Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales • Hacker News Board

Re: Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales

#161

Post by lores » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 12:12 AM UTC

jsheard wrote: post #107

dberst wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a tax so high that it's effectively a ban, and a tax half that size that might be a compromise between black and white ban/no ban

The UK taxed tobacco to high heaven and I don't think it did much to actually curb use. It's subject to the usual 20% VAT, plus an extra 16.5%, plus a flat £6.33 on 20 packs, so well over half of the sale price of tobacco is just tax. https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-shopping/alcohol-tobacco

Tobacco smoking has been on a downward trend since at least the 70s, from 50 to 13%, and taxes have steadily gone up since then in real terms, but I'm surprised to see that the period when the government raised taxes the most is about the only flat part of the curve.

https://ash.org.uk/uploads/Smoking-Statistics-Fact-Sheet.pdf... https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tobacco-bulletin/hi...

Re: Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales

#162

Post by r2_pilot » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 4:13 AM UTC

exe34 wrote: post #126

r2_pilot wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of helium in the solar system (granted, a bit further out) and the sun is producing 595 million tons per second.

yes, and it'll be very easy to capture in commercial quantities, I'm sure.

What, you've never heard of star-lifting? Or just getting it from Saturn? Commercial/economic quantities are all about the necessity versus scarcity, and helium has unique properties that can't be synthesized in sufficient quantities even if you ran all of Earth off fusion of hydrogen into helium.

Re: Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales

#163

Post by exe34 » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 7:26 AM UTC

r2_pilot wrote: post #162

exe34 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, and it'll be very easy to capture in commercial quantities, I'm sure.

What, you've never heard of star-lifting? Or just getting it from Saturn? Commercial/economic quantities are all about the necessity versus scarcity, and helium has unique properties that can't be synthesized in sufficient quantities even if you ran all of Earth off fusion of hydrogen into helium.

> Or just getting it from Saturn?

always love a good laugh in the morning!

I'm as much a fan of sci-fi as anybody, and the last 5 years of space x should make anybody optimistic about the future of space exploration, but strip mining Saturn is a long way away from providing for the needs of MRI machines and other essential modern technology. what will happen first is that the prices will rise and we will stop using it in party balloons, and then it'll be too expensive for the lower 95% of the population for any use at all for decades/centuries - and that's even if we do manage to escape the local gravity well for good. even that's doubtful - space is just unbelievably hostile.

Re: Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales

#164

Post by acdha » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 12:54 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #158

acdha wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a hunting knife with a belt holster. It might be popular but usually “pocket knife” means something like a Swiss Army knife which comfortably fits in a normal sized pocket. (Nothing against Buck Knives, by the way - I have one of the first ones made in the custom knife shop 25 years ago when I developed the web UI for them. It’s just not a daily carry kind of size for most of us.)

I don't think that's true. Where I grew up everyone carried a knife like this and called it a "pocket knife", and the description on wikipedia, various stores, blogs, manufacturers, etc all use the term to refer to this sort of knife. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocketknife Buck also has many knives they specifically call "pocket knife" that have a blade longer than 3 inches: https://www.buckknives.com/collections/…

Good point, although I notice that they seem to top out that category at 3¾ inches so maybe part of what we’re seeing is that standards have been evolving over time to shorten the blades.

Re: Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales

#165

Post by ajmurmann » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

nialv7 wrote: post #116

ajmurmann wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it make more sense to properly tax those negative externalities instead of having some authority just picking one use case as "bad"?

It might work if nicotine wasn't addictive. And because it is, the rational actor hypothesis goes out of the window, and taxing it is just going to hurt poor people who are addicted to nicotine.

This is only banning disposable vapes. The goal doesn't seem to be to cut down on smoking but on waste from disposable vapes.

Re: Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales

#166

Post by ajmurmann » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

changing1999 wrote: post #75

ajmurmann wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it make more sense to properly tax those negative externalities instead of having some authority just picking one use case as "bad"?

How would an additional tax address this? Paying more would hardly reduce usage, and definitely won't incentivize users to dispose of vape pens more responsibly.

It would encourage usage of reusable vapes, but still give people the option of a disposable vape of they for example forgot their reusable vape when traveling.

Simply, we should charge for negative externalities (not only for vapes) and let people decide what's valuable to them.

Re: Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales

#167

Post by ajmurmann » Sat, Oct 26, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

bebrbrhrj wrote: post #80

ajmurmann wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it make more sense to properly tax those negative externalities instead of having some authority just picking one use case as "bad"?

I think so but the practical issues are: Tax is one big pool of money and I doubt the money will be used to fix the issues created. A similar idea, carbon taxes and carbon credits trading seemed politically dead at least in my country even though it is a fantastic idea. Edit: what might work is a 5-10 British pound ransom, released on return of the disposible to a recycling centre. Give the used devices free to a rec…

IMO the point of charging for negative externalities isn't necessarily to fund remediation of the negative externality but to internalize the cost and force the actor to make a decision about value to them and cost based on the real cost.

If batteries are a waste issue they should be more expensive till we as society feel we are adequately compensated for the externality created. We shouldn't pick and choose what use cases are valid for others. Everyone has different circumstances and preferences.

Re: Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales

#168

Post by tstrimple » Wed, Oct 30, 2024, 5:06 AM UTC

DiscourseFan wrote: post #152

tstrimple wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I'm still often baffled by American Exceptionalism. Often people who say stuff like this have zero actual clue about how things are done in other countries. And it's laughable to call out the right to bear arms when just being suspected of having a weapon is enough to justify an execution by the police.

I recall the time the Japanese imprisoned the CEO of Nissan on trumped up charges and he had to smuggle himself out of the country to escape. Of course the US has Gitmo, but in general the justice system is remarkably fair compared to other countries, since its much harder to get a guilty verdict, which is why so many criminal court cases end with plea deals instead.

Good thing we don't have a history of mistreatment of Japanese nationals. We clearly have clean hands in this regard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...