posted
By "everything" I am specifically referring to food. First they ruined soy sauce, and that was pretty unbelievably disgusting. Then I heard about their unique way of drying tea leaves. But this one was more of a recollection, so I could tell myself they'd stopped doing that.
But now I find out they've been messing with my honey! That is so not cool. In fact, it turns out there is an entire wikipedia page literally devoted to showcasing how terrible China is. I don't know whether to or or
Probably all three at once.
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posted
Well, I don't know — what's your position on governmental food and drug regulation? Because people who are fans of saying that food and the like should just simply be regulated by the free market sure do get a headache when they deal by the corrupt, deceitful mess that is China.
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It's an interesting topic. I know what my idealized solution would be (private companies that step in for the FDA. Information gets easier and cheaper to spread all the time, and I think there would be a pretty substantial market of people who wanted a reliable 3rd party to vet the food they bought). But, like most minarchist/libertarian/anarcho capitalist ideals, they don't work in a vacuum, and they often wouldn't work terribly well if you ripped a chunk off of the existing system and then stitched them in its place Frankenstein style.
That's what guys like Ron Paul don't get. Radical, untested change virtually always has really awful unintended consequences. All progress should be incremental and tentative.
So... yeah. In my ideal world, we wouldn't have government food and drug regulation, but that's not to say we'd have no method of knowing what's in our food. And in the mean time, in the real world, it'd be super if the methods we have in place actually worked halfway decently.
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posted
In the case of the FDA, it's just a matter of proper funding, since they've been getting systematically starved even while the bog-standard and immensely predictable results of 'the industry regulating itself' do not abate, and nature continues to prove how awesome it is (like with our Listeria).
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posted
Ugh, and I just bought a new bottle of honey just yesterday from Walmart. This makes me want to take it back and wait until I get back home so I can steal a jar from my mom's boss, who has a farm with bees on it. I love honey, this makes me sad.
I won't even bother with all the political yammering I might normally do. I'm too tired.
Oh God, I've been robbed of my will to rant...what is this world coming to!?
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posted
But wouldn't a for-profit third party have just as much incentive to keep the cost of the food down as the food company itself?
If Inspection Company X gains a reputation for costing Food Production companies a great deal of money, how long will X stay in business?
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posted
If the food production companies are the ones paying Inspection Company, you get the same thing that happened with Wall Street and the Credit Ratings Agencies.
A company charged with overseeing the same people who fund it is quite simply not an independent organization.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: It's an interesting topic. I know what my idealized solution would be (private companies that step in for the FDA. Information gets easier and cheaper to spread all the time, and I think there would be a pretty substantial market of people who wanted a reliable 3rd party to vet the food they bought).
Dan, There are 196 countries in the world and many of them do not have functional government food and drug testing and regulations. If your proposal is actually workable, there must be some private company that's tried it somewhere in the world. Perhaps you can provide some data on how that's worked out.
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Come on rabbit, it's not like a profit motive would introduce perverse incentives into the reporting industry and.... Oh. My. GOD!
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I just found out my private honey supplier lost all his bees last year to colony collapse disorder.
This day just keeps getting worse and worse.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
"Not Blayne safe" wasn't really called for.
On a related note if you wish to see Libertarianism in practice look no further than the EVE-Online economy.
Funnily enough the most successful space holding alliances implement socialism.
Today's China seems to be in the position the United States was back in the 1870's "The Jungle" (or whenever it was written), it'll grow past it eventually.
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Blayne: Pretty sure he was just being silly. Since the post in one non-stop rant about China.
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Blayne, If its any help, that kind of light-hearted ribbing between men indicates you are accepted as part of the group.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Come on rabbit, it's not like a profit motive would introduce perverse incentives into the reporting industry and.... Oh. My. GOD!
A private "quality assurance" industry would never even make it that far. If anyone is actually interested, I could go into lots of details about why it would never work.
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Oof, yeah Blayne, that was pretty much the definition of silliness. I think you're self-aware enough to know that you have a reputation for being a teensy bit of a China fanboy, whether that reputation is fair or not. And since my presentation was literally "China is the worst thing since ever" I was just makin' a joke.
However, being a magnanimous and evenhanded sort of chap, if you still feel that the title is genuinely hurtful and offensive, and you don't see the humor at all, I will happily edit it out. Okay?
PS: Yeah Rabbit but 195 of those countries are worse than ours, and we aren't even good enough to do what I want!
But no seriously, I don't think what I was talking about could have effectively come about in any of those countries. Hell, it hasn't effectively come about here! I don't know if it could have come about here until this last generation or so.
Orincoro, the thing is, any criticism like that (they could have incentives to lie and collude with a company to misrepresent that company's product) can also be leveled at the government. Are governments immune to corruption, bribery, and collusion? Of course not. All you're really saying is that some people lie and cheat, and we need a mechanism for catching people that do that. Okay. I agree!
So yeah is it a rule now that any time I post something it has to turn into an argument about why my economic theories are wrong? I mean, I'm okay with that I guess, it's fun to talk about economics, but I think you guys are missing the really important point here: China is terrible. Did you check out that wikipedia page? They put sewage in tofu to improve the appearance. That's... I don't even... what? (It might also say something about tofu that this apparently did in fact improve the appearance!)
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Come on rabbit, it's not like a profit motive would introduce perverse incentives into the reporting industry and.... Oh. My. GOD!
A private "quality assurance" industry would never even make it that far. If anyone is actually interested, I could go into lots of details about why it would never work.
I'm very curious to hear what you have to say.
I can think of several that already work! But not in areas to do with public health, where failure to work can result in serious illness or death. Whether this is because the market isn't there, or because all of those spheres are already dominated by government monopoly, I don't know.
Edit: Oh my god I missed this before...
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Blayne, If its any help, that kind of light-hearted ribbing between men indicates you are accepted as part of the group.
That was awesome Rabbit. She's right, Blayne, you are now a Man. Enjoy it!
quote:I can think of several that already work! But not in areas to do with public health, where failure to work can result in serious illness or death. Whether this is because the market isn't there, or because all of those spheres are already dominated by government monopoly, I don't know.
I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. Can you tell private businesses you know of that are doing this now?
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I've been having a bad day. But I am fairly sure being suspicious of the title isnt quite the same thing as overreacting to it.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: *shrug* China is still a developing country. In our terms, we'd say that they were in an "Industrial Revolution." While China (obviously) has access to modern technology such as cell phones and computers, their disregard for human health is to be entirely expected given their level of development especially given their large population.
Wait until they reach a "post-industrial revolution" state for them to be worried about their long term health as much as ours. You can just look at their smoking rates compared to ours, their pollution standards, etc. The key is that they aren't treating us (or products destined for us) any worse than they're treating themselves, so if we want our products to be up to "our" standards it should really be "our" companies that bear the responsibility of checking standards, safety, etc.
quote:I can think of several that already work! But not in areas to do with public health, where failure to work can result in serious illness or death. Whether this is because the market isn't there, or because all of those spheres are already dominated by government monopoly, I don't know.
I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. Can you tell private businesses you know of that are doing this now?
Private businesses that provide some form of quality assurance to the general public? Sure! Ummm here's one I use all the time! A bit of a funky choice since it's user-generated content, but you could just as easily replace that with, I don't know, these guys or some other more traditional reviewer.
Some people swear by this this QA guy when it comes to their favorite form of recreation, though I'm more ambivalent about him. I do respect his credentials, though, and I certainly don't suspect him of kowtowing to the huge corporations whose product he provides QA for.
Then there's this industry, and companies that provide a very different but also valuable service of private inspection.
Oh hey, here's another one I've actually used myself! And for something a bit more serious than where to go for dinner, even. Cool.
One interesting thing is that all of these companies, whether their field is totally frivolous or relatively serious and safety-related, tend to have bloomed up in fields where there is not already a government monopoly on quality assurance. I wonder why that is.
Probably a coincidence.
But no, seriously, don't take my flippancy as being dismissive. I am really curious why you think such a company for, say, food safety, could never exist. Not has never existed, but couldn't exist. Because I'm definitely not an expert on the subject, and I'm very willing to be educated. Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: China is terrible. Did you check out that wikipedia page? They put sewage in tofu to improve the appearance. That's... I don't even... what? (It might also say something about tofu that this apparently did in fact improve the appearance!)
Technically, the sewage was probably added to simulate fermentation in order to save time since the tofu is called "stinky tofu." The name should probably tell you something about the challenging nature of this particular dish.
But that isn't China specific, you're going to find that in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, or even Canada.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I've been having a bad day. But I am fairly sure being suspicious of the title isnt quite the same thing as overreacting to it.
I can't tell if this is a request for me to edit the title or not. But I'm sorry you've been having a bad day.
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posted
Doesn't really work that way, long term it's more likely to go the other way. If you've watched Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations it provides vivid demonstrations. Briefly, the longer a culture has existed the more likely it is to develop such dishes. The idea is that hard times like famine and disaster are likely to cause people to experiment with dishes that are normally too "gross", particularly among the lower classes that cannot afford the "nice" cuts of meat and etc.
However, even afterwards the dishes persist because they actually taste pretty good. So among older food cultures like Chinese, French, Italian, etc. you'll find more of these dishes, not less. I have no doubt that given time, American food culture will become more like the older food cultures, not vice versa.
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Most of what you're saying is accurate... I mean, we already have gross food cultures borne from poverty in America (like chitlins!) Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods has showcased a ton of these things.
The only part I disagree with is the idea that we will get more of them. As America and the whole world continue to advance in technology and wealth, it seems likely we won't be seeing too many new versions of pickled pigs feet and rotten meat packed in lard and the-contents-of-a-freaking-cow's-stomach. Famine-inspired cuisine would require more famines, not less, and I don't see that happening.
You're right, though, that even if we have less famine, cultures will still hang on to their horrifying weird famine-inspired dishes. And in fairness, some of them are really good. But... sewage? Really? Seriously, if your cultural dish can be simulated by actually adding poop to something it really truly might be time to retire that dish.
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posted
That's tricky logic though, if "dish[es that] can be simulated by actually adding poop to something" must be retired, then all you need is some jerk like "Japanese scientist Mitsuyuki Ikeda has developed a “burger” made from soya, steak sauce essence, and protein extracted from human feces" and then suddenly we have to retire beef burgers. http://inhabitat.com/poop-burger-japanese-researcher-creates-artificial-meat-from-human-feces/
The other idea I think is more straight-forward. Cultures don't merely persist in keeping their famine inspired dishes, they value them more, literally. When a crooked businessperson decided to simulate fermentation, the idea was to create more stinky tofu faster in order to meet demand. It would actually be simpler to sell the fresh tofu in the first place, but the fermentation process is a value-add. Given this, even if the pace of famines decreases, as long as there are more famines, there will be more original famine inspired dishes in total.
Secondly, these dishes not only persist, but they mutate creating new dishes, the Hong Kong version of the dish is different from the Taiwanese, and the Chinese version for example.
The last issue is probably the most controversial. With climate change and increasing populations, I don't see nearly as rosy a future. Great powers rise and fall, people have to make do with less in hard times. Things may get better in general, but I think that there will still be plenty of suffering ahead.
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posted
Dan, do you see a distinction between CarFax -- which shuffles and stores paper that other people submit to it -- and Roger Ebert, who sees a movie once and then writes about it -- and the sort of regular inspection and scientific testing performed by the FDA?
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posted
Hush, the mythos of private industry efficiency doesn't hold up against the reality of why beaurocracies are devised in the first place, as a complex system to balance interwoven political and social incentives to produce the most consistent results possible, with the least deviation necessary from a popular mandate.
We just assume that a provide incentivized replacement for a public institution would, for some reason never demonstrated, produce a greater net benefit from its service. It is not explained why a profit motive would necessarily entail this outcome.
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Tom, sure there's a difference. Do you think that it is impossible for a private company to perform more rigorous or regular inspections, if there was a reason for them to do so? I mean, obviously it's not being done now. I said that before. I'm also, again, not advocating for demolishing the FDA and assuming that private industry will fill the gap in our current system. One reason I don't really mind the "conservative" label, even though I'm totally opposed to the traditional conservative stances on things like gay marriage, abortion, etc... is that I strongly believe that the best progress should happen carefully, slowly, and with respect shown to existing traditions, most of which became traditions because there was some value in them somewhere.
Sam asked how I felt about the FDA, and I'm explaining why. Heck, it's probably never going to happen. That's okay! For the most part, things are still improving all the time and I'm happy to be alive to see it!
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
modern republican thought is contradictory to the definition of what "conservative" is, modern republicans are reactionary not conservative. A conservative would want to make institutions work, not to abandon or abolish them for ideological reasons.
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quote:But no, seriously, don't take my flippancy as being dismissive. I am really curious why you think such a company for, say, food safety, could never exist. Not has never existed, but couldn't exist. Because I'm definitely not an expert on the subject, and I'm very willing to be educated.
Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this. I'm going to give you a highly abbreviated version. The long version details all the reasons that making measurements and setting standards requires consensus and cooperation. Government involvement in measurement and standards ultimately benefits free markets far more than it impedes them.
While its possible to inspect every home or every automobile, inspecting every aspirin tablet or jar of honey is not only expensive and impractical but its generally impossible because the methods of analysis are usually destructive. You can't eat the same honey that's analyzed. In practice, that means that the overwhelming majority of the food and drugs produced aren't going to be checked for purity. Since the probability of catching a "tainted" item will be low, the penalty incurred when a tainted item is found has to be very high for the inspections to serve as a deterrent.
Without government enforcement, this penalty would have to be in the form of consumer backlash. For this backlash to occur, consumers would have to have a high degree of confidence in the reports produced by private inspectors. Since businesses stand to loose a great deal in a consumer backlash, there would be a strong incentive for businesses to try to undermine peoples confidence in the inspectors.
Measurement is difficult and expensive on levels most people (even scientists) don't recognize. Very few people have the skill needed to determine whether a measurement is accurate and reliable. For this reason, its very difficult to build peoples confidence in the measurements you make and relatively easy to get people to doubt your reports. There is a fundamental imbalance.
For example, look at how easy it was for the tobacco industry to get smokers to doubt the science showing that smoking was dangerous. A very small investment in disinformation and advertising was enough to compensate for a huge investment in demonstrating the harms of smoking.
Even if we could somehow figure out a way for private food and drug inspectors to make a profit when they get consumers to stop buying a tainted product (which is in itself a formidable barrier), it would be almost trivially easy for a producers to undermine their effectiveness.
The bottom line is that starting a private food and drug inspection business would require a huge investment in capital and expertise that could countered by an cheap advertising campaign. That is simply never going to get off the ground.
[ November 15, 2011, 12:38 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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Businesses in Qingdao have been caught marinating duck meat in goat or sheep urine to give the duck the smell and taste of lamb. The duck is then sold as lamb to customers.[72]
...oh dear. Could have gone without this.
Posts: 1594 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
What happened to the theory of the Chinese Trojan Horse? It must have been like 30 years ago, someone came up with suspicion towards the phenomenon of Chinese restaurants all over the world. I can remember it was in the newspapers for some time. Anyone out there remembers?
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