Hypocrisy of non-smokers

[Biochemist]

...(Any docs,physiologists do enlighten on the modus operandi of addiction phenomenon?)

I am a little confused about your position too, Tarak.

 

It is true that both nicotine and alcohol are additvie substances. That is, they have a well defined withdrawal syndrome. It is true that users of both substances both enjoy the use of the drug, and often wish they could quit.

 

I understand calling this ambivalence, but I am confused why we would call it hypocrisy. Hypocrisy usally means that one is acting in a way that is not consistent with actual beliefs. If folks are truly ambivalent, it is hard to characterize this a hypocrisy.

[tarak]

Dear Biochemist and infamous

My hypocrisy is your ambivalence.

 

Anyway if the person is ambivalent,he is unable to take a decision and he is confused due to several reasons.

 

A person leads life on his or her own set of beliefs (not the culture, religion kind of day to day beliefs) sorrounding the awareness of self,(which is variable) -the hypocrisy I mean is the insincerity towards your own awareness and self.

I donot attempt to give a new meaning to hypocrisy right now nor I am going to delve into the helplessness of individuals caught in ambivalance.

[infamous]

Dear Biochemist and infamous

My hypocrisy is your ambivalence.

 

Anyway if the person is ambivalent,he is unable to take a decision and he is confused due to several reasons.

 

A person leads life on his or her own set of beliefs (not the culture, religion kind of day to day beliefs) sorrounding the awareness of self,(which is variable) -the hypocrisy I mean is the insincerity towards your own awareness and self.

I donot attempt to give a new meaning to hypocrisy right now nor I am going to delve into the helplessness of individuals caught in ambivalance.

tarak; I'm not trying to be offensive, if what follows offends you, I apologize beforehand. Frankly it does sound like you are trying to redefine the word, "hypocrisy". As I stated before, I believe most people would define hypocrisy as: trying to justify their actions when condemning others for the same act. If I can be frank with you, the definition of a word is what most people precieve it to mean . You just can't start rewriting the dictionary because you don't like the contemporary definition.

[bartock]

well if u r inhaling the poison of smog do u need to increase the poison by smoking.

[bartock]

we should combat polution no matter where its coming from(even smoking contributes to polution)

[sanctus]

I found a good example why I think SOME, non-smokers are hypocrite. There many non-smokers who get upset that in a train if they want to go to the other end (for the restaurant for example)they have to walk through the smoking waggon. And that is the stage where I think they become hypocrite, because crossin a smoking waggon is negligible compared to a day in a big city.

 

Bartock, I think smoke is negligible in the pollution of our planet

[bartock]

I found a good example why I think SOME, non-smokers are hypocrite. There many non-smokers who get upset that in a train if they want to go to the other end (for the restaurant for example)they have to walk through the smoking waggon. And that is the stage where I think they become hypocrite, because crossin a smoking waggon is negligible compared to a day in a big city.

 

Bartock, I think smoke is negligible in the pollution of our planet

let me get it straight . what u r saying is that it is alright that ppl continue contributing negligible amounts of polution.then i guess it is ok if nuclear plants leak negligible amounts of radiation

[bartock]

guys i.e. infamous,tarak,bioc.

what do u call a person who knows he is doing wrong and that he can stop(he knows the way to do that) but still chooses not to stop. what do you call that person?

[nkt]

let me get it straight . what u r saying is that it is alright that ppl continue contributing negligible amounts of polution.then i guess it is ok if nuclear plants leak negligible amounts of radiation

It should be! Wool, granite, air, in fact, everything, including your food, is radioactive.

 

Paranoia about an increase of 5% over background levels is nothing.

 

Radiation is natural. Where do you think Uranium comes from? It was a rock once. It got concentrated up, so if a small amount then gets back into the environment, so what?

 

Obviously, large amounts are unhealthy and dangerous, but the freaking out people do over tiny amounts is almost funny.

 

As for what you call a person who, etc. - Gary Denke in his hbar=e^2/e0c thread?

 

However, I can see that a lot of non-smokers are hypocrits. They will happily ignore the smoke if they feel it will benefit them to. Only if they can throw their weight around with a sign behind them are some of them truely happy.

The vast majority don't really care, though. If a smoker is polite enough to ask if I mind, then, as long as the smoke isn't in my face, I let them carry on. It shouldn't be a matter for the law.

 

As for banning it in public places - in the UK they are winding up to ban air rifles in Scotland. Not even high powered ones, just the usual 12ft-lb legal ones. This is because the bans on other criminal activity have failed, so tightening the ban makes sense!?! Once the bigger freedoms are gone, the smaller freedoms quickly follow. They are making it more difficult to use a legal air gun in a private place, too. And since the only way for most people under 18 to transport an airgun is on the bus, or walk with it over the shoulder in a bag, etc. it is going to kill that. (But then a ban on under 18's having an airgun is sure to solve things.)

 

Now, back to the point. A public place in the UK is defined as the inside of a car, including the boot if it has a window. Your front garden is normally also defined as a public place, if people can just walk into it. In fact, almost everywhere is a public place.

 

This is because of various gun law rulings.

 

So a ban on anything in a public place is almost a de facto ban on *anything*.

[bartock]

It should be! Wool, granite, air, in fact, everything, including your food, is radioactive.

 

Paranoia about an increase of 5% over background levels is nothing.

 

Radiation is natural. Where do you think Uranium comes from? It was a rock once. It got concentrated up, so if a small amount then gets back into the environment, so what?

 

Obviously, large amounts are unhealthy and dangerous, but the freaking out people do over tiny amounts is almost funny.

what i ment to say was that scientific research has shown that second hand smoke is just as bad as doing the real stuff.which means that smoking is not doing u negligible harm.any thing that exceeds natular levels is considered harmful. .i wonder why ppl would want to cary guns(any kind except water guns).i love water guns a lot of fun where no one gets hurt even by axcident. :cup:

[tarak]

Infamus,

Yheh, i donot want to rewrite dictionary meanings.It was a kind of perception that stemmed up from me when i anlayzed for myself that knowing fully well that this is harmful i felt that its okay to take risk and go on for a long time.It was a perception of a kind of self betryal and insincerity to self.

Still i feel the urge,but it takes lot of mental discipline to control.I agree with you with respect to hypocrisy of that particular context or say all contexts.

[niviene]

Okay smoking is a pleasure and at some point of time we do know that it hurts us.Atleast it reduces our physical efficiency,still we pretend that we are fine and justify to our selves that nothing is going to happen... a smoker is not true to his own self.He/she cheats him/herself and yet pretends that he is fine and nothing is going to happen...

 

I don't think this is true. Infamous said it, too... perhaps there are some smokers who think they're fine, but I wouldn't say all or even most of them. Most people have been around and alert for long enough to know that smoking is "bad" for them. The thing is, so many smokers don't care. When I smoked, I knew it was "bad" for my body, but I figured, so what? I'll die happy, doing what I enjoy. Did that make me a hypocrite? I can't see anywhere in the definition of the word that fits with this. If a person chooses to smoke because he or she enjoys it and chooses to create his or her own definition of what they consider to be "bad" for themselves (i.e. living without doing what makes them happy... missing out on something they enjoy just to be healthy later on...) does this make them a hypocrite? I don't believe it does. I believe they simply have other priorities. I also believe that everyone has the right to die if he or she chooses to - so I certainly believe that he or she has the right to smoke regardless of what society, the government, or any scientist has to say about the harmful effects of the act.

 

On the other hand, however, I hope this person is successful in his or her life, though, and is able to support his or herself later in life if he or she happens to develop cancer due to the habit, and that the expensive treatments aren't taken from public funds. I think this applies to everything though, including extreme obesity, etc. Problems stemming from birth are one thing, but conscious choices leading to a problem that causes so many to pay for them is quite inconsiderate. Just another point of view, anyway. As long as you can fully support your habit, who is anyone else to say you can't?

 

In addition, sanctus, I don't think that it's ok or hypocritical to complain if you are forced to walk through a smoking section of a train to get to the food section. Put the sections on opposite sides of the eating area - because all need to eat - just because you think regular smog is worse than smoking doesn't mean smoking isn't bad to deal with. I don't care about telling someone what to do for some kind of power trip - I just don't want to deal with a migraine (I know many others also get headaches and migraines), I don't want to have to smell it, and I don't want the smell to linger in my clothing and hair.

 

And, for nkt, the ban on public smoking here is much less intrusive, albeit still overboard, in my opinion, in some ways. Here public smoking is any place the public goes - which does not include private residences or cars or boats. This would include anything such as a library, a business, a school... they do allow it as long as you are ... well, the distance varies, I'll use 20 feet (around 6 meters) in this instance... about 6 meters away from the entrance to anyplace the public must enter. This of course doesn't eliminate all odor of the smoke when you go into the building, but it does a good job of eliminating those perpetual clouds that hung over every entrance before. The hard part is that is also eliminated smoking in all of the bars - most people associate drinking with smoking (as I did, before). Any anti-smoking person who would complain of smoke in a bar is crazy, in my opinion. I agree with you that what you say is ludicrous to expect people to comply with it. Here, the only punishment for violating the ban is a small fine - about 150$ - which many bars are now simply blatantly allowing smoking and collecting tips to pay the fines they will receive for violating the ban.

 

I think it's folly to assume and push for such a large change to occur overnight by imposing a ban. It takes time to change on such a large scale, and I can't believe they expect compliance to quickly. Harumph to them, says I.

[bartock]

like the disabled have rights should the ppl suffering(migranes and respratory illness=asthma) from second hand smoke have rights(that allow them to be a productive and efficent ppl)like ban on smoking in public areas.

[Qfwfq]

I'll only say that, here in Italy, there has been a new law for the past few months that finally bans smoking in all closed public places, at work and so on. Most people welcomed it, including many smokers, and not many people have been breaking it. It has been yet another improvement in my daily life, I'm one of those that never worries about the long term hazards but I avoid tobacco smoke because it makes me feel awful.

[bumab]

Q- do you know if it's hurt businesses at all? Most likely it would be bars, or bowling alleys (if ya got those in Italia )

[bartock]

Q- do you know if it's hurt businesses at all? Most likely it would be bars, or bowling alleys (if ya got those in Italia )

how do u calculate ur numbers. what figures r there to support that business or the total GDP goes down by baning smoking in public areas(dont korget it is a poison that we put in our body and we r also poisoning others with our smoking)

[bumab]

So's alcohol. Hell, refined sugar causes worse health problems, due to abuse. I don't smoke, but I usually think private business owners can choose how to run their own place.

 

But, if it doesn't turn out to have any ill effects, I might change my mind...