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Comment by callesgg | Hacker News Reader

> Promoting smoking cessation may be a good way to preserve cognitive health at the population level, irrespective of diabetes and hypertension status, the researchers concluded.

Seams like that is a statement that can not be made solely based on the stated connection. To me the initial thought that occurred when reading was something like:

"yeah well smoking is dangerous. People with more cognitive power are presumably better at reasoning themselves out of smoking; Given the fact that smoking is known to increase the risk of getting cancer."

If that description describes something that is a big factor in determining a persons smoking habit, smoking would not necessarily cause a cognitive decline as implied in the recommendation.

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Cognitive reasoning has nothing to do with addiction. Addicts invent the most convoluted complex reasoning to not quit that are also contrary to facts they are keenly aware of. Mental gymnastics.

You have to smoke the first couple cigarettes to get addicted, though…

Socioeconomic factors and other random circumstances are going to impact exposure & normalization of the behavior.

Thought experiment: Take 1000 13 year olds of equal cognitive capacity and place half in peer groups where some smoke half in peer groups where none smoke. I’m guessing there would end up being more of the first 500 that decide to take up the habit.

There is also a difference between cognitive function and reasoning capacity, the later also strongly influenced by socioeconomic factors.

Yes, but that doesn’t contradict anything that was said.

Can confirm anecdotally on this one. I had accepted the logical reasons to quit a good year or so before I actually got rid of them.

When I did manage to kick them it was after I read the Easy way to quit smoking by Allen Carr which helped with the mindset then admittedly I ruined the data by moving house and starting a work from home job, therefore got rid of all of my cigarette initiating habits in one go.

Are your sure your anecdote confirms this?

The higher cognitive function that leads you to read books about quitting could be exactly the mechanism the GP describes.

If books can help you quit, less bookish people will quit less, all else equal.

From what I remember, Easy Way even tells you to keep smoking when you start the book and to stop reading if you don’t feel ready!

FWIW, I also credit that book with me finally quitting the habit.

It does yeah, I think that was what made my mind open up to the book early on. An intriguing enough nonfiction twist, I had to see where it was going with this.

I was expecting a mix of "here's why it's bad" and "here's the good stuff, and at which milestone dates you'll notice them" maybe.

The stuff I already knew and believed in really strongly.. for 20 minutes until the third 'last' cigarette of the month.

If anyone else is stuck in a holding pattern of quitting it's worth giving it a shot. Promise no affiliation haha, go see if your local bookshop or charity shop has a used copy for 20p (the pages will be a deep yellow, of course)

I read a different Easy Way book of Carr’s (I understand they are all similar) but felt like by the end I’d been scammed or something - he repeatedly tells you the Way works, and trust the process, and then the book … finishes?

Is it really just that the Easy Way is a self-referential thing and the Way is itself to think about the Way a lot and in doing so convince yourself or your subconscious that you’ve reached some sort of solution despite having not? Or was there some set of concrete messages I might just have missed?

Is the act of reading the book the thing itself?

There is definitely an element of self-hypnosis!

Former smoker, and I agree with this.

More likely, people who smoke do function better cognitively with a cigarette in their hand. They are nervous and irritable without it. Their brains probably produce insufficient dopamine when they aren't smoking.

People who are addicted to cocaine perform better at their jobs if provided with it versus those who are in withdrawal

Nicotine has a positive effect on memory. But lower blood oxygen levels and 300+ intentionally added carcinogens to make smoking more addictive probably has considerable adverse effect. People that hate smokers refuse to accept that there is a massive difference between tobacco and what is in cigarettes.

I've never smoked, but recently in my 30s started using nicotine gum 3-5 times per week.

It's amazing for improving focus, I get a lot more work done, remember things very well and am more patient with people.

Doesn't seem addictive in this form either, I can go a week without it and no withdrawal.

Also no negative impact on sleep (unlike caffeine)

Does it taste bad?

N=+1 for you on that one.

I quit smoking about 5 years before I was diagnosed with primarily-inattentive ADHD. Diagnosed with insufficient dopamine (uptake?), haha

There was a lot of burnout between the two, incidentally. At one point I'd decided to cut down on the caffeine too, it's almost like I was trying to burn out in hindsight :)

Indeed. This is a matter of virtue. Being more "adept" can lead to more elaborate rationalizations and evasions of the truth to justify substance abuse or even deny that any abuse is happening.

It's not like inventing most convoluted, complex reasoning to delude yourself on a simple matter is a sign of high cognitive capabilities. Quite the contrary.

An intelligent addict will say: I realize it's terrible but I am losing the battle against the urges every day. Anything more than that smells like low cognitive ability to me.

> Cognitive reasoning has nothing to do with addiction.

Citation needed. As the GP pointed out, we have a correlation between addiction and lower cognitive function based on this study.

No, there's no citation needed because there are plenty of genius addicts and this study alone proves nothing. At the absolute bare minimum this would have to replicate.

A genius addict disproves the broader claim no more than does "it was cold today, therefore global warming is a hoax". The rule can be true yet still have notable exceptions throughout history.

No, you're just intentionally ignoring the word "plenty."

There are "plenty" of cold days as well. Does that disprove global warming?

Not only is "plenty" not an objective quantity, but even an objectively large quantity is irrelevant if it's not a large percentage of the whole. 100k geniuses with addiction problems wouldn't disprove the rule if there are 1b people with addiction problems who are of below average intelligence.

As he should. Plenty is extremely vague. It definitely means more than 1, probably more than 3, but after that.

It's actually "genius" that's the problem. There aren't enough geniuses to affect a trend on their own.

You could swap "plenty" to "every" and it would still have the same problem

> there are plenty of genius addicts.

How many is plenty? And how does that compare to the general population? The claim isn’t that addiction and intelligence are mutually exclusive. Rather, the claim is that intelligence makes addiction less likely.

Almost all that I care about mid-last century anyway. I mean give me a break, Einstein smoked. If you seriously think addiction has anything to do with intelligence then you've never been addicted and know nothing about it.

Here is a study that looks at alcoholics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6851852/

According to the study, alcoholics had a lower baseline IQ before becoming addicted to alcohol. So that does seem to support that lower cognitive function is somehow linked to becoming an addict.

Could that also mean Einstein might have been even smarter had he not smoked

That’s no proof they didn’t suffer cognitive decline. Perhaps Einstein did suffer cognitive decline.

I get what you're saying but best not to say "prove it didn't.."

Better to note that since the study isn't claiming every person who smokes suffer cognitive decline showing a person who is a genius and smokes isn't a counter

Rare is the person who doesn't engage in mental gymnastics, like post-hoc rationalization of sub-perceptual heuristic predictions of what is true, sometimes accompanied by proactive debunking of alternative perspectives.

This is called fundamental attribution error.

People do not have some hidden addict/not-addict bit.

Smart people become addicted to things at a lower rate than not-smart people, and smart people become un-addicted to things at a higher rate than not-smart people.

Man, you clearly have no clue about addictions. Addictions work with your emotions 100x stronger than you can muster your reasoning against it. I'd say willpower is the only defense.

You are basically saying - if I am smart enough, I will reach this tantric nirvana in lotus position and wave away these pesky addictions forever (joking a bit but not that much). Not based in reality, which is more like permanent weakness or crack forms in your persona that you can never mend back to original state, just with tons of continuous effort keep working around it, till your last day. It gets a bit better over time, but it takes literally decades and not that much.

Very smart people struggled with addictions, and failed for their whole lives, even if they knew perfectly well how deep in shit they were. Cigarettes are much worse due to smart marketing of tobacco this lethal addiction was completely normalized by society, and in many places still is, so its extremely easy to access them in one's close circles. That's why roughly 95% of the tobacco addicts never succeeded with stopping.

> Promoting smoking cessation may be a good way to preserve cognitive health at the population level, irrespective of diabetes and hypertension status, the researchers concluded.

Emphasis mine. They don't appear to claim anything definitive. But given this new study, and others that claim causal links with smoking leading to atherosclerosis, etc., it's quite plausible. Yet they don't go too far, and still do the right thing and say may.

> "yeah well smoking is dangerous. People with more cognitive power are presumably better at reasoning themselves out of smoking; Given the fact that smoking is known to increase the risk of getting cancer."

Ignoring how absolutely mindboggingly stupid that statement is and how you expose yourself as a massive, clueless asshole ... the one thing your post achieves otherwise is exposing a lot of other people who are also completely disconnected from themselves and the people around them.

Way to go, asshole! :D

Sorry that you feel bad.

Hope you discover the unconscious parts of your mind that is causing you pain so you can deal with the issue, God luck!

You're just some random, weak wannabe on the internet, sitting on a high horse. I don't feel bad. That's just your fake superiority and disconnection from reality making you believe so.

When you inevitably fall from that undeserved high horse, you will cry like the bitch you are! :D

Oh, btw: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/O_KuXhwqXwQ

You are sad according to my definition of sad (witch in a unified person should lead to one "feeling bad")... A definition with a criteria that is something like this:

"A person who is not sad, is not unjustifiably rude to people."

As you are quick to point out, you might not feel the subjective felling. You telling me that could in a sense be seen as a confirmation that you have big blindspots and that you are therefore not unified.

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