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Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

Aww, I'm so sorry that your horrible vice that ruins the air for everyone else, makes you look like a billion years old, and inflates my dry-cleaning bill when I'm around you costs you more money. Really, can't express how sorry I am.

Honestly wish the tax on smoking was 200x what it is now. Fucking disgusting habit that needs to be eradicated.

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A partial list of offenses:

    * Incomplete sentences
    * Patronizing tone and sarcasm
    * Gratuitous language
    * Hyperbole

This isn't reddit. This is Hacker News. We have standards.

Upon reading this list the entire internet feels now like reddit, including user manuals.

Pretty much. That's why many of us are diligent about keeping this place free of the general bullshit of the general population.

The bar is high here and we like it that way.

I see what you're up to.

Incomplete sentences aren't going to give you lung cancer for being around them tho.

People should stop liking what you don't like, right?

No, they are fine to like what they want. Just not in our shared air. (P.S. For comparison, when I bring stink bomb spray and spray it where I'm at, people get really offended.)

Honestly, I have no problem with smoking as long as no non-consenting person has to be subjected to the second hand smoke. That includes both people doing their daily business in the public in general (designated smoking areas don't count as you have to active walk there, I'm more talking about people smoking in front of entrances to businesses). That also includes people smoking in their homes when they have underage children. But if it only involves consenting people, then do what you want. (I'm even for legalizing many drugs with the same disclaimers.)

Right, similarly you should object any time someone uses a motor vehicle in your presence. God forbid someone drives a truck and you're within 10 feet. You didn't consent to breathe in those fumes, they shouldn't have the right to spread them around anywhere, even in designated driving areas like roads -- they are near sidewalks, after all.

Note that we do have limits on what a motor vehicle can output, those limits are being tightened, and the recent company scandal where a certain company lied about those limits should be punished. Smog is a major issue in some cities and should be dealt with and greater emphasis should be put on electric vehicles.

We also have limits on cigarettes emissions, you know?

I'm perfectly ok with the feds tightening emissions controls, and severely cracking down on those 'rolling coal' jackasses.

One is far, far stronger than the other. One is also usually being done in badly ventilated areas.

Yes, one is far stronger than the other -- one is not only polluting the air you are breathing in at the moment but also destroying the environment and leading to global catastrophe and the other is an annoyance when you walk down the street and god forbid a poor person is in your way.

I'll give you the point about smoking indoors, I didn't even consider it because at least in the US I haven't seen a place where that's even allowed anymore in the last, 10 years?

> one is ... destroying the environment and the other is an annoyance

Cars are also much more useful than smoking. (Compare what'd happen if cars were banned with what'd happen if smoking was banned.)

But of course you're right, cars are a problem. At least there are emission limits, and electric cars are being worked on.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get rid of smoking. These are separate problems, they can be worked on in parallel.

The thing I find fascinating is - I have lived long enough to have seen 50% smoking rates, and nobody complained. I don't know if that was something that was suppressed by social convention, or of the massive anti-smoking media campaigns that came later basically created this dissatisfaction.

But the world was in general a lot funkier back then.

If it gives everyone around you cancer, yes.

People should start liking what you like, right?

In a shared space, balance and respect for other people's tolerances is the way forward.

Did you read past the title? Nothing in the article is pro-smoking, it's about how effective the cigarette tax is.

And you have no vices right?

A long time ago, some people felt similarly about alcohol. We all know how that worked out.

Alcohol is a highly addictive drug that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year.

The reason it's not banned is that we can't control the precursors. Alcohol can be made in almost any conditions from pretty much any food. Even prisons have problems with alcohol manufacture on site.

The banning of marijuana, meth, heroin and cocaine has not exactly been a resounding success. It has opened the door to massive violent crime opportunity, cost the taxpayers billions, and led the greatest incarceration rate of any country in the world. There is no way in which it makes sense; the situation only persists because of the strong puritanical streak that makes it politically popular to pretend doubling down on the war on drugs will somehow make the country better.

No, drug bans have not been outstanding successes, but they've gone very well compared to prohibition of alcohol.

It is at least physically possible to control the distribution of methamphetamine and heroin precursors. The same is not true for alcohol. No alcohol ban could ever work, conceptually.

That's a pointless technicality. It's easier to get meth than moonshine.

Believe it or not, I can just buy moonshine off the shelves where I live. I don't (because moonshine), but I could. It's a bit expensive and you can't buy gallon jugs of it, but it's there.

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