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The New Smoking (2021)

conorbroderick.net

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Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#141

Post by DocTomoe »

j7ake wrote: post #112
DerekBickerton wrote: post #16

If you like this article, I would suggest reading these too: I Don’t Want to Be an Internet Person: https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/11/04/i-dont-want-to-be-an... The Internet is Made of Demons: https://www.damagemag.com/2022/04/21/the-internet-is-made-of... When traveling, I carry a dumb phone, specifically a Nokia feature phone that doesn't even connect to The Internet. The only distraction on it is the Tetris app…

How is killing time on Tetris on Nokia any different than Candy crush or browsing hackernews on iPhone? At least with iPhone I can load up hundreds of ebooks to read and choose how I spend my time.

Hm, you could argue that the Tetris app is not designed with casino-like blinking/vibrant colors/success sounds to induce endorphine rushes. Also Tetris is relatively fair and does not have pay-to-win schemes (notice how that unbeatable Candy Crush roadblock level suddenly becomes easy after you have swiped your card again).

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#142

Post by nicbou »

cratermoon wrote: post #13
rhacker wrote: post #2

I mean he's right. At some point if we're just robots playing candy crush or watching tiktok after tiktok - what's the real downside of just matrixing our society. I mean yes there are people that still skateboard or ski or hike, but if the population that finds meaning in activities disappears in the next 100 years, there's no reason to have physical anything. Might as well call it or fight back.

I recently read How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. In it she advocates we "wrest our focus from the attention economy and replant it in the public, physical realm". Chapter 4 in particular covers being outdoors, in physical public spaces.

Just read her blog post. The post in fantastic, but the book was long-winded and pretentious. I couldn't power through it.

https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f5...

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#143

Post by adastra22 »

imiric wrote: post #138
adastra22 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking causes cancer. Not tobacco. Not marijuana. Inhaling smoke causes cancer, pretty much independent of what is being burnt. (Though obviously some substances are even worse still.) For some reason people think it is tobacco that causes lung cancer, and therefore joints are safe/healthy. Ridiculous. It is inhaling all that ash that gives you lung and throat cancer. Vaping avoids the carcinogens of cigarette smoke…

> Ultimately if the air is smokey, it contains particulate matter. That particulate matter is not good for your lungs, no matter what it is. This reads like medieval miasmatic theory. In other news, breathing and living is the #1 cause of death. The quality of the air you breathe is what affects your risk of developing cancer. Burning tobacco releases the most amount of harmful particles, and even then, many people s…

Any smoke causes cancer. Anything which is not burned fully to completion (which is anything burnt outside of an oxygen-rich furnace) contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These aromatic compounds bind to DNA reverse transcriptase during cellular replication, causing a mutation. Accumulation of mutations over time causes cancer. QED.

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#144

Post by 35amxn35 »

adastra22 wrote: post #73
program_whiz wrote: post #57

Not to be pedantic, but smoking is actually the new smoking. Its just now being normalized through weed (which is rationalized as healthy or cool) and vaping (which is seen as less harmful than smoking cigarettes). The sheer number of smoke shops has exploded.

Yeah it really bugs me how inconsiderate weed and vaping smokers can be. I’ve had weed smokers casually walk by my family blowing smoke everywhere without care, like this was the 1950’s. In a sense this is even worse as not only did I not agree to me or my kids breathing in this cancerous cloud of smoke, but it is psychoactive too.

No post body was provided.

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#145

Post by eurasiantiger »

bilegeek wrote: post #129
adastra22 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking causes cancer. Not tobacco. Not marijuana. Inhaling smoke causes cancer, pretty much independent of what is being burnt. (Though obviously some substances are even worse still.) For some reason people think it is tobacco that causes lung cancer, and therefore joints are safe/healthy. Ridiculous. It is inhaling all that ash that gives you lung and throat cancer. Vaping avoids the carcinogens of cigarette smoke…

Smokeless tobacco does cause cancer: [1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas... [2] https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/t... [3] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/smok...

Not all smokeless tobacco does, such as Swedish snus.

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#146

Post by myshpa »

bergenty wrote: post #124
program_whiz wrote: post #57

Not to be pedantic, but smoking is actually the new smoking. Its just now being normalized through weed (which is rationalized as healthy or cool) and vaping (which is seen as less harmful than smoking cigarettes). The sheer number of smoke shops has exploded.

Vaping is significantly less dangerous than smoking, it’s not just some “false” perception. Without added flavors you can argue it is completely harmless and in some ways beneficial (nicotine has several health benefits).

> Vaping is significantly less dangerous than smoking

Agree.

> Without added flavors you can argue it is completely harmless

No, it's not. Filling your lungs with fine particulate matter/grease is stupid. You can still get COPD, some do. That's pretty shitty way to go.

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#147

Post by MarkusWandel »

I've never smoked but I used to date someone who did.

Part of what makes it so addictive is that it's a social activity. With smoking having been marginalized to zones ever further away from buildings - for example, not even on hospital grounds any more, never mind the buildings - the smoker areas tend to be little social hubs. Quit, and you lose that cameraderie. You can get over the nicotine dependency in less than one (unpleasant) week but what is harder to quit is the ritual.

If you don't count the smartphone interaction itself as cameraderie, then the problem with these things is actually the opposite! Instead of marginalized people engaging in real social interaction, you now have social interaction banished e.g. even from restaurant tables as everyone is busy with their little addicto-gadget.

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#148

Post by generated »

visarga wrote: post #100

In the past, if you wanted to smoke, you’d have to take out a cigarette and light it. There was a physical barrier to you smoking, and you were aware of the act of smoking. Nowadays, it’s so much easier to smoke: you just pull out your phone and have a cigarette. The problem is that you don’t realize you’re smoking. You don’t realize the time you’re wasting by looking at your phone. When you’re scrolling through soci…

Fuck this got me.

I thought it was a rather vapid comment but it just slid right past my relevance filter, easily ignored in a stream of people sharing their opinions as a weak form of anecdata.

Until that last footnote. And the dawning realization that this is my opinion of 98%+ of comments and yet I read them anyway.

And even here now as I respond with yet more drivel and unsolicited anecdotal opinion vaguely attempting to contribute to an already obsolete comment thread. I question everything.

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#149

Post by dsfyu404ed »

scarface74 wrote: post #91
hardwaresofton wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I generally agree with all these opinions but… I was talking about cigarettes? Also “vice” in the meaning of a bad habit, not the drug squad.

Same thing, the NYPD killed a man for selling a cigarettes https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eric-garner-dies...

They killed him for daring to thumb his nose at the authority of the state by being a bootlegger. Cigarettes just happen to be what he sold.

At the end of the day this is the kind of random violence that backs up every mundane law.

Re: The New Smoking (2021)

#150

Post by zshrdlu »

visarga wrote: post #100

In the past, if you wanted to smoke, you’d have to take out a cigarette and light it. There was a physical barrier to you smoking, and you were aware of the act of smoking. Nowadays, it’s so much easier to smoke: you just pull out your phone and have a cigarette. The problem is that you don’t realize you’re smoking. You don’t realize the time you’re wasting by looking at your phone. When you’re scrolling through soci…

Nice. Nitpick but the writing sounded off to me. Too much use of the word "social media" where a person would have used "it" or some other language construct.
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