The Smoking Thread

[ourchair]

even if it is just on the back is IMO just going too far. They say you can get brain cancer from a mobile phone so why not just stick this on a mobile phone

Well to be fair, the difference between mobile phones and cigarettes is that the tobacco companies no longer have the plausible deniability that they used to have. They don't dodge the cancer link as well as they used to, thanks to effective campaigning from anti-smoking lobby groups and successful media strategies.

The argument against mobile phones which assert that they are cancer-inducing is at present, much like those made against cigarettes from the 60s to 80s: We know there is a link of some kind, but the companies that make these products are able to effectively dodge them, and at worse, such studies are either artifactual or lacking in a way to produce the kind of widespread consensus that is against smoking now.

Which is why I used the automobile example. I would ordinarily use mobiles, but mobiles have not been successfully uncooled like cigarettes and cars.

It doesn't need to be done. If I'm a at friends and he doesn't smoke then I go outside to get one. Same if my niece or nephew visit my house. If i'm at mine and adult doesn't smoke I open the window and have one out the window. They make it sound like I'm breathing it in peoples faces going ":twisted: muhahaha second hand smoke."

The only people I blow second hand smoke too are the people who lecture me about smoking:

"You should really stop smoking, you could die."

*blows smoke at person giving sermon*

"You first."

They also act like I'm too stupid to know if I read "lung cancer" it means cancer of the lung. They feel they need a picture of a cancerous lung incase I think "oh lung cancer? Isn't that a type of puppy?" It's insulting in away. I know it causes this **** I've known before they put the big warning labels on and know now.

The worst way to convince people to adopt choices that are healthier and more responsible --- i.e. not smoking --- is to patronize or condescend to them, to make them feel guilty.

This is exactly why the environmental movement got so little traction: It asked people to tighten their belts and turn their backs on the very things that give them luxury, rather than fixing the systems that produce environmental inequities.

 

[SSJmole]

Well to be fair, the difference between mobile phones and cigarettes is that the tobacco companies no longer have the plausible deniability that they used to have. They don't dodge the cancer link as well as they used to, thanks to effective campaigning from anti-smoking lobby groups and successful media strategies.

The argument against mobile phones which assert that they are cancer-inducing is at present, much like those made against cigarettes from the 60s to 80s: We know there is a link of some kind, but the companies that make these products are able to effectively dodge them, and at worse, such studies are either artifactual or lacking in a way to produce the kind of widespread consensus that is against smoking now.

Which is why I used the automobile example. I would ordinarily use mobiles, but mobiles have not been successfully uncooled like cigarettes and cars.

That's true. But you got my point thought?

The only people I blow second hand smoke too are the people who lecture me about smoking:

"You should really stop smoking, you could die."

*blows smoke at person giving sermon*

"You first."

:lol: I hate the Anti-smoker protesters more. We had a guy come up to us actually come in to the smoking room in my local pub not too long ago and squirt water on someone's cigarette in "protest" needless to say he got beat the hell up.

The worst way to convince people to adopt choices that are healthier and more responsible --- i.e. not smoking --- is to patronize or condescend to them, to make them feel guilty.

This is exactly why the environmental movement got so little traction: It asked people to tighten their belts and turn their backs on the very things that give them luxury, rather than fixing the systems that produce environmental inequities.

I agree completely

 

[ourchair]

That's true. But you got my point thought?

I did.

:lol: I hate the Anti-smoker protesters more. We had a guy come up to us actually come in to the smoking room in my local pub not too long ago and squirt water on someone's cigarette in "protest" needless to say he got beat the hell up.

WOW. Come into the room that says "SMOKING ROOM" and say, "Don't smoke," in the most obnoxious way possible? That's asking for a beating. That's not protest, that's assholism.

Personally I'm all for slamming coffee because of the obnoxiousness of nearly everybody I know's debilitating coffee addiction. At work and school I've seen decisions being made based on "could you handle that today? I haven't had my morning coffee". It's ridiculous. If I said I couldn't do some task because I hadn't been able to get a shot of heroin for the past two days and was going through withdrawl, would I be off the hook?

I love my coffee, but I totally get what you mean.

I think part of this is some kind of weird ****ed up elitist attitude on my part because I think that 80% of people now into the whole coffee "lifestyle" got into it because of the number of chic coffee chains like Starbucks that have basically rendered the entire coffee drinking habit into one bizarre national cult.

I discovered 'the bean' when I was young, and I have little interest in coffee themed music, coffee merchandise, and a love of New Age 'sensitive' social causes, or trying to impress people with my knowledge of coffee or my ownership of hardcore coffee equipment (though I DO own a French press and an espresso machine.)

Visit this page and click on "Humunga Fantastica" for a funny 60 minute lambasting of the "coffee lifestyle": http://www.sixtysecond.com/work.html

 

[moonmaster]

It's almost a tired point to make, but most adults know the full dangers of smoking and don't need to be shown graphic depictions of cancerous lungs or whatever. There's nothing wrong with directing this information to kids who haven't even started yet but smoking is an industry that relies on long-term customers so to speak, so many of the people picking up a pack will have heard it all before. You're not going to decide to force yourself off of an addictive substance because you saw an inch wide picture on the box.

My dad actually quit a while ago, but I've become aware that 98% of all students at my school smoke like they don't have lungs. Half of the class is outside smoking after class. I don't mind it, but I've had to reacclimate since I haven't had my dad smoking in a while.

Oh, and funny quote I read from Kurt Vonnegut the other day: "I've been smoking Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes since I was twelve or fourteen. So I'm going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, who manufactured them. And do you know why?...Because I'm eighty-three years old. The lying bastards! On the package Brown & Williamson promised to kill me. Instead, their cigarettes didn't work. Now I'm forced to suffer leaders with names like Bush and Dick and, up until recently, 'Colon.'"

I'm guessing they'd be eligible if there were any push for it.

Personally I'm all for slamming coffee because of the obnoxiousness of nearly everybody I know's debilitating coffee addiction. At work and school I've seen decisions being made based on "could you handle that today? I haven't had my morning coffee". It's ridiculous. If I said I couldn't do some task because I hadn't been able to get a shot of heroin for the past two days and was going through withdrawl, would I be off the hook?

I hate it too.

Coffee has to be highly addictive. They need it to get up in the morning? I get 3-4 hours of sleep and I roll out of bed and drink some water or a third of a can of Coke or something and I'm fine. Is everyone taking tranquilizers to sleep or what?

Oh yeah, they are probably.

:lol: I hate the Anti-smoker protesters more. We had a guy come up to us actually come in to the smoking room in my local pub not too long ago and squirt water on someone's cigarette in "protest" needless to say he got beat the hell up.

My dad was yelled at, pushed, and followed by some ******* for something like 2 blocks because he was smoking a cigarette outside of a building. (In a pre-designated smoking area.) Eventually he scared the guy off, but ironically this was right before my dad finally quit so perhaps he had some effect.

I love my coffee, but I totally get what you mean.

I think part of this is some kind of weird ****ed up elitist attitude on my part because I think that 80% of people now into the whole coffee "lifestyle" got into it because of the number of chic coffee chains like Starbucks that have basically rendered the entire coffee drinking habit into one bizarre national cult.

I discovered 'the bean' when I was young, and I have little interest in coffee themed music, coffee merchandise, and a love of New Age 'sensitive' social causes, or trying to impress people with my knowledge of coffee or my ownership of hardcore coffee equipment (though I DO own a French press and an espresso machine.)

It's like everyone wants to find a form of chemical dependency that isn't illegal, (drugs) despised and near illegal, (smoking) viewed as deviant or morally reprehensible, (sex) or that makes them fat. (food)

Of course there are likely negative effects to drinking tons of coffee, but much like your cell phone example the research is too murky and the opinions too out of the mainstream for anyone to care, so for now everyone proudly proclaims at every chance they get that they can't physically or mentally function without regularly consuming a potentially harmful substance, and then bask in that as a shared flaw or something.

The next time someone tells me that they can't do something without their coffee in the morning, I swear to god I'm going to tell them affectionately that I can't do the same thing without a hit of meth or a good handjob from a Mexican hooker. The reaction would be priceless.

 

[Random]

The next time someone tells me that they can't do something without their coffee in the morning, I swear to god I'm going to tell them affectionately that I can't do the same thing without a hit of meth or a good handjob from a Mexican hooker. The reaction would be priceless.

I might just do that