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> I feel like the authors of all these hitpieces are personally unable to engage in healthy, limited usage of it, so they cast it as as some universal evil that

> I feel like the authors of all these hitpieces are personally unable to engage in healthy, limited usage of it, so they cast it as as some universal evil that every person is powerless to resist. I can smoke cigarettes responsibly. One every few weeks, which I have researched and believe does not negatively impact my health. In fact, it provides a moment of stress relief that outweighs possible negatives. How do you feel about cigarette legislation? They've never pointed a gun and forced people to smoke. (Which, by the way, is an awful metric for whether something should be banned. Except for gun pointing.)

wutbrodo 9y ago
You should read the article, and my comment, a little more closely before responding. You're making a massive, unwarranted leap from "not a universal evil" to "must not have any legislation around it". I also don't think cars are pure evil....do you assume that I think that cars should be 100% unregulated? I'm specifically complaining about the maximalizing tendency of the author and others on this post: casting Facebook use as a pure vice, and ignoring the millions (hundreds of millions? I have no idea) of people who are able to get a very positive cost/benefit out of responsible use of it. Your cigarette analogy is apt in that I think that way of tobacco: I have a cigar a few times a year, and I think that the notion that tobacco is some evil force that we have to ascetically shy away from is idiotic[1]. > Which, by the way, is an awful metric for whether something should be banned Dude, seriously, _what are you talking about_? At no point did I mention anything about banning Facebook or anything else. I don't know whose post your comment is supposed to be responding to, but just FYI you clicked "reply" under mine for some reason. The point I am making is that "Facebook use" and "unhealthy Facebook use" are not the same thing, and the tendency I am criticizing is writing articles about the latter and bait-and-switching them to be about the former. I can use my phone to call a drug dealer, I can use my car to hit a pedestrian, I can use my computer to harass people online: and yet nobody considers those to be indictments of the overall concept of phones, cars, or computers. --- Leaving aside the fact that your cigarette example doesn't make any sense: Which cigarette legislation in particular are you thinking of? I'm of the same mind as the rest of society when it comes to kids being protected and having less autonomy in their decision-making, so not being able to advertise cigarettes to kids is obviously good. I'm not opposed to Pigovian taxes to balance externalities, especially when harm scales with amount of use and has significant enough externalities (like second-hand smoke), so the taxes on cigarettes don't bother me either. I think that there's some scope for paternalistic legislation of activities that don't harm others, but I think the bar has to be pretty damn high and pretty damn robust for that.
- billysbeanes 9y ago
  Some interesting points, but I think you put a lot into my comment that wasn't there. I suspect it will be impossible for us to communicate empathetically as we have both apparently misunderstood each other.
lmm 9y ago
I think cigarettes should be legal for adults in private. I think it shouldn't be legal to smoke in public (because that's affecting other people), or to require employees to work in a smoky environment without protection. I'm not sure if there's a useful Facebook analogy there.

wutbrodo 9y ago

You should read the article, and my comment, a little more closely before responding. You're making a massive, unwarranted leap from "not a universal evil" to "must not have any legislation around it". I also don't think cars are pure evil....do you assume that I think that cars should be 100% unregulated? I'm specifically complaining about the maximalizing tendency of the author and others on this post: casting Facebook use as a pure vice, and ignoring the millions (hundreds of millions? I have no idea) of people who are able to get a very positive cost/benefit out of responsible use of it. Your cigarette analogy is apt in that I think that way of tobacco: I have a cigar a few times a year, and I think that the notion that tobacco is some evil force that we have to ascetically shy away from is idiotic[1]. > Which, by the way, is an awful metric for whether something should be banned Dude, seriously, _what are you talking about_? At no point did I mention anything about banning Facebook or anything else. I don't know whose post your comment is supposed to be responding to, but just FYI you clicked "reply" under mine for some reason. The point I am making is that "Facebook use" and "unhealthy Facebook use" are not the same thing, and the tendency I am criticizing is writing articles about the latter and bait-and-switching them to be about the former. I can use my phone to call a drug dealer, I can use my car to hit a pedestrian, I can use my computer to harass people online: and yet nobody considers those to be indictments of the overall concept of phones, cars, or computers. --- Leaving aside the fact that your cigarette example doesn't make any sense: Which cigarette legislation in particular are you thinking of? I'm of the same mind as the rest of society when it comes to kids being protected and having less autonomy in their decision-making, so not being able to advertise cigarettes to kids is obviously good. I'm not opposed to Pigovian taxes to balance externalities, especially when harm scales with amount of use and has significant enough externalities (like second-hand smoke), so the taxes on cigarettes don't bother me either. I think that there's some scope for paternalistic legislation of activities that don't harm others, but I think the bar has to be pretty damn high and pretty damn robust for that.

billysbeanes 9y ago
Some interesting points, but I think you put a lot into my comment that wasn't there. I suspect it will be impossible for us to communicate empathetically as we have both apparently misunderstood each other.

lmm 9y ago

I think cigarettes should be legal for adults in private. I think it shouldn't be legal to smoke in public (because that's affecting other people), or to require employees to work in a smoky environment without protection. I'm not sure if there's a useful Facebook analogy there.