what ginger is your beer
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@fbmac said in what ginger is your beer:
There is no alcoholic drink I like. I use soft drinks with pizza.
You're lucky, I can't stand alcoholic or carbonated drinks.
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@anonymous234 said in what ginger is your beer:
You're lucky, I can't stand alcoholic or carbonated drinks.
No you. It's not like it's hurting you to miss out on two of the most damaging varieties of modern beverage.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
Could be. Those companies are probably losing out on sales by confusing customers
They're also winning sales by confusing customers. I'm guessing they've done the math.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
You make people buy something when they expected something different. You can call that good marketing, but you could also call it a sort of fraud.
Not for long, because people will figure out what they're selling and not buy it, if they couldn't already tell. It's a self correcting problem.
@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
How the fuck is a legally binding definition "totalitarian".
You want to make regulations about labeling ginger ale. GINGER ALE! How picayune must a matter be before we can taunt its advocate as totalitarian? I say ginger ale surpasses that threshold.
@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
Your "government regulation = devil" knee-jerk reaction is ridiculous. There is a clear benefit (customers and supermarkets both know what to expect and can rely on that information as soon as they read the product name) and the costs are negligible.
Your "we need governemnt regulation" knee-jerk reaction is ridiculous. There is no clear problem here that requires enforcement by men with guns.
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@accalia said in what ginger is your beer:
@anotherusername said in What gender is your brain?:
@boomzilla they're both the same basic concept
by that logic Coke and Pepsi are the same.
they are not. Coke is liquid heaven, and Pepsi is fetid demon piss.
Fetid demon piss made in to a sugary syrup and then carbonated.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
Relevant:
...oh what I would give to be a case of Guinness Extra Stout....
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@dcon said in what ginger is your beer:
Or Sanka and Starbucks.
Both taste like shit as compared to good coffee.
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@Polygeekery said in what ginger is your beer:
@dcon said in what ginger is your beer:
Or Sanka and Starbucks.
Both taste like shit as compared to good coffee.
s/Starbucks/Pete's/ (or your local favorite)
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
There is no clear problem here that requires enforcement by men with guns.
First of all, strawman. (Enforcement with guns? Seriously?) Second, there's no harm in doing it, either.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
First of all, strawman.
Oh, so no one has to follow it? Then what's the point?
@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
Second, there's no harm in doing it, either.
Yeah, not if no one is going to enforce it, though it does bloat up wherever stuff like this gets published.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
Oh, so no one has to follow it? Then what's the point?
Come on, you're being deliberately dense. There's a difference between "there's a fine if you do this incorrectly", "you cannot do this at all" and forcing someone to do something at gunpoint. You're acting like all three are the same thing.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
Come on, you're being deliberately dense.
How so? You said that enforcing the regulation was a strawman.
@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
There's a difference between "there's a fine if you do this incorrectly", "you cannot do this at all" and forcing someone to do something at gunpoint. You're acting like all three are the same thing.
So what happens if I don't comply with it?
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
Your "we need governemnt regulation" knee-jerk reaction is ridiculous.
BTW: I feel like I need to summarize the discussion at this point, because you're misrepresenting it.
- People were arguing about the meaning of the terms "Ginger Ale" and "Ginger Beer". Many people thought those were fixed definitions, and they aren't.
- I said that this kind of confusion is usually resolved with trade regulations. Note that I didn't say: "This absolutely must be rrrrrregulated!!! NOW!!!"
- You started an "Ermahgerd!!! Government!!!" tirade.
In all your replies, you have yet to prove that trade regulations are a bad thing. And, guess what: There are literally thousands of them already and the world (and economy) is still turning.
@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
So what happens if I don't comply with it?
You get fined. If it's the first time, you might get away with a warning. Do I seriously have to explain to you how those trade regulations work and what their function is?
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
I said that this kind of confusion is usually resolved with trade regulations. Note that I didn't say: "This absolutely must be rrrrrregulated!!! NOW!!!"
You started an "Ermahgerd!!! Government!!!" tirade.Because "resolving" this sort of thing with trade regulations is ridiculous.
@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
You get fined. If it's the first time, you might get away with a warning. Do I seriously have to explain to you how those trade regulations work and what their function is?
So what if I also don't pay the fine? Yes, you need to tell me how these enforced trade regulations are enforced without enforcement. That's literally what I'm asking here, because you're saying contradictory things.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
Because "resolving" this sort of thing with trade regulations is ridiculous.
Why?
Imagine the following scenario:
- A local supermarket chain wants to start offering Gouda cheese because its customers asked for it. They ask multiple suppliers for quotes.
- They find a cheap supplier and buy $10.000 worth of Gouda cheese.
- After the shipment is delivered, they find out that the supposed "Gouda cheese" is not actually Gouda-style cheese made of cow milk from the Netherlands, but a mixture of proteins glued together with gluten and painted yellow with food coloring.
- The supermarket knows they can't sell this to their customers, and demand their money back.
Without trade regulations, there are three problems:
- Courts will have to repeatedly decide what "Gouda cheese" means every time a case like this occurs. This costs an enormous amount of time and money.
- As a consequence, if the supermarket really wanted to get the money back, they would have to pay an enormous amount of money for that lengthy lawsuit, and it's probably cheaper for them to just write off the shipment and move on. They've been successfully ripped off.
- Every future order gets more complicated since the supermarket has to triple-check the vendors' definitions of everything before ordering.
With trade regulations, this will not even go to court and the supermarket's purchasing department has to spend a lot less time (= money) on purchasing decisions. Even if the supplier would go out of business in the long run (which might not even happen if they're smart), hundreds of supermarkets will lose significant amounts of money before that happens.
Trade regulations solve a real problem and - if used correctly - make trade easier. Hell, I would even argue that the simplification of the trading process and potential lawsuits saves more money than looking up regulations costs for the manufacturers.
@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
So what if I also don't pay the fine? Yes, you need to tell me how these enforced trade regulations are enforced without enforcement.
You really want to be able to say "They're putting guns to our heads because of the definition of 'Ginger Ale'!!!", don't you? Drop that ridiculous "argument" already.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
You really want to be able to say "They're putting guns to our heads because of the definition of 'Ginger Ale'!!!", don't you? Drop that ridiculous "argument" already.
No, you're the one who wants that. I'm asking you why you think that's an OK thing to do. Your argument is ridiculous. I just made an obvious observation of government enforcement.
I think your Gouda cheese thing is already covered by fraud or something similar. Not to mention probably prevented by due diligence by purchasers. Was the market paying up front? Does anyone do that? How did the vendor get the market's money?
No vendor that makes a habit of that sort of thing is going to survive in any case.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
I think your Gouda cheese thing is already covered by fraud or something similar.
The whole point of trade regulations that define terms is to clarify what "fraud" means in the context so people don't have to have costly arguments about that over and over and over again.
@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
No vendor that makes a habit of that sort of thing is going to survive in any case.
That doesn't help the supermarkets, and may or may not be true. You can make a lot of money by ripping people off, and closing a company and registering a new one under a new name is cheap.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
That doesn't help the supermarkets, and may or may not be true.
But you ignored the part about how the fraudsters got their money. There's a giant hole in your theory here.
@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
You can make a lot of money by ripping people off,
Sure, but your just so story doesn't seem likely to work.
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@boomzilla The example was an exaggeration to make a point, anyway.
Please, tell me only one reason why clarifying terms and thereby defining what "fraud" means in a certain context is a bad thing.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
Please, tell me only one reason why clarifying terms and thereby defining what "fraud" means in a certain context is a bad thing.
Does it need to be done? Why do something that isn't needed? What's the benefit?
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
What's the benefit?
The same as the benefit of any kind of provision/bylaw*: To clarify laws so that there's a clear guideline for enforcing them. Or to put it another way: To save both the public and private institutions a lot of money and time by preventing and/or simplifying legal arguments.
*No idea what the correct legal term is in English.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
To clarify laws so that there's a clear guideline for enforcing them.
But you haven't laid out a convincing benefit here, which is what I'm asking for. You just made up some story about a market that hands out money and hopes they get some good stuff that people will want to buy.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
But you haven't laid out a convincing benefit here, which is what I'm asking for.
OK, at least we're now agreeing that the concept of a regulation is not bad in itself (because that's were your arguments were heading). Yes, there are stupid regulations, but the concept itself is reasonable. Health&Safety regulations clarify what negligence means, trade regulations clarify what fraud means, etc.
But you haven't laid out a convincing benefit here, which is what I'm asking for.
And I won't be able to convince you that it's necessary for Ginger Beer, because it's probably not. But just in case you're still questioning the point of trade regulations in general, lets take the cheese industry as an example.
This is probably a billion-dollar industry, since people love cheese. Many people like goat cheese as well, still a million-dollar industry, which means loads of transactions in which goat cheese is exchanged for money. You can already foresee (and there have probably been) hundreds of lawsuits each year in which people argue whether a cheese made from X% goat's milk (plus, how is that measured?) can be called "goat cheese" or whether that's fraud.
So a few experts are hired by some government institution to discuss this issue. The first expert's opinion is that the cheese should be made from 100% goat's milk to be called goat cheese. Another expert notes that some traditional cheeses which have always been called "goat cheese" contain 20% sheep's milk. The discussion goes on and on and on. In the end, they may decide that "goat cheese" has to contain at least 80% goat's milk and how exactly that amount is supposed to be measured in case of doubt. (No idea whether that's actually the case.)
You spent some money and wrote a lengthy document, which some people might think is ridiculous and unnecessarily bureaucratic, but it prevents or at least simplifies hundreds of lawsuits each year and gives both manufacturers and consumers a clear guideline how things are supposed to work and what they can expect when they hear certain terms.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
So a few experts are hired by some government institution to discuss this issue. The first expert's opinion is that the cheese should be made from 100% goat's milk to be called goat cheese. Another expert notes that some traditional cheeses which have always been called "goat cheese" contain 20% sheep's milk. The discussion goes on and on and on. In the end, they may decide that "goat cheese" has to contain at least 80% goat's milk and how exactly that amount is supposed to be measured in case of doubt. (No idea whether that's actually the case.)
No, you're being dumb again. Just fucking say what the ingredients are. We have a general thing about that. DONE.
Put away your complicator's gloves.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
Just fucking say what the ingredients are. We have a general thing about that. DONE.
At least where I live, that's only required for products sold in supermarkets. AFAIK, you can legally sell food to a restaurant without telling them the exact ingredients (only allergens). Furthermore, percentages are not required in the ingredient list. And you're just shifting the problem: What does "goat cheese" mean in the ingredient list of a frozen noodle product? What does "natural flavoring" mean? You have to define these terms somewhere, or the ingredient list is completely useless.
Side note: I'm pretty sure the requirement to include an ingredient list on the packaging is a regulation, not a law.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
Side note: I'm pretty sure the requirement to include an ingredient list on the packaging is a regulation, not a law.
A distinction without a difference. And delegation of legislative power is a huge unto itself.
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126 posts and not a mention of the Cockney Rhyming Slang. For shame...
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
And delegation of legislative power is a huge unto itself.
No, it isn't. Passing a law costs a huge amount of money and the process is incredibly slow. Delegating the power to pass clarifying, binding rules to someone else only makes sense, both economically and from a practical POV.
In the end, laws are above regulations, so you don't give away too much power.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
No, it isn't.
Maybe in your country it isn't. I can assure you that it is here.
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@boomzilla OK, that may be. The US legal system could definitely use some reforms.
Anyway, my point above was that you don't get around defining terms somewhere, otherwise you gain no legal certainty.
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@Maciejasjmj If you have a Marks & Spencers nearby I've heard they sell some quite nice stuff.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
The US legal system could definitely use some reforms.
It's not the legal system. It's the government.
@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
Anyway, my point above was that you don't get around defining terms somewhere, otherwise you gain no legal certainty.
I think you want the world to be too certain. Live a little! Have some 25% sheeps milk goat cheese!
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
I think your Gouda cheese thing is already covered by fraud or something similar
But... but you're arguing fraud laws are wrong. What's the difference between the gouda example and labeling "something that's not ginger ale" as "ginger ale"?
As for the gun to your head argument... Don't know how it works in the US, but AFAIK in Poland when you, say, take a piss in public, you get fined. If you don't pay the fine, the case goes to court. If you don't go to the court, the police will either ask you nicely to let them accompany you there outright, or after they convict you in your absence. If you refuse, they'll ask less nicely. If you still insist, they may use force, and if you're still dumb and lucky enough for that to fail, you could theoretically score a bullet to your head.
If you manage to spin that into a "POLICE MURDERS MAN FOR SOILING HIS PANTS" story... Well, I heard Daily Mail is hiring.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
I think you want the world to be too certain.
Well, even if I don't need that - the lawyers do. ;) And there's always someone who wants to let the lawyers decide.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
Because "resolving" this sort of thing with trade regulations is ridiculous.
Exactly. If I buy a soft drink and do not like the taste of it, I don't buy it again. If enough people do that, they stop making that soft drink completely. (New Coke, Coke Clear, etc) Problem solved. No need for any regulations in those matters.
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@Polygeekery OK, now what about the supermarket that buys the stuff in bulk.
Also, this is absolutely not about "not liking something". This is about deciding whether something is fraud or not and whether someone is owed compensation. The clarity for consumers is only a nice side effect of the legal clarification.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
They find a cheap supplier and buy $10.000 worth of Gouda cheese.
It's just $10. What purchasing department gets litigious over $10? And why the extra zero?
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@Polygeekery Goddammit. I edited the post a few times and still missed that.
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@Maciejasjmj said in what ginger is your beer:
But... but you're arguing fraud laws are wrong.
No.
@Maciejasjmj said in what ginger is your beer:
What's the difference between the gouda example and labeling "something that's not ginger ale" as "ginger ale"?
I think that if the "ginger ale" was as weirdly different as the Gouda substitute was, probably none. And the buyer would send it back as obviously not what they thought they were getting.
@Maciejasjmj said in what ginger is your beer:
If you manage to spin that into a "POLICE MURDERS MAN FOR SOILING HIS PANTS" story.
I never said anything like that, but you yourself talked about men with guns enforcing it. If they weren't there, who would ever pay the fine? You can gasp at the ridiculousness of it but you've done nothing but confirm it.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
OK, now what about the supermarket that buys the stuff in bulk.
No clue how it works where you live, but any purchaser that buys six figures of product without sampling it, does not stay in business very long.
Also, if you are new to the market, you won't get shit unless and until your product leaves the shelves. I can't remember the term for it, but it is quite common here and something a lot of new businesses selling food do not take in to account. The holding costs are significant.
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@Polygeekery OK, let's change the scenario. The product is already on the shelves and the manufacturer changes it.
You can't argue that a legal clarification will not be useful at some point.
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@Polygeekery said in what ginger is your beer:
If I buy a soft drink and do not like the taste of it, I don't buy it again
Should there also be no regulations for, say,paintings, or other expensive items? Should I be able to sell any old skeet blanket as an original Monet because *shrug* - if people don't like the paintings, they can just not buy from me the next time, and whether it's Monet or just "in the style of Monet" doesn't matter?
Probably not, but the only difference is that in one case you get conned for thousands of dollars, and in the other for $1. One's much less painful than the other, but the law doesn't work if the two aren't either both legal or both illegal.
Look, I'm all for as little regulation and as much freedom as possible, but I think even the most batshit libertarians generally agree freedom of contact applies to two informed parties, and you can't just outright lie to the other party.
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@Polygeekery said in what ginger is your beer:
Also, if you are new to the market, you won't get shit unless and until your product leaves the shelves. I can't remember the term for it, but it is quite common here and something a lot of new businesses selling food do not take in to account. The holding costs are significant.
Consignment, I believe.
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@Maciejasjmj said in what ginger is your beer:
Should I be able to sell any old skeet blanket as an original Monet because shrug - if people don't like the paintings, they can just not buy from me the next time, and whether it's Monet or just "in the style of Monet" doesn't matter?
They tend to bring in experts to confirm that what it is is what you say it is. And if you know it's a fraud, well then so are you.
Jeez...this is a lot of dumb effort to defend the sanctity of ginger ale regulations.
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@boomzilla said in what ginger is your beer:
men with guns enforcing it.
Yeah, men with guns enforce paying fines and fulfilling court judgements. News at eleven.
If you're trying to spin it as scandalous, it's not working much.
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
OK, let's change the scenario. The product is already on the shelves and the manufacturer changes it.
You can't argue that a legal clarification will not be useful at some point.Meh, perhaps. I can say with absolute certainty that a good contract will absolutely be useful though. The exact kind of contract that any good purchasing department would use.
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@Maciejasjmj said in what ginger is your beer:
Should I be able to sell any old skeet blanket as an original Monet because shrug - if people don't like the paintings, they can just not buy from me the next time, and whether it's Monet or just "in the style of Monet" doesn't matter?
If you're buying your Monets from the back of a van at the Stop 'n' Shop, let's not pretend that someone was not going to swindle you out of that money one way or another.
Fuck, I have a Kiwi friend who bought a $800 set of speakers from the back of a van and is still convinced he didn't get fucked on that deal.
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@Polygeekery said in what ginger is your beer:
I can say with absolute certainty that a good contract will absolutely be useful though.
Without a doubt. Having laws in place that already cover the basics and provide clear definitions makes writing a good contract much easier, though. Quote from a law professor I had in college: "There is no contract without a loophole."
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@asdf said in what ginger is your beer:
Quote from a law professor I had in college: "There is no contract without a loophole."
That's why he was a law professor and not a lawyer. ;)
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@Polygeekery The lawyers I know would most likely say the same. You'll never be able to cover everything in a contract, and even if you do, some parts of this contract will turn out to be null and void. ;)