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

[NeutralMunchHotel]

I hope you understand that you are trying to assert yourself as better than people that shun smoking. This isn't you knocking non-smokers off their high horse, this is you climbing on yours and then having an almighty joust.

You look just as ridiculous as them.

 

[Reverend Del]

My carbon foot print is tiny. I'm not lying there. You could offset it with a small copse of shrubs on top of a shallow grave of someone who's asked me to put out a cigarette in a public (outdoor) place.

Does this mean I can be holier than thou at you now? I suppose I get to do that anyway being a reverend and all that... Oh well.

Frankly I see why you felt the need to write this. I hate fanatics of any kind. You are welcome to tell me the factual dangers of smoking (if I don't interrupt you and finish the list of for you). You can explain why I shouldn't smoke indoors around people who don't smoke (I don't). But the moment you start telling me you're better than me because you don't smoke is the moment I start considering murder.

 

[Canadian Briton]

yay!, I bet some people were thinking my name when they were reading that. I'll try now to be a nicer person but it really pisses me off if there are people advocating smoking/doing illegal drugs that sort of thing. This is mainly because I feel very inclined to do things in a lawful and ordely manner. (I think by alignment is lawful neutral) And that they don't need to have illegal drugs to improve their life.

 

[Spinozaad]

Be very afraid of my second-hand smoke. Be even more afraid of the exhaust fumes and toxins you'll find in the city.

Chances are they won't kill you dead, either. It still makes the anti-smoking crusaders (see how I escaped to invoke Godwin, while still stigmatizing the opposition?) slightly hypocritical.

 

[Kagim]

If a smoker is polite and smokes down wind of me I won't say a word. If they smoke and its in my face I usually just move a bit myself. I honestly don't care enough to start a fuss.

Second hand smoke is no where near as dangerous as people make it out to be. You inhale more toxins walking through a parking lot once during the winter then most people will breath in second hand smoke there entire life. Yes, people who worked in diners and bars where second hand smoke is common can and do get really sick. However that ten seconds you breathed in a whiff of a cigarette waiting for the bus is far less damaging then breathing in the air after a car drives by you.

As for the couple people complaining about how smokers take up hospital beds and what not. It might interest you to know that the price of a pack of cigarettes, at least in Canada, is mostly taxes. Taxes that funnel into the government and into things like health care.

Same with alcohol. So while people who smoke constantly might end up in the hospital in there later years they have likely paid enough taxes to the government to have purchased that bed and three or four Doctors and Nurses salaries for years.

 

[Agayek]

...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.

Not really, because second-hand smoke, when outdoors, has no real permanent effect, unless you are exposed to it on a regular basis. My recommendations for standing downwind and/or a bit further away are entirely to avoid the smell, which is rather unpleasant to me. You consume several dozen times more carcinogens and toxins walking down a busy street than you do standing near a smoker.

The only effect second-hand smoke has on you, assuming you're outdoors and it's not a normal thing, is to make you uncomfortable at most.

 

[Agayek]

yay!, I bet some people were thinking my name when they were reading that. I'll try now to be a nicer person but it really pisses me off if there are people advocating smoking/doing illegal drugs that sort of thing. This is mainly because I feel very inclined to do things in a lawful and ordely manner. (I think by alignment is lawful neutral) And that they don't need to have illegal drugs to improve their life.

While that is probably true, why do you have the right to decide that?

What gives you the power to say what people need?

 

[Ghostkai]

Snip

Very well said, I agree to the fullest degree that I can. It's always fine to disagree, but the righteousness of some of the people is sickening. Someone needed to say it (especially on the Escapist), so thank you Aero.

On a side note, most of your list (not all, but most) applies to me, being that I'm 22 and living in my own place and working. (Obviously I cannot prove any of these things online without using pictures of bills, driving lisence etc. and there is no way in hell I am going to put that information online.)

 

[cystemic]

I don't like smokers but I can tolerate and respect people with the habit as long as it isn't shoved in my face like the other day when some asshole was smoking on the train, stank through 3 carriages

 

[Tdc2182]

snip.

lemme ask you something.

Why did you start smoking in the first place? There is no good reason to start smoking in the first place, in fact, I have come to find that the only reason many people smoke is because they think it makes them look cool. Or because a friend does.

Unless you live in a cave you know;

a.) Its unhealthy
b.) Its irritating and possibly unhealthy to others around you.
c.) Its a very expensive habit.

The only other reason I could think of is because it is a stress reliever, which is definitely not an excuse.

So unless you have some other amazing reason on why you picked up the habit in the first place, you are god damn well gonna listen to people complaining about it. You had enough warnings through society and propaganda to avoid it, which we all should have done.

Take this from a fellow smoker; We have no room to complain. We never will. Society has every right to hate us.

But its their problem to deal with, not ours.

 

[Canadian Briton]

yay!, I bet some people were thinking my name when they were reading that. I'll try now to be a nicer person but it really pisses me off if there are people advocating smoking/doing illegal drugs that sort of thing. This is mainly because I feel very inclined to do things in a lawful and ordely manner. (I think by alignment is lawful neutral) And that they don't need to have illegal drugs to improve their life.

While that is probably true, why do you have the right to decide that?

What gives you the power to say what people need?

because illegal drugs are not neccesary to make a person's life better, although you are right i don't have the power to say that. And i have a skewed perspective on this mainly, because so far my life has been great (touch wood) and reading what people say on threads about people's problems (about how their life is bad) they might resort to using illegal drugs to make their life feel better.

 

[The Arc of Eden]

I like and agree with your rant except for one point. Which is, YOU have become this week's Smoking related thread. Congratulations.

 

[solidstatemind]

So, every week or so, I see yet ANOTHER thread about how my being a smoker kills babies, makes kittens cry, shatters lives, will cause plagues of locusts to descend upon the earth, and generally will cause the universe to divide by zero. While I don't mind people having an opinion of my habits, since I'd be a hypocrite to claim I didn't judge the habits of others, I'm getting tired of people that insist that they have some reason to feel morally superior to me, because they don't smoke, and I do.

Fine, I get it, your body is a freaking temple, and you're the first of a new, perfectly healthy generation of humankind, and it's obvious that my weak-willed, slavering, smoke-tainted genetics wouldn't even be compatible with your obvious superior ones. Great, I'm evil, and I'll forever be damned and made a pariah, reduced to shambling about the edges of society, with a giant red letter S pinned to the shoulder of my shirt.

Could we get over this whiny shit sometime soon? Seriously, I don't like it when people like the Westboro Baptist Church start screaming and frothing about whatever their cause of the month is, and all the non-smokers on these forums seem to behave in a dangerously similar manner: frothing fanaticism and neurotic hatred. None of us like to have things jammed down our throats, and yet, just like a psychologically damaged, doom-screaming street-preaching, so many of you seem like your ready to start screaming obscenities, casting stones and tearing out your own hair, because I choose to smoke.

So, I've decided to be (relatively) adult about my growing disgust at this assumption of moral superiority that I see at LEAST once a week here: I challenge any of you to PROVABLY demonstrate that you have a minimal environmental and moral impact, by going down the following list and PROVING that:

• 
  you don't drive
  you don't buys things that have to be transported to you by non-green vehicles
  you don't pay taxes towards road and transportation upkeep
  you don't get your power from a coal-burning power plant
  you don't (knowingly or unknowingly) support clear-cutting, the oil-sands, or resource-harvesting corporations
  you don't eat fast food
  you don't buy cosmetic products or consumer good that are made of, tested, or otherwise harm animals
  you don't have a dwelling that remains weather-proof due to oil-based products
  you don't produce any sewage or waste that goes into the river and lakes, or must be transported to a landfill
  you don't maintain your dwelling, or allow it to be maintained using gas or electric landscaping methods, or non-natural products.

I could make that list go on for pages, but I hope by now you've started to notice that a ridiculously small percentage of the people that insist on crying about how 'smoking condemns everyone around the smoker to a slow, painful death' aren't nearly as 'morally superior' as they've convinced themselves. Lots of people have a much greater environmental impact that any smoker, let alone a group of them.

Yes, you're all shining beacons of self-control and virtue, and you'll all lead exemplary lives, but I really don't give a shit if my smoking offends you; the chances are that if you meet me while I'm smoking, I'm outside, and you're perfectly free to just move away from my terrible exhaust products. That said, if you're willing to be at least reasonably polite about your distaste concerning my habit, I'll generally be courteous in return; hell, I might even stub out my cigarette to talk to you, or refuse to smoke while you're in my vehicle or home.

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. I'm already in a minority, so don't imagine that my bad habit is actually that cataclysmic, or that your whining will accomplish anything more than getting me mad at you.

rofl. People try to achieve a moral high-ground because they feel that it will obviate the glaring insufficencies in their arguments. There's nothing you can do about it, dude: people will always seek any possible advantage they can find.

I'm an ex-smoker (I'd still smoke if it weren't for the fact that my lungs are trashed), so I understand your pain. About the only thing I would frown about would be if you smoked around children in an environment where they could not avoid the second-hand smoke. There has been a causal link established between people whose parents/caretakers smoked around them when they were young and respiratory illness later in their lives. Given that they have no choice but to be there would, in my mind, place the burden on the smoker to go outside or whatever.

But aside from that? Meh. Smoking on the sidewalk? No problem. I can go upwind. Smoking in a restaurant? If there isn't a defined smoking section with good ventilation, I can eat elsewhere. A bus or plane? Well, honestly, the gov't hasn't allowed that in some time, so I'm not going to bust your balls about it.

I mean, shit: ultimately speaking, you smoking a cigarette is a lot less dangerous to others, statistically speaking, than the people who have a few drinks and still get behind the wheel of their cars.

 

[rapidoud]

People who take the moral high ground are generally too stupid to know otherwise.

I *know* you're wasting petrol driving like you do. You rev your car at lights, slam your breaks for intersections (wearing them down more than a good driver ie. ME and requiring more replacements -> waste of resources), yet I can still reach my destination faster.

The reason I take the moral high ground of, you're a slurring 10yo who can't put together a coherent sentence and just says LOL HAHA U TALK FUNNIEZ, is because that's xbox live.

In real life I take it because you're a moron and have no idea about anything.

I think it's because smoking is a 100% resource waste? Greenhouse gases, ring a bell? While they fail to understand how they driver their car is more wasteful. Or how about the fact you drink regularly? More wasting of resources.

I take the moral high ground as half the people can stand on it or so. Although over forums most of them are degenerates so none of them can. I like to brag of what I can do and what I can't when they're idiots.

 

[TraderJimmy]

snip

I think of myself not morally superior to you, simply...superior in a survival instinct manner.

Since smoking is simply poisoning yourself and you are doing that and I'm not...get the picture?

I ***** not because I'm moral...but because i'm fucking sick of having to wait even longer for hospital treatment because some douchebag smoker with cancer or w/e is taking up a bed/using the oxygen tanks.

So yeah..smoke if you want, just don't get any medical care and we'll be great friends.

I don't smoke, but this is just wrong.

Do you know who needs more care than smokers, who have one heart attack/stroke (ok, cancer takes a little longer), you're in, you're out, dead, done, next?

Old people.

Do you know who become old people more rarely than non-smokers?

Smokers. Obviously.

Old people are the reason you have to wait longer for medical care, not smokers. If everyone stopped smoking and eating unhealthily today, everyone would live to a ripe old age and we younglings would be stuck supporting them, with their brittle workshy bones and various chronic ailments (no offence, old people reading the Escapist - obviously I don't mean YOU, you're all fine specimens).

This has nothing to do with survival instinct, either. Survival, yes. Instinct, no. We are rational beings who are aware of the facts about smoking, and the implications and rewards of smoking. Then we make a choice. Some people chose differently from you, for whatever reason.

Point is, you're desperately trying to make this a moral issue (using longer medical care waits as your weapon of choice), making yourself look morally upright, while attempting also to claim you're some kind of ubermensch who INSTANTLY REJECTS POISON FROM THEIR VEINS WITH THEIR SICK SURVIVAL SKILLS YAAARRRGH. You also imply the reverse for our smoking brethren. It's irritating just to read it, I dread to think...nevermind. Don't want to make this post more flamy than necessary.

EDIT: @ Poster above me - try living in a more utilitarian, sliding scale manner. Self-denial and frugal use of resources that will soon be used up, and harm the environment when used are lovely things. So are donating to charity, doing voluntary work, helping people for no reason, and avoiding unnecessary insults. A poor driver who's never used a plane and donates a fair amount of money to charity is a better person than someone who deliberately drives well to save the environment, but keeps the money they saved and uses some of it to buy a flight to wherever. 'Positive' (giving) moral actions are more satisfying to both parties than 'Negative' moral actions (Self-denial). I think I live in a way that's probably similar to yours, except I don't use my car outside emergencies (that's real emergencies). Degenerates? Bah. Utter nonsense. It's just the vast majority of people aren't asshats about how they choose to conduct themselves.

You realise people read your post and want to be less like you, right, rapidoud?

 

[gl1koz3]

I'd definitely benefit from a car, but it would be too expensive for me now. Also, getting a license... meh... too many schools to attend to.

 

[^=ash=^]

Looking at this forum most days, I can safely say that there has not been a thread dedicated solely to saying "Smoking is bad" in quite some time. There has been a handfull of threads on your opinion on smoking but that is all.

I don't mind smokers, I just hate smoking. In my opinion it is a disgusting habit.

 

[Racistman3d]

Even though I really hate smoking, I wont tell people straight out why it's bad for them and why they should quit, they all know the consequences and health risks cause they here them all the time, let them be stupid is what I think and say. However, I do have a problem with smokers who come near me and are rude enough to light up around me, with me being an asthmatic, and then when I tell them not to do it they tell me to fuck off.

 

[Cheesus333]

I wouldn't say I 'judge' people who smoke, per se, but I certainly don't let them judge me. Call me self-righteous if you will - you won't be the first - but I've seen people become warped, hateful, twisted versions of themselves at the metaphorical hands of cigarettes, and I prefer to jump ship before I let it get to me. So no, don't expect any lectures from me, but in it's place a passive disdain. Do with your life what you will, but don't expect those around you to take no notice.

 

[Mantonio]

The gist I'm getting from the OP is "You're not perfect, so you can't say anything".

And that's just one great big fallacy.