[DRAFT] Rolling in Dough

[Cretox State]

Draft 2; reworked the premise to something a bit more coherent.

Rolling in Dough

Validity: Allows private industry, has at least some pizza delivery, has at least some agriculture, has at least some business subsidization, and has high scientific advancement.

Description
Popular chain Pizza Hot! has recently announced a major scientific breakthrough in their latest product- a pizza made entirely from synthetic ingredients. While the company promises that this technology could revolutionize food production, farmers across @@NAME@@ are concerned that it has the potential to destroy countless livelihoods.

Option 1
"We worked hard to get where we are!" protests farmer @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, as he counts up his most recent government subsidy. "Now this 'ere daggum tech-food's gonna take it all away! @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ deserve real food grown by real men, and us farmers deserve your support! Please @@LEADER@@, ban these evil science-crops, and show us proud patriots some love!"

Effect: pharmacies are being bulldozed to make room for mushroom farms

Option 2
"Evil?! It sounds like you're trying to architect multi-variable processes without synergy!" exclaims Pizza Hot! CEO @@RANDOMNAME@@, placing a sample of @@HIS@@ company's newest product on your desk along with a liability waiver. "We've proactively envisioneered a whole new paradigm shift- it looks like a pizza, it feels like a pizza, and the eggheads tell me it should taste something like a pizza. With a bit of extra research funding, we could expand this technology to all food and leverage some real win-win solutions!"

Effect: there is ongoing debate over whether new synthetic tomatoes are technically sentient

Option 3
"Sounds like you need a real law-talking guy," says lawyer and former bartender @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, combing his hair back with a dirty fork. "There's a very easy solution here: just don't call it pizza! Force 'em to call it 'pitzah' or something, and make it clear that it can't technically be called a food. Now, seeing as I am a highly skilled attorney, my fee is- 'security'? Alright, alright, I'm leaving!"

Effect: soft drink places across the nation have been rebranded as laundromats

[Cretox State]

Rolling in Dough

Validity: Allows private industry.

Description
Popular sandwich chain SuperEats, known for their wide variety of unconventional and addictive ingredients, became the subject of national attention when @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ regulators reclassified their products as opioids, with all the additional taxes and regulations that would entail.

Option 1
"Food is food!" protests supersized SuperEats CEO @@RANDOMNAME@@, giving you @@HIS@@ company's flagship product and an accompanying prescription. "Just look at this sandwich- it looks like a sandwich, it feels like a sandwich, and I'm sure it probably tastes something like a sandwich! Food should be regulated based on its marketed purpose, not on some obscure ingredients people shouldn't worry about in the first place!"

Effect: job satisfaction among food workers is high as a kite

Option 2
"You're right; food should be food!" counters aspiring artisan chef @@RANDOMNAME@@, sipping some organic gluten-free water. "Food products should be classified according to their ingredients, and should be subject to the same regulations- if something contains this 'dihydrogen monoxide' substance, it ought to be taxed as such!"

Effect: arms manufacturers get huge agricultural subsidies for covering their weapons in bread crumbs

Option 3
"Why don't we just tax food based on nutritional value?" asks former gym teacher @@RANDOMNAME@@, excitedly munching on a candy bar. "Set up a government agency to classify all food products according to how healthy they are to eat, then assign each item a progressively higher tax in order of unhealthiness! It'll generate additional tax revenue while encouraging healthy eating in the best way possible- forcing people to choose between eating what they want and starving."

Effect: the government refuses to let them eat cake

[Trotterdam]

Based on a true story. Please let me know if it's exaggerated to too absurd of a degree.

That link (well, or the Wayback Machine version of it, since the link itself doesn't work for me) describes maybe-sandwiches with too much sugar, not opioids. If a company started putting mind-altering drugs in their bread, the debate would be about something more pressing than whether or not it can still be taxed as "bread".

There's an offhand mention in the article (and link to a fuller article) about another company that got in trouble for using azodicarbonamide, which is sometimes used to modify bread's color and texture (but is now illegal in many nations due to toxicity causing respiratory issues). Still not a recreational drug though.

As a side note, who's to say my nation charges higher tax on cake than bread anyway?

[Electrum]

I can see how Subway bread can be classified as not bread for tax purposes, but the main problem is that I can't see how sandwiches can be classified as an opioid -- it's just not believable. If there's shady ingredients in the food, then that's a food safety problem.

Perhaps one more grounded in reality might be better, such as American schools counting pizza as a vegetable (well not exactly, but you can riff on that using that title) for nutritional purposes.

[Cretox State]

Draft 2 up- reworked the premise.

[Electrum]

Draft 2 up- reworked the premise.

This issue is now reminiscent of the whole "fake meat" issue, with farmers calling for politicians to ban plant-based food from being called meat. I think you can add an option along these lines, like it can't be called "pizza", it needs to be called something else.

[Cretox State]

I added a third option along those lines, with emphasis on the synthetic pizza not legally being called 'food'.

[Cretox State]

Bumping this.

[Minskiev]

One thing I noticed is that the beginnings of Options 1 and 2 flow weirdly. For Option 1, the first sentence is just plain English, while the second sentence is full-blown farmer talk. They don’t sound like they’re coming from the same person. For Option 2, it’s mostly that the first sentence, not counting ‘Evil?!’ is practically unintelligible. I’m not sure if I’m just stupid, but it sounds and looks like made up bs however it reads like it’s normal. I don’t know how to describe it. Make it obvious that it’s ridiculous, and if it’s actually something real, then no offense but it reads horribly. Option 3 is...weird. It’s like a joke with no punchline, and it really shows.

Oh and also, the effect lines. The first one is alright, I guess. It just feels, well, boring. There’s no excitement. Perhaps replace mushroom farm with something both farm and pizza-related, but less...helpful than pharmacies. I’m not sure why Option 2 would...be. Tomatoes aren’t sentient, and a synthetic one also isn’t. This isn’t a discussion. For Option 3, it’s fine, I guess. It’s not really clever, and it’s not crazy enough to be funny. It’s just in between.

[Australian rePublic]

How do you define a "synthetic" ingrediant? And can't farmers grow the crops which are used to make synthetic ingrediants? Why would a pizza chain do this? And is one pizza chain enough to send the entire agricultural sector broke?