Psychological Studies Played Out in Real Life

In the field of psychology, there is a social phenomena sometimes referred to as the "bystander effect". This is the phenomena where people's actions - particularly their likeliness to help another person in distress - is inversely proportional to the number of other people present. At its most basic, the more people there are around when something goes wrong, the less likely someone is to help. A certain paralysis develops in large-groups. Each person present first thinks "someone else will help", and, sometimes, when no one steps up to help, it becomes "there must be a reason no one is helping - so, I won't either."

I got to witness this, first-hand, this past Saturday afternoon while attending the Penn State vs. Indiana University football game held at FedEx Field in Landover, MD. My wife and I were attending the game with a group of people. We were all seated up in row 9 in section 404 of the stadium (pretty much at the endzone line at the "home" end of the field). At one point, early in the first quarter, some guy came tottering, drunkenly, down the stairs to head to the section-exit. At some point, whether due to either simply tripping or losing his balance or due to having passed out due to extreme inebriation, the man fell.

Now, the stairs in this part of the stadium are fairly steep. So, when he fell, he tumbled quickly down about five seating-rows' worth of stairs. This made about ten, hard, rough concrete steps he fell down. Worse, at the bottom of his tumble, he pretty my landed on the right side of his face. As he lay there motionless, many onlookers sat about, looking aghast, but otherwise doing nothing. Even the people immediately adjacent to where he came to a stop did nothing but watch. I couldn't believe what I was seeing: no one was rushing off to find section attendants to render aid.

Realizing that no one was going for assistance, I bolted down the adjacent set of stairs and sought out assistance. I found a pair of PG County Police-auxiliaries standing out on the deck outside the section and directed them to the scene of the incident. I was the only person to seek them out. Even as we approached where the incident had occurred, they weren't sure what I was blathering about, as no one was paying particular attention to the situation. They did get to the man and helped him up as he came to.

Just boggles my mind that, during what seemed like an eternity, no one did anything. No one sought help. No one sought to render aid. No one really paid much in the way of attention beyond gawking. Whut. The. Fuck?

Quit Yer Bitchin'

So, in recent weeks I've frequently seen the nofoodtaxes.com commercials, and, this morning, a news story came on about how NYC is asking that Food Stamps impose nutritional restrictions on their use.

Now, to start, I am not a fan of the government telling me how I should or am to live my life. So, I can understand people being against nutritional value-based taxation to encourage good eating habits. At the same time, the government of this country has been imposing "sin taxes" on things like alcohol, tobacco and other deleterious items pretty much since the founding of the country (hell, Kentucky bourbon might not have come into existence had it not been for such policies).

I get that people love their sodas, snack cakes, etc. However, much like cigarettes and other industrial consumables, these products have been optimized by their makers to make you crave more of them. So, of course if you eat or drink them you want to be able to continue to eat or drink them. But, whatever. More power to you if you want to eat or drink yourself into the grave.

At the same time, with what NYC is asking, it's not quite the same as seeking to tax bad nutrition out of existence. All it is is saying, "not on my dime". You, as a Food Stamp user are free to buy what you want ...with your own money.

People that have been on WIC have been faced with these restrictions throughout their participation period. It's part and parcel of the program's goals (to promote good nutrition).

People that are receiving Food Stamps are also almost exclusively receiving their medical care through government subsidized/paid medical programs. As such, nutritional choices they make that negatively impact their health directly increases their need for using that assistance. So, by allowing Food Stamps to pay for bad nutrition, tax-payers end up paying twice: first for the foods bought and again for the medical care used to treat food-related health problems (e.g., diabetes). And, if you want to be REALLY honest, tax-payers are getting hit three times when you factor in the farm subsidies allocated to the food industry to produce cheap, calorie-dense things like HFCS. But, I digress...

At any rate, it just "makes sense" to put conditions on "help". If my goals are to help you survive and/or thrive, I'm not going to want my help to be self-sabotaging. I don't want one helpful act I've undertaken to create a requirement for another helpful act. WIC is basically an example of how it can be (philosophically) "done right". Perhaps the Feds should just be consistent and put the same/similar restrictions on Food Stamps that they do on WIC.