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The Disappearance of the Ashtray

clivethompson.medium.com

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Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#271

Post by ithkuil »

wincy wrote: post #261
PaulRobinson wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ex-smoker, I'd ask you to consider it as about the most addictive thing going. Think of something you really, really like doing. Something that calms or pleases you every time you do it. Like, playing a game, or reading a book, or eating your favourite food. Now imagine someone telling you that you don't have to do that, it's just a choice. Imagine being deprived of it and being guilt-tripped into it. Sure you…

Curious, did you start smoking in your teens? I smoked hookah every day for about a year when I was 25 because I vastly preferred it to going out to bars and it seemed to be an acceptable social alternative. Then I quit. I never crave cigarettes, unless I walk by a group of smokers then I might bum one. I’ve probably smoked 5 cigarettes in the last few years. When I vaped for a little while like five years ago to see…

Some people find It easier to quit, some people just can't do it. Some people manage to smoke one cigarette a day. Some people either quit for good or they get back at smocking two packs a day.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#272

Post by nice2meetu »

ornornor wrote: post #211
tb_technical wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly safe enough that the NHS is using vaping to get people off smoking

It’s safer but not as much as not smoking. Same way chemo cures some cancer but is pretty damaging overall. But when the alternative is death, anything else is better. PSA: Don’t start vaping if you don’t smoke, it’s lame. Don’t start smoking either, you’ll regret the health issues, earlier death, and money wasted.

So not like my take when I see a pack of Tim Tams with a half-star health rating.. "Hey these things are a little healthy, looks like you need to eat a lot to get any benefit though"

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#273

Post by wrldos »

fortran77 wrote: post #101
relwin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shared an office with a smoker back in the day -- one or two smoking visitors would leave a cloud hanging for an hour. About 10 years later (several years into the smoking ban in the U.S. workplace) went on a business trip to Japan where all the smokers at work were confined to a small "smoking lounge." You couldn't see their faces through the window due to the thick smoke! Nowadays I can easily smell someone smoki…

My first computer programming jobs, everybody smoked. Our ADM-3A terminals had cigarette burns on them.

Just missed that. They had been confined to the smoking room however. It stank so badly I brought my own keyboard and mouse in which could not be touched ok penalty of death and a fat can of air freshener.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#274

Post by noduerme »

hourago wrote: post #260
noduerme wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> If I lit a cigarette as I'd like to, their parents might attack me for shaving a few theoretical seconds off their lives. Many things are not harmful if just done one, but you are not alone. I understand that if you are allowed to smoke many other people would also, and it would have a noticeable detriment in peoples live quality.

If everyone is allowed to take their coughing children on airplanes, it's a detriment to my life quality. What's the difference? Why are ten coughing children without masks less lethal than ten adults smoking cigarettes?

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#275

Post by masklinn »

bruce511 wrote: post #96
camillomiller wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking on planes is absolutely something I can't wrap my head around in any possible way. How the hell someone EVER thought it would be a good idea to let people smoke while packed inside a flying metal cylinder?

It's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s. Today I know of people who can't fly at all (because they can't stop smoking long enough.) even short flights of a couple hours are out of reach. (I was once on a 2 hour flight that took 6 hours for reasons, and some of the passengers fairly sprinted in the destination airport to get to a smoking area at 1am) So…

> It's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s.

It’s more than 30 years older. The first commercial airline opened around the start of WW1, and most major airlines (western at least) were founded in the 20s.

The 60s is the effective start of the jet age.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#276

Post by michaelhoney »

camillomiller wrote: post #88
Stratoscope wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking or non? Looks like you're about 25 years younger than me. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as a nonsmoking section. Of course you could smoke, anywhere! Us kids didn't get real tobacco cigarettes, but we always had candy cigarettes so we could "smoke" along with the grown-ups. https://www.google.com/search?q=candy+cigarette&tbm=isch One difference from today was that our candy cigarettes had brand na…

Smoking on planes is absolutely something I can't wrap my head around in any possible way. How the hell someone EVER thought it would be a good idea to let people smoke while packed inside a flying metal cylinder?

You could smoke on the Hindenberg. Yes. On a dirigible held aloft by hydrogen, they had a smoking room:(https://www.airships.net/hindenburg-smoking-room/.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#277

Post by jdkoeck »

chongli wrote: post #247
PaulRobinson wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ex-smoker, I'd ask you to consider it as about the most addictive thing going. Think of something you really, really like doing. Something that calms or pleases you every time you do it. Like, playing a game, or reading a book, or eating your favourite food. Now imagine someone telling you that you don't have to do that, it's just a choice. Imagine being deprived of it and being guilt-tripped into it. Sure you…

My father smoked for many years before quitting. I have two roommates that are smokers. The difference between him and them is that he wanted to quit, so he did. They continue to smoke because they do not want to quit. It’s as simple as that.

Right, so the reason there are thousands of books and methods about quitting smoking isn’t because it’s hard, it’s because people don’t really want to. Or maybe they’re stupid? Got it.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#278

Post by jedberg »

I've been taking a pottery/wheel class for a few years. When you first start out on the wheel, you usually end up making a small ashtray looking dish, because it's like a dish with grooves on the side where you messed up.

The teacher always laments how no one smokes anymore and we have to just discard it instead of glazing it and using it as an ashtray!

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#279

Post by MrLeap »

paulpauper wrote: post #76
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #5

The plummeting rates of smoking in the US is one of the rare areas where this country really shines when it comes to social welfare. Even many European states that have what I'd consider much more progressive social welfare systems have smoking rates that are appalling, often 3x or more the US rates.

Smoking risks is one of the few thing in which it cannot be overstated. Unlike other forms of safety-ism.

Smoking tobacco, as far as I know, does not make one spontaneously explode.

To say otherwise, in my view, would be overstating the risks of smoking.

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