

Someone else may be able to come up with a more concise and better worded argument for it, but the way we’ve implemented private ownership/use of natural resources seems pretty shitty. Especially considering how many people have been screwed over and how much damage is often done in the process.
Owning something that existed long before people, and would have continued to exist if we’ve never evolved, seems suspect in general. While there’s value in the labor involved in extracting or preparing these resources for use, the material itself wasn’t created by anyone and should belong to everyone in some way.
A portion of the income derived from the exploitation of all natural resources should be redistributed as UBI.






OBLIGATORY I’M NOT A DOCTOR DON’T TAKE THIS AS MEDICAL ADVICE FIRST.
Monster runs about 160-180 mg per can depending on variety. Coffee is about 80-120 per 8 oz cup, depending on the bean and roast.
A 400-500 mg dose of caffeine daily is considered safe for most people according to Wikipedia. So 2-3 Monsters a day for a heavy caffeine user isn’t a crazy amount.
Now, when you look at Bing and Reign, which IIRC have around 350 mg per can, those numbers go up real fast, but you’re still not going to get close to the approximately ten grams of caffeine needed for it to be a lethal dose, you’d puke long before you got that much liquid in your stomach.
Also, the physical effects of caffeine abate over time. Users build up a tolerance fairly quickly, and it gets to the point that the twitchiness, elevated BP, and higher heart rate aren’t really present like they’d be for someone who doesn’t consume a lot of it. Again, paraphrasing Wikipedia here. So a moderate user (say 1 - 2 Monsters or Red Bulls a day) probably isn’t on the verge of an infarction at all times, as the media seems to enjoy impling.
It’s mostly just soda pop with extra caffeine, and caffeine is bitter, so they jack up the sugar content to compensate. That’s a bigger issue IMO.
But overall, there are likely millions, if not billions of people who down two or three energy drinks daily and don’t drop dead. So while the caffeine numbers seem extreme, it’s really the sugar, artificial sweetners, and probably unhealthy lifestyle that goes with being a chronic user that will cause the most damage over time.