Ah well, it's double out of fashion because smoking is on the black list of the health maniacs, and nobody smokes pipes anyway. BUT! filling a pipe and smoking it for easily half an hour is quite some pleasure!

Maybe I'm alone on this one but I don't like smoking no matter how expensive or exclusive. It's just kinda unpleasant

'Health Maniacs'
Why, yes, I do enjoy not getting cancer or dying slowly but surely from any number of lung diseases.
*Laughs maniacally with perfectly functioning lungs*

This is mine. It's a little old, and the cover fell off and got lost many years ago, but there are still good tobacco shops around here. I enjoy it most when the weather is cooler and I can sit outside. The material is well seasoned meerschaum, and the stem is an actual hollowed out branch. I often wonder about the life the original owner must have lived.

I'm using a small bong here, not really suitable for tobacco (it makes the bong so dirty) but for.. other smoking substances, I love it! I definitely prefer it over cigarette filters.

@iAmNaN wow, that's pretty ancient! From well before they started out with pressed meerschaum powder surrogates.

@Condor hehe, I know what you mean, though I only resort to that in the luckily very exceptional case of a migraine attack that ibuprofene can't deal with. And then I just drop down and sleep.

Actually, smoking pipe is much less dangerous for your health than cigarettes. For starters, you shouldn't use the same pipe more than once per day, so usually people smoke at most once per day. Also, you shouldn't put the smoke in the lungs, just into mouth and then breath it out. If you manage to wash your teeth after smoking, the damage is pretty minimal.

@pleuph no part of your body is ever fully functional in terms of health and you can very much still get lung cancer just by breathing standard air.

Source: sole dev in a fam of doctors and lawyers.

@mt3o yes and no. But mostly no.

@AleCx04 Yes, there are a great many ways to get cancer or other diseases. Which is why it is batshit insane to smoke any kind of tobacco product in any way when we know that it is one of the leading causes of cancer worldwide.

Don't give me that 'You can die from anything, YOLO!' argument. I watched someone slowly dying from decreasing lung capacity over the course of years. I do not want that to happen to anyone else, and the leading cause of that category of disease is 100% preventable.

@irene Yes. And doing stuff that has a high risk of making your final years an excruciating, inhumane misery is beyond stupid.

@irene What statistics are you basing that assumption on?

For instance, I lost my grandfather earlier this year. Sure, he had a few age-related troubles, but until the day he died he was fit, clear-headed and happy.

Of course that might not be how everyone ages. But don't tell me it doesn't matter what you do. You can tell yourself that if you just want to do stupid, life-threatening shit. Just don't argue that it's not stupid.

@irene Statistically speaking, there are many ways to adjust your lifestyle that will either increase or decrease your expected lifespan.

Someone doing 'everything right' dying early, and someone doing 'everything wrong' living a long life does not change the fact that if you want the best possible odds for a long life, you should avoid stuff with high risk factors.

@irene Dying from not being able to breathe, for years, is torture. For you and everyone around you. Trust me on this, you do not want that.
Doing something that will 'make you happy' right now, knowing there is a high risk of that kind of death, is incredibly stupid.

@irene And I'm saying that if you disregard the obvious dangers in life, no matter how happy you are right now there is a much higher chance it will end in agony.

You can play those odds if you like. But I think the risk is high enough that it's just stupid.

@irene No, the key is never getting started on something that is:
a) Very dangerous
b) Highly addictive

The b) part is what makes moderation impossible for addicts, whether they are smokers, alcoholics or heroin users. And nicotine scores scarily close to heroin on addictiveness.

Yeah, no drinking, no smoking, that's the clean world. And then die of Parkinson or Alzheimer.

@Fast-Nop Those happen to people who never fast.

@irene @pleuph I can't believe you two are even arguing about this.

I feel that stinky smell...mmm

I understand the attractive. Personally smoking does nothing for me but I understand it.
However the health issues are a real problem so I would suggest to exercise restraint and possibly make a pause every 5 minutes.

@irene Ah. So every single smoker in the world has psychological problems? Interesting theory.

@irene By that logic, people are not doing what makes them happy, they are dulling their existence with addictive substances.

@irene Ah. So it's only the occasional users that are stupid. The vast majority, who are addicted, have mental problems.
Got it.

@irene Oooh, that smarts!

@pleuph it wasn't much of a yolo response. I don't drink or smoke. I am just aware that not doing so is not putting me in any sort of ultra preventable place.

@AleCx04 But you are also aware that were you to start smoking, that would be monumentally stupid, correct?

And I'll be enjoying a pipe tonight, but it has to be after sunset. With fine non-aromated tobacco.

@pleuph i don't think it would be, no. There are far too many of us, on this here dear planet. What is it to you if others die or get sick? Unless these are your loved ones or yourself, then fine really. But if I want to slowly kill myself with a good pipe then I will. My decisions on this shit literally are of no concern or convenience to you really.

@pleuph there are be researches backing up what Irene wrote. You can do heroine for a long time and not get addicted. In fact, when you break your leg, you get plenty of opioid painkillers that are stronger than heroine, and chance to get addiction for it is pretty low. On the other hand it you're a lone person with no life, friends and family to support you living miserable life, it's very probable to hook into something, chemical or not. Amphetamine, food, heroine, nicotine, food, shopping, work, irrelevant. Addiction is about dopamine flow, not just getting another dose.
I can point you to a significant group of users of heavily addictive substances - amphetamine. Kids (and adults) with ADHD, on Adderall. Low chance of getting addicted to the drug, not to mention, taking the drug decreases chance to get addicted to something else later on life.

@mt3o Crowley was heavily into heroine and cocaine and still was 72 when he died. But back then, the stuff wasn't the dirty shit you get now that it's outlawed.

@AleCx04 well if someone thinks it's stupid to smoke, it's his right to not do it. Doesn't bother me.

It's just that I think smokers should respect the wish of non-smokers not to be confronted with smoke. Smoking under a bus shelter when it's raining is really nasty.

@Fast-Nop 100% agree.

For me the only reason I keep smoking pipe is that I have at least half hour of time just for myself, most of the time during working hours in the office. People who smoke do a dozen of cigarette breakes, non-smokers have less reasons for that. Also, lots of socializing happens during smoke break.

@AleCx04 Oh, but they are of concern to me, for two reasons:
1) Because I am a compassionate person
2) Because we live in a globalized society

1) Means that I do not wish death or disease on anyone. Not people I disagree with, whose ideals I am against or even those I would consider evil.

2) Means that even people far away can impact your life. The fact that we are having this conversation even though we know almost nothing about each other is proof of that. And we see more and more every day how trends in one part of the world can spread globally.
I live in a country currently experiencing a rise in the number of young people who take up smoking. And I have no doubt that blasé opinions like yours play a big part in that.

The fact is, anyone who takes up smoking will affect someone other than themselves, both directly and indirectly.

When I call smoking stupid, it is because we live in an informed age where no one should have the option to start smoking in the first place.

@pleuph and there we go from legit non-smoker to health maniac. Protection of non-smokers like e.g. in the right to a smoke-free workplace is enough. Otherwise, I don't want your vision of a nanny state.

Even less so in an informed age where it's more and more obvious that also in drug politics, prohibition and "war on drugs" have failed.

@pleuph i can dig compassion. Even if I don't agree with it. You were pretty chill about this and I dig that as well.

@Fast-Nop Smokers have had all the world to roam for a long time. When we found out that smoking was harmful, money, politics and a sense of attack on personal habits have made the path to a smoke-free society a long and arduous struggle.

I have not said anything about how we should get there, as I don't have a complete answer for that. When you say 'Nanny State' you are talking about legislation encroaching upon personal freedoms. I am not advocating that.
Legislation can get us some of the way, yes, but really it is about public opinion, both locally and globally. Which is why I took it upon myself to discuss it here.

Smoking was once considered cool and harmless. Sadly, that sentiment seems to have had a slight comeback, which, as a society of informed people, we need to combat and not renormalize.

The war on drugs was an american political movement with roots in racism and not science, and has in fact held back what could be useful research in cannabis and other substances.

@AleCx04 Thank you. I do strive to argue as civilly as possible, no matter the subject matter. I realize that my repeated use of the word 'stupid' could be considered incendiary, but it is my honest opinion which I do not wish to sugarcoat.

@mt3o Now, I will admit to not having extensive knowledge on addiction.
But I do feel the need to remark on a few things.

What is the point of saying that you can do heroin and not get addicted? No matter what the chance is of NOT getting addicted, the known high addictiveness of the drug means that any informed person in their right mind would ever risk it.
Sadly, it is not yet so with tobacco.

You mention drugs more potent than heroin being prescribed for pain treatment. Those drugs are specifically engineered NOT to be addictive, precisely because of their application. So that is a moot point.
But on the other hand, the USA is currently experiencing an opioid crisis because doctors are being paid to prescribe addictive painkillers. Which in turn is destroying the lives of ordinary people who would not have become addicts if not for wrongful medication.

@pleuph Yeah, smoke-free, no alcohol, drug-free. That Puritan vision has failed and will fail. With illegal drugs, the states HAVE tried hard to reach it, with much harder means than you are intending. Still to no avail.

Btw, meat and chocolate are also on the blacklist if the hardliners could have their way.

And while I think non-smokers should enjoy protection, supported via legislation because otherwise it's pointless, I just won't let them interfere with my pipes as long as they aren't impacted. And no, constructing some made up pseudo-impact is just mixing themselves into other people's lives.

@pleuph sorry, but i don't have time to educate you and talk you out of your comfort zone. Educate yourself and stop talking gibberish. If you say that painkillers administered in a hospital i.e. diethylomorphine, were designed not to be addictive, i'm speechless.
Go to youtube and watch TED talks about addiction, and kurzgesagt video on drugs and addiction.

@pleuph let's do a thought experiment. Given alcohol, tabacco, cocaine and opioids, for each of the drugs, name at least 7 BENEFITS each gives.
I bet you can't. :p

@irene It still sounds to me like you are completely dismissing the physiological effects of addictive substances that makes a person crave it. I am not saying that psychology plays no part in addiction, of course it does. But it is a proven fact that addictive substances can physically change how your brain is wired.

@Fast-Nop Don't get me confused for a puritan, and don't lump me together with people who wants to ban other stuff.

Regarding hard drugs, there are many ways to tackle it. In my country we offer free drug treatments for hard drug users. It has a proven positive effect on the rate of crimes they would otherwise commit to support the habit, and also on their chances of beating the addiction alltogether.
Other countries use similar techniques to great effect. The point is to help the addicts in stead of just punishing them, which has been proven ineffective. E.g. the war on drugs.

I understand why you believe that smoking is a personal issue that only affects the individual user. It is a popular opinion that sadly, many share. But it is false. Unless you live completely off the grid with no contact with the outside world and grow your own tobacco, your smoking habit WILL affect someone else. And perpetuating that outdated mindset is dangerous to the progress of human health.

@pleuph my whole life will affect someone else. This line of argument can be (and has been) used to justify any interference in anyone's life for any reason, so it isn't an argument at all.

Actually, the process of trying to impose one's own values upon others who don't want that is the very basis of a nanny state. Or outright dictatorship.

And once this mechanism is in place, don't believe that it will stop right at the values that you think should be imposed.

Because other people have their super important values too, and you will be astonished to learn that they are as eager to impose them on you as you are. With the same kind of self-righteousness of course.

@pleuph if anything, this is an argument to resist even reasonable measures of the anti smoker lobby, out of fear that hey will never stop being annoying. Just like hardcore vegans or christian fundamentalists.

@mt3o I'm not saying that all drugs administered for pain in hospitals or elsewhere are not addictive. I will admit that I was not specific enough when I was talking about drugs designed not to be addictibe. What I am saying is, that at least in countries where the pharmaceutical industry is not in control of which drugs to administer, the least addictive options will always be chosen first. And new variations of opioids and other families of painkillers are developed all the time, where the focus is on targeting only pain relief and removing as many of the addictive properties as possible.

@mt3o I have no idea what you are talking about with your thought experiment.

@pleuph Yeah I notice that. But if anything, it teaches me to mistrust anti smoker lobbyism because it isn't about protecting non-smokers. Where I have the option, like in referendums or so, I will keep that in mind.

That's what annoying insistency gets you.

@Fast-Nop The core of our disagreement here is that you believe it is about personal values and I believe it is about human progress.

We grow as a global society when we base our habits on scientific discovery. We have discovered that smoking tobacco has numerous adverse effects, and should therefore stop doing it. Just like all the other practices we have outgrown through knowledge.

@pleuph First, science doesn't provide values.

Second, I do not share your belief in progress. In fact, we're in a decline phase. But even if we weren't, I wouldn't. And even if I did, "progress" is meaningless because it just means continuing to go wherever you are going.

Third, I do not share your belief that health is the highest goal because this is just papering over mortality. Actually, it's the youth myth reloaded.

Fourth, I certainly don't share your vision of a society where nosy people control other people's lives.

Fifth, even if you don't get it - once the mechanisms are in place, you will be among their victims, too. Oh you think science health blablabla and you're soooo right, but the mechanisms can and will be used for anything. By others who also think they're soooo right. Which is the reason to reject them in the first place.

It doesn't matter how often you repeat your sermon, it won't reach me. It can't because I don't share your values.

@irene I am with you there to some degree. But prolonged use can be the result of overprescription, as is the case for many otherwise well-functioning people who have become addicted to prescription drugs. That is the essence of the opioid crisis in the USA.

With tobacco and alcohol, however, prolonged use is a historical norm, still being perpetuated today. That makes it a societal paradigm that needs to be broken and not an individual psychological problem, in general.

@irene Like it or not, the USA affects the rest of the world enormously.

@Fast-Nop 1) Exactly my point.
2) When I say progress, I mean us as a society learning from the past and becoming smarter. And I have already said that regarding smoking we might be going backwards to some degree at the moment.
3) I did not say that personal health is a goal in itself. But the health of the individual affects society. There is a societal cost to an individual being harmed.
4) My 'vision' is not of control, as I have argued several times already. It is of people being educated, informed and caring for both themselves and the rest of humanity.
5) You said yourself that science does not provide values. The scientific method is a tool that proves hypothesis through experimentation and observation. There is no point in aguing against science because you don't like the results. I accept that during my lifetime there will be changes required for the continuation of society and the planet that will affect my personal habits. You do not, and that is sad, but understandable.

@pleuph to point 3), this has been flat out refuted: one, the tax money that smokers provide via tobacco tax. Second, smokers don't statistically get as old, that saves retirement pay. Third, even possible cancer is more than offset in comparison to years of intensive care for people who just won't die. Though a heart stroke is more common and less annoying especially for others than e.g. Alzheimer or Parkinson.

And actually, you could use the same argument to get rid of motorcycles, skiing and tons of other activities. Even if you don't, others can and will pick up that line once it is established.

Also, humanity as a whole doesn't "progress". Never has and never will. What we did boiled down to figuring out how to burn a lot of fossile energy. The progress myth has come to a halt already. I'm more in favour of a cyclic model because that's actually supported by historic data. Western civilisation is on the arc of decline and will slowly collapse over the next 300 years or so.

@irene Well, the war on drugs has affected how drug research is done globally. Because of it, we are only now starting to find the proper medicinal uses of cannabis.
I would not be so sure that medical lobbying in the US does not affect the rest of the world.

@Fast-Nop You could not be more wrong on that:
https://erswhitebook.org/chapters/...

I find your idea of banning skiing quite interesting. Once that is one of the leading causes of injury and death worldwide, I bet it will be... Actually, I think recreational activities like that, through science, will become increasingly safer with time. For instance, some motorcycles have airbags and anti-skid systems, just like cars. Progress.

Only the spread of apathy such as you are displaying will lead us to regression. Science and compassion leads to progress, as it has throughout history.

@irene True, that is just one example, within the current subject matter, on how the US has affected the rest of the world.
The opioid crisis may well be contained to the US, and I hope it will be. I'm just saying that we can never be sure that a situation in the US will not affect the rest of us.

@irene What the... what are you talking about?!? What is valuable progress to you?

@irene And if it burns, it will destroy the world economy, and we all burn.

@pleuph I can pretty much tell you how the myth of "progress" will go down. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Should sound familiar.

Trying to make scapegoats out of people who say the emperor is naked belongs to phase 2.

@irene That are short term things, they don't matter overall. The root cause is that we humans are mortal, and everything we create (including whole cultures) inherits our mortality.

@Fast-Nop You are either a nihilist or deeply depressed. If it's the former, that is quite interesting. Not sure if I've ever encountered one before.
If it's the latter, I hope you get help.

@irene And you believe hope for the future of mankind is idiotically optimistic? Noted.

@irene Apparently there are more nihilists in software development than I would have thought.

@pleuph oh, I'm not depressed, which I know because I can compare to people who were through that.

And nihilism, I wouldn't call it like that. Though I do think that there are no values out there to be found, but only because it's us who create them. We can make them up as we want.

The thing is just that the universe has no obligation to conform to our idea how things should work out then, and that's a fact that has not really sunk in with a lot of people.

You're of course free to wish that your "progress" will continue forever. Then the decades to come will leave you wondering what went wrong.

@irene As long as there are more optimists than nihilists in the world, nihilism is the idiotic creed.
Majority rules.

@irene And yet, all developers that I know personally are also optimists. Because they, as I, are driven by a desire to improve the world.

@Fast-Nop Perhaps nihilist is not the correct term for your world view, but I'm not sure what is. Fatalist, maybe?

Anyway, I shall finally agree with your previous statement that further discussion is pointless.

Have a nice day :-)

@irene Proven how?

@irene That's also the problem with democracy, though it's not actually a flaw because democracy isn't supposed to be about optimisation.

It's only meant to have some orderly process so that the masses can introduce whatever without having to resort to chaos and revolution with a Robespierre like aftermath.

@irene Actually, I don't find it that chaotic. It's just that while nobody gets everything he wants, most get at least something and don't seriously contemplate voting from the roof.

@irene then again, history has shown that this works for so long that alternatives have even collapsed in the meantime.

@irene Again I ask you, what is your proof of that theory?

@irene It's rather that in every system, the ruling elites become senile, decadent and detached from reality over time. Since they cling to power, they can't be removed without system reversal.

The resulting cycle of state forms was already described by Polybius.