America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#21

Post by TausAmmer » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:39 PM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #2

This, if correctly publicized, would be the best motivation in getting huge amounts of people to stop. Think of a slogan like "Only the poor still smoke" or "it's what losers do" and how it would impact people. Suddenly you'd be embarrassed of being seen smoking.

Fat shaming works too.

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#22

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:40 PM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #14

gue5t wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas rich are rich because their parents were rich.

That is simply not true, at least not in any even minimally developed country.

You're both talking in extremes. There is a lot of inherited wealth in the developed world [1]. There is also a relationship between "marshmallow test" impulsiveness and peoples' tendency to squander the opportunities their life presents them [2]. The relative balance between these factors is debatable. Their presence is more difficult to dismiss.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/how-to-st...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#23

Post by smileysteve » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC

It seems smoking could be strongly correlated with the growing life expectancy disparity.

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#24

Post by cafard » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #2

This, if correctly publicized, would be the best motivation in getting huge amounts of people to stop. Think of a slogan like "Only the poor still smoke" or "it's what losers do" and how it would impact people. Suddenly you'd be embarrassed of being seen smoking.

Outstanding! And maybe we can call them "deplorables", because that worked so well last fall.

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#25

Post by josefresco » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:42 PM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #2

This, if correctly publicized, would be the best motivation in getting huge amounts of people to stop. Think of a slogan like "Only the poor still smoke" or "it's what losers do" and how it would impact people. Suddenly you'd be embarrassed of being seen smoking.

Some of those anti-tobacco (I'm blanking on the name) commercials targeted at teens/kids use this approach. I forget the actual line, but they mention something about how smokers make less money .. anyone have a link?

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#26

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:43 PM UTC

That's not just limited to America. I travel a lot, a few years ago, say 15 or so it would be pretty rare to see young people smoke and now somehow it is 'cool' again. I've had the unfortunate experience of delivering a couple of friends to an early grave courtesy of lung cancer, the one thing that seemed to unite them was that they wished they had never started smoking and that once they did they had the strength to quit. The youngest of those was mid 40's. It's an intelligence test of sorts with a very high price if you fail.

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#27

Post by falcolas » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:45 PM UTC

Meta: I appreciate how WP interprets a network failure to load assets as an ad blocker. Makes for a great user experience.

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#28

Post by almonj » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:47 PM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #2

This, if correctly publicized, would be the best motivation in getting huge amounts of people to stop. Think of a slogan like "Only the poor still smoke" or "it's what losers do" and how it would impact people. Suddenly you'd be embarrassed of being seen smoking.

Prohibition makes things edgier and cooler, it only makes people want to do it more. Pretty sure there are places that legalized drugs and usage rates went down.

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#29

Post by darkerside » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

The smoking cessation class teacher they referenced in the article really made me cringe. She seems like a very positive person, but her ideas about how to quit smoking just seem so very misdirected. I wonder if she has smoked in the past and quit herself?

Re: America’s new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn’t

#30

Post by tertius » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

almonj wrote: post #28

gruturo wrote: post #2

This, if correctly publicized, would be the best motivation in getting huge amounts of people to stop. Think of a slogan like "Only the poor still smoke" or "it's what losers do" and how it would impact people. Suddenly you'd be embarrassed of being seen smoking.

Prohibition makes things edgier and cooler, it only makes people want to do it more. Pretty sure there are places that legalized drugs and usage rates went down.

Also, prohibition does not remove addiction. But I'm sure there's something they can add to our drinking water to change that...