Well ... at least alcohol only kills you ... On an entirely unrelated sidenote, got a bottle of whiskey and one of port for my birthday
That's a stupid statement I've read too often. It means that you didn't understand the facts (or don't care about them)
Being in the sun increases your chances of cancer. Eating processed foods increases your chances of cancer. Hell, I've even read stories that sex/oral increases your chances of cancer. Maybe YOU aren't understanding the facts.
Why wouldn't you equate those with smoking? Aren't they all choices? They all have positive and negative effects.
Yeah, jumping from a cliff and pinching your arm both have negative effects, they are practically the same.
I think it's a matter of social conditioning rather than education. For me at least, that's what a great deal of early-age anti-smoking information was. I'm honestly glad: it's a heck of a lot more effective than something you need to consciously or rationally approach. Instinct, intuition, and habit are some crazy drugs themselves. So, I wouldn't necessarily frame it as "you weren't educated enough and aren't considering this fully," rather "the environment in which you grew up apparently didn't completely condition you against smoking."
But really, it's the other way around ... The social conditioning is "smoking is cool, everyone is doing it, look at those good-looking people having the time of their lives on the ad banners", while the education is "smoking is going to kill you and your surroundings slowly and painfully while smelling like a pig's ass, just worse"
No, I disagree. That was certainly not my experience growing up. Institutional and familial forces create an anti-smoking environment, and then that works in contrast to other forms of peer pressure. One -- smoking -- often gets shaded as conditioning, because that has a negative connotation in western pro-freedom societies, but the two methodologies are very much the same. That smoking is even described and subsequently considered as the negative "social conditioning" and non-smoking as the rational "education" indicates the extent to which these global framing efforts have been successful. It also hints at a larger way in which peer pressure, conformity, and communal norms have been demonized in the process, or perhaps in and of themselves, to produce particular social ends. I was exposed to a great deal of anti-smoking information as a kid, to the point where smoking, even now as an adult, doesn't even seem like a tempting activity against which I can mentally defend myself -- it seems inherently and reflexively unappealing, something painted as unacceptable by my friends, family, and teachers. Regardless of the health effects, smoking is a bad social activity because of the constructed environment around it. While the reasons for the existence of that environment may come from scientific studies and analysis of the various negative effects, those reasons, through their implementation, ultimately produce an atmosphere in which smoking is, to a greater or lesser extent, a socially conditioned ill. And thank god, honestly. It's much more effective.
That doesn't make a lot of sense. Smoking got big because it was viewed as "modern" or "cool" or whatever else was the positive social connotation at the time, and stayed big because it is violently addictive. It is beyond me how you can view the education about the absolutely factual negative consequences of smoking as "conditioning". It's simply wrong. Learning about the negative consequences of jumping off a cliff and then deciding to not do it is not "conditioning". As for smoking being a socially conditioned ill, tell that to the stupid stinkers that keep smoking around me. In no-smo0king zones. I want to beat them up.
And the corrective educational approach has been successful because it operates on a similar level: smoking is "stupid," "reckless," or stuck in the past, when people thought it was cool. Don't get me wrong about the connotation of "conditioning" -- I'm all for it, and think it's the most effective way to ensure that all people, whether kids or adults, don't take up what is certainly a detrimental activity. Now, the effectiveness of that process varies, and it depends in part upon friends and family. To work with your cliff analogy, yeah, learning that jumping off a cliff will kill you probably means you won't jump off a cliff any time soon. And if you grow up with your friends, family, teachers, and institutional administrators telling you "jumping off a cliff is bad," then you will quickly pick up that message and habituate it. This isn't some form of social pressure where you can say "ah man, I'm really feeling it, this is obvious." If it were like that, I think it would be somewhat less effective. I, and apparently you as well, have grown up in a situation where arguments against smoking were presented as clear and "absolutely factual" -- it's obvious! Why the heck would you smoke? And precisely that kind of response, which we can easily and overtly call a rational reaction to impartial evidence, makes it a powerful form of social conditioning. The fundamental pieces of our constructed world views and upbringings make it a natural choice. In my eyes, the very extent to which you say, and to which I feel it is a blindingly simple conclusion demonstrates the thoroughness of that process.
come on guys, smoking is soooo Gordon's haircut from 1991 I mean it's sooo tight yellow speedo's in fact smoking is a lot of old fashioned and uncool things.
My problem with smoking is the aesthetic that's around it. So many cool dudes from the movies smoke, whenever you see them light a cigarette you always wanna do it too. Yes, it often gets disgusting and, after lighting it up, you often feel like you didn't really want to smoke but you still do it and finish it. It's very psychological for me, it's become sort of an accessory, although in terms of my health I preferred electronic cig, and it tastes much better consistently. Didn't smoke more than year and vaped my e-cig until I socially got into it again.
I'm not pleb enough to come around people that feel forced to smoke to look cool. In my social circles it's often quite the opposite
