OTTAWA — It's illegal for kids under 18 to buy tobacco products in Canada and there's a movement afoot to make sure today's youth are never allowed to light up a cigarette — even after they come of age.
This has nothing to do with health. We could cure death and everyone would still think smoking is the deadliest thing ever. I realized this 20 years ago while reading a book on nano technology that posited that we could cure death someday with it.
And I thought “That’d be great. Then I can smoke and not worry.” But then immediately I thought, “That can’t be right!” And I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how smoking would be bad for me in a scenario where it’s impossible for it to be bad for me. When I present this puzzle to others, they do the same thing.
This question can be rephrased like this: how can shooting myself in the head be bad for me in a world where shooting myself in the head is impossible to be bad for me? We could cure death and people will still say shooting yourself in the head is the deadliest thing ever.
So therefore, trying to prevent people shooting themselves in the head is not about health.
If nothing can kill you (even shooting yourself), then can anything (including shooting yourself) be dangerous?
I present this puzzle to others, they do the same thing.
Think of it this way, if we had death curing nanobots, does this mean you can survive a nuclear explosion? Will you become immortal?
The nanobots the book was talking about are nanobots that stop the tendency for the body to decay as we age. They are not meant to make us immortal.
Think of them like very advanced prosthetics.
Having the ability for prosthetic arms and legs does not mean that arms and legs (both natural and prosthetics) is impossible to be chopped off. Having heart pacers does not mean that poor diet and low exercise is impossible to cause heart disease.
People with poor health need more medical intervention and earlier than people with good health. The existence of inventions does not change risk factors.
We have a real life example. Oxygen is a very reactive molecule, it is unstable in large amounts and corrodes everything else, yet we need it to survive. Something that is bad for other things is required by us. The reverse is also true. CO2 is harmful for us but good for plants.
Hope that actually clears up your thought process and helps you stop believing in none sense.
I’m not believing in nonsense. When they cure death and we’re in our 200s, I’ll be out smoking cigars, enjoying hot sex orgies, and playing Counter Strike for real while you’ll be at home worrying about your health and freaking out that second hand smoke will kill you at the age of 915,278 instead of the average of 995,562.
Because when you have a scenario where if you get cancer all you do is take a pill full of nanobots and you’re cured, it’s working kind of hard to find a problem with that. Admit it. It feels icky and wrong to say “It’s okay to smoke”. There’s a part of you that feels guilty for writing what you just wrote. What if a child reads that and starts smoking because of what you said?
Admit it. It feels icky and wrong to say “It’s okay to shoot yourself in the head”. There’s a part of you that feels guilty for writing what you just wrote. What if a child reads that and starts shooting themselves in the head because of what you said?
“It’s okay to eat rotten food that has mold growth on”
“It’s okay to stop breathing air”
“It’s okay to tan using a UVC lamp”
It’s okay to jump off a skyscraper"
The only reason why you consider one question (smoking) to be a moral issue instead of all questions is because you want to smoke. You’re not saying jumping off skyscrapers is a moral issue, let along the infinite other questions not listed here.
Black market suffer too much after loosing hand on canabis?
Which prohibition has ever been good for health?
This has nothing to do with health. We could cure death and everyone would still think smoking is the deadliest thing ever. I realized this 20 years ago while reading a book on nano technology that posited that we could cure death someday with it.
And I thought “That’d be great. Then I can smoke and not worry.” But then immediately I thought, “That can’t be right!” And I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how smoking would be bad for me in a scenario where it’s impossible for it to be bad for me. When I present this puzzle to others, they do the same thing.
This question can be rephrased like this: how can shooting myself in the head be bad for me in a world where shooting myself in the head is impossible to be bad for me? We could cure death and people will still say shooting yourself in the head is the deadliest thing ever.
So therefore, trying to prevent people shooting themselves in the head is not about health.
If nothing can kill you (even shooting yourself), then can anything (including shooting yourself) be dangerous?
I present this puzzle to others, they do the same thing.
Think of it this way, if we had death curing nanobots, does this mean you can survive a nuclear explosion? Will you become immortal?
The nanobots the book was talking about are nanobots that stop the tendency for the body to decay as we age. They are not meant to make us immortal.
Think of them like very advanced prosthetics.
Having the ability for prosthetic arms and legs does not mean that arms and legs (both natural and prosthetics) is impossible to be chopped off. Having heart pacers does not mean that poor diet and low exercise is impossible to cause heart disease.
People with poor health need more medical intervention and earlier than people with good health. The existence of inventions does not change risk factors.
We have a real life example. Oxygen is a very reactive molecule, it is unstable in large amounts and corrodes everything else, yet we need it to survive. Something that is bad for other things is required by us. The reverse is also true. CO2 is harmful for us but good for plants.
Hope that actually clears up your thought process and helps you stop believing in none sense.
I’m not believing in nonsense. When they cure death and we’re in our 200s, I’ll be out smoking cigars, enjoying hot sex orgies, and playing Counter Strike for real while you’ll be at home worrying about your health and freaking out that second hand smoke will kill you at the age of 915,278 instead of the average of 995,562.
I was being purposely absurd about shooting people in the face to prove a point.
But since you would actually play counterstrike IRL if these nanobots were invented, I’d gladly take the opposing side to your team.
When (not if) I win, I’ll emphatically take over those sex parties, but leave the cigars and smoke (not really my thing).
You really think technology will make you immortal. I bet my mortal life that you didn’t take a STEM degree. You really are a delusional joke.
It’s a hypothetical and it’s making you hopping mad, jumping all around it. It’s a moral issue.
Even without die of it, I would still prefer to avoid cancer. And smoking clearly rise the risk to have one.
Also, a cure we may have someday, is just a call to found research, not a real promise. Don’t build anything on such.
Sure, but if we can’t imagine a scenario where it’s okay to smoke, then it’s clearly a moral issue and nothing else.
Cancer is an health issue. Without health consequences at all, smoking would not be a problem.
I don’t see how moral could be related to smoking…
Because when you have a scenario where if you get cancer all you do is take a pill full of nanobots and you’re cured, it’s working kind of hard to find a problem with that. Admit it. It feels icky and wrong to say “It’s okay to smoke”. There’s a part of you that feels guilty for writing what you just wrote. What if a child reads that and starts smoking because of what you said?
Admit it. It feels icky and wrong to say “It’s okay to shoot yourself in the head”. There’s a part of you that feels guilty for writing what you just wrote. What if a child reads that and starts shooting themselves in the head because of what you said?
“It’s okay to eat rotten food that has mold growth on” “It’s okay to stop breathing air” “It’s okay to tan using a UVC lamp” It’s okay to jump off a skyscraper"
The only reason why you consider one question (smoking) to be a moral issue instead of all questions is because you want to smoke. You’re not saying jumping off skyscrapers is a moral issue, let along the infinite other questions not listed here.
Yes. I do want to smoke! If we cured death, would it be okay?