Subjects of experiments

If all this sounds as if New York’s soda consumers were about to become the subjects of an elaborate social-science experiment designed to reshape their behavior and desires, well, that’s kind of true. But then we’ve been the subject of just such an experiment, run by beverage and fast-food companies, for the past forty years. If Bloomberg has his way, we may start feeling like we’re white rats in a maze, but at least there’s a good chance we’ll be thinner rats.

During the attempted New York City soda ban, James Surowiecki wrote about the attempt to downsize supersizing in the New Yorker. Although I'm not always convinced by attempts to change behavior or to "nudge" people, his argument that we're already being experimented on stuck with me.