[HN Gopher] Big Tobacco knew radioactive Po210 in cigarettes pos...
___________________________________________________________________
Big Tobacco knew radioactive Po210 in cigarettes posed cancer risk,
kept quiet
Author : hammock
Score : 127 points
Date : 2023-07-29 21:47 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.uclahealth.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.uclahealth.org)
| [deleted]
| jongjong wrote:
| Damn. Makes you wonder what kinds of horrible things big
| companies are doing now which will only be uncovered in the next
| 20 years or so. What makes tobacco companies less ethical than
| say big pharma or big tech companies?
|
| It's a systemic issue. At the core of this issue is the concept
| of a corporation. The real cancer are the legal constructs of
| limited liability and the concept of corporate person-hood.
| Companies are simply not meant to become so large; they are
| physically incapable of handling the kind of liability which they
| will inevitably be exposed to on a global scale. The scale of
| such companies gives them inertia which allows them to transcend
| ethical boundaries; with global exposure, they can always find
| enough people who are unethical enough to undertake the necessary
| cover-ups to keep things going in a way which maximizes short-
| term profits.
|
| Had the tobacco industry been made up of many smaller businesses,
| the information would have gotten out sooner as many small
| tobacco businesses would have voluntarily shuttered their doors
| in response to the research... But with a handful of gigantic
| companies headed up by some of the most ethically challenged
| individuals that all of planet earth could provide, it's not
| surprising that it didn't happen that way.
|
| Capitalism is meant to be composed of small, mostly short-lived
| businesses that are almost ephemeral in nature. It should be easy
| to start a new business just as closing an existing business
| should not be a big deal. Long term inter-generational wealth
| should be difficult but not impossible to preserve; though it
| could be preserved using a deflationary currency as a market-
| neutral store of value; its value would be derived either from
| trust in the institution or in the automatic mechanism which
| administers the currency (e.g. the government or public ledger).
|
| Imagine what we could achieve with today's technology if only we
| had kept the efficient capitalist system which our ancestors had
| designed; a system which proved itself to be efficient during
| hard times of technological and resource scarcity.
|
| Our current system evolved in a post-scarcity environment and
| therefore it is not optimized for resource efficiency. It's
| optimized for centralization of power.
| mentos wrote:
| Kind of like how social media companies know their products are
| detrimental to the youth that consume them?
| veec_cas_tant wrote:
| Maybe I'm way off, but in my mind social media is more like ice
| cream or fast food companies knowing their product is
| unhealthy.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Your way off. Haven't seen ice cream and fast food be
| responsible for anywhere near as much suicide and detrimental
| mental health as social media. Folks generally use ice cream
| to bring you out of that mood not drive it home.
| version_five wrote:
| I think social media is worse for society than tobacco.
| Tobacco shortens peoples lives, social media is destroying
| society. We'd ultimately be better living harmoniously but
| only until seventy than in civil war and mass upheaval.
| casey2 wrote:
| Number of civil wars and mass upheaval in the US post
| social media: 0
|
| Number of civil wars and mass upheaval in the US pre-
| social media: 1
|
| I'll take social media and quit cigarettes.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Lol if you take the number of annual gun deaths in the US
| each year, you arguably are still in a civil war. 40000+
| of your own killed each year just from guns alone. You
| kill more of yourselves each year than was lost in the
| entire gulf War of 1990 to 91.
| tap-snap-or-nap wrote:
| Should have landmark consequences but cashed up lobbies run the
| show.
| User23 wrote:
| For what it's worth this information was publicly available on
| the Internet in the mid '90s if not earlier.
| gtvwill wrote:
| What's that you say? We need retrospective criminal charges for
| this. Hell yes we do! Drag those company boards out of retirement
| and slap em in jail and size their assets.
|
| Unlikely to happen but I can dream.
| iTradeWarez wrote:
| Unsurprising and there will be no significant consequences.
| stormcode wrote:
| It's a little surprising to me that no company has come out with
| a 'healthier cigarette'. They could claim to do the acid washing
| and all the things mentioned in the article in their advertising.
| Probably without actually saying their cigarettes are healthier
| but instead focusing on what other companies don't do (the acid
| wash) and the cancer causing carcinogens their competition's
| cigarettes contain that their own do not.
|
| That would hook people who enjoy smoking but also enjoy not
| dying. Even if they are just deluding themselves. It would at
| least get me (former smoker) curious.
|
| I've also always wondered if Big Tobbaco was working to cure
| cancer. It would make business sense. If we cured the types of
| cancer that smoking causes... A lot more people would probably
| smoke. (Obviously there are other issues like emphasima).
| [deleted]
| jiggawatts wrote:
| That's essentially vaping: a safer form of consuming nicotine
| without the smoke or other coincidental pollutants.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Vaping is in no way quantitively safer than smoking tobacco.
| The amount of heavy metals you get in a cigarettes is just
| incredible. Plus you get more nicotine, which makes you more
| addicted.
| version_five wrote:
| I think there's lots of regulatory and liability reasons why
| it's not feasible. Like they're grandfathered in to selling
| what they do, and nobody wants to entertain ideas of a safer
| thing, only prohibition.
|
| Look at what happened with Juul. Maybe it's changed now, but
| they had a safer alternative and got shut down.
|
| Also as a bit of trivia, iirc from the book "Barbarians at the
| gate", RJ Reynolds in the 80s was working on a safer cigarette
| under Ross Johnson that heated the tobacco instead of burning
| it. Once they got LBO'd and saddled up with debt, that got
| canned.
| amelius wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123402/
|
| > In recent years, tobacco companies have been investing in or
| acquiring pharmaceutical companies, which produce medications
| for a myriad of diseases, including tobacco-induced conditions
| and diseases, and emergency medicine.
| stormcode wrote:
| Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| > It's a little surprising to me that no company has come out
| with a 'healthier cigarette'
|
| Isn't that a vape?
| stormcode wrote:
| In a way, yes. I vape instead of smoking. But it isn't the
| same. It's a different way to get nicotine, like dipping. And
| vaping was, AFAIK, more of a grass roots thing than a Big
| Tobbaco thing, at least at first. It felt like Big Tobbaco
| was caught kinda unawares when vaping became very popular and
| ended up buying a bunch of vape companies.
| hammock wrote:
| >no company has come out with a 'healthier cigarette'
|
| It's a tough sell, especially since smoke is now banned pretty
| much everywhere indoors and outdoors.
|
| There is no shortage of "healthier nicotine devices" though:
| gum, vapes, Zyn, etc.
| joker_minmax wrote:
| American Spirit advertises themselves as tobacco without extra
| nicotine or other additives added. Not the same thing, but
| they're...trying.
|
| And no, they're probably not trying to cure cancer in the
| slightest. My grandpa was studying in the 1960s and 1970s, and
| big tobacco tried to fight the laboratory he worked for. The
| important thing he taught me before he died, from his research,
| was that nicotine itself interferes with your blood platelets.
| It's unhealthy beyond the particulates and fumes that we think
| of as cancerous, because nicotine is fundamentally bad for the
| blood. That means vaping, dip, everything affects your
| cardiovascular system.
| cbracketdash wrote:
| Given the nature of the tobacco business (to get people addicted
| on a pleasure-inducing drug), it's not surprising to see them
| ignore health risks !
| anon7331 wrote:
| Honestly, who cares? It's not like people had no idea smoking
| caused cancer to begin with. They certainly don't care, so why
| should we?
| [deleted]
| vondur wrote:
| There are big warnings on cigarette packaging that explicitly
| warns you that they cause cancer, reproductive harm and
| emphysema. Adding a warning about radioactivity probably won't
| make a difference.
| kingstoned wrote:
| "I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a
| penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's
| fantastic brand loyalty."
|
| - Warren Buffett
| ajkjk wrote:
| Yeah as a business anyone can see it's good. Yet a net negative
| for society. The perfect argument for regulation.
| sebmellen wrote:
| The deification of Buffet is strange to see. A lot of the
| businesses he invests in are just not net positives for society
| - cigarettes, Dairy Queen, Coca-Cola, etc.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| ice cream isn't a net positive for society? :(
| objektif wrote:
| Not really. Coke has a lot of caffeine which makes it a lot
| more addictive.
| myshpa wrote:
| And salt to make you consume more, and acids to destroy
| your teeth, and sugar for health problems or artificial
| sweeteners to damage your dna, and microplastics ...
| varjag wrote:
| Coke has caffeine content matching that of tea.
| [deleted]
| myshpa wrote:
| Not when it's made from dairy, and while animal agriculture
| is one of the most environmentaly damaging industries on
| Earth, worsening 5 of 7 symptoms of an ecological
| overshoot.
|
| Make it from plants and it's another story, but until then
| ...
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I wouldn't let randos on the internet moralize your diet
| though.
|
| There are lots of sad people out there that will criticize
| people for all sorts of things.
|
| If ice cream brings you happiness, eat ice cream :)
| npteljes wrote:
| People worship all kinds of characters, not just the morally
| good ones. Morality itself is debatable, and then many just
| like powerful people who seem to be winning at life, no
| matter the cost.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Morality is not debatable. Only immoral people say that
| morality is debatable.
| slashdev wrote:
| Morality is not universal. Different people have
| different values and this different morals. There are
| some things most would agree on (murder=bad) but others
| that are up for debate.
|
| If aliens exist, their values and morals would likely be
| very alien to us.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| If you find the universal truth, you'll find the
| universal morality. Just because people don't share a
| superficial morality does not mean that there is not a
| deeper universal one.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| By some narrow definitions of winning.
|
| At least scouting taught me to leave a place better than I
| found it. (Not that I always succeed, but it's worth trying
| to keep doing better.)
| sccfsfrfggfw wrote:
| He doesn't invest in cigarettes.
|
| He did say something stupid about them years ago,
| particularly when taken out of context. If you think DQ and
| Coca Cola are bad for society I can see that, but you should
| also be able to see that plenty of people disagree with your
| view.
| objektif wrote:
| What is there to disagree about Coke being bad for people.
| You may like the taste or not that is debatable.
| myshpa wrote:
| Coca Cola is one of the main plastic polluters of our
| oceans.
|
| Thanks to them our oceans look like this:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1449
| d...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/07/coca-
| col...
|
| Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle named top plastic polluters for
| third year in a row
|
| Companies accused of "zero progress" on reducing plastic
| waste, with Coca-Cola ranked No 1 for most littered
| products
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/11/coca-
| cola-m...
|
| Coca-Cola most common littered brand on UK beaches, says
| study
| varjag wrote:
| Coca Cola is the best when it comes to drinks, so
| naturally it's pollution footprint among the biggest.
| Eliminating Coca Cola tomorrow would just mean shittier
| soda for humanity, not less pollution.
| cinntaile wrote:
| * * *
| [deleted]
| CelticBard wrote:
| Since people worship money, they deify Buffet. Does that make
| sense to you?
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I mostly see claims that he is a smart investor, rarely that
| he is any kind of moral paragon.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Crazy and awesome that this is on top of HN right now.[0] I did a
| double take.
|
| This is a sensitive issue. If you were in charge of public
| health, would you focus on making cigarettes "safer" or on
| smoking cessation?
|
| I would argue both, but I can see the conflict from a health
| standpoint.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36895991
| ddingus wrote:
| Go for safer, put vaping at the top of the harm reduction list.
| I smoked for a long time. A good vape got me off the real
| tobacco. Nothing else even came close.
|
| The difference is dramatic! Healing happened and I am in great
| shape today. Hard to tell anything now.
|
| Regulate it so people can find safe vapes.
|
| And no blame and shame. Everyone knows we sell death sticks to
| people for profit. Vapes are tame by comparison and offer many
| possibilities beyond nicotine too.
| SavageBeast wrote:
| Here in Austin TX, Im told a pack of smokes at the local
| downtown corner mart (Royal Blue - well known for higher than
| necessary pricing) is nearing $20! Thats $1 per cigarette.
| Seems to me simple economics is coming around to address this
| problem. "Go ahead and keep smoking - smoke as much as you can
| afford!"
|
| For the non-familiar its not uncommon to go through a pack per
| day between the ones you personally smoke and the ubiquitous
| people around too cheap to buy their own pack but happy to bum
| one or more of yours. So lets just say $20 x 6 days a week for
| $120/week. Thats about $480/month to continue being an active
| smoker. Take a years worth of that spending and you got
| yourself a pretty nice vacation.
| hammock wrote:
| >If you were in charge of public health, would you focus on
| making cigarettes "safer" or on smoking cessation?
|
| That question was answered years ago when smoke was banned in
| pretty much every indoor and outdoor space across America.
|
| Would take a pretty big effort to reverse that now. Not saying
| it couldn't be done, though
| consumer451 wrote:
| We humans are such binary thinkers, myself included.
|
| If we could somehow silently reduce Polonium-210 in tobacco
| while also lowering smoking in general, that would be ideal.
|
| Japan did it. [0] Why can't the rest of the world?
|
| Smoking is huge in Central and Eastern Europe still. Sadly, I
| smoke sometimes out here. Wish I could find a brand with
| lower radioactivity for those times.
|
| People have the gear to test for this. A brand comparison
| would make for a great citizen science Patreon funded video.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36905717
| amluto wrote:
| > insoluble alpha particles bind with resins in the cigarette
| smoke and get stuck and accumulate at the bronchial bifurcations
| of the lungs
|
| Maybe, when pigs fly, journalists will be able to understand the
| difference between radiation and radioactivity.
| sneak wrote:
| Reminder: cigarettes kill 7x as many people in the US every hour,
| day, week, and month as the "opiate epidemic" in the USA.
|
| One is an "epidemic" and "public health crisis" and access is
| locked behind a prescription. One is available to anyone 18 or
| older on each streetcorner.
| mcmoor wrote:
| I knew that my country really won't be prepared with anymore
| relaxation on narcotics because we smoke cigarettes much more
| than almost every other country in the world despite long long
| campaign on health issues. Heck, Big Tobacco manages to capture
| religious sector! That's how powerful legalized capitalized
| drugs are.
| yadaeno wrote:
| Why do people on this forum always say "my country". Why not
| just say the name of the country?
|
| This information is not useful to anyone without that
| context.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Smokers are functional. Junkies... well, they're junkies. One
| is a useful member of society, the other is a liability at the
| best of times.
|
| And smokers die old. Quickly too... don't linger on with
| chronic disease like other old people. Helps keep Medicare
| solvent.
| simmerup wrote:
| So we should give all the cigarette smokers opiates right?
| Reduce the mortality rate drastically that way.
| angelgonzales wrote:
| That may be true but the people who broke into my car twice
| didn't do it because they were addicted to nicotine - they did
| it because they were addicted to opiates.
| krisoft wrote:
| Hmm. But is that the difference between opiate and nicotine
| addiction? Or the difference between the restrictions we
| placed on them?
|
| In other words if we would treat tobaco the way we treat the
| hard drugs, would people addicted to it perform crimes to get
| their fix on the surely much more expensive black market?
|
| I truly don't know the answer.
| rcme wrote:
| What's the average age of death though?
| serf wrote:
| i'm not interested in defending tobacco/cigarettes, but
| comparisons like this beg the question : do you see a
| difference between an addiction that leads to eventual chronic
| health issues/injury/death sometimes many many decades after
| first-onset versus an addiction that will many times kill even
| first-time users, and rarely allows for habits that last many
| decades?
|
| if you want to compare the health crises, then divide the
| results by time to create an 'impact' score.
|
| _That 's_ why we're focusing on opiates collectively.
| version_five wrote:
| This is a pretty poor equivalence, I don't think I need to
| detail all the reasons, suffice to say a life shortened by
| smoking is not the same as one destroyed by opiates, either in
| years lost or in quality of life. Smoking is a poor long term
| health choice and should be discouraged, it's nothing like
| what's happening with opiates.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Ex-tabber here, 5.5 years clean, with some remaining ...
| issues.
|
| It is bloody hard to give up, really hard but not impossible.
| If you want to give up then I do recommend that you prepare
| yourself mentally. I ended up coming up with a couple of
| "downside mantras" that I would repeat to myself, whenever
| thoughts of smoking happened.
|
| I initially thought I would use a vape but realized very
| quickly that would not work for me. If nicotine is the (only)
| addictive substance then patches, gum, vapes etc would just
| work. The habit thing is relatively easy to crack but there
| must be other addictive components to smoking, including
| sensation (you need to be a smoker to understand that one).
| Also I didn't want to substitute one thing for another, so
| abstention was the way to go for me. Some may find help with
| gum and patches - gum is probably the best substitute, being
| "active" (and might even improve mouth hygiene).
|
| I stopped mid afternoon on a Friday and had a lie in on
| Saturday. That got me to around 18 hours. I made it to 24
| hours. Then I managed two days, then four, then a week (a
| landmark one day less than the next double - every little
| helps). Then two weeks. Visited the kids and bummed a drag on a
| fag and hated it.
|
| At around a week my sense of taste and smell re-arrived with a
| major jolt! I can remember smelling people entering the room
| and other mad things. It calmed down to normal about week three
| and I now have a sense of smell that accords with other non
| smokers.
|
| In the end, if you want to give up, then get cracking sooner
| rather than later and develop strategies but do not try to rely
| on things like vapes and gum to do it for you. You have to
| quite literally give yourself a massive mental kicking too.
|
| For me I focused on two aspects I hated about smoking and I
| would mentally repeat this to myself whenever I thought of it:
|
| "I don't want to smell and I don't want to die"
|
| Even with my denuded sense of smell I could tell I reeked and
| the second one is pretty obvious. When I did that the craving
| or thought would be quashed for a while. I did have dreams
| where I smoked and sometimes woke up convinced I had been
| smoking. You do have to wrestle with yourself somewhat and
| decide to win!
|
| I continued: ... then a month. Now I have saved PS10.50 x 30 =
| PS309 (I thought I smoked 20 a day but I smoked more - self
| delusion, probably more like 25-30). Cool.
|
| ... two months, four months (quarter of a year). Six months.
| Now I have realistically saved around PS2000, have a functional
| sense of taste and smell and I no longer cough all the time.
|
| ... one year. Fuck me, how the hell did I manage that?
|
| ... pandemic etc
|
| ... 29 July 2023 - rarely think about smoking until an article
| on HD hoves into view.
| nvllsvm wrote:
| What are the age ranges of people dying from cigarettes vs.
| opiate abuse?
| patmcc wrote:
| Smoking cuts your life expectancy by something like ~10 years.
| Most of those smoking deaths are people who've already smoked
| 30+ years; there's not a lot we can do to prevent those deaths
| now, even if they all stopped smoking tomorrow. They'd still
| get cancer and everything else at higher rates. We've also done
| a pretty good job at lower smoking rates, especially among
| young people. Sure, we can ban or restrict tobacco more (maybe
| we should) but the "public health crisis" is mostly done.
|
| Opiate addiction cuts life expectancy by ~35 years. And getting
| them onto safer drugs would save lives very immediately.
| There's stuff that could be done, and everyone knows it, and
| it's not happening. That's the public health crisis.
|
| edit: and, yes, also, opiates are also more socially
| destructive, due largely to the criminality.
| martinald wrote:
| This isn't really true. Most of the death from smoking comes
| from other lung & heart problems, not cancer.
|
| As such even if you smoke for many decades and quit your risk
| decreases dramatically pretty quickly, even within days.
| hammock wrote:
| 21*
| [deleted]
| martinald wrote:
| While I'm not suggesting tobacco is fine or anything; they
| really aren't comparable. Opiate addiction is going to
| completely take any quality of life away from you (tbh
| regardless of legality, people that were on prescription
| opiates still had horrendous disability and mental illness
| caused by the constant abuse of them, though obviously having
| to spend hundreds of dollars a day on an illegal supply adds a
| whole new dimension of horror).
|
| Most people who smoke tobacco don't experience any significant
| quality of life issues until many decades in when the COPD and
| serious illness starts. Obviously horrible - but I would say
| you'd lose more than 7x more quality of life (disability
| adjusted years?) being an opiate addict over being a smoker.
| csours wrote:
| If you're wondering why this isn't a big deal in food - tobacco
| leaves have a huge surface area and generally are NOT washed
| before being dried. Nearly all food IS washed; but this is a good
| reminder that we live on a real planet, not a model ecosystem,
| you're eating trace amounts of all kinds of stuff.
| hammock wrote:
| The sticky stuff on the tobacco leaves (where most of the Po210
| is) is important to the product.
|
| Also worth clarifying that the tobacco plant is radiophilic,
| meaning it proactively takes up radioactive elements into the
| body of the plant and tends to grow better in the presence of
| radioactivity.
|
| It's for this reason that Big Tobacco also quietly seeks out
| radioactive fertilizers
| EA-3167 wrote:
| They're also grown with high phosphate fertilizers which
| produce a lot of decay products ending up in Po-210. THEN they
| aren't washed, and THEN they're dried under gas heaters which
| promote the formation of Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines, which
| are incredibly carcinogenic.
|
| One of the many reasons why, even though smoking anything is
| not great for your health, smoking tobacco is particularly
| harmful.
| sarchertech wrote:
| I don't know if many other leaves that will give you mouth
| cancer from chewing them either.
| h2odragon wrote:
| depends on what you mean by "washed". rinsed by rain sometime
| before harvest; at the very least.
|
| I rinsed my tobacco leaves after cutting / before drying, but I
| dunno how common that is in industrial farming. I've just grown
| a few plants as a hobbyist interest, advised by someone who
| helped grow tobacco 50yr ago, specifically for "plug" chewing
| tobacco. That's a bit different than the bulk of production
| even then.
|
| Anyways my leaves were covered with a fuzz of (dead) gnats that
| _needed_ washing off. My advisor says thats normal in moisture
| like mine.
|
| "Washed" = soaped and waxed and repainted like commercial
| vegetables; then no. It all goes in a big grinder anyway.
| User23 wrote:
| Gotta any resources for garden tobacco you'd be willing to
| share please? It's something I'm thinking about trying next
| spring.
| eftychis wrote:
| Maybe, say maybe let us get forward some legislation, adding
| criminal liability to the executives ignoring such things,
| explicitly.
|
| Because if Purdue taught anything to the U.S. is that their
| voters do not care. We should prove them wrong I suggest.
| (Related to the events.)
|
| If you think your vote doesn't count: congratulations, the
| entities you complain about convinced you wrong, and are doing
| their job. Demonstrate, create groups and demand things from your
| representative, pick someone from the group you have to run
| against your representative. There is no democracy otherwise.
| Time we start caring.
|
| These might be called rights on each constitution, but that is a
| misnomer: they are jobs each citizen needs to do. Sorry, but that
| is the truth in the end.
|
| Disclaimer: Above message is for the residents of every
| democratic country.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Prison for the execs, fines for the shareholders.
| slashdev wrote:
| People care to such a small extent that most don't even bother
| to vote. Good luck running a healthy democracy like that.
|
| The reality is, most people are very focused on their own
| problems. Complaining is free, but doing something about it is
| not.
| myshpa wrote:
| Let's not pretend that in the end money doesn't dictate rules
| regardless of who's momentarily in the office.
|
| The laws and regulations already in place are there for a
| reason. Not something that could be easily changed with a new
| administration.
|
| The system is made by generations to persist, whatever
| happens.
| nwiswell wrote:
| > People care to such a small extent that most don't even
| bother to vote.
|
| That isn't supported by the facts:
|
| > Approximately 240 million people were eligible to vote in
| the 2020 presidential election and roughly 66.1% of them
| submitted ballots, totaling about 158 million.
|
| In any case, it's true that the US has lower levels of voter
| turnout than other Western democracies, but it's unclear how
| to partition the reasons (less engagement/less caring? less
| notion of civil duty? less ability to get to the polls,
| including unfriendly work laws and voter suppression?)
|
| The bottom line is that "most" eligible voters in the US DO
| care about _something_... but I 'd suggest that the problem
| is that people care way too much about specific things that
| don't matter very much. If all the calories go into the hot
| button issues, then everything else is starved of oxygen. Our
| problem is perhaps one of too much _emotional_ engagement.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Because if Purdue taught anything to the U.S. is that their
| voters do not care.
|
| Voters don't care because news orgs don't care (in a meaningful
| way). Lobbyists writing law isn't as sexy to editors as
| sportsball, celebs or missing pretty white girls.
| myshpa wrote:
| News don't care because news are owned by businessmen. We
| don't have (almost any) independent news anymore.
| arsome wrote:
| Who the hell has time or mental capacity to do any of that when
| you're just trying to scrape by or make it to the end of the
| day though?
| eftychis wrote:
| The rich: that is why (one of the whys) their votes matter.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| The answer actually quite simple.
|
| Stop using things made mega corporations. It's probably
| include many of the companies you're currently working for.
|
| Note I said that it was simple, not easy.
| eftychis wrote:
| Agreed. Of course it is not easy. It is a job. But it is
| worth it.
| CelticBard wrote:
| Do you have any tips for us plebs?
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I would look into Buddhism in Daoism since they talk a
| lot about attachment and desire, where it comes from, and
| how to overcome it.
|
| But the reversal of consunerism has to be important
| enough to you to overcome the pleasurable sensation you
| get from using these products.
| tru3_power wrote:
| Or where to even start? What are you going to do? Write a
| letter? Protest? What does that even get you. Seems big $ is
| all that works.
| ajkjk wrote:
| 1a. Plenty of people, especially on this website, are not
| just scraping by.
|
| 1b. Some are of course. But lots of people are scraping by
| because they're in a lifestyle prison of their own making,
| and could easily have complete financial security by
| consuming less. For them it's an excuse, not an explanation.
|
| 2. A lifestyle that has you "making it to the end of the day"
| is an unhealthy lifestyle, and, yes, you've got to do work on
| yourself --- take charge of your free time, leave the bad
| job, leave the bad relationship, strike out alone, etc ---
| before you can work on making the world better. So there are
| some dependencies before you're gonna do anything important,
| but that doesn't mean you can't be on the path.
| wfhBrian wrote:
| Re 1a. This is why I'm constantly discouraged by the lack
| of useful political discourse here on HN. If a well-payed
| anf well-educated group can't manage it, then who will?
| tester756 wrote:
| Smoking is sad thing
|
| It generates so many negative things for barely 1 or two positive
|
| and yet people argue for it in the name of some "freedom"
|
| How does destroying your and people's around health, getting an
| addiction, paying bonus $$ to the govt as a additional tax and
| stinking sound like a "freedom"
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freedom
|
| Freedom doesn't mean making good decisions. It means having the
| liberty to make a decision, even if it's not in your own best
| interest.
|
| Do you have a right to destroy your own health? Do you have a
| right to get yourself addicted to a substance? Do you have a
| right to smell bad? Does the government have a right to exact a
| tax to disincentivize bad decisions? Do you have a right to
| contaminate the air in personal spaces like your own home? Do
| you have the right to contaminate the air in public spaces?
|
| Do you have a right to tell someone else they aren't allowed to
| make any number of those decisions?
|
| There's the other side of the transaction as well. Do you have
| a right to grow something that's bad for your health? Do you
| have the right to smoke it? Do you have the right to share it?
| Do you have the right to sell it?
|
| In this case, do you have the right to lie to the person you're
| selling it to about whether it's good/bad for their health? How
| does that change if you didn't know it was a lie? How does it
| change if you did? How does it change if you didn't know, but
| you could have known if you'd sought out the information?
| CelticBard wrote:
| Look I agree with everything you said, but freedom means being
| free to make "bad" decisions.
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