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They're also responsible for countless smokers quitting cigarettes for something far less carcinogenic. It is very reductive of you to just group people into b

They're also responsible for countless smokers quitting cigarettes for something far less carcinogenic. It is very reductive of you to just group people into being comic book villains.

troughway 6y ago
This is a disingenuous comment in it's assumption that the lesser of two evils is somehow the only better option. All these people could have chosen to not participate in carcinogenic products at all. They chose poorly.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  Disingenuous typically suggests insincerity. That you think someone is wrong does not mean they are not sincere in their position.
  - troughway 6y ago
    Correct.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
celim307 6y ago
I feel bad for lower level workers there. Anyone who had options to work elsewhere I have no mercy for. Anyone in the product team responsible for the ideation of marketing to children, can eat shit.
gpm 6y ago
This argument is akin to saying "sure, he murders people by night, but he's a fire fighter by day so it's ok". The kids being addicted to nicotine weren't even collateral damage. They were being explicitly targeted. Doing good doesn't excuse doing evil.
- nickysielicki 6y ago
  I'd say it's more akin to, "He flipped the switch to divert the train from running over 3 people, although the other track still had it running over one person."
  - munk-a 6y ago
    As an alternative - vaping flipped the switch to divert the train from three to a single person - Juul flipped the switch later down the line to make sure it still hit three people anyways.
    - nickysielicki 6y ago
      I don't follow -- how did they cause more harm to existing smokers? Are you saying that a Juul is more dangerous (or even equally as dangerous) as smoking -- or that there's evidence that nicotine in and of itself is harmful? I don't think either has evidence to suggest it's true.
      - munk-a 6y ago
        Oh sorry - they continued the trend of lowered harm to existing smokers, but they also developed a lot of new customers. I work in a company with a lot of coops and just in the past three years a lot of the folks we've hired on have a nicotine addiction - there are more people in their twenties that vape or smoke than people in their thirties or forties.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    No, it's not really akin to that. This isn't a trolley experiment with only two tracks; they could have chosen to not market their product to children.
    - nickysielicki 6y ago
      They targeted them at young adults -- it turns out that kids in high school typically emulate college kids. Who knew? Go to any college bar and you'll see kids -- naive children -- smoking outside. A lot of those kids use Juuls instead now. If targeting that demographic inherently means that highschoolers will look at them and think they're cool, does that mean nobody should ever target that demographic? Harm reduction only applies to the 30+ crowd? edit: I also don't think that it's really fair to say that they advertised towards children. The worst they did was push some colorful and fruity flavors. I guess only children like sweet things, and once you turn 18 you can no longer like mangoes?
munk-a 6y ago
I disagree - vaping allowed those smokers to quit. Juul took vaping and made it hip - none of the positive effects of vaping came from Juul.
- nickysielicki 6y ago
  Juul became massively popular because it hit much harder than typical cheap gas station vape pens of the time and the pods came in around the same price as a pack of smokes, or cheaper. Vaping has been around for over a decade and there are plenty of smokers that never considered it a viable alternative because it was a huge investment -- only to find out that it didn't hit in any way comparable to the way that a cigarette would. Juul changed all that.
- asdff 6y ago
  Juul and similar salt nicotine vapes are only way to get a cigarette like nicotine buzz without having a leaky pipe bomb in your pocket where you have to regularly use ohms law to change your coils.
  - c0nducktr 6y ago
    Come on, "use ohms law to change your coils"? What a bunch of bullshit.
    - jshevek 6y ago
      In what way is that quote "bullshit"?
    - asdff 6y ago
      If you wrap your own coils and you don't throw it on your ohm meter before throwing it on your battery mod, idk what to tell you. Even if you've done it 100 times it takes 1 second to make sure you have good contact between your wraps like you expect. I used to do this dude.
WilliamEdward 6y ago
This is a very tired point I see very often when discussing the morality of people who provide value to society. If Juul's service was solely and specifically helping people get off cigarettes, great. It's not though, is it? They sell nicotine to minors. If they cared about doing good, they would simply not sell nicotine to minors. By this judgement I can group the executives at Juul into villians and not be 'reductive' about it, because it's very clear they make profit off of evil when they don't have to. I'd also not like to see the argument that they aren't technically 'selling' juuls too minors. We're way past that point; it's super obvious the advertising is made up in such a way as to facilitate profits from minors. Just because it goes through a 3rd party doesn't eliminate blame from Juul, who remember have taken no steps to prevent children from smoking them.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
They're the only major brand that allows smokers to easily get mega doses of nicotine. It isn't much of a quitting aid if it only strengthens the addiction.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
analog31 6y ago
If they really had an altruistic mission, then it was their responsibility to protect that mission, and they blew it. Pivoting their product to target kids was their own choice, and they are responsible for the consequences that were obvious to everybody. A more straightforward explanation is that the altruistic mission was always fake.
chc 6y ago
I'm not sure Juul in particular contributed all that much to that. Other vaporizer companies had already made great strides on that front by the time Juul came on the scene. It seems like their USP was marketing toward children.

They're also responsible for countless smokers quitting cigarettes for something far less carcinogenic. It is very reductive of you to just group people into being comic book villains.

troughway 6y ago

This is a disingenuous comment in it's assumption that the lesser of two evils is somehow the only better option. All these people could have chosen to not participate in carcinogenic products at all. They chose poorly.

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
Disingenuous typically suggests insincerity. That you think someone is wrong does not mean they are not sincere in their position.
- troughway 6y ago
  Correct.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

celim307 6y ago

I feel bad for lower level workers there. Anyone who had options to work elsewhere I have no mercy for. Anyone in the product team responsible for the ideation of marketing to children, can eat shit.

gpm 6y ago

This argument is akin to saying "sure, he murders people by night, but he's a fire fighter by day so it's ok". The kids being addicted to nicotine weren't even collateral damage. They were being explicitly targeted. Doing good doesn't excuse doing evil.

nickysielicki 6y ago
I'd say it's more akin to, "He flipped the switch to divert the train from running over 3 people, although the other track still had it running over one person."
- munk-a 6y ago
  As an alternative - vaping flipped the switch to divert the train from three to a single person - Juul flipped the switch later down the line to make sure it still hit three people anyways.
  - nickysielicki 6y ago
    I don't follow -- how did they cause more harm to existing smokers? Are you saying that a Juul is more dangerous (or even equally as dangerous) as smoking -- or that there's evidence that nicotine in and of itself is harmful? I don't think either has evidence to suggest it's true.
    - munk-a 6y ago
      Oh sorry - they continued the trend of lowered harm to existing smokers, but they also developed a lot of new customers. I work in a company with a lot of coops and just in the past three years a lot of the folks we've hired on have a nicotine addiction - there are more people in their twenties that vape or smoke than people in their thirties or forties.
- catalogia 6y ago
  No, it's not really akin to that. This isn't a trolley experiment with only two tracks; they could have chosen to not market their product to children.
  - nickysielicki 6y ago
    They targeted them at young adults -- it turns out that kids in high school typically emulate college kids. Who knew? Go to any college bar and you'll see kids -- naive children -- smoking outside. A lot of those kids use Juuls instead now. If targeting that demographic inherently means that highschoolers will look at them and think they're cool, does that mean nobody should ever target that demographic? Harm reduction only applies to the 30+ crowd? edit: I also don't think that it's really fair to say that they advertised towards children. The worst they did was push some colorful and fruity flavors. I guess only children like sweet things, and once you turn 18 you can no longer like mangoes?

munk-a 6y ago

I disagree - vaping allowed those smokers to quit. Juul took vaping and made it hip - none of the positive effects of vaping came from Juul.

nickysielicki 6y ago
Juul became massively popular because it hit much harder than typical cheap gas station vape pens of the time and the pods came in around the same price as a pack of smokes, or cheaper. Vaping has been around for over a decade and there are plenty of smokers that never considered it a viable alternative because it was a huge investment -- only to find out that it didn't hit in any way comparable to the way that a cigarette would. Juul changed all that.
asdff 6y ago
Juul and similar salt nicotine vapes are only way to get a cigarette like nicotine buzz without having a leaky pipe bomb in your pocket where you have to regularly use ohms law to change your coils.
- c0nducktr 6y ago
  Come on, "use ohms law to change your coils"? What a bunch of bullshit.
  - jshevek 6y ago
    In what way is that quote "bullshit"?
  - asdff 6y ago
    If you wrap your own coils and you don't throw it on your ohm meter before throwing it on your battery mod, idk what to tell you. Even if you've done it 100 times it takes 1 second to make sure you have good contact between your wraps like you expect. I used to do this dude.

WilliamEdward 6y ago

This is a very tired point I see very often when discussing the morality of people who provide value to society. If Juul's service was solely and specifically helping people get off cigarettes, great. It's not though, is it? They sell nicotine to minors. If they cared about doing good, they would simply not sell nicotine to minors. By this judgement I can group the executives at Juul into villians and not be 'reductive' about it, because it's very clear they make profit off of evil when they don't have to. I'd also not like to see the argument that they aren't technically 'selling' juuls too minors. We're way past that point; it's super obvious the advertising is made up in such a way as to facilitate profits from minors. Just because it goes through a 3rd party doesn't eliminate blame from Juul, who remember have taken no steps to prevent children from smoking them.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

They're the only major brand that allows smokers to easily get mega doses of nicotine. It isn't much of a quitting aid if it only strengthens the addiction.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

analog31 6y ago

If they really had an altruistic mission, then it was their responsibility to protect that mission, and they blew it. Pivoting their product to target kids was their own choice, and they are responsible for the consequences that were obvious to everybody. A more straightforward explanation is that the altruistic mission was always fake.

chc 6y ago

I'm not sure Juul in particular contributed all that much to that. Other vaporizer companies had already made great strides on that front by the time Juul came on the scene. It seems like their USP was marketing toward children.