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Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

prospect.org

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Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#61

Post by smolder »

totalZero wrote: post #47
lemonberry wrote: post #34

My father has COPD from over 50 years of smoking. I convinced him to switch to vaping and he's been using a Juul for a few years now. Awhile after the switch his primary care physician listened to his lungs and said they sounded a lot better. She said she because the science isn't in "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing". Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not. But in…

> the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find. I would assume a significant difference in impact between putting flavor substances in your lungs and putting flavor substances in your esophagus/stomach.

I think the argument they are referring to is the one that because there were tasty flavors, the products were targeting youth... as if adults do not enjoy tasty flavors. That's one way regulators rationalized bans on vaping products. No one is making similar arguments to ban tasty liquor.

I haven't ruled out that they were trying to target youth with their products, but having nice juice flavors is the furthest thing from a smoking gun, and yet it was presented as one.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#62

Post by BoxOfRain »

wccrawford wrote: post #13
ud_0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

I'm not who you replied to, but I've experienced this with some of my friends. Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science. For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know peop…

I think scientism is best summed up as the fallacious idea that science is a priesthood rather than a process. Some people really struggle separating the politically neutral idea of using the scientific method to inform policy with the politically charged idea that a scientific technocracy is a desirable state of affairs in my opinion, a problem that's only got worse in recent years.

Science is a powerful contributor to the sum of human knowledge, but it's absolutely not the only pillar of human knowledge and there's a lot of people who think that scientific advancement means we can just do away with philosophy, politics, and other fields like that altogether, as though one day with the right equations all of ethics or culture is just going to pop out of physics. These people don't just throw the baby but the whole nursery out with the bathwater in my opinion!

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#63

Post by justanotherguy0 »

mclightning wrote: post #43
uniqueuid wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then propose another way of getting reliable, robust and explainable guidelines for managing societies? But of course, evidence-based decision making should not be turned into decision-based evidence making; science alone is not a basis for politics.

In your very last sentence there; you summed up what I meant. I don't know why you expect me to come up with a solution on how to manage societies in a comment section.

Well it would be helpful if you did.

Maybe some nice corp would be willing to buy an issue of a journal so that you can publish and distribute the solution!

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#64

Post by krisoft »

toxik wrote: post #14
ud_0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

Science is myopic by construction. Science does not consider what questions to answer, but rather tries to answer what can be answered. Science cannot tell you how to run a country or city. It can, at best, tell you how NOT to. Over reliance on science as guidance has also lead to some of the darkest chapters of human history, like phrenology and its use to justify racial supremacy.

> Over reliance on science as guidance has also lead to some of the darkest chapters of human history, like phrenology and its use to justify racial supremacy.

Could you clarify this? I understand that humans committed terrible atrocities in the name of "racial supremacy". I also understand that the same people used science as a fig leaf to justify their actions. But you seem to be saying that over reliance on science lead to these atrocities.

I simply can't imagine someone saying "I like these people and normally wouldn't hurt them, but the scientific consensus is so strong therefore I will kill/maim/throw them into a concentration camp." It sounds more likely that the racist ideology was there first, which caused both the racist science and the atrocities both. In other words racist people wanted to commit atrocities and they manufactured excuses for themselves to do so.

But I'm far from an expert on human history, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#65

Post by viraptor »

symlinkk wrote: post #45
uniqueuid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on your father's change of habit, I hope he continues to recover and has a long life! That aside, the collective balance is: - how many cigarette smokers will switch (benefit) - how many people will start vaping instead of smoking (benefit) - how many people will switch from vaping to smoking (harm) - how many people will start vaping but wouldn't have started smoking (harm) Perhaps someone with exper…

We don’t know that vaping is harmful. It’s addictive, yes, but not necessarily harmful.

If something is addictive (as in actually creating a physical and mental dependence on continued use in significant number of people) - why would you not classify that as harmful?

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#66

Post by mclightning »

justanotherguy0 wrote: post #63
mclightning wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your very last sentence there; you summed up what I meant. I don't know why you expect me to come up with a solution on how to manage societies in a comment section.

Well it would be helpful if you did. Maybe some nice corp would be willing to buy an issue of a journal so that you can publish and distribute the solution!

hahaha indeed! issue of a journal seems to go pretty cheap these days :D

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#67

Post by ud_0 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #31
ud_0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

Not all science is good. You can publish papers which literally do not allow any valid conclusions to be drawn due to methodological errors. I suspect that's most of them since academics are judged by the number of papers they've published in impactful journals. Just because science says something doesn't mean it's true. Truth must be verifiable. It's possible to easily and cheaply verify basic physical concepts like…

> Just because science says something doesn't mean it's true. Truth must be verifiable.

I don't mean to sound condescending, but if science as a concept 'says' anything, it is exactly that truth must be verifiable.

There absolutely are problems with how study results are weighted. Starting from the way the press reports on findings, up to and including the uncritical acceptance of questionable material by many members of the scientific community.

However, there is no workable alternative to the process of science, because defaulting to whatever people personally like and discarding any inpportune data is certainly not how we move forward as a civilization if we have any ambition to continue our ascent (and we might in fact not have that ambition, but I do like to pretend that we do).

Studies and data in general must be weighted. Sometimes the proper weight is zero. I see little other options but to continue stumbling towards improvement and knowledge. Acting on data will always be an imperfect process on a sliding scale, very few people would disagree with that.

Edit: I would also say that there is a distinction between the opinion that we're generally moving too fast and the opinion that we have severe deficits in how we weigh incoming data. Both of these can be addressed, although the solutions appear to be way easier in the former case. We need to be honest about which camp we're in though.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#68

Post by kevincox »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #50
lemonberry wrote: post #34

My father has COPD from over 50 years of smoking. I convinced him to switch to vaping and he's been using a Juul for a few years now. Awhile after the switch his primary care physician listened to his lungs and said they sounded a lot better. She said she because the science isn't in "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing". Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not. But in…

I can't speak for Juul but I credit my smoking cessation entirely to vaping. I've not had any nicotine since 2020, vaping or smoking! I think there's a real attitude among a small number of non-smokers that quitting without some form of sustained suffering is "doing it wrong" and that addicts of any kind deserve pain to atone for the sin of being an addict. This attitude is extremely unhelpful and should be condemned…

It may not be "doing it wrong" but different people work in different ways. I know one friend who tried to quit a couple of times by easing off with no luck. However one time they decided to just stop and it worked. They felt like crap for a week or two but then they were off it.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#69

Post by nathias »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #5
nathias wrote: post #3

I have followed the story of e-cigarettes and can only say it's eye opening, its probably very symptomatic to how things are done. It went from innovators and communities to being large enough that the cigarette companies responded by a smear campaign, disinformation and panic, that was then used to regulate in a way that benefited only the cigarette companies. What a transparently corrupt world we live in.

And everyone who doesn't want funny smells in their face. While since some decades cigarette smokers go outside, many ecigarette users spread funny smells without any empathy.

Yea lets put the same heavy regulation on shoes because some people are not taking their off when coming to visit ...

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#70

Post by user-the-name »

symlinkk wrote: post #45
uniqueuid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on your father's change of habit, I hope he continues to recover and has a long life! That aside, the collective balance is: - how many cigarette smokers will switch (benefit) - how many people will start vaping instead of smoking (benefit) - how many people will switch from vaping to smoking (harm) - how many people will start vaping but wouldn't have started smoking (harm) Perhaps someone with exper…

We don’t know that vaping is harmful. It’s addictive, yes, but not necessarily harmful.

We do know that nicotine is harmful, whether vaped or smoked or ingested in any other way. No mysteries there.
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