue against it. Principles such as "people should be free to make their own choices" aren't values our society cares about. (Important to remember: it's popular to hate on things everyone else hates on, so you gotta keep it under a critical mass.)

>Is there a citation for this claim?

Asking for a citation doesn't make sense. You know damn well there isn't one. Nobody is going to credibly announce that their goal is to ban something popular, because that would make it harder for them to force that change on you. It's done piece by piece. Maybe the people that start it don't even want a ban, but it eventually escalates.

But logical reasoning can explains it too: people support public transport for climate reasons. Why would they not want you to make 'the right choice' like them?


> would like to force you to live like they do

Okay, so it's exactly a question of moral standing and identity.


yes, another successful example is slavery. another unresolved one is abortion. in all of these cases the freedom in question is arguably immoral. laws are downstream of moral convictions.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: