[Noisebridge-discuss] Soda Machine

Mikael Vejdemo Johansson mikael at johanssons.org
Thu Feb 23 12:48:41 UTC 2012


On Feb 23, 2012, at 12:22 PM, Jake wrote:
> I'm not into telling other people what to do, unless it affects me or my 
> friends in some way.
> 
> But as for actually stacking the soda machine, if we are going to think of 
> it as a collaborative Noisebridge soda machine, we should agree on a few 
> things about what we are doing with it, and whether it's something we can 
> all morally get behind.  Like offering something healthy and not poison.
> 

Nooo, this is not what this issue is about. I'll point out why below, after your actual example.

> Stocking the machine with cigarettes (if they fit) would serve a similar 
> purpose as putting in soda.  Many hackers smoke cigarettes and find them 
> "helpful" to completing a project, especially if it saves them a trip to 
> the store.
> 

Selling cigarettes in the space will all but encourage the age-old problem of hackers stepping out on the fire escape (which we are not supposed to be using, as per the lease) for a quick smoke. Regardless of whether you want to hausse sugar or corn syrup as As Dangerous As A Smoke, having smoke waft into the space, or encouraging people to use the fire escape as a smokers corner are things we have had up for discussion many times before and are things that the community, last I checked, was clearly against.

Now, selling booze, or for that matter -- if we think we could get away with it -- other drugs in the soda machine I view as far less problematic. But if you insist on a nicotine delivery system in the machine, at least make it one that doesn't encourage this particular cluster of issues.

> But i think that it's clear that objectively, cigarettes are bad for you, 
> and don't help anything.  And it seems to me that sugar is actually more 
> harmful:
> 

I don't know about “don't help anything”; nicotine CAN be a useful nootropic drug.

> "In an editorial published today in the journal Nature, the UCSF doctors, 
> Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis, said the ballooning rates 
> and costs of obesity, diabetes and other diseases, mean its time for 
> regulators to lump sugar into the same category as booze and cigarettes 
> and put similar restrictions on its sale and availability. "
> 
> I would be more okay with selling Beef Jerkey out of the vending machine, 
> even though it's meat at least it's healthy for our fellow hacker's 
> bodies.
> 
> We can choose to put poison into our own bodies (tobacco, sugar) but when 
> our fellow hackers are needing something to put in their mouths in the 
> middle of the night, shouldn't we be a little more caring than to leave 
> them with a choice between asspartame and high-fructose corn syrup and 
> regular sugar (just as bad)?
> 

You are phrasing this as if what gets put in the machine right now is the ultimate limitation of what you are allowed to consume. Keep the kitchen stocked with coffee grounds, and with snack items, on an honesty-box basis, why don't you?

> Really, most of the time when you crave sugar, you just need to eat 
> something.  And if you want Caffiene, fucking make a pot of coffee.
> 
> http://www.oleda.com/oleda_tips/tips.asp?dept=48
> 
> http://www.papalogic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Start-Cola-Earlier.png




Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson
mikael at johanssons.org

   To see a world in a grain of sand                 
    And a heaven in a wild flower                   
   Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
    And eternity in an hour    - William Blake







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