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"Stupid" is a bad description. First, addictions are a terrifyingly complicated health problem. They involve and hijack ancient reward paths in our brain. Stop

"Stupid" is a bad description. First, addictions are a terrifyingly complicated health problem. They involve and hijack ancient reward paths in our brain. Stop breathing for 30 seconds and watch your reactions. Some people react in the same way to withdrawals. Are you weak-willed or stupid if you cannot hold your breath for a minute? Second, some people make money on addictions. That is where "stupid" definitely leaves the conversation and "evil" enters it. And it is not just stereotypical mafiosi peddling fentanyl. How many HNers spend their working hours making some app slightly more addictive to the users? Do they consider themselves evil? These people have an enormous incentive to play down the risks and try to hook up new users to their products. Be it tobacco, gin, Facebook... If no one made money on smoking, it would be a niche activity by now.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
>If no one made money on smoking, it would be a niche activity by now. That is an interesting thought and I'm not so sure. Some things are self sustaining cultural practices. Maybe it depends on how you scope the idea. If the companies went non-profit and taxes were cut, it would be very cheap and I don't think advertising does anything anymore. I think the same is largely true for alcohol as well Advertising seems more about market share than converting users.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  I meant "niche" in the same sense as fishing is. About 2 per cent of Czechs are fishers. At least 15 times as many smoke. That said, I was too vague. There is a huge difference between the world where production of tobacco was never profitable vs. where production of tobacco, hypothetically, stopped being profitable yesterday.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Yeah, that was another thought I had. If profit it was somehow prevented all the way down to farmers and distribution, then I think use would be extremely niche. Few people would be interested in growing and manufacturing their own tobacco. That said, I think this speaks more to how profit is the engine of commerce, and otherwise we would all be subsistence farmers. In the never profitable case, it is interesting to think about native American use prior to the Colombian exchange. If Native American cultivation was a profitable activity is debatable, but not particularly interesting to me, so lets set that aside. My understanding is that it was used fairly heavily in a social setting. It seems reasonable that this would still have propagated rather quickly. It reminds me that smoking spread throughout Europe and the near east without TV, billboards, or hallmarks of modern advertising - and how deeply it imbedded itself in the cultures there. Similarly, I would argue that Alcohol predates advertising and predates currency itself.

s1artibartfast 2y ago

>If no one made money on smoking, it would be a niche activity by now. That is an interesting thought and I'm not so sure. Some things are self sustaining cultural practices. Maybe it depends on how you scope the idea. If the companies went non-profit and taxes were cut, it would be very cheap and I don't think advertising does anything anymore. I think the same is largely true for alcohol as well Advertising seems more about market share than converting users.

inglor_cz 2y ago
I meant "niche" in the same sense as fishing is. About 2 per cent of Czechs are fishers. At least 15 times as many smoke. That said, I was too vague. There is a huge difference between the world where production of tobacco was never profitable vs. where production of tobacco, hypothetically, stopped being profitable yesterday.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Yeah, that was another thought I had. If profit it was somehow prevented all the way down to farmers and distribution, then I think use would be extremely niche. Few people would be interested in growing and manufacturing their own tobacco. That said, I think this speaks more to how profit is the engine of commerce, and otherwise we would all be subsistence farmers. In the never profitable case, it is interesting to think about native American use prior to the Colombian exchange. If Native American cultivation was a profitable activity is debatable, but not particularly interesting to me, so lets set that aside. My understanding is that it was used fairly heavily in a social setting. It seems reasonable that this would still have propagated rather quickly. It reminds me that smoking spread throughout Europe and the near east without TV, billboards, or hallmarks of modern advertising - and how deeply it imbedded itself in the cultures there. Similarly, I would argue that Alcohol predates advertising and predates currency itself.