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The Disappearance of the Ashtray

clivethompson.medium.com

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Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#551

Post by wink »

I don't think you can only blame it on less people smoking. I'm pretty sure I only remember a single person's apartment (in my age range) who actually smoked INSIDE. All the other (heavy) smokers, still went to their balcony, even in winter. No one wanted to have the smell inside their apartment/house, even if it was a pack a day.

Ashtrays at home have indeed been a thing of the past - but all the restaurants around here have them on the outside tables, as you're allowed to smoke there - from the first paragraph... that doesn't seem to be the case where the author is living? That part feels weird, it's not like a teenager would never encounter one...

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#552

Post by [deleted] »

MrFantastic wrote: post #487
michaelhoney wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/ .

Hindenberg got a bad rap. It just happened to look scary and was caught on film. 1/3 of the Hindenberg passengers survived the crash. Way better survival rate than plane crashes.

[deleted]

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#553

Post by greedo »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #446
masklinn wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't disagree but prior to ww2's investment into R&D, infrastructure and labor force the economics of the industry were fundamentally different. The 1950s and early 1960s were to airlines what the 1990s were for computing.

Pan American Airlines built out a huge amount of infrastructure before WW2 to fly across the Pacific to Australia. They had fueling stops at Wake Island, Guam, Midway, and of course Hawaii. And they also pioneered routes to Latin America. The power and prestige PanAm had is really remarkable.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#554

Post by GingerMidas »

alex_duf wrote: post #325
MrLeap wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't remember where I read that, but someone had made an interesting observation that stayed with me, and your comment makes me think of it (perhaps you're referring to the same article?) What if instead of slowly dying of cancer, smoking had a tiny tiny chance of making you die by exploding your face? Exact same probability of dying, just very violent and graphic. Chances are barely anyone would smoke. Yet, same…

Not because of how violent and graphic, but because there's a chance the death is immediate. Cancer is always a long, long time away.

It's like saying if you put $100 in your 401k every month, there's a chance (equal to the number of new retirees) you instantly get $2M dollars.

Many more people would understand the immediate gain instead of the 30 year slog.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#555

Post by riceart »

Someone wrote: post #511
MrFantastic wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hindenberg got a bad rap. It just happened to look scary and was caught on film. 1/3 of the Hindenberg passengers survived the crash. Way better survival rate than plane crashes.

It was better. About ⅔ survived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster : “The accident caused 35 fatalities (13 passengers and 22 crewmen) from the 97 people on board (36 passengers and 61 crewmen), and an additional fatality on the ground.” That’s still worse than modern airplanes, though. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/06/15/how-to-survive-a-... : “According to a study by the European Transport Sa…

How frequent are plane crashes compared to hydrogen filled dirigibles?

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#556

Post by PaulRobinson »

aliqot wrote: post #522
PaulRobinson wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you say this to all addicts? There are countless reasons people make bad choices: peer pressure, to calm anxiety, dealing with depression, and yeah, sometimes, abusive parents. But you are refusing them their status of victim of circumstance and saying "well, sucks to be you", and taking the high ground. Good for you, it must be great up there never having made a bad choice. The moment somebody makes a poor choice…

> you are refusing them their status of victim of circumstance smokers are not victims of circumstance.

Yes, they are.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#557

Post by jjfoooo6 »

edgyquant wrote: post #526
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree but prior to ww2's investment into R&D, infrastructure and labor force the economics of the industry were fundamentally different. The 1950s and early 1960s were to airlines what the 1990s were for computing.

I also wonder how much WW2 forcing people into planes helped to kill some of the fear of it.

I doubt flying in planes doing WW2 decreased fear of flying

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#558

Post by wholinator2 »

chaosbolt wrote: post #377
nelblu wrote: post #367

I am so glad smoking is prohibited in public places. I can't stand it all, and my wife is allergic to it. Next I would love to see more restrictions on driving loud noised cars and bikes, every time I see a Harley owner ride by with a loud noise or a truck owner drive by, I can't feel anything but contempt for such lowlife humans who have no regards for other people's and animals' sensitivities.

>I can't feel anything but contempt for such lowlife humans Sounds to me like you could use some therapy, it's not good to have this much hatred inside. It's ok if someone does something that bothers you, some noise or some smoke won't kill you, it's just perspective, objectively it doesn't hurt you in any way, but the reason it does is because you have these strong beliefs against it, so you basically choose to be h…

Severe asthma cases exist, not "allergic" per se, but can cause negative health effects. Also it sounds like they have contempt but I didn't detect hatred, hatred is a very strong and very real emotion but the name calling didn't do it for me. And finally, babies cry and nothing can be done about it. But there are people who choose to alter their vehicles to be extremely loud, who then intentionally Rev their engines at quiet points of the day and night, repeatedly subjecting everyone within a mile radius to literal window shaking noise, every day. Now I want to say, I do _hate_ those people. I view that as equivalent to pinching a baby till it screams and then shoving it in your face. They're making active antisocial choices, with the intent of harm. And in my experience they know how to not get caught.

And then there's the "coal rollers". People who have such contempt for the environment that they specifically and intentionally spend time and money to alter their vehicles so that they can harm other people and publicly display their Negativity. I _might_ hate those people, I certainly don't like them.

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#559

Post by [deleted] »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #45
j_m_b wrote: post #7

It's tough to portray just how ubiquitous smoking was to a modern audience. You would go to a restaurant and the first thing your hostess would ask is "smoking or non"? I remember standing in a checkout line in the 80s as a child and being fascinated with the billowing clouds of smoke an old lady blew. I remember coming home from bars reeking of smoke, even though I didn't. Even teachers had their own lounges that re…

I went to Vegas a couple months ago, and one thing that absolutely blew me away was the fact that, just within the last ~5 odd years since I last visited even the casinos stopped reeking of tobacco . I figured it was a confluence of factors: people smoke less now, people are far more likely to vape than smoke (which, for its ills, definitely doesn't leave a lingering stench like cigarettes), and there was a lot of ta…

[deleted]

Re: The Disappearance of the Ashtray

#560

Post by coopierez »

alex_duf wrote: post #325
MrLeap wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't remember where I read that, but someone had made an interesting observation that stayed with me, and your comment makes me think of it (perhaps you're referring to the same article?) What if instead of slowly dying of cancer, smoking had a tiny tiny chance of making you die by exploding your face? Exact same probability of dying, just very violent and graphic. Chances are barely anyone would smoke. Yet, same…

Funny, I had the exact same thought over Covid death rates during the early pandemic. People would have been a lot less skeptical of the precautions if your head exploded immediately after catching it (assuming you were part of the ~1% that were destined to die from the symptoms eventually).
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