Posts by BenWilson
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I thought you were being sincere. So I addressed tobacco.
I was being sincere, but I can see that I didn't make the question plain enough. My bad.
If you mean where does the reach of public health end for other harmful activities, I have no idea.
Yes, that was what I meant.
There is a societal consensus for the control of tobacco
Consensus is a strange word for a position that is contentious. I, for one, am not part of this consensus.
I think there's a very compelling case to make skippers take basic safety instruction courses.
That's a tough one. It certainly is the law for boats over a certain size. But I wouldn't really think it should be necessary for someone fishing off a dingy near the shore, or some kid sailing their P-class off a beach. The main thing about boats, unlike smoking, is that you can easily kill other people with them. Rather like cars. That's why cars require licenses to drive, but pushbikes don't (even though it is very easy to kill yourself on a pushbike).
As a general point, slippery slope arguments are a load of bollocks, as far as I'm concerned.
The point of them is to require from the other person clearer justification for "why this and not this?". You've said you really have no idea. To me, that says a lot.
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But I thought that HORansome's point was that smoking also has broader environmental and social impacts.
And my response was that practically everything does, and that doesn't mean you have to be restricted where you appreciate your impacting good. You don't have to leave the CBD to put on your Chinese shirt, or drink your latte. Yet. Of course, when the impact of coffee on health is better understood, then perhaps the addicts can be treated like second class citizens and society will have really progressed.
Do you really think that purchasing decisions (milk, oil, whatever) have no wider influence?
I don't think it's of much relevance in the zealotry surrounding anti-smoking legislation. I think the whole thing is deeply Christian, frankly, and fuck that.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to George Darroch,
That's my speculative answer.
Just not to the question actually asked.
Because both those activities are not addictive
Indeed, that's why they would need to be forced to do it. For their own good.
If determined to take a 'rational' economic approach
My argument is not economic. It's moral. But I think the cost of smokers in a country that has superannuation is not what you think. It's quite cost effective, really, because it kills off people mostly after their productive life ends. This is a poor argument for it, though.
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Hard News: Just don't call it "Party Central", in reply to Ian Dalziel,
What, no life preservers and ropes? Or even just some boogie boards for flotation tethered to the wharf at intervals...
Just a frayed knot. Been waiting 25 years to make that joke.
Seriously if you fall in there, you better be a good swimmer. I'm sure a boat could be found eventually to fish you out. In the dark, with a tide flowing, your body could possibly never be found.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
It doesn't make sense to pay 200 dollars for 30 grams of tobacco unless you are amazingly rich.
No, especially since a thousand seeds costs about $2.50 (and they will drop their own seeds from then on), and they're basically plant-and-forget, being a very hardy plant, well adapted to NZ, that actively repels pests, making it an excellent companion planting choice. It's so damned easy to make massive quantities of it, that it's surprising more smokers don't, considering how much smoking costs them. Hard to find any legal crop with such an excellent cost-yield ratio. Just for personal consumption (the only legal way to do it), it sounds like about maybe 2 or 3 hours work to make a year's supply. Maybe the cutting up of it could add time, depending on your choice of how to use it, whether to roll it up, make cigars out of it, or just stick it in a pipe. That's around $500/hour tax free for your average smoking addict.
Then you could be sure there was nothing added, as well, and no poor serf had been forced to work for your pleasure.
I've seen them growing wild all over the place, too. Really strong survivor. Good luck trying to eradicate the plant.
ETA: LOL. Just discovered one in my own garden, poking up between the path tiles in my strawberry patch. There's a good ounce on it.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to George Darroch,
I think it's paternalistic and therefore unjustified, just so you know. It's a very slippery slope, legislating against self-harming. Where does it end? If there was a clear rationale for why such interference doesn't extend to forcing citizens to eat well and exercise, then let's hear it.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to HORansome,
What about secondhand smoke?
I already said I don't disagree with banning it in buildings...but on the street, that I don't like.
What about secondhand smoke? The environmental impact (not just of smoking but the production of cigarettes)? The terrible working conditions in the plantations where tobacco is grown and the factories where said cigarettes are made?
That's not harm the smoker is doing to anyone, any more than the shirt you wear on your back from China does the person sitting next to you any harm, or the bus you catch causes oppression in oil-producing Libya, or the milk you drink leads to poisons in our waterways. Anyway, the bans on smoking aren't on "bad workplace practices tobacco". They're against tobacco, period. Whether you grew it yourself or not, out of compost made from your own poo. The taxes and restrictions are motivated entirely by moralizing about the health risks.
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I sat through 9/11 all day, with my sister, who had brought her kitten over, having decided her transient lifestyle was unfair on a cat. She was staying, to acclimatize it to the house. The cat died before Bin Laden did.
That day was pivotal for my interest in news, and habits in consuming it. I had paid little attention to alternative sources than TV and newspapers (mostly online) before. But very rapidly I came to think they were hopeless in their analysis of the events. I discovered Public Address not long after.
Apart from horror at the events and the American reaction to it, the most unpleasant outcome of the thing for me was seeing a side of some friends that I really didn't like.
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Up Front: One, in reply to Joe Wylie,
rather than any stereotype about the behaviour of southern crackers
Hell, no. It's what I'd do, if it happened here. And I fully understand both Emma's and Russell's points about respect for privacy. It's a very Kiwi thing, that we don't think it's OK to look at people in trouble or misery, that it takes something from them, their pride or dignity. We've got a whole set of cultural expectations about where people are allowed to point their eyes, even in public places. So we have to do it all out of the corners of our eyes, or when the other person is not looking. To have foreigners who don't get this at all doing it is affronting.
All I'm asking is whether it's actually a wise aspect of our culture. It's a hard thing to talk about, and I should probably do so in a less fraught context. Stopping now.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to Sacha,
With respect, I'm not sure you understand how addiction works.
Perhaps not. It's really hard to say. Many people have kicked addiction, by exercising choice. It seems to be one of the most successful ways, in fact. People who don't want to quit are the main ones who don't quit, just as people who don't want to be counseled don't get anything out of therapy. But that could be a semantic game about the terms "choice" and "want", neither of which are especially well understood. Science would seem to suggest that choice does not actually exist and that manipulating want is all there is to human behavior. But I've never, ever been convinced on this.
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