If you're still smoking or at least not putting in a real effort to stop in modern day, you simply don't care for your health at all in the first place.
I hate the smell of it and how it feels breathing it, every time I walk behind somebody smoking while walking somewhere I literally run in front of them or cross the street. I honestly think public smoking should just be outright banned for being a health hazard against others.
If you still want to smoke, go to small out of the way designated places for it where you aren't bothering others.
Although the health reason for stopping smoking is the best reason, I think the deeper reason that cigarettes are so reviled isn't the small amount of second-hand smoke, that's just the reason people give, but that it's a public display of vice, which isn't acceptable in culturally Puritan areas.
Puritans did something similar during their witch trials. They say they're burning someone for being a witch, but nearly all of their victims just so happened to have one of the following characteristics: spinsters with no children, widows who never remarried, single men into their 30s who never mastered a craft or became a clergyman, etc.
These were universally unacceptable, impure traits. Puritans were all about the collective rather than the individual, and they believed that the collective had the liberty to shape and bend the individual to its will, else the collective suffers. Non-conformists were made to conform, whether through shunning, shame, or violence, or else they were removed from the collective.
So no, you can't smoke in public, not because we care about your health or our health, but because it is decidedly impure, and a good Puritan must be pure, and if a member be not pure, he must be shamed and molded to be so, for if we're not all pure, our moral fabric comes apart.
Culture fundamentally changes very slowly over time, although the particulars may transform quite a lot, and this is a great example of that. A very interesting look at how Puritan culture is expressed in the modern day.
Some drugs that treat depression have a side effect of causing a lot of people to stop smoking. Maybe someday we will understand depression well enough to effectively and reliably treat it. At least until then, blanket statements about smoking aren't really reasonable.
I hate smoking. I have respiratory problems. I don't want people smoking around me.
But nicotine is a morally neutral chemical that, like any chemical, can have constructive uses.
Hey now. I'm a huge nicotine enjoyer, but I'm sitting pretty at maybe 10 cigarettes a year. I care about my health, but the occasional dart is too good to pass up.
Grow up. What a stupid thing to brag about. And in no way refutes the original point, that it's disgusting, stupid, and inconsiderate. But obviously you know that and don't care.
To be honest, I wasn't trying to make it a moral issue by writing that sentence. In my view, people are free to go about doing self-harming activities if they want. I just don't enjoy when they do things that also affect others, like smoking in public around others just going about their day. Where I live regularly people just walk around on public sidewalks smoking making everyone they walk past or in front of breath it in. Or for example smoking at bus stops is another common problem. This is equivalent to actively harming others in my opinion.
And as some others have mentioned it may be that there is much more harm done to things like the environment by powers much greater than just those who smoke. So while there are some arguing for that point of view, I do understand those who argue against this one due to there "being much bigger fish to fry"
I also often believe non-perfect things I do not like should be banned, regardless of whether the justification for that ban is epistemically sound.
But then I think about the law of unintended consequences (or from a more optimistic/fun angle, the perspective of "Optimal Gameplay"), like how the people I am inconveniencing while blindly maximizing my group's fine-grained personal enjoyment may seek revenge (consciously or otherwise) when the time arises where they happen to be the ones who hold power of any sort, such as the decision to comply with public health recommendations, as just one example among many, many thousands.
Sometimes my (or others, including those of The Experts) mind counters with attractive, rhetorical stories/memes to counter this approach, but I endeavour to apply critical consideration to those lest I mistake them for shared/primary reality.
I have no idea how well I perform at this, but my intuition is that it is better than if I did not try at all, which seems to be the default approach in our culture afaict.
While I love the smell of most cigarettes, I share your sentiments about the smell of weed. Most marijuana smoke elicits a visceral response in me that makes me want to throw up and reminds me of dead skunk roadkill.
That said, I put up with it because I respect the freedom of those wishing to enjoy it. I also have no choice, because the smell has become ubiquitous almost everywhere you go.
I also do not like the smell of weed, nor do I smoke it. I respect people and their freedom to smoke, whether it be marijuana or cigarretes.
I do not respect people who do it around other unconsenting people in areas that are meant to be used by the general public i.e. not in your own home (though even then if you live in apartment/multi-family dwelling it can become a major issue for your neighbors) or a designated spot since there is plenty of research documenting second-hand effects being harmful.
In Japan, there are signs in places discouraging smoke-walking (arukitabako: 歩きタバコ. Image search that and you can see what the signs look like).
People who smoke and walk end up going in the same direction and pace as other people, annoying them. It's easier to avoid a smoker who is staying put.
Especially with the widespread availability of vapes, which are still pretty bad for you but substantially less so than cigarettes, there's no excuse these days.
I am the same way, I will risk getting hit by cars sometimes just to avoid smoke I hate it so much. Even outdoors after a brief exposure it gets lodged in your hair, clothes, and eyes. With the legalization of marijuana in so many places, the problem has become even worse.
The big difference is that you don't have to drink alcohol if an unknown person next to you is drinking, while passive smoking is a real thing. Granted, peer pressure leads people to drink more than they otherwise would, but it's still something you can fight against. There's no willpower that will help you against passive smoking.
I'm not claiming that alcohol is better, just saying that in terms of getting of nuisances, you can choose to completely opt out of alcohol if you so choose, while in some places it's hard to completely avoid cigarette smoke from people around you.
I also don't drink alcohol. Quit about 3 years ago after hearing how bad it also is for your health and just from hating the feeling the next morning. But I agree this one will be a harder one to kick.
My boss likes to say "wow you must be drinking some strong stuff on the weekends after this job." Because apparently that's the ideal way to cope with abusive workloads.
I am aware of it being addictive which is why I also added the caveat of putting in a real effort to stop, understanding that it can be difficult.
But I still think even these people should be aware of those around them when they are smoking and how they are affecting them as well. Smoking while in transit on a sidewalk is the example I'm speaking of. Every person you walk past or who walks in your same direction is being affected by you.
Give me a break. If you don't wanna experience smells you don't like, stay inside. That's your problem. Occasionally smelling some smoke while outside is not going to significantly affect your health. People smoking in public inside is a whole other level of exposure, and even there the effect isn't that big.
If you're really worried about inhaling stuff when outside, worry about something meaningful like diesel cars and aerosolised dust.
Occasionally smelling my poop won't harm you neither, shall we presume based on your words you shall be fine with it in any public occasion? And well if you don't like that you can stay comfy at home too, right.
Because you know, to most non-smokers we would prefer smell of literal manure to what smokers of cigarettes produce.
And no amount of whataboutism about car fumes is gonna change that, thats a poor attempt to diverge conversation.
I think you did well saying you cross the street, but then suggested that I solve your problem for you, how entitled, you are annoyed by smoking and I have to go in the cage, I could say, if you are annoyed by people smoking wear a mask or stay at home
The difference between those two is that, by smoking, you become the aggressor. If being considerate and empathetic is "solving someone else's problem" then I don't see how that's entitled. Don't smoke in public.
> I think you did well saying you cross the street, but then suggested that I solve your problem for you, how entitled, you are annoyed by smoking and I have to go in the cage, I could say, if you are annoyed by people smoking wear a mask or stay at home
Cigarette smokers, they never to stop amazing me how arrogant and self-centered many of them are when talking about actual topics.
Its btw a great way to find out who you are really dealing with - anybody can produce sweet talk on demand if they have a clear goal. Stub their toe with say some hard addiction of theirs and personalities surface very quickly
I'm taking an EMT class now and it's extremely sobering how many horrifying ways to die are directly caused by one of: high blood pressure, obesity, or smoking.
We're in the cardio module now, and about 3/4ths of the class is already talking about signing a DNR. Death from one of those three is often long and extremely painful. We've got so many ways we are legally required to keep the body "alive". There's a lot worse things out there than death.
Keep fit out there folks. If you don't know where to start, check out intermittent fasting 16/8.
IMO fasting won't help the majority of the population since their diets tend to consist of foods that are designed to be highly consumable at volume. While the theory of time-restricted eating implies you will eat less, you can still easily exceed your TDEE in calories.
Skip the fasting; exercise and eat real whole foods. It's pretty difficult to do both of those things and not lose weight.
Exercise alone almost never reduces body fat percentage long term. Calorie restriction of some sort and getting the body to burn fat via fasting/keto is required for most people.
High blood pressure and obesity appear to be part of the same metabolic syndrome.
I am all for fasting, but it won't make your death necessarily less painful. The best you can hope for is to live a decade longer and possibly make use of the progress of medical science.
(It is possible that we will have a breakthrough in longevity. In that case, well, it makes a LOT of sense to be alive to see it.)
Not saying these measures are bad or that we should withhold care, but there is very much an attitude of "keep alive at all costs" to modern medicine that can be hard to witness and potentially traumatizing for caregivers.
Depends on where you are in the world, dinner at 5 would be really weird in a lot of places.
Most restaurants would not even be open for another 2 hours
> Three variables stood out: smoking, latent cytomegalovirus infection(2) and body mass index. "The influence of these three factors on certain immune responses could be equal to that of age, sex or genetics," points out Darragh Duffy.
OK, smoking is bad, but it seems everyone already knows that one way or another, just like obesity.
It's the first time I hear of latent cytomegalovirus infection though, which apparently has a very strong impact. Is this worth it to be tested against, preventively ?
Radioactive Polonium-210 is the most potent carcinogen within tobacco, and it is not intrinsic to the plant. It is a result of past use of phosphate fertilizer [0].
Yeah. I can no longer stand the smell of smoke no matter how far away. My wife hates me because we can’t sit on terraces to eat and drink next to smokers and traffic smoke
Where I live, "beautiful bc," it was decided that emissions testing was ineffective so we stopped doing it. Also there's a rash of catalytic converter thefts. A real catalytic converter is expensive. A metal tube the same size and shape is less expensive and deters future theft. Put it together and there's a significant number of cars whose exhaust is way over legal limits but they only get caught if a cop feels like noticing. And the police are not known for treehugging.
Smoking is outlawed in parks, but allowed on sidewalks.
Out here in the Southern US that's just the norm. I can smell poorly running 10-40 year old trucks and cars every day along side the newest diesel truck trying to roll coal on a Prius for shits and giggles. Add on top of that smelling peoples cigarette smoke two cars over and seeing them litter the cigarette butt.
We didn't get a Bar smoking ban locally until recently and at first it only targeted bars that serve food.
The USA actually has pretty strict emissions standards for diesel engines, so most cars on the road are relatively clean burning gasoline cars. But in parts of Europe or Asia, diesel vehicles are much more common, and their exhaust has a distinct smell from the sulfur and nitrogen oxides they produce.
These findings... for the first time reveal a long-term memory of the effects of smoking on immunity...
It also talks about epigenetics, which is a sort of hand wavy concept that what we do to our bodies can impact genetic expression and even genetic inheritance but it's kind of the "radiation" of 1950s sci fi. Spiderman was bit by a radioactive spider and got magic powers cuz ...don't ask. Radiation, okay? Moving on.
I am certain that everything we do in life has epigenetic impacts and our lifestyle interacts with gene expression. I think of it a bit like vernacular architecture. You draw a floorplan for a two bedroom home and are limited to local resources, the exact details look different depending on weather it's an adobe house or a log cabin.
That's a useful metaphor but it's not really hard science and at this date epigenetics is kind of a vague concept without really pinning down specific causes in most cases.
The body doesn't "remember." It remains impaired in part because we don't really understand how to fully clear these chemicals from the body. It may also remain impaired because these chemicals altered something which will remain altered after the chemicals are cleared but at this point epigenetics doesn't seem to actually identify those details.
Well, I tried to pick up smoking but never could. I reckoned have something to indulge into besides alcohol, plus smokers seem to enjoy it without the dreadful withdrawal effects of the former (hangovers that is).
But cigarettes just don't do nothing for me. I do get nauseous and if I insist, sick. But nothing enjoyable, not along what I came to expect from alcohol and caffeine.
On the other hand smoking prevents Parkinson's so not all bad habits are all evil.
So, I have to ask: is it the nicotine, or the products of combustion? Because a lot of people are smoking cannabis, and I'm wondering how many of the harms of long term cigarette use will also manifest in them.
Tar and carbon monoxide are bigger culprits than the nicotine afaik.
Edit- I should add, for the lungs. Nicotine does have adverse cardiac effects (heart disease). I'm not sure of the stats or relative numbers to the incidences, though.
There are studies on this that you could search pretty easily.
From my recollection, byproducts of tobacco smoke are nastier than usual, but mostly your right to think of it as the products of combustion. For example, there is a small study that came out this year, where pregnant women who used a vape, or nicotine patch, did not have the smaller birthweight you’d expect of smokers. And there have been plenty of studies through the years, showing that women in areas with polluted air have similar problems with their babies to women who smoke cigarettes.
And if I remember correctly in the 90s, there were a lot of studies to see if cannabis smoke caused similar health issues to tobacco smoke and they were not able to prove it. The reasons for this seems complicated and not definitively understood. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1277837/
Readit News
I hate the smell of it and how it feels breathing it, every time I walk behind somebody smoking while walking somewhere I literally run in front of them or cross the street. I honestly think public smoking should just be outright banned for being a health hazard against others.
If you still want to smoke, go to small out of the way designated places for it where you aren't bothering others.
Puritans did something similar during their witch trials. They say they're burning someone for being a witch, but nearly all of their victims just so happened to have one of the following characteristics: spinsters with no children, widows who never remarried, single men into their 30s who never mastered a craft or became a clergyman, etc.
These were universally unacceptable, impure traits. Puritans were all about the collective rather than the individual, and they believed that the collective had the liberty to shape and bend the individual to its will, else the collective suffers. Non-conformists were made to conform, whether through shunning, shame, or violence, or else they were removed from the collective.
So no, you can't smoke in public, not because we care about your health or our health, but because it is decidedly impure, and a good Puritan must be pure, and if a member be not pure, he must be shamed and molded to be so, for if we're not all pure, our moral fabric comes apart.
Culture fundamentally changes very slowly over time, although the particulars may transform quite a lot, and this is a great example of that. A very interesting look at how Puritan culture is expressed in the modern day.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37923037
Some drugs that treat depression have a side effect of causing a lot of people to stop smoking. Maybe someday we will understand depression well enough to effectively and reliably treat it. At least until then, blanket statements about smoking aren't really reasonable.
I hate smoking. I have respiratory problems. I don't want people smoking around me.
But nicotine is a morally neutral chemical that, like any chemical, can have constructive uses.
That's interesting because nicotine contains MAOI(monoamine oxidase inhibitors) compounds that are used treat depression.
I don't really see an issue with this personally. Moralizing health is weird.
And as some others have mentioned it may be that there is much more harm done to things like the environment by powers much greater than just those who smoke. So while there are some arguing for that point of view, I do understand those who argue against this one due to there "being much bigger fish to fry"
The persistent smell of the tars that cling to surfaces? Not so much.
But then I think about the law of unintended consequences (or from a more optimistic/fun angle, the perspective of "Optimal Gameplay"), like how the people I am inconveniencing while blindly maximizing my group's fine-grained personal enjoyment may seek revenge (consciously or otherwise) when the time arises where they happen to be the ones who hold power of any sort, such as the decision to comply with public health recommendations, as just one example among many, many thousands.
Sometimes my (or others, including those of The Experts) mind counters with attractive, rhetorical stories/memes to counter this approach, but I endeavour to apply critical consideration to those lest I mistake them for shared/primary reality.
I have no idea how well I perform at this, but my intuition is that it is better than if I did not try at all, which seems to be the default approach in our culture afaict.
That said, I put up with it because I respect the freedom of those wishing to enjoy it. I also have no choice, because the smell has become ubiquitous almost everywhere you go.
I do not respect people who do it around other unconsenting people in areas that are meant to be used by the general public i.e. not in your own home (though even then if you live in apartment/multi-family dwelling it can become a major issue for your neighbors) or a designated spot since there is plenty of research documenting second-hand effects being harmful.
People who smoke and walk end up going in the same direction and pace as other people, annoying them. It's easier to avoid a smoker who is staying put.
I am the same way, I will risk getting hit by cars sometimes just to avoid smoke I hate it so much. Even outdoors after a brief exposure it gets lodged in your hair, clothes, and eyes. With the legalization of marijuana in so many places, the problem has become even worse.
Don’t worry, we’re tackling that in Australia! Due to a moral panic, vapes are all set to become harder to purchase than actual tobacco!
:facepalm:
Deleted Comment
I'm not claiming that alcohol is better, just saying that in terms of getting of nuisances, you can choose to completely opt out of alcohol if you so choose, while in some places it's hard to completely avoid cigarette smoke from people around you.
In reality its just sleep, anime, and weed.
Damn that’s fairly passive aggressive. I no longer smoke but you’re aware it’s incredibly addictive?
But I still think even these people should be aware of those around them when they are smoking and how they are affecting them as well. Smoking while in transit on a sidewalk is the example I'm speaking of. Every person you walk past or who walks in your same direction is being affected by you.
If you're really worried about inhaling stuff when outside, worry about something meaningful like diesel cars and aerosolised dust.
https://apnews.com/article/california-trucks-epa-greenhouse-...
Because you know, to most non-smokers we would prefer smell of literal manure to what smokers of cigarettes produce.
And no amount of whataboutism about car fumes is gonna change that, thats a poor attempt to diverge conversation.
Cigarette smokers, they never to stop amazing me how arrogant and self-centered many of them are when talking about actual topics.
Its btw a great way to find out who you are really dealing with - anybody can produce sweet talk on demand if they have a clear goal. Stub their toe with say some hard addiction of theirs and personalities surface very quickly
Deleted Comment
We're in the cardio module now, and about 3/4ths of the class is already talking about signing a DNR. Death from one of those three is often long and extremely painful. We've got so many ways we are legally required to keep the body "alive". There's a lot worse things out there than death.
Keep fit out there folks. If you don't know where to start, check out intermittent fasting 16/8.
Skip the fasting; exercise and eat real whole foods. It's pretty difficult to do both of those things and not lose weight.
Deleted Comment
I am all for fasting, but it won't make your death necessarily less painful. The best you can hope for is to live a decade longer and possibly make use of the progress of medical science.
(It is possible that we will have a breakthrough in longevity. In that case, well, it makes a LOT of sense to be alive to see it.)
Could you say more about this? I've heard of rib breaking CPR but curious to know about others.
There are also "humans are space orcs" devices like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventricular_assist_device that can keep blood circulating even when the heart cannot.
Or this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_positive_airway_pre... that can push all the blood in your lungs from congestive heart failure back into your arteries, only for the lungs to start to slowly fill again, drowning them slowly.
Not saying these measures are bad or that we should withhold care, but there is very much an attitude of "keep alive at all costs" to modern medicine that can be hard to witness and potentially traumatizing for caregivers.
Eat breakfast at 9, lunch at noon, and dinner at 5.
That's just a normal day.
OK, smoking is bad, but it seems everyone already knows that one way or another, just like obesity.
It's the first time I hear of latent cytomegalovirus infection though, which apparently has a very strong impact. Is this worth it to be tested against, preventively ?
Unless you're pregnant or immunocompromised, no. IIRC roughly 70% of adults in developed nations and 100% elsewhere have CMV.
But also most people have it so it’s hard to say whether somehow treating it would be beneficial.
0: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6635032/
[0] https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactivity-tobacco
Smoking is outlawed in parks, but allowed on sidewalks.
We didn't get a Bar smoking ban locally until recently and at first it only targeted bars that serve food.
It's pretty common in France and Switzerland.
It also talks about epigenetics, which is a sort of hand wavy concept that what we do to our bodies can impact genetic expression and even genetic inheritance but it's kind of the "radiation" of 1950s sci fi. Spiderman was bit by a radioactive spider and got magic powers cuz ...don't ask. Radiation, okay? Moving on.
I am certain that everything we do in life has epigenetic impacts and our lifestyle interacts with gene expression. I think of it a bit like vernacular architecture. You draw a floorplan for a two bedroom home and are limited to local resources, the exact details look different depending on weather it's an adobe house or a log cabin.
That's a useful metaphor but it's not really hard science and at this date epigenetics is kind of a vague concept without really pinning down specific causes in most cases.
The body doesn't "remember." It remains impaired in part because we don't really understand how to fully clear these chemicals from the body. It may also remain impaired because these chemicals altered something which will remain altered after the chemicals are cleared but at this point epigenetics doesn't seem to actually identify those details.
Maybe someday it will. But not today.
But cigarettes just don't do nothing for me. I do get nauseous and if I insist, sick. But nothing enjoyable, not along what I came to expect from alcohol and caffeine.
On the other hand smoking prevents Parkinson's so not all bad habits are all evil.
Edit- I should add, for the lungs. Nicotine does have adverse cardiac effects (heart disease). I'm not sure of the stats or relative numbers to the incidences, though.
From my recollection, byproducts of tobacco smoke are nastier than usual, but mostly your right to think of it as the products of combustion. For example, there is a small study that came out this year, where pregnant women who used a vape, or nicotine patch, did not have the smaller birthweight you’d expect of smokers. And there have been plenty of studies through the years, showing that women in areas with polluted air have similar problems with their babies to women who smoke cigarettes.
And if I remember correctly in the 90s, there were a lot of studies to see if cannabis smoke caused similar health issues to tobacco smoke and they were not able to prove it. The reasons for this seems complicated and not definitively understood. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1277837/