Quote:They have a choice: buy cheaper healthier food and look up how to cook it on their smartphones. No sarcasm. I learned shade tree mechanics because I couldn't afford a mechanic. People can teach themselves. They should learn to use technology for something other than gaming and social media.

I agree to a certain extent. It is the individuals fault, but its hard to argue that they haven't been set up to fail. As a culture this generation has been taught that if you are not a Cordon Bleu chef, that cooking is not worth pursuing (and even presented as demeaning sexist task if your a girl). The training is removed from the schools to emphasize 'common core' of English and Math (which is also failing as well ironically). Then we give huge kickbacks for the growth of crops that are already abundant, and companies subsidize their least healthy products because they are addictive. 

 

If you are pro-profit why wouldn't you want the cheapest most addicting thing you can produce? Fats, Sugar, Salt, the body loves these things, throw in some High Fructose Corn Syrup with a higher content of glucose than sugar (hey its cheaper and subsidized why not), and you have a nice cheap product that addicts its users. Keep food prep education limited in schools, and train people to depend on stores to survive. Its a good business scenario, even tho its terrible for the end user.

 

All that said I support rugged individualism and think that every person is responsible for themselves. But that's not what people are told/taught anymore. They are pretty much trained into dependence on the state. Especially the poorer class. Even with the internet, it is saturated with so much bad information and useless things that the good stuff can get drowned out.

 

I just can't jump on the black/white its all personal responsibility train. There is such a thing as societal responsibility too, and as a society we have let ourselves down. The idea of taking care of your own used to be part of the identity of the US, and it wasn't political. Teddy Roosevelt (my favorite president) Mr. Rugged individualism himself broke up monopoly's. He didn't let the rich and powerful just decide everything for everyone else. And just to be clear, when I say societal responsibility I am talking about what principles we value, how we treat one another, not some communist collectivism.

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