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> Since launch Quit Genius has grown to 300,000 registered users, with over 20,000 people officially smoke-free in the app (which Quit Genius defines as having

> Since launch Quit Genius has grown to 300,000 registered users, with over 20,000 people officially smoke-free in the app (which Quit Genius defines as having not smoked for over 28 days). I'd be interested to know how "smoke-free" time is established. Are users self-reporting that they have or haven't smoked with the app? And 28-days of not smoking is great, but it feels dishonest to call that "smoke-free". > Healthy employees save the company money and are more productive, and Quit Genius thinks it can not only help employees get healthier but give employers a way to track that progress. Dystopian.

jbob2000 8y ago
> Smoking costs 45,400 lives, $16.2B in a year, study finds [1] It is the largest single expense to employers and to the [Canadian] healthcare system. It is not dystopian to want to track smokers on their journey away from smoking - it's the only way we know if we're getting better at helping them quit. 28 days is a good measure of smoke free. By that time, you are through the nicotine withdrawal of about 72 hours, which I think is the biggest cause of relapse. After that, you need to resist the social and habitual pressures, and that is wholly up to the individual. Some people can go 20 years resisting these pressures, others collapse in a few days. So 3 weeks is a fair balance, I think. [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/smoking-economic-cost-1.4357096 http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/smoking-economic-cost-1.4357...
- ChristianBundy 8y ago
  > It is not dystopian to want to track smokers on their journey away from smoking - it's the only way we know if we're getting better at helping them quit. The dystopian bit is that they give your personal data to your employer. Was this really unclear to you? I'm confused at why else you would try to derail that point.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ameister14 8y ago
  It's dystopian for employers to track their employee's healthcare goals and track their success meeting them. I, personally, don't want HR to send the company an email congratulating me on losing 5 pounds, or for them to bring me to their office to talk to me about how I had 5 drinks on Friday and that's binge drinking and outside company policy.
  - jbob2000 8y ago
    > I, personally, don't want HR to send the company an email congratulating me on losing 5 pounds, or for them to bring me to their office to talk to me about how I had 5 drinks on Friday and that's binge drinking and outside company policy. Who's suggesting this? A bit presumptuous to go from tracking "thing that definitely kills people [smoking]" to "things that are bad but not that bad [drinking, unhealthy eating]". Quite the slippery slope that thinking tracking smoking will lead to tracking everything.
    - lkozma 8y ago
      The step from tracking zero things to tracking one thing may be larger then the step from tracking one thing to tracking (almost) everything.
    - ameister14 8y ago
      First, it's not a slippery slope, because there is a simple and logical progression for it, and examples in other fields - seatbelt laws, for example. Also, the article itself mentions tracking alcohol use and weight. Why would you track smoking? Because the company pays more for insurance. So, it makes sense to track other things that are indicators for worse health outcomes, also causing higher insurance payments.
      - jbob2000 8y ago
        > seatbelt laws What are you saying here? You've lost me. Seatbelts are good and the laws we have in place are there to keep ignorance about them from spreading (ie. if you've never gotten in an accident, why would you wear a seatbelt?). So I definitely agree that we slipped on this slope for a good reason.
- hiram112 8y ago
  > It is the largest single expense to employers and to the [Canadian] healthcare system. I've read numerous times that smokers are actually a net gain for a healthcare system, assuming the same system pays for the whole life of the patient. The majority of medical costs are incurred by a small minority of patients, usually at the very end of their lives. Smokers die earlier and faster, usually without the slow and expensive deterioration many healthier patients will go through.
  - artursapek 8y ago
    So squirrel suit fliers must be a huge discount then.
    - repsilat 8y ago
      For countries with public health systems, retiree squirrel-suit fliers are the ideal -- they die cheaply, and have finished paying taxes and started taking pensions.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Whether actually true or not, tobacco companies have definitely used this argument in lobbying against anti-smoking public health efforts, particularly in Eastern Europe. Of course at best this argument assumes that you are looking at cost for a comparable standard of care, not cost for comparable health outcomes.
    - mistermann 8y ago
      > Of course at best this argument To me, this deflects from the main question of whether it is true or not. Or in other words, whether those quoting the "costs" of smoking (as a justification for further anti-smoking measures) are using dishonest propaganda. Also known as lying.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > To me, this deflects from the main question of whether it is true or not. It points out that the question the claim addresses is different then that addressed by the opposing claim (and different than the policy concern that is usually beoing addressed.) Which means its truth is orthogonal, rather than opposed, to the truth of the other claim.
- dionidium 8y ago
  There are some funny cost sources in there. Tobacco enforcement? OK, but I mean, that's not the cost of tobacco, that's the cost of your distaste for tobacco. Lost productivity and lost years of life? Yes, I suppose it's true that you don't get to benefit from my productivity when I'm dead, but that's kind of an odd way to look at it. In fact, yes, smokers do die sooner, which is why they actually cost less: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748... I understand that people don't like smoking, but that doesn't excuse the loose way that organizations throw around numbers about this topic. It's instructive to watch the way people reason when they're convinced they've got the moral high ground. There's almost nothing they won't say.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    > I understand that people don't like smoking, but that doesn't excuse the loose way that organizations throw around numbers about this topic. And they never give a source so a person can fact check the numbers. Luckily, in this case we know we're reading dishonest propaganda, since they make no mention of the revenue side of it. > It's instructive to watch the way people reason when they're convinced they've got the moral high ground. There's almost nothing they won't say. Preach brother.
- j_jochem 8y ago
  I know this is anecdotal, but I‘ve taken about 8 years and 10 attempts to successfly quit smoking. On half of those attempts, I made it past the 28-day mark, even past five months on one attempt before relapsing. Physical withdrawal is easy, staying on top of your mind is much harder. I’m at 2+ years now. I‘d say a year of not smoking is a meaningful predictor of not relapsing. 28 days shows you‘re making a serious effort.
- wolco 8y ago
  It takes longer than 72 hours to clear out nicotine from the body. 4 days for the saliva but upto a year it can be measured in hair samples. Not counting the repair/reorganization the body requires to function again. 28 days is probably a good measure.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kodablah 8y ago
>> Healthy employees save the company money and are more productive, and Quit Genius thinks it can not only help employees get healthier but give employers a way to track that progress. > Dystopian. Yup, but we've long crossed that bridge. We can only suggest that quality employees take a zero tolerance policy towards these invasive employers. I'm afraid we are not going to be able to rely on regulation to stop these practices since anything anti-smoking (or anti-terrorism or anti-CP) can only be seen by most as a benefit. It's a slower form of prohibitionism. People can only see one side of the smoking debate. Similar thing happened with alcohol age. "Can't get a job unless you follow these rules" is very similar to "can't get funds unless you follow these rules". Choice against "good" is disallowed one way or another.
- merinowool 8y ago
  > Yup, but we've long crossed that bridge. I think young generation simply doesn't care. Dystopian is something normal, natural for them. It is only older people that will struggle with it, but once they die, there will be whole new world, where freedom will be an extremist concept.
  - jaddood 8y ago
    What???? Who told you that? What kind of proof do you have? It seems to me that it's just some meaningless sentence just to make empathy with dystopian views of the world, but without any real reflection in the real world.
    - merinowool 8y ago
      This is just anecdotal. It is my observation of the world. It could be much different than yours and I hope it is.
  - nighthawk1 8y ago
    I see this a lot in young people. They trust the cloud and privacy isn’t a big deal. That attitude will not change until something bad happens on a large scale that wakes the masses.
koolba 8y ago
> Dystopian. Damn straight. Step tracking, smoking tracking, what's next, analysis of what I had for lunch with a "reward deduction" if I choose a cheeseburger over a salad?
- nighthawk1 8y ago
  Boss calls you into the office: “jimmy, I thought we agreed you would cut down on the red meat?”
GraffitiTim 8y ago
>I'd be interested to know how "smoke-free" time is established. Are users self-reporting that they have or haven't smoked with the app? And 28-days of not smoking is great, but it feels dishonest to call that "smoke-free". Well, they're not actually claiming "mission accomplished" after 28-days smoke-free -- they continue to help people stay smoke-free on an ongoing basis. But 28 days seems like a challenging and reasonable milestone to me. (Disclaimer: I invested in QuitGenius)
- needToSay 8y ago
  Fuck you vile Silicon Valley nigger monkey
choward 8y ago
Exactly. Why does quitting smoking have anything to do with employment? Is this solely because of how health insurance usually works in the US? I'm so tired of apps wanting to give my data to other people.
- astura 8y ago
  "Smoking employees cost $6,000 a year more, study finds" https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/smoking-employees-cost-6-000-year-more-study-finds-6C10182631 https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/smoking-employees-cost-6-... >A startling part of the calculation was just how much less productive smokers really are. “Though all employees are occasionally unproductive in one way or another, research suggests that smoking status negatively impacts productivity separately and apart from lost work time due to smoking breaks and absenteeism,” Berman’s team wrote. >“This is because nicotine is a powerfully addictive drug. Although cigarettes satisfy a smoker’s need for nicotine, the effect wears off quickly. Within 30 minutes after finishing the last inhalation, the smoker may already be beginning to feel symptoms of both physical and psychological withdrawal. (Much of what smokers perceive as the relaxing and clarifying effect of nicotine is actually relief from their acute withdrawal symptoms.)”’
master-litty 8y ago
Absolutely dirty. There is nothing productive about adding this layer of tension between employers and employees. Sure, people are going to stop smoking, but the change isn't coming from within. I'm certain this will only breed contempt.

jbob2000 8y ago

> Smoking costs 45,400 lives, $16.2B in a year, study finds [1] It is the largest single expense to employers and to the [Canadian] healthcare system. It is not dystopian to want to track smokers on their journey away from smoking - it's the only way we know if we're getting better at helping them quit. 28 days is a good measure of smoke free. By that time, you are through the nicotine withdrawal of about 72 hours, which I think is the biggest cause of relapse. After that, you need to resist the social and habitual pressures, and that is wholly up to the individual. Some people can go 20 years resisting these pressures, others collapse in a few days. So 3 weeks is a fair balance, I think. [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/smoking-economic-cost-1.4357096 http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/smoking-economic-cost-1.4357...

ChristianBundy 8y ago
> It is not dystopian to want to track smokers on their journey away from smoking - it's the only way we know if we're getting better at helping them quit. The dystopian bit is that they give your personal data to your employer. Was this really unclear to you? I'm confused at why else you would try to derail that point.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ameister14 8y ago
It's dystopian for employers to track their employee's healthcare goals and track their success meeting them. I, personally, don't want HR to send the company an email congratulating me on losing 5 pounds, or for them to bring me to their office to talk to me about how I had 5 drinks on Friday and that's binge drinking and outside company policy.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  > I, personally, don't want HR to send the company an email congratulating me on losing 5 pounds, or for them to bring me to their office to talk to me about how I had 5 drinks on Friday and that's binge drinking and outside company policy. Who's suggesting this? A bit presumptuous to go from tracking "thing that definitely kills people [smoking]" to "things that are bad but not that bad [drinking, unhealthy eating]". Quite the slippery slope that thinking tracking smoking will lead to tracking everything.
  - lkozma 8y ago
    The step from tracking zero things to tracking one thing may be larger then the step from tracking one thing to tracking (almost) everything.
  - ameister14 8y ago
    First, it's not a slippery slope, because there is a simple and logical progression for it, and examples in other fields - seatbelt laws, for example. Also, the article itself mentions tracking alcohol use and weight. Why would you track smoking? Because the company pays more for insurance. So, it makes sense to track other things that are indicators for worse health outcomes, also causing higher insurance payments.
    - jbob2000 8y ago
      > seatbelt laws What are you saying here? You've lost me. Seatbelts are good and the laws we have in place are there to keep ignorance about them from spreading (ie. if you've never gotten in an accident, why would you wear a seatbelt?). So I definitely agree that we slipped on this slope for a good reason.
hiram112 8y ago
> It is the largest single expense to employers and to the [Canadian] healthcare system. I've read numerous times that smokers are actually a net gain for a healthcare system, assuming the same system pays for the whole life of the patient. The majority of medical costs are incurred by a small minority of patients, usually at the very end of their lives. Smokers die earlier and faster, usually without the slow and expensive deterioration many healthier patients will go through.
- artursapek 8y ago
  So squirrel suit fliers must be a huge discount then.
  - repsilat 8y ago
    For countries with public health systems, retiree squirrel-suit fliers are the ideal -- they die cheaply, and have finished paying taxes and started taking pensions.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Whether actually true or not, tobacco companies have definitely used this argument in lobbying against anti-smoking public health efforts, particularly in Eastern Europe. Of course at best this argument assumes that you are looking at cost for a comparable standard of care, not cost for comparable health outcomes.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    > Of course at best this argument To me, this deflects from the main question of whether it is true or not. Or in other words, whether those quoting the "costs" of smoking (as a justification for further anti-smoking measures) are using dishonest propaganda. Also known as lying.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > To me, this deflects from the main question of whether it is true or not. It points out that the question the claim addresses is different then that addressed by the opposing claim (and different than the policy concern that is usually beoing addressed.) Which means its truth is orthogonal, rather than opposed, to the truth of the other claim.
dionidium 8y ago
There are some funny cost sources in there. Tobacco enforcement? OK, but I mean, that's not the cost of tobacco, that's the cost of your distaste for tobacco. Lost productivity and lost years of life? Yes, I suppose it's true that you don't get to benefit from my productivity when I'm dead, but that's kind of an odd way to look at it. In fact, yes, smokers do die sooner, which is why they actually cost less: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748... I understand that people don't like smoking, but that doesn't excuse the loose way that organizations throw around numbers about this topic. It's instructive to watch the way people reason when they're convinced they've got the moral high ground. There's almost nothing they won't say.
- mistermann 8y ago
  > I understand that people don't like smoking, but that doesn't excuse the loose way that organizations throw around numbers about this topic. And they never give a source so a person can fact check the numbers. Luckily, in this case we know we're reading dishonest propaganda, since they make no mention of the revenue side of it. > It's instructive to watch the way people reason when they're convinced they've got the moral high ground. There's almost nothing they won't say. Preach brother.
j_jochem 8y ago
I know this is anecdotal, but I‘ve taken about 8 years and 10 attempts to successfly quit smoking. On half of those attempts, I made it past the 28-day mark, even past five months on one attempt before relapsing. Physical withdrawal is easy, staying on top of your mind is much harder. I’m at 2+ years now. I‘d say a year of not smoking is a meaningful predictor of not relapsing. 28 days shows you‘re making a serious effort.
wolco 8y ago
It takes longer than 72 hours to clear out nicotine from the body. 4 days for the saliva but upto a year it can be measured in hair samples. Not counting the repair/reorganization the body requires to function again. 28 days is probably a good measure.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

kodablah 8y ago

>> Healthy employees save the company money and are more productive, and Quit Genius thinks it can not only help employees get healthier but give employers a way to track that progress. > Dystopian. Yup, but we've long crossed that bridge. We can only suggest that quality employees take a zero tolerance policy towards these invasive employers. I'm afraid we are not going to be able to rely on regulation to stop these practices since anything anti-smoking (or anti-terrorism or anti-CP) can only be seen by most as a benefit. It's a slower form of prohibitionism. People can only see one side of the smoking debate. Similar thing happened with alcohol age. "Can't get a job unless you follow these rules" is very similar to "can't get funds unless you follow these rules". Choice against "good" is disallowed one way or another.

merinowool 8y ago
> Yup, but we've long crossed that bridge. I think young generation simply doesn't care. Dystopian is something normal, natural for them. It is only older people that will struggle with it, but once they die, there will be whole new world, where freedom will be an extremist concept.
- jaddood 8y ago
  What???? Who told you that? What kind of proof do you have? It seems to me that it's just some meaningless sentence just to make empathy with dystopian views of the world, but without any real reflection in the real world.
  - merinowool 8y ago
    This is just anecdotal. It is my observation of the world. It could be much different than yours and I hope it is.
- nighthawk1 8y ago
  I see this a lot in young people. They trust the cloud and privacy isn’t a big deal. That attitude will not change until something bad happens on a large scale that wakes the masses.

koolba 8y ago

> Dystopian. Damn straight. Step tracking, smoking tracking, what's next, analysis of what I had for lunch with a "reward deduction" if I choose a cheeseburger over a salad?

nighthawk1 8y ago
Boss calls you into the office: “jimmy, I thought we agreed you would cut down on the red meat?”

GraffitiTim 8y ago

>I'd be interested to know how "smoke-free" time is established. Are users self-reporting that they have or haven't smoked with the app? And 28-days of not smoking is great, but it feels dishonest to call that "smoke-free". Well, they're not actually claiming "mission accomplished" after 28-days smoke-free -- they continue to help people stay smoke-free on an ongoing basis. But 28 days seems like a challenging and reasonable milestone to me. (Disclaimer: I invested in QuitGenius)

needToSay 8y ago
Fuck you vile Silicon Valley nigger monkey

choward 8y ago

Exactly. Why does quitting smoking have anything to do with employment? Is this solely because of how health insurance usually works in the US? I'm so tired of apps wanting to give my data to other people.

astura 8y ago
"Smoking employees cost $6,000 a year more, study finds" https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/smoking-employees-cost-6-000-year-more-study-finds-6C10182631 https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/smoking-employees-cost-6-... >A startling part of the calculation was just how much less productive smokers really are. “Though all employees are occasionally unproductive in one way or another, research suggests that smoking status negatively impacts productivity separately and apart from lost work time due to smoking breaks and absenteeism,” Berman’s team wrote. >“This is because nicotine is a powerfully addictive drug. Although cigarettes satisfy a smoker’s need for nicotine, the effect wears off quickly. Within 30 minutes after finishing the last inhalation, the smoker may already be beginning to feel symptoms of both physical and psychological withdrawal. (Much of what smokers perceive as the relaxing and clarifying effect of nicotine is actually relief from their acute withdrawal symptoms.)”’

master-litty 8y ago

Absolutely dirty. There is nothing productive about adding this layer of tension between employers and employees. Sure, people are going to stop smoking, but the change isn't coming from within. I'm certain this will only breed contempt.