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Comment by dunnevens | Hacker News Reader

Art Bell had the absolute best voice for late night radio. Used to listen to him on my overnight road trips between Salt Lake and Vegas. Just the endless desert under a full moon, and Art's guest is rambling on about interdimensional beings. Could almost believe it for that moment.

One of my favorite things about Art was the tension. Did he believe what his guests and callers are saying? Or is he just humoring them for the show? I never knew the answer. Not sure if I would want to know.

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Used to listen to him on my overnight road trips between Salt Lake and Vegas. Just the endless desert under a full moon, and Art's guest is rambling on about interdimensional beings. Could almost believe it for that moment.

Yeah, there's something about that time of night, being out on the open road. Reality seems a little bit, erm, looser, or something. I think it's just that all you have is you, the radio, blackness, stars, maybe the moon, and possibly a cow or a coyote or something. In those moments, there's less "stuff" to slap you in the face and remind you "Hey asshole, there's no such things as aliens, UFOs, ghosts, zombies, time-traveling Titors, etc." You just stare off into the black, see the millions (or so) of stars you can see, listen to the static-crackling AM radio, and, wait is that light really a star? NO... it's blinking wrong...

Unfortunately his voice came from a lifetime of smoking cigarettes that eventually contributed to his death.

Life contributes to death. Do what you like and don't shame others for doing the same.

Sometimes shame is useful. Cigarettes are gross and unhealthy, not just for the user, but for the people around them. It is a costly habit, and most importantly, often leads to premature death. If anybody I care about smokes, you can bet your ass I'm shaming them. They shouldn't be doing it.

Obesity as currently practiced is 10x worse, shame doesn’t seem effective.

Shaming single mothers or having a baby out of wedlock or shaming someone for being gay are great examples why you shouldn't shame people and why the practice should shamed out of existance.

Yes, shaming should be shamed out of existence!

I'm not going to speak to those particular examples, but shaming someone for a voluntary act, such as committing a crime, is very different from shaming someone for something they are and cannot control, like their race or their gender. Those why the latter are considered "protected classes" for the purpose of anti-discrimination laws.

I'm not sure where the option to make a choice can be found. People go where their will takes them.

If the impulse to commit a crime is strong enough, they'll commit a crime. If some internal voice of reason holds them back, then they'll hold back. But in both instances, their actions were guided be preexisting circumstances, not by any choice they made.

Being a single mother or having relations outside of marriage can be a choice.

Shaming someone for choosing a religion different than their parents or shaming someone because they have picked a job you think lowly because they are not a protected class is not a good enough reason.

That's a very common rubric, but also a very offensive one. The reason we should consider those protected classes (under particular circumstances) is because we have judged discrimination against them in areas of employment and housing to be both irrational and damaging (because limits on employment and housing are damaging.)

It's not because it's morally wrong to punish someone for being bad if they can't help being bad. That's why we allow people to plead not guilty for reason of insanity. People in protected classes aren't bad.

edit: this is the kind of thinking that leads people to desperately look for gay genes - because otherwise, they wouldn't be able to justify laws barring discrimination against gay people.

I relate it to modern child-worship: the belief that babies are born purely. without stain, and are thereby most deserving of life and happiness; but from the first moment of life the decisions that they make cover their souls with filth, gradually making them less deserving of life and happiness. Therefore, by applying this extreme Protestant reasoning to modern science, the things in your genes can't be judged because they were placed there by God. If you die because your sin literally turns your lungs black and diseased, the most important thing to do is condemn your corpse so no babies will follow your example.

As a society we've largely dealt with the latter problem by deeming children less capable of making rational decisions, and therefore holding them to a different, lower level of responsibility for them. This can be observed particularly in how we punish them differently than we do adults for their misdeeds.

Only something like 10-15% of lifelong heavy smokers in the United States develop lung cancer. Something like 20-30% of all lung cancer comes from life-long non-smokers.

Shame doesn't work in the way you think it does. Especially when the target of the shaming knows the reasons why they're being shamed. More likely you're just going to be traumatizing and pushing away your loved ones.

https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm :

> In the United States, cigarette smoking is linked to about 80% to 90% of lung cancer deaths.

> People who smoke cigarettes are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke.

> Cigarette smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in the body. Cigarette smoking causes cancer of the mouth and throat, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, voicebox (larynx), trachea, bronchus, kidney and renal pelvis, urinary bladder, and cervix, and causes acute myeloid leukemia.

And https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal... :

> Smoking causes more deaths each year than... [HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol, automobile injuries, and firearms]

> Smoking causes about 90% (or 9 out of 10) of all lung cancer deaths.

> Smoking causes about 80% (or 8 out of 10) of all deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The second link includes a lovely list of other smoking-related health risks.

That's not a direct response to "Only something like 10-15% of lifelong heavy smokers in the United States develop lung cancer." Instead it's a copy-pasted list of large numbers.

Jet ski riding causes 100% of jet ski accident deaths, but that tells me very little about the safety of riding a jet ski.

Not here to defend smoking, but to defend argument.

It's funny how fast that attitude changes when someone you know dies of something you could have helped prevent. Suddenly you feel like you've got blood on your hands, and that maybe sometimes other people need a nudge or a kick in the right direction.

Guilt is common after a loved one dies. If you only stopped them from eating butter they may have not had a heart attack. If you were there you your grandma might not have slipped.

I don't think we have the control we brainwash ourselves into believing.

For every nag or nudge you create a riff where you are trying to impose your will. Whether it is about smoking, the person they are dating or their career choice your nudges are probably less helpful and more harmful then they appear.

Life is a death sentence

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