Why must people try to assume a position of moral authority based on the silliest things?

[Aerodyamic]

There were repeated references to second-hand smoke, which I would imagine qualifies as 'pollution'.

And actually, I've been rather civil about my approach; I think I've used obscenity once, and generally pointed out that most respondents in the various smoking thread have been, generally, impolite at best, and in some case, pretty damn rude. I'm also not the only person that feels that smokers have been particularly singled out; as I mentioned, there's been at least 4 threads about it in just the last month.

Go and re-read every one of those threads, and tell me the general tone isn't derogatory; I believe I posted in every single one, and that's what I recall most distinctly about them.

'Pollution' implies a different thing altogether. I don't think many people are worried about anything other than directly being in the path of smoke.

I'm not arguing that you haven't been civil. I'm just asking what you consider to be un-civil. People tend to have different methods of communication, different 'limits,' if you understand. As for why smoking is being singled out; well, it's on peoples' minds. We can only speculate as to why.

And no; once is enough. The general consensus, as far as I could tell, was that people don't like smoking. Every now and then, someone would claim to dislike smokers as well, and generally that'd lead to an argument and hostilities - which may be where you're getting your feel from. But, again, as far as I could tell they were split to lean towards your side more than anything.

I read and responded in each of the last few smoking threads that have popped up, and I've seen a distinctly derogatory tone in each thread. The most recent thread had about a dozen posts where people started pointing out that they were tired of the constant harping on the subject.

As far as civility goes, as I pointed out, written communication doesn't have the direct tone that verbal interaction does, which leaves the reader to infer the tone from context, and the context of most of the posts, throughout most of the smoking threads has been aggressive, derogatory, or patronizing. I find none of those postures to be civil, whether or not my interpretation of the tone actually matches the intended tone of any of the posts in those threads. As a purely hypothetical example, I would consider it to be civil if I was smoking, and a mother walked over, and asked me to move out of sight of the playground across the street; I would not consider it civil if the same mother began screaming and using profanity at me, in earshot of those same children.

And pollution does NOT imply something else; as someone else pointed out, noise can be considered pollution, and I'm certain that many of the more aggressive respondents in the smoking threads, if polled, would place smoke, second-hand or otherwise, in the category of pollution. In fact, smoke produced by fires and eruptions is regularly classified as pollution, albeit 'natural pollution (in some cases) which makes me wonder about the point of discussing the semantics of cigarette smoke being referred to as a pollutant.

I think we could safely define any potentially harmful airborne particulate which can be inhaled, ingested, or otherwise brought into the body is probably a form of pollution, and I don't think many people will find room to argue that MANY other forms of pollution are present in greater and more harmful quantities than the amount of smoke any given cigarette will produce.

 

[paragon1]

I really don't care if people smoke, so long as I don't have to smell it for an extended period of time. I'm sure some people don't think about this because they've become used to it, but if you're not used to being around the smell of cigarettes, then it smells pretty goddamn awful.

And OP, I know some people go way overboard with the anti-smoking thing, but please calm down about this. The people who'll actually insult you about your habit are dicks, and no one wins in an argument with dicks. So take a deep breath. Maybe have a smoke to help you relax?

 

[Apretentiousname]

Ok, this is ridiculous, I lost my patience on the 1st page of this thread, and sorry if anyone else feels what I've said is unoriginal.
People have been throwing out a lot of strong statements since the beginning of this thread, about people not patronizing them. Don't you think its patronizing to tell them not to patronize you with X and X behavior?
The irony is like a shroud around this thread with no holds barred, and people are all over the place self-righteously critizising people self-righteously. Just like I am.
Hypocrisy is practically a characteristic of humans it's so common. Even in this thread it's all over the place. Especially. Just because it's a little harder to see doesn't mean it isn't there.
"But leave your self-righteous, ignorant, and self-congratulatory proselytizing at home, because I will just tell you to take your offensive and bigoted hate-mongering elsewhere."
This sounds a lot like self-righteous, ignorant, self-congratulatory, preselytizing, bigoted hate-mongering to me, but maybe that's actually just me.
And really, smoking is bad for you health, and for the people around you. It also has this tendency of inconveniencing people near you, and is better for all parties involved for you to stop.

You know what, how about we leave the shades of gray to being gray and don't try to slap labels on them?

 

[A big red rooster]

Green? In my red state? It's less likely than you think...

 

[Aerodyamic]

I don't see that he said anything particularly loony. In fact, he's got a point: everybody worries about all sorts of trivial shit like my smoking, when there are greater moral crusades they could pursue.

"Fuck vegetarians, religion, people who care about foreign countries, and people who care about the environment." I would call being against any and all of those things utterly loony, though I might give the thing about religion a slide. That you wouldn't is baffling to me.

• 
  I don't think that vegetarians are necessarily making healthy choices in refusting to eat meat, unless they're getting the necessary proteins elsewhere
  I think religious nuts are greater loons than I've come across as
  I've pointed out repeatedly that the environment is full of other things we should be MORE concerned about.
  I've agreed that as moral causes are concerned, looking to other countries are trying to give them a better standard of living would be a good choice.

What thread are you reading, exactly?

 

[Jedoro]

I do love how the vocal minority is always labeled as the "majority." I'm a non-smoker and I don't give a shit if you do, so your

all the non-smokers on these forums seem to behave in a dangerously similar manner: frothing fanaticism and neurotic hatred

argument has immediately been proven invalid.

If strangers don't like what you do, ignore them. You don't have to read the threads or reply to them, you can just light up a cigarette and move on.

 

[Jumplion]

YOU may not have personally commented on pollution, but every time someone has mentioned second-hand smoke, they are, by extension, calling it pollution.

Who's talking about pollution here? I'm not, and from what I've read of this thread nobody else has either. Can you show me anyone in this thread, or in any of the other threads you've shown that have people going to "Second hand smoking pollutes the entire world!"? I haven't seen anyone extend smoking to pollution, not in this thread nor any other thread on smoking.

I've been pointing out that the second-hand smoke which many people have used as a crux to their arguments has no different impact on the general public health, and in fact, has a lesser impact, than MANY other things.

Does that justify second-hand smoking more than any other impact on the general public health? Just because it's not the worst out there does not mean that we should accept it. It's like saying "Well, he killed his entire family but at least he's not Hitler!" (extreme example, I know, but still)

That's not a strawman; a strawman implies that I've set up some easier target to refute, and claiming that by extension, refutation of the weaker target is refutation of the main argument. For me to be arguing ad hominem, I'd have to be doing more than pointing out that some people are on 'high horses' about smoking. I'm called some people impolite, and hypocrites, and willingly ignorant, but those have been descriptors that were particularly valid, at the time, from my eyes.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, so hell if I know if I'm using the fallacies right. But for strawman, according to Wiki, what I see from you is this;

Person A has position X: Smoking is disgusting and is bad for your health
Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially-similar position Y: If you're so clean and environmentally friendly, then prove to me you haven't

• !
  
  The problem is not one of them claimed they were. It's also probably in line with Ad Homenim Tu Quoque [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque] (God, I feel so pretentious right now...), you're going "But you also probably participate in environmentally-unfriendly things, therefore you can't criticize smoking! Regardless, I know you're using some type of fallacy in your argument, it doesn't work like that. Nobody is talking about smoking polluting the entire earth, nobody claimed that they were a cleanly saint. All people have said is that smoking is a bad (to some disgusting) habit that kills the user like poison, and you're trying to justify it by saying "You also probably impact the environment in a negative way!"

 

[chaos order]

i personally dont have a problem with ppl who smoke weed, cigarettes etc etc. its just that people always come up with bs to justify what they do. i dont care that u smoke weed, but dont sermonize me about how weed "isnt bad for u" or my most hated "it helps me with school" it drives me crazy.

 

[schroing]

I read and responded in each of the last few smoking threads that have popped up, and I've seen a distinctly derogatory tone in each thread. The most recent thread had about a dozen posts where people started pointing out that they were tired of the constant harping on the subject.

As far as civility goes, as I pointed out, written communication doesn't have the direct tone that verbal interaction does, which leaves the reader to infer the tone from context, and the context of most of the posts, throughout most of the smoking threads has been aggressive, derogatory, or patronizing. I find none of those postures to be civil, whether or not my interpretation of the tone actually matches the intended tone of any of the posts in those threads. As a purely hypothetical example, I would consider it to be civil if I was smoking, and a mother walked over, and asked me to move out of sight of the playground across the street; I would not consider it civil if the same mother began screaming and using profanity at me, in earshot of those same children.

And pollution does NOT imply something else; as someone else pointed out, noise can be considered pollution, and I'm certain that many of the more aggressive respondents in the smoking threads, if polled, would place smoke, second-hand or otherwise, in the category of pollution. In fact, smoke produced by fires and eruptions is regularly classified as pollution, albeit 'natural pollution (in some cases) which makes me wonder about the point of discussing the semantics of cigarette smoke being referred to as a pollutant.

I think we could safely define any potentially harmful airborne particulate which can be inhaled, ingested, or otherwise brought into the body is probably a form of pollution, and I don't think many people will find room to argue that MANY other forms of pollution are present in greater and more harmful quantities than the amount of smoke any given cigarette will produce.

You see what you look for; you see what you look for and I'm not aware of anyone who's done anything close to "screaming and using profanity at you, in earshot of children" -anywhere- on this forum; and again, when people talk about second-hand smoke, they're not suggesting that it goes into the o-zone layer and causes global warming, infects the water supply, or anything like that, which is what one usually thinks when one hears "pollutant". They're saying it's within the immediate vicinity, a/effecting the air within that immediate vicinity, and thus a/effecting them. So, yes, pollutant is absolutely misleading and largely implies something besides the truth.

Why you couldn't just say "second hand smoke" is beyond me.

 

[Rooker]

Have you considered just putting your smoke out on their face...? People are a lot less hateful about you smoking your cigarette when the cherry is not searing into their skin.

Also, my distaste toward smoking is just not doing it around me. I used to love the smell when I was little 'cuz my mother smoked, but I outgrew that, now I just ask that I not have the smoke floating toward my face. If that's a result of wind, I move and let you keep smoking. Slow, painful death be unto you, blah blah blah. Not like I'm gonna die any faster being a perfect human and it's not like those double cheese burgers aren't going to help my blood find other ways to flow around my guts outside the veins.

I try hard not to be a hypocrite, but everyone does it. Totally with you, don't hate about the effing smoking. Not your body, not your problem. If you're worried about second hand smoke, stay the eff away from the wisps, you'll be FINE.

 

[Aerodyamic]

Ok, this is ridiculous, I lost my patience on the page of this thread, and sorry if anyone else feels what I've said is unoriginal.
People have been throwing out a lot of strong statements since the beginning of this thread, about people not patronizing them. Don't you think its patronizing to tell them not to patronize you with X and X behavior?
The irony is like a shroud around this thread with no holds barred, and people are all over the place self-righteously critizising people self-righteously. Just like I am.
Hypocrisy is practically a characteristic of humans it's so common. Even in this thread it's all over the place. Especially. Just because it's a little harder to see doesn't mean it isn't there.
"But leave your self-righteous, ignorant, and self-congratulatory proselytizing at home, because I will just tell you to take your offensive and bigoted hate-mongering elsewhere."
This sounds a lot like self-righteous, ignorant, self-congratulatory, preselytizing, bigoted hate-mongering to me, but maybe that's actually just me.
And really, smoking is bad for you health, and for the people around you. It also has this tendency of inconveniencing people near you, and is better for all parties involved for you to stop.

You know what, how about we leave the shades of gray to being gray and don't try to slap labels on them?

Have you even read any of the last 4 or 5 threads that have appeared over the last month, concerning smoking? Go read them, and tell me that my responses aren't a lot more logical than many, and considerably more polite than just as many. Respondents have been more consistently nasty, concerning smokers than the other way around, except over the last few pages of this thread, I guess.

I don't like people treating me like scum just because I smoke, especially when I choose to be as polite as I reasonably can be about my habit. If you want to treat me like scum, find a reason that actually makes sense, or at least can be used as an example of sheer douche-baggery.

Like washing my socks in a public water fountain, or imitating disgusting body noises in crowded elevators...

Cookies for reference, on that last line.

 

[schroing]

I don't think that vegetarians are necessarily making healthy choices in refusting to eat meat, unless they're getting the necessary proteins elsewhere

Protein isn't as hard to find outside of meat as people seem to think.

I think religious nuts are greater loons than I've come across as

To say that there's nothing positive about religion is simply stupid. For every nut there's dozens of very kind people who adhere to the same practices.

I've pointed out repeatedly that the environment is full of other things we should be MORE concerned about.

And he's suggesting we shouldn't be concerned about them at all.

I've agreed that as moral causes are concerned, looking to other countries are trying to give them a better standard of living would be a good choice.

Then you disagree with him.

What thread are you reading, exactly?

I'm reading the thread where whoever-he-is posted, and whom you said wasn't very loony at all. Lemme go get his name.

Pariah87.

 

[Agayek]

A moderate distance and the music probably wouldn't bust your 'drums, either. Doesn't make it reasonable.

You're missing the point.

The point was that the total effects of standing in the vicinity of a smoker and standing near someone playing music that you don't like are roughly equivalent. It's an unpleasant experience, but does no real damage to you. You do not have the right to demand they cease just because you don't like it, especially when you were the one who approached them.

 

[schroing]

A moderate distance and the music probably wouldn't bust your 'drums, either. Doesn't make it reasonable.

You're missing the point.

The point was that the total effects of standing in the vicinity of a smoker and standing near someone playing music that you don't like are roughly equivalent. It's an unpleasant experience, but does no real damage to you. You do not have the right to demand they cease just because you don't like it, especially when you were the one who approached them.

...You -directly contradicted- that. You said, yourself, that standing close enough to someone smoking will lead to damage to your health. Not in those words, perhaps, but still.

Just like standing close enough to someone playing their music dangerously loud is going to damage your eardrums.

 

[Gudrests]

I don't care if people smoke.

I DO care if anyone smokes any were near: ME, my house(inside,) my car, or any of my pets/family/friends.

I don't care if you don't mind the health risks, or how you make all your clothes/furniture/vehicle smell bad.

I just care if does those things to me.

Sounds reasonable to me...if you do it...do it..just away from me..

 

[Aerodyamic]

I read and responded in each of the last few smoking threads that have popped up, and I've seen a distinctly derogatory tone in each thread. The most recent thread had about a dozen posts where people started pointing out that they were tired of the constant harping on the subject.

As far as civility goes, as I pointed out, written communication doesn't have the direct tone that verbal interaction does, which leaves the reader to infer the tone from context, and the context of most of the posts, throughout most of the smoking threads has been aggressive, derogatory, or patronizing. I find none of those postures to be civil, whether or not my interpretation of the tone actually matches the intended tone of any of the posts in those threads. As a purely hypothetical example, I would consider it to be civil if I was smoking, and a mother walked over, and asked me to move out of sight of the playground across the street; I would not consider it civil if the same mother began screaming and using profanity at me, in earshot of those same children.

And pollution does NOT imply something else; as someone else pointed out, noise can be considered pollution, and I'm certain that many of the more aggressive respondents in the smoking threads, if polled, would place smoke, second-hand or otherwise, in the category of pollution. In fact, smoke produced by fires and eruptions is regularly classified as pollution, albeit 'natural pollution (in some cases) which makes me wonder about the point of discussing the semantics of cigarette smoke being referred to as a pollutant.

I think we could safely define any potentially harmful airborne particulate which can be inhaled, ingested, or otherwise brought into the body is probably a form of pollution, and I don't think many people will find room to argue that MANY other forms of pollution are present in greater and more harmful quantities than the amount of smoke any given cigarette will produce.

You see what you look for; you see what you look for and I'm not aware of anyone who's done anything close to "screaming and using profanity at you, in earshot of children" -anywhere- on this forum; and again, when people talk about second-hand smoke, they're not suggesting that it goes into the o-zone layer and causes global warming, infects the water supply, or anything like that, which is what one usually thinks when one hears "pollutant". They're saying it's within the immediate vicinity, a/effecting the air within that immediate vicinity, and thus a/effecting them. So, yes, pollutant is absolutely misleading and largely implies something besides the truth.

Why you couldn't just say "second hand smoke" is beyond me.

Pollution is not misleading, when you consider the overarching theme of this thread: the health risks of my second-hand smoke are not as significant as other forms of pollution. What parts of that statement is misleading? I'm pointing out that one of the consistent complaints of the non-smokers who seem to be looking down their noises is the smell, which implies that they're breathing the air which contains second-hand smoke as particulate.

If you can smell it, you're breathing it in, right?

Ergo, the complaint incorporates some degree of concern about the pollution of their airspace, although what they're giving as the basis of their complaint is an olfactory sensation. That doesn't detract from the fact that other posters directly indicated that they were concerned about the second-hand smoke as well.

Also, did you miss the part where I said the following:

As a purely hypothetical example, I would consider it to be civil if I was smoking, and a mother walked over, and asked me to move out of sight of the playground across the street; I would not consider it civil if the same mother began screaming and using profanity at me, in earshot of those same children.

I bolded the part that you must have skimmed past. You asked me for a definition of civility, and I provided an example where examples of civil and uncivil behaviour would be demonstrated, so that you could infer a basic framework for my definition of 'civility'.

If you're now going to expect that I'll believe you when you claim that the general tone of each of the recent threads about smoking was civil, you need to re-examine the discussion we've been having. The general tone of those threads has not been civil, polite, or a majority of smokers responding. Fortunately, this thread seems to have been spared the incivility, although the semantics are begin to bore me.

I'll say it again, somewhat paraphrased: written communication does not have a directly expressed tone, which leaves the reader to infer the tone, which may or may not match the intended tone of the writer. The tone that I have inferred in every recent smoking thread has been consistently impolite, with a sufficient number of hostile tones to remain memorable.

It boils down to this, you're apparently misinterpreting what I'm saying just as much as you claim I'm misinterpreting your responses and those of others. I'm didn't start this thread to entertain a semantic discussion, I started it to clarify that I'm tired of being treated like some form of oozing sore on the face of society, when greater issues exist in the world.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

I hate being around smoke, but I don't dislike with smokers- it's their business, and if I don't want to deal with it, I just, you know, stand opposite the wind. It's not that hard, people. The next time someone starts causing you problems, OP, just sing this [http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104386/].

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Whatever. I gave up giving a shit about smokers many years ago. So I don't care if you smoke, just don't smoke around me.

 

[Aerodyamic]

I don't think that vegetarians are necessarily making healthy choices in refusting to eat meat, unless they're getting the necessary proteins elsewhere

Protein isn't as hard to find outside of meat as people seem to think.

I think religious nuts are greater loons than I've come across as

To say that there's nothing positive about religion is simply stupid. For every nut there's dozens of very kind people who adhere to the same practices.

I've pointed out repeatedly that the environment is full of other things we should be MORE concerned about.

And he's suggesting we shouldn't be concerned about them at all.

I've agreed that as moral causes are concerned, looking to other countries are trying to give them a better standard of living would be a good choice.

Then you disagree with him.

What thread are you reading, exactly?

I'm reading the thread where whoever-he-is posted, and whom you said wasn't very loony at all. Lemme go get his name.

Pariah87.

Again, you're getting a different tone from his post than I did. I think there was an undertone of sarcasm I might have inferred that you didn't.

And I know there's other sources of protein, but I've also seen vegetarians that don't seem to know that, and I've seen vegetarians that are almost worse than the religious nuts. Concerning the religious nuts, I don't dispute that a variety of good moral lessons have arisen out of the various dogmatic practices of mankind, but I think the terrible excesses of those same religions occasionally over-shadow those benefits. Regardless, that's a discussion best saved for a different time and place, like a whole new thread, in the Religion and Politics forum.

Besides which, you're inferring opinions about my stance on religion which I've never confirmed or denied; wouldn't it be safer not to try to put words into other peoples mouths?