Cynical skeptic said:
Well, for starters, the nuclear arms race was fueled primarily by the idea that after a certain point, one side could have enough nuclear weapons and delivery methods to wipe out the other side before they could retaliate in a real fashion. Things like MIRVs, designed to "sneak in" fifteen or so nuclear payloads with a single launch. Then StarWars, designed to waste money and throw up a lot of smoke about our anti-missile capabilities. But It wasn't until the last couple decades of the cold war that both sides had four to nine hundred times the nuclear weapons required to turn the entire surface of the earth (including the oceans) to glass. To say, it the arms race wasn't always about mutually assured destruction. Just neither side originally thought both sides would hit that point at the same time. Because, like you said, they were only looking five years ahead at a time. It could be argued that "mutually assured destruction" was the beginning of the end of the cold war. It was the point where "winning" simply wasn't possible, and the citizens of the USSR simply had nothing else to work towards.
The doctrine of M.A.D. or Mutually Assured Destruction, as you reference, pre-dates second strike capability. The doctrine was first seen in the late 1890's, before nuclear weapons were invented. It wasn't until technology allowed us to tweak our weaponry so that we could attack even if we had been destroyed the the idea of second strike became military policy. They accepted, that if a country was "First Strike capable" as Russia was, then the next step would be mobile nuclear warheads, or submarine warfare. These second strike ICBM's were meant as a deterrent to places like Russia, "Even if you obliterate us, we still have the power to obliterate you."
But none of that matters. The development of the nuclear bomb was predicated on the philosophy of deterrence, that the development of a destructive enough weapon, would ensure peace. You've made no argument as to why people in your Ryan/Rand society wouldn't have these same thoughts and motivations.
People are people, they don't suddenly become rational just because you pop them into a perfect city.
Now, there are nine or ten cigarette companies, all making a completely identical product... because they have to. In order for one company to start making a more satisfying, less addictive cigarette, they would first have to admit cigarettes are addictive (something even nicotine patches and inhaler/e-cig producers can't outright do), are narcotic, are designed to be addictive and narcotic, and their addictive properties are not intrinsic to the plant. By doing this, they would come under fire from so many libel and slander suits, they'd simply cease to exist overnight. Thus, the only thing every single company can do is quietly make cigarettes more addictive.....
[some snipping]
They've already made products like this in the 1960s. [http://publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/tobacco-control/product-regulation/light/low-yield-cigarettes] Or at the very least tried to. They marketed them as "better for you" cigarettes. Setting aside the fact that they weren't actually better for you - people who originally bought them did not know this. It wasn't until years of studies that this information came out. Long enough to determine how successful the "light" cigarettes were. And some people bought them. But many people didn't buy them, even though they thought they were better for them. They still chose to do the bad for you thing. Because people don't always do what is good for them.
And deregulating the cigarette industry is going to come up with far less people who are like, "Gee, let me make a better 'good for you' product," and far more competitors who come with shit like this:
to sell their "bad for you" product. This is what less regulated tobacco looks like. And you can't tell me, these people didn't know they were making a product that was dangerous. Particularly not when you see ads like this:
You're fooling yourself if you think capitalists have the population's best interest at heart. Unrestrained capitalism is a type of economic warfare where it is every man for himself.
Also, I don't know if you've ever tried slimfast, but it does not taste good. Doesn't taste bad, but its primary gimmick is it expands in your stomach, making eating more physically painful. A food that doesn't require you to eat as much of it isn't marketable mostly because theres no way to market it. Its also back to my first paragraph, you'd have to say other foods are designed to make you want more food.
They are. That is what several [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23well.html] doctors [http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/study-says-junk-food-is-as-addictive-as-heroin-or-cigarettes/19417741/] have decided. They know more about food chemistry than I do, so I tend to take their word for it.
As for diet foods tasting bad, you pick Slimfast. An unfair comparison at best. People could eat fresh fruits and vegetables, that can be prepared to be very tasty without much fat. But they still go to restaurants and order heaping plates of pasta covered in cream sauce. Diet foods don't just include the gimmicky items like Slimfast. People still reach for a candy bar over a fresh orange, or pear. Because it is more pleasurable to eat the candy bar than the orange.
