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[ChairmanPoo]

That it's pointless arguing with masonry.



And BTW: sorry, but yeah, the analogy sucks. It doesn't hold to any reasonable degree to the problem at hand. I'd not need to tell you this if you had at least skimmed though the 15 pages...

[codezero]

Here's another analogy. Unless you're using %100 green elec. you're hurting your health just arguing this. And I doubt you could power a reply with one cigarrete.

[kcwong]

Here's another analogy. Unless you're using %100 green elec. you're hurting your health just arguing this. And I doubt you could power a reply with one cigarrete.

As is playing Dwarf Fortress. As is this whole forum. You tell Toady to shut down the whole thing for the planet Earth and everyone's health?

[G-Flex]

Thing is that computers serve an actual purpose (as does talking to people on them). Smoking, for the most part, doesn't. The most prominent thing that smoking does is mess up your health and feed an addiction. Society would not suffer at all for a loss of it.

[codezero]

I'm not telling .00000000001% of the world anything,  are you telling 20-30% that we can't smoke? For the same reason?  I'm saying do what you wanna do, your life is in your own hands.

[nil]

Thing is that computers serve an actual purpose (as does talking to people on them). Smoking, for the most part, doesn't. The most prominent thing that smoking does is mess up your health and feed an addiction. Society would not suffer at all for a loss of it.

Video games don't serve any utilitarian purpose, and can be very addictive in their own way.  If the secondhand smoking is taken out of the picture (and I mean real secondhand smoking, not "oh no I might have to smell something I don't like as I walk down the sidewalk") they're really in a similar category, albeit to a far lesser degree.

I look forward to the day we cure cancer and everyone takes up smoking again.

[ChairmanPoo]

It's not just about  cancer. Smoke hurts you in pretty much any way you can imagine. I can only think of two diseases where it might not be harmful, and one of them is with a "maybe".

And anyway, even if you can treat the side-effects doesn't mean that you want to risk grievous bodily harm for a petty vice which looks far less cool than in movies when you notice the yellow teeth and the smell.

[G-Flex]

Thing is that computers serve an actual purpose (as does talking to people on them). Smoking, for the most part, doesn't. The most prominent thing that smoking does is mess up your health and feed an addiction. Society would not suffer at all for a loss of it.

Video games don't serve any utilitarian purpose, and can be very addictive in their own way.  If the secondhand smoking is taken out of the picture (and I mean real secondhand smoking, not "oh no I might have to smell something I don't like as I walk down the sidewalk") they're really in a similar category, albeit to a far lesser degree.

What is a "utilitarian purpose"? People's lives need art and entertainment. Those are useful. Smoking is not useful.



And yes, even if you don't get cancer, smoking can still mess you up big time. No cancer? Great, enjoy your COPD and death by literally drowning in your own lung-fluids.

[Reasonableman]

Thing is that computers serve an actual purpose (as does talking to people on them). Smoking, for the most part, doesn't. The most prominent thing that smoking does is mess up your health and feed an addiction. Society would not suffer at all for a loss of it.

Video games don't serve any utilitarian purpose, and can be very addictive in their own way.  If the secondhand smoking is taken out of the picture (and I mean real secondhand smoking, not "oh no I might have to smell something I don't like as I walk down the sidewalk") they're really in a similar category, albeit to a far lesser degree.

What is a "utilitarian purpose"? People's lives need art and entertainment. Those are useful. Smoking is not useful.



And yes, even if you don't get cancer, smoking can still mess you up big time. No cancer? Great, enjoy your COPD and death by literally drowning in your own lung-fluids.

There are half a bajillion different opinions and facts and non-facts concerning the health risks imposed by smoking. I'm more interested in how you justify videogames being more useful than smoking, personally. Perhaps they are to you, and myself as well, but people have differing opinions of value, utility, usefulness, all that jazz. I've never felt it was my place to determine how others should value anything; even their own lives.
I don't mean to be condescending, but that is exactly what I am being, so I'll get on with it: this entire argument is absurd. People will make choices that harm themselves and others; the very act of living is simply a matter of choosing what is, to you, more valuable... for some it'll be a few extra minutes of life - for others, the calming effect of nicotine. For all choices there is a sacrifice somewhere, perhaps one that you cannot see, but it is there nonetheless. People will always value things differently, and therefore, this conversation will never really stop.

That's my two cents. Also I really should stop posting in these debatey threads.

[kcwong]

Thing is that computers serve an actual purpose (as does talking to people on them). Smoking, for the most part, doesn't. The most prominent thing that smoking does is mess up your health and feed an addiction. Society would not suffer at all for a loss of it.

Video games don't serve any utilitarian purpose, and can be very addictive in their own way.  If the secondhand smoking is taken out of the picture (and I mean real secondhand smoking, not "oh no I might have to smell something I don't like as I walk down the sidewalk") they're really in a similar category, albeit to a far lesser degree.

I don't see smoking as a form of entertainment though. If you smoke, do you remember how you feel when you smoke your first cigarette? You choke! You start to feel good later under the influence of the external chemicals messing with your brain, introduced by cigarette smoke. You get high, but after a while the high is gone as you get used to it, and instead you get an addiction.

To me it is just the same as the kidnapped falling in love with the kidnapper. Illogical and ridiculous.

[Neruz]

Thing is that computers serve an actual purpose (as does talking to people on them). Smoking, for the most part, doesn't. The most prominent thing that smoking does is mess up your health and feed an addiction. Society would not suffer at all for a loss of it.

Video games don't serve any utilitarian purpose, and can be very addictive in their own way.  If the secondhand smoking is taken out of the picture (and I mean real secondhand smoking, not "oh no I might have to smell something I don't like as I walk down the sidewalk") they're really in a similar category, albeit to a far lesser degree.

What is a "utilitarian purpose"? People's lives need art and entertainment. Those are useful. Smoking is not useful.



And yes, even if you don't get cancer, smoking can still mess you up big time. No cancer? Great, enjoy your COPD and death by literally drowning in your own lung-fluids.

There are half a bajillion different opinions and facts and non-facts concerning the health risks imposed by smoking. I'm more interested in how you justify videogames being more useful than smoking, personally. Perhaps they are to you, and myself as well, but people have differing opinions of value, utility, usefulness, all that jazz. I've never felt it was my place to determine how others should value anything; even their own lives.
I don't mean to be condescending, but that is exactly what I am being, so I'll get on with it: this entire argument is absurd. People will make choices that harm themselves and others; the very act of living is simply a matter of choosing what is, to you, more valuable... for some it'll be a few extra minutes of life - for others, the calming effect of nicotine. For all choices there is a sacrifice somewhere, perhaps one that you cannot see, but it is there nonetheless. People will always value things differently, and therefore, this conversation will never really stop.

That's my two cents. Also I really should stop posting in these debatey threads.

Nicotine is a drug that by all sense and logic should be as illegal as LSD, the only reason it is not is because the ciggy companies were too well established to shut down when dangerous and addictive drugs started getting outlawed and make far too much money (both for themselves and for the government) to be shut down. That, combined with the scarily high addiction rate, near social acceptability and few serious short term effects all combine to allow millions of people every year to happily poison themselves with an exceedingly toxic cocktail of addictive chemicals while thougherly enjoying the expierence.


Now please, if you want to compare that to gaming, then by all means fire away. But you'd better include all other sports and games as well.

[G-Flex]

Thing is that computers serve an actual purpose (as does talking to people on them). Smoking, for the most part, doesn't. The most prominent thing that smoking does is mess up your health and feed an addiction. Society would not suffer at all for a loss of it.

Video games don't serve any utilitarian purpose, and can be very addictive in their own way.  If the secondhand smoking is taken out of the picture (and I mean real secondhand smoking, not "oh no I might have to smell something I don't like as I walk down the sidewalk") they're really in a similar category, albeit to a far lesser degree.

What is a "utilitarian purpose"? People's lives need art and entertainment. Those are useful. Smoking is not useful.



And yes, even if you don't get cancer, smoking can still mess you up big time. No cancer? Great, enjoy your COPD and death by literally drowning in your own lung-fluids.

There are half a bajillion different opinions and facts and non-facts concerning the health risks imposed by smoking. I'm more interested in how you justify videogames being more useful than smoking, personally. Perhaps they are to you, and myself as well, but people have differing opinions of value, utility, usefulness, all that jazz.

The fact that smoking IS a severe health risk is established. It's not a subjective matter.

I can see the use of smoking as a social thing, e.g. someone smoking a cigar on special occasions and special occasions only. But regular, habitual smoking is harmful and serves more of a hindrance than any benefit to the people who do it. It's largely valued due to addiction.

Videogames are useful for the reasons I stated: Arts and entertainment are productive things for society and have been around for as long as society itself. People need it in their lives. It's a bit higher on the hierarchy of needs than food and water and human interaction, sure, but it's still a necessity. Videogames in particular aren't a necessity, but any form of art/entertainment is going to be require effort and energy and therefore require some sort of sacrifice, and variety of art/entertainment media is a good thing, as they reach/entertain people in different ways.

So... how is smoking useful? You asked me why videogames are useful, and I told you.

As far as people making choices to harm themselves and others is concerned, one function of government is to prevent this where necessary. People making decisions that harm others is generally frowned upon.


Even if nicotine has a mild calming effect, so do other things; things which don't fuck you up in the long run with addiction and health hazards, that don't make you a burden on society when those effects kick in, don't force you to go out of your way to engage in it somewhere where it won't affect others, and don't cause gigantic industries built around hideous physiological addiction to sprout up and rake in billions of dollars.

As a society, we have to decide when something's negative impact on society and individuals far outweighs whatever small positive impact it has - especially when it causes addictions which damn nearforce people to partake in it even when they don't want to - and decide to either outlaw or at least seriously discourage that behavior, and to curtail the negative effects however possible. This is not a process limited to tobacco; it's just how society operates.

[Siquo]

Smoking and video games, smoking and cars, smoking and electricity, smoking and spitting people in the face, smoking and shooting people, the analogies are numerous.

But smoking is so different and evil than anything in the world that none of the analogies make any sense to a non-smoker zealot. An example:

We had an anti-smoking campaign here in the Netherlands a while ago, with the slogan "at least I'm not smoking". This featured (really, we're talking government funded national television ads) waiters pissing in the drinks of guests at a restaurant ("ap-pel-sap"), smiling widely and saying "hey, at least I'm not smoking"!
After that, spoofs of people killing children and saying "hey, at least I'm not smoking" were of course abundant.

So yes, we know how evil smoking is. Apparently more evil than pissing in other peoples drinks. We're just trying to make other people see that we're human as well and it's really not that bad.




Oh and ChairmanPoo, I'll let you in on a little secret: We were talking about smoking INSIDE on the second page of this thread, which was dismissed by most if not all smokers in this thread, we're reasonable people, after all. After that it was about smoking in general, and you were having a discussion all by yourself, talking to no-one in particular.

[ThreeToe]

Hi, my name is Threetoe.  It has been three days since my last cigarette, and I must have spent at least a thousand dollars on Nicoderm patches.

[Siquo]

Good for you, TT!

I'm was just thinking about starting a Quitting Addictions thread, I'm about to stop drinking huge amounts of coffee.


edit: There it is