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> different values compared to the old American companies (oil, cigarettes, defense). To play devil's advocate a bit, I think those old industries started out

> different values compared to the old American companies (oil, cigarettes, defense). To play devil's advocate a bit, I think those old industries started out just as idealistic as the tech sector. The oil companies pursued amazing feats of science and engineering to power the new industrial economy. The defense companies made remarkable technological advances to help deter Soviet aggression and win the space race. And before the link to lung cancer was discovered, tobacco was like coffee: it gave people a nice cognitive boost, as well as possibly helping them stay thin.

AlbertCory 2y ago
This is in no way to defend smoking. I've never smoked, and good riddance to it. However: Amidst all the talk about the causes of obesity, surely "not smoking anymore" is in there somewhere?
- paduc 2y ago
  Meth addicts are often very thin as well. /s
  - consteval 2y ago
    Personally I would argue that the addiction simply shifted for most Americans. It was cigarettes, now it is food, particularly ultra-processed food. There's a large subset of people, the majority in my opinion, who are somewhat prone to addiction. Most are just a wee bit prone. They certainly won't peruse the streets for drugs. But, if something is readily available and socially accepted, they'll do it. Before this was smoking, now its ultra-processed foods. Fast food, junk food, sweets type stuff. It's probably still a boon, I'd say. I mean, I think being obese is probably healthier than smoking. But we didn't really "solve" anything, we just moved the problem.
    - willy_k 2y ago
      Not very surprising, considering it’s the same companies using the same playbook. I’m not so sure that being obese is healthier than smoking, being obese might not give you cancer but it will certainly mess with your heart, and I would not be surprised if someone who smoked for the same amount of time someone else was obese ends up having a better prognosis after quitting.
      - fortran77 2y ago
        Obesity is associated with many forms of cancer. See https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/obesity/obesity-fact-sheet https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/o...
      - consteval 2y ago
        To be fair, the real risk of smoking is not actually lung cancer. Most smokers don't get lung cancer. It's heart and lung damage. Congestive heart failure, heart attacks, COPD, etc. A lot of these are slow, painful, and terminal.
    - cycomanic 2y ago
      The connection is even closer. Tobacco company extensively invested in the highly processed food industry and brought their advertisement experts in. The obesity crisis (and addiction to sugary and fatty processed foods) is not an accident, it's the result of a sophisticated advertisement campaign directed by the brains behind tobacco and alcohol campaigns.
    - AlbertCory 2y ago
      This seems ideologically rather than evidence-driven. Smokers used to claim that it suppressed their appetites. Not being a smoker, or obese, I wouldn't know. But it seems plausible as a (partial) cause.
      - consteval 2y ago
        I mean, of course I have no evidence because nobody is really looking into it. In my opinion, despite the fact we have many tens if not hundreds of millions of people eating themselves to death, we (socially) are incredibly hesitant to consider overconsumption an addiction. But when people are dying slowly, and painfully, by their own hand and they can't stop, I personally consider that an addiction. In addition, we know ultra-processed foods are designed to invoke as much pleasure in the user as possible. In many ways, they suffer the same hyper-optimization that modern cigarettes do. There's also some* evidence that part of the Tobacco industry shifted to food as Tobacco in the US died off. This is more circumstantial evidence. I think the "hard" evidence is that everyone smoked and was thin, now nobody smokes, and everyone is obese. Regardless, I think we need harder and more proven solutions to the obesity epidemic. I think "willpower!" isn't working out for us, on a large scale. I'm rooting for Ozempic. And, fun fact, Ozempic also curbs nicotine and alcohol addiction.
- TeaBrain 2y ago
  They aren't defending smoking. They're referring to the industry and its ethos when it originally grew. While smoking was established as being bad for health in the mid-20th century, this wasn't as clear in the late 19th and early 20th, when the tobacco industry boomed and brought many jobs to the southern US economy.
  - AlbertCory 2y ago
    Who's "they"?
    - TeaBrain 2y ago
      I take it you're being purposefully obtuse, but I was referring to the person you responded to.
      - AlbertCory 2y ago
        > I take it you're being purposefully obtuse No, but you're being purposefully hyper-sensitive. If you're replying to someone higher, you should hit Reply on that comment. Not on someone lower down.
        TeaBrain 2y ago
        No, that was honestly how I interpreted your comment. That may have been the wrong interpretation, but your two word reply didn't leave me with much. I possibly misinterpreted your first comment also, but I wasn't really sure how you were leaning there, whether it be just an absurdity or a question honestly pondered.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        OK. All you see when you hit Threads is what YOU said. Not what the person above you said.
joecool1029 2y ago
> And before the link to lung cancer was discovered, tobacco was like coffee: it gave people a nice cognitive boost Now you can just buy nicotine products for that boost with a substantially reduced risk profile (it's not a carcinogen). Some writeup on it: https://gwern.net/nicotine https://gwern.net/nicotine
sangnoir 2y ago
> it gave people a nice cognitive boost, Does nicotine give a cognitive boost, or does it return one to their pre-addiction baseline?
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  Same question applies perfectly to caffeine. I might just be justifying my addiction, but it’s possible this is still worthwhile as it allows one to manually select when they want to expend their mental energy, overriding the normally semirandom fluctuations brought on by exhaustion, mood, etc.
  - cedilla 2y ago
    A big difference is that caffeine isn't addictive. It may seem like it, and you do get a few headaches when you quit cold turkey, but you just don't get the intense graving you get with addictions.
    - chimeracoder 2y ago
      > A big difference is that caffeine isn't addictive. It may seem like it, and you do get a few headaches when you quit cold turkey, but you just don't get the intense graving you get with addictions. I'm curious what definition of "addiction" you're using to arrive at the conclusion that caffeine isn't addictive.
      - lokar 2y ago
        Isn’t the standard definition that you continue to use the drug despite it causing serious negative problems in your life?
        chimeracoder 2y ago
        > Isn’t the standard definition that you continue to use the drug despite it causing serious negative problems in your life? There's no one standard definition of "addiction", and most concise definitions (one or two lines) are extremely fragile and break down when you try to apply them in any meaningful context. By this definition you're putting forth, caffeine certainly could be addictive, as could any substance - and in fact, nearly any behavior, which is why professionals generally frown upon using this measure definitionally, because it leads to pseudoscientific terms like "X addiction", for absurd values of X.
mistermann 2y ago
One similarity between the scenarios: fake democracy, with minimal (and easily compromised) checks and balances. Theatre at its finest. But this shan't ever be discussed.

AlbertCory 2y ago

This is in no way to defend smoking. I've never smoked, and good riddance to it. However: Amidst all the talk about the causes of obesity, surely "not smoking anymore" is in there somewhere?

paduc 2y ago
Meth addicts are often very thin as well. /s
- consteval 2y ago
  Personally I would argue that the addiction simply shifted for most Americans. It was cigarettes, now it is food, particularly ultra-processed food. There's a large subset of people, the majority in my opinion, who are somewhat prone to addiction. Most are just a wee bit prone. They certainly won't peruse the streets for drugs. But, if something is readily available and socially accepted, they'll do it. Before this was smoking, now its ultra-processed foods. Fast food, junk food, sweets type stuff. It's probably still a boon, I'd say. I mean, I think being obese is probably healthier than smoking. But we didn't really "solve" anything, we just moved the problem.
  - willy_k 2y ago
    Not very surprising, considering it’s the same companies using the same playbook. I’m not so sure that being obese is healthier than smoking, being obese might not give you cancer but it will certainly mess with your heart, and I would not be surprised if someone who smoked for the same amount of time someone else was obese ends up having a better prognosis after quitting.
    - fortran77 2y ago
      Obesity is associated with many forms of cancer. See https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/obesity/obesity-fact-sheet https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/o...
    - consteval 2y ago
      To be fair, the real risk of smoking is not actually lung cancer. Most smokers don't get lung cancer. It's heart and lung damage. Congestive heart failure, heart attacks, COPD, etc. A lot of these are slow, painful, and terminal.
  - cycomanic 2y ago
    The connection is even closer. Tobacco company extensively invested in the highly processed food industry and brought their advertisement experts in. The obesity crisis (and addiction to sugary and fatty processed foods) is not an accident, it's the result of a sophisticated advertisement campaign directed by the brains behind tobacco and alcohol campaigns.
  - AlbertCory 2y ago
    This seems ideologically rather than evidence-driven. Smokers used to claim that it suppressed their appetites. Not being a smoker, or obese, I wouldn't know. But it seems plausible as a (partial) cause.
    - consteval 2y ago
      I mean, of course I have no evidence because nobody is really looking into it. In my opinion, despite the fact we have many tens if not hundreds of millions of people eating themselves to death, we (socially) are incredibly hesitant to consider overconsumption an addiction. But when people are dying slowly, and painfully, by their own hand and they can't stop, I personally consider that an addiction. In addition, we know ultra-processed foods are designed to invoke as much pleasure in the user as possible. In many ways, they suffer the same hyper-optimization that modern cigarettes do. There's also some* evidence that part of the Tobacco industry shifted to food as Tobacco in the US died off. This is more circumstantial evidence. I think the "hard" evidence is that everyone smoked and was thin, now nobody smokes, and everyone is obese. Regardless, I think we need harder and more proven solutions to the obesity epidemic. I think "willpower!" isn't working out for us, on a large scale. I'm rooting for Ozempic. And, fun fact, Ozempic also curbs nicotine and alcohol addiction.
TeaBrain 2y ago
They aren't defending smoking. They're referring to the industry and its ethos when it originally grew. While smoking was established as being bad for health in the mid-20th century, this wasn't as clear in the late 19th and early 20th, when the tobacco industry boomed and brought many jobs to the southern US economy.
- AlbertCory 2y ago
  Who's "they"?
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    I take it you're being purposefully obtuse, but I was referring to the person you responded to.
    - AlbertCory 2y ago
      > I take it you're being purposefully obtuse No, but you're being purposefully hyper-sensitive. If you're replying to someone higher, you should hit Reply on that comment. Not on someone lower down.
      - TeaBrain 2y ago
        No, that was honestly how I interpreted your comment. That may have been the wrong interpretation, but your two word reply didn't leave me with much. I possibly misinterpreted your first comment also, but I wasn't really sure how you were leaning there, whether it be just an absurdity or a question honestly pondered.
        AlbertCory 2y ago
        OK. All you see when you hit Threads is what YOU said. Not what the person above you said.

joecool1029 2y ago

> And before the link to lung cancer was discovered, tobacco was like coffee: it gave people a nice cognitive boost Now you can just buy nicotine products for that boost with a substantially reduced risk profile (it's not a carcinogen). Some writeup on it: https://gwern.net/nicotine https://gwern.net/nicotine

sangnoir 2y ago

> it gave people a nice cognitive boost, Does nicotine give a cognitive boost, or does it return one to their pre-addiction baseline?

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
Same question applies perfectly to caffeine. I might just be justifying my addiction, but it’s possible this is still worthwhile as it allows one to manually select when they want to expend their mental energy, overriding the normally semirandom fluctuations brought on by exhaustion, mood, etc.
- cedilla 2y ago
  A big difference is that caffeine isn't addictive. It may seem like it, and you do get a few headaches when you quit cold turkey, but you just don't get the intense graving you get with addictions.
  - chimeracoder 2y ago
    > A big difference is that caffeine isn't addictive. It may seem like it, and you do get a few headaches when you quit cold turkey, but you just don't get the intense graving you get with addictions. I'm curious what definition of "addiction" you're using to arrive at the conclusion that caffeine isn't addictive.
    - lokar 2y ago
      Isn’t the standard definition that you continue to use the drug despite it causing serious negative problems in your life?
      - chimeracoder 2y ago
        > Isn’t the standard definition that you continue to use the drug despite it causing serious negative problems in your life? There's no one standard definition of "addiction", and most concise definitions (one or two lines) are extremely fragile and break down when you try to apply them in any meaningful context. By this definition you're putting forth, caffeine certainly could be addictive, as could any substance - and in fact, nearly any behavior, which is why professionals generally frown upon using this measure definitionally, because it leads to pseudoscientific terms like "X addiction", for absurd values of X.

mistermann 2y ago

One similarity between the scenarios: fake democracy, with minimal (and easily compromised) checks and balances. Theatre at its finest. But this shan't ever be discussed.