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> people aren't idiots and they tend to resent individuals, groups and institutions that make their daily behavior unlawful with the stroke of a pen Yes, but w

> people aren't idiots and they tend to resent individuals, groups and institutions that make their daily behavior unlawful with the stroke of a pen Yes, but when the people affected become a sufficiently small minority those people have a smaller and smaller impact on local and regional elections. The culture in much of the world has shifted so firmly against smoking that politicians in these places have probably rightly calculated that the irritation from the few holdouts who still feel entitled to smoke in public is massively overpowered by the gratitude they'll get from the people who are tired of dodging tobacco smoke on the streets.

potato3732842 2y ago
If public opinion is so against smoking then why not let it fizzle out? Your comment exactly captures what I mean. Every government in the west more or less shared your attitude over the past decade or two and what did it get them? A bunch of populists winning elections because people like you calculated that you could push the envelope on just about ever issue all at once and while you were all probably right individually it turns out that you can't all do that all at once. It's a tragedy of the commons problem of sorts. Instead of treating public policy as a strategic game of "how many frogs can we boil on how many subjects and how quickly can we boil them without losing our heads?" frog boiling was treated as to be something avoided generally maybe such progress regressing things would happen less often. Now, while I understand that Japan is not the west, I'm less than enthused to see them being sloppy like this.
- 542354234235 2y ago
  Why is a non-smoker’s right not to breath in smoke not included in your calculation? Why is it only the smoker (well the smoker in a very narrow and specific case) that is being “pushed” now and not the non-smokers having been pushed for decades? The closer you live to others, the more your individual actions can and do affect others. The ‘my liberty ends where yours begins' concept. Of course there is no perfect universal right answer to any given line, but there is no obligation to “carve out” anything. I don’t want to be forced to breath in their smoke while I’m in my apartment either, and I don’t have the option to not breath. Letting it "just fizzle out" is failing to protect the rights and freedoms of non-smokers.
  - ryandvm 2y ago
    The idea that outdoor smokers are impinging on your right to breathe is a bit of a stretch. You can breathe just fine and there is no evidence that catching the stray odor of a cigarette has any impact at all on your health. These people are sucking this smoke directly into their lungs all day for years on end and only a minority of them will ever actually develop cancer and you're going to act like you can't breathe if you smell one? Should we outlaw public farting too?
    - rsanek 2y ago
      i don't think breathing in farts has been shown to have negative health impacts
    - 542354234235 2y ago
      This comment chain is about smoking indoors in apartment buildings and more broadly the general rights of smoker's vs non-smokers in a historical sense. To pretend that my comment was in any way about being outdoors and occasionally smelling a whiff of cigarette smoke is either ignorant or malicious, just so you could pretend to be making some gotcha counterpoint.
    - ghusto 2y ago
      > The idea that outdoor smokers are impinging on your right to breathe is a bit of a stretch I’m sitting out on a terrace and you’re smoking next to me. I have to either move inside the cafe, or leave. This isn’t a hypothetical, it’s what I face every time I go out. So no it’s not a stretch. The majority of society would rather you don’t smoke. You live in that society, so choices are to either stop smoking, or continue because what you want is more important (aka being a dick).
    - throwaway1625 2y ago
      [dead]

potato3732842 2y ago

If public opinion is so against smoking then why not let it fizzle out? Your comment exactly captures what I mean. Every government in the west more or less shared your attitude over the past decade or two and what did it get them? A bunch of populists winning elections because people like you calculated that you could push the envelope on just about ever issue all at once and while you were all probably right individually it turns out that you can't all do that all at once. It's a tragedy of the commons problem of sorts. Instead of treating public policy as a strategic game of "how many frogs can we boil on how many subjects and how quickly can we boil them without losing our heads?" frog boiling was treated as to be something avoided generally maybe such progress regressing things would happen less often. Now, while I understand that Japan is not the west, I'm less than enthused to see them being sloppy like this.

542354234235 2y ago
Why is a non-smoker’s right not to breath in smoke not included in your calculation? Why is it only the smoker (well the smoker in a very narrow and specific case) that is being “pushed” now and not the non-smokers having been pushed for decades? The closer you live to others, the more your individual actions can and do affect others. The ‘my liberty ends where yours begins' concept. Of course there is no perfect universal right answer to any given line, but there is no obligation to “carve out” anything. I don’t want to be forced to breath in their smoke while I’m in my apartment either, and I don’t have the option to not breath. Letting it "just fizzle out" is failing to protect the rights and freedoms of non-smokers.
- ryandvm 2y ago
  The idea that outdoor smokers are impinging on your right to breathe is a bit of a stretch. You can breathe just fine and there is no evidence that catching the stray odor of a cigarette has any impact at all on your health. These people are sucking this smoke directly into their lungs all day for years on end and only a minority of them will ever actually develop cancer and you're going to act like you can't breathe if you smell one? Should we outlaw public farting too?
  - rsanek 2y ago
    i don't think breathing in farts has been shown to have negative health impacts
  - 542354234235 2y ago
    This comment chain is about smoking indoors in apartment buildings and more broadly the general rights of smoker's vs non-smokers in a historical sense. To pretend that my comment was in any way about being outdoors and occasionally smelling a whiff of cigarette smoke is either ignorant or malicious, just so you could pretend to be making some gotcha counterpoint.
  - ghusto 2y ago
    > The idea that outdoor smokers are impinging on your right to breathe is a bit of a stretch I’m sitting out on a terrace and you’re smoking next to me. I have to either move inside the cafe, or leave. This isn’t a hypothetical, it’s what I face every time I go out. So no it’s not a stretch. The majority of society would rather you don’t smoke. You live in that society, so choices are to either stop smoking, or continue because what you want is more important (aka being a dick).
  - throwaway1625 2y ago
    [dead]