As I said to @newtboy sometime ago in a similar(ish) conversation, I appreciate your responses. It's nice to talk to someone not just spitting bile (which you'd do less if you ate a plant-based whole food diet ).

Those 'multiple phases of science' saying some food was good or bad at various times of your life is mostly the lobbyists and corporations making smoke screens. It's been known for decades that a plant-based whole food diet is protective against the #1 killer in the Western world. Again, it's the same as the tobacco companies. When the science disagrees with you, you cause a confusion smokescreen so people say exactly what you just said. And evidently it worked -- until the last few years when the internet and a handful of movies and books have started making it very clear what's going on. If you have a short attention span, I suggest you watch just a few 5-min videos on NutritionFacts. The guy is funny and has videos about just about everything in nutrition. And he takes everything from the newest studies. He also has a great book that came out recently, How Not to Die which is a fun read considering it's a diet science book.

Re: personal choice -- I understand you annoyance at being belittled by vegetarians/vegans, but you have to understand that we don't see it as a "personal choice". We see it as a moral one. Why is it not a "personal choice" to molest children? What if someone likes to molest children? It doesn't matter because, morally, you should not. And you're causing harm to another. The question is why are animals not allowed inside our moral-consideration-circle. Why are they excluded?

I personally think that vegetarians are hypocrites if they're doing it for moral reasons alone. You could argue that meat is murder, but dairy is torture. But, you gotta take whatever steps you need to get there. It's hard, I know. Giving up dairy was really hard.

My argument usually isn't about sentience. It's about choices. Why cause harm to something you don't need to just for your pleasure when there are literally better alternatives? We do, indeed, have to eat, so I eat the lowest form on the food chain that I can to survive. They just also luckily happen to be the most nutritious.

That's all I usually ask of meat eaters, is to admit and understand the decision they are making: that they're pleasure is worth the death of a sentient being. And plenty are happy to admit that, and I salute those people. It's those living in a cognitive dissonance fantasy that disturbs me. Again, the great part about being human is our ability to self-reflect and hopefully see ourselves as we truly are.

In response to "my body has been hard-coded to prefer as a food source", if you look at how the body, physiologically, responds to meat vs plants in our diets, you realize very quickly that our bodies were made much more for plants than meat. What we are hard-coded to do is eat shit tons of fats, sweets, and oils. And I don't think you'd argue that those are good for the body despite it being "hard-coded" to want them.

Lastly, the amount of scientific evidence saying that plant-based diets are (far) more healthy than meat-based ones is becoming as voluminous as climate change evidence. The food and pharmaceutical companies are using the same tactics that the tobacco industries used just a few decades ago to cause public confusion when the (not-funded-by-corporations) scientific community was in agreement that tobacco was demonstrably carcinogenic. If you want to make the health/better-for-your-body/don't-fight-nature argument for meat, you better start realizing you're sounding more and more like a climate change denier.

Meh, I learned because I rolled my dad's cigarettes for him when I was a kid. He would hand me a can of Bugler Tobacco and papers, I would spend the evening rolling them since there wasn't much else to do out in the AZ desert at night. I even started smoking because they were cheap and I knew how to roll.

Later, when I got into the sticky, I pretty much did the same thing. I know for a fact that I wouldn't touch a joint that someone dunked into their mouth. It isn't even necessary if you packed your wad tight enough, just if you rolled sloppy and want to slow the burn rate down.

Of course, I gave all of that stuff up a long time ago. Don't think I've smoked a joint since 2000. Funny thing , though, roll your own cigs are coming back in a big way because the bulk tobacco doesn't get hit with all of the same taxes as pre-made. My former smoking buddies tell me that you can save 1/2 to 2/3 the price of pre-mades now.

@00Scud00

I don't disagree that alcohol and tobacco policy is hypocritical and yes alcohol is worse, but that still doesn't change the fact that pot can be abused and if you have a megaphone, making it sound cool doesn't help.

Also, I would say promoting using it alongside legalization actually worsens arguments for decriminalization in general because rather than focusing on it how it ruins lives and job prospects, detractors can just paint you as someone who wants to get high. I think those who don't use pot are better advocates.

@RedSky
Does he really glorify it any more than we already glorify drinking or smoking (smoking to a lesser extent). Advertising still tells us that it's not really a party unless you're getting hammered, depending on what you're drinking you are hipper, sexier, or just plain more fun. I see most glorification of pot as just a response to the over the top demonization of pot, so just decriminalize it already and eventually it will all reach equilibrium.
@VoodooV
Like he said, it's the corporate interests that will make the difference. They might pay lip service to social conservative causes like abortion, gay rights, etc but the only thing they really care about is the bottom line.
Gay marriage was a total non issue to them, but big pharma, law enforcement, the military industrial complex, tobacco, the prison industrial complex, and many others have a vested interest in keeping pot illegal. They will spend millions or even billions to keep the status quo. Once people saw gay marriage as an issue of civil rights it got a huge boost, but the legalization of marijuana is still seen by many as just a cause for stoners, pot heads and junkies, so nobody is really going to care.

I was incorrect, apparently when you group them together, they become far more sensitive to ignition.

"Sparkler bombs are constructed by binding together as many as 300 sparklers with tape, leaving one extended to use as a fuse. In 2008 three deaths were attributed to the devices, which can be ignited accidentally by heat or friction. Because they usually contain more than 50 milligrams of the same explosive powder found in firecrackers, they are illegal under U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulations."

In the case of this particular example the airline did cite that reason (I remember the forum buzz about it at the time).

But, I still agree with your point there. I've never been keen on the vapers who like to belligerently assert their "right to vape" everywhere they can without engaging their brains, or a bit of basic consideration.

Doubly so when snus so easy to order online & "stealth vaping" in public spaces is so easy to do.

That said, most of the negativity I've had & seen personally over the subject has been largely moralistic in nature. Specifically either "still bad for you!" or "think of the children!".

This may have been a bad example, but I could dig you up about as many media & campaign group hit pieces as you'd care to read.

Right now it's resulting in some deeply ill conceived legislation. I recognise that some sensible legal regulation is needed, but that is not what's happening at the moment. It seems like a double pronged shafting from the tobacco/pharma cartel and the morality police.

Maybe I'm just too emotionally invested on that one.

As for the other bit's. Your dealing with classic scattershot Slavoj. He writes in a much more ordered way than he speaks, but he is still very much a stream of consciousness when he gets going.
I enjoy "truffle hunting in the forest of knowledge" like that, but I understand why it rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

I this case, I don't think the specific examples are as important as the idea he is expressing (to him or myself).

That said, couldn't said health organisation be seen as pushing a moral position there? I guess your arguing it was beneficial to their business in some way? (not informed enough to have a strong position either way on that, but I think I can see where your coming from)

As for it being more dangerous than overt totalitarianism. The argument would be that you can see and fight overt ideologies, as such they are considerably less of a threat in modern developed countries.

Here I think, it would be "more dangerous" simply in the sense that there is a greater danger of anything significant actually happening.

Naturally the jackboots and piano wire kind is infinitely worse in practice. But there seems considerably less danger of that kind of totalitarianism gaining a serious foothold in most of our cultures than in times past.

The policing of peoples thoughts, language and consensual behaviour on the other hand (epitomised by the PC gone mad crowd). Could perhaps be said to be more dangerous, simply in the sense that it has more potential to do actual damage.

You could accuse that of being a bit hyperbolic, but that's our Slavoj.

Tobacco: 229875
Alcohol: 65678
Drunk Driving: 22204
Drug Abuse: 16423
Prescription Drug Overdose: 9852
..........
Gun related: 8,561


Dishonest use of numbers. the "gun related" tallys the number of people killed by gun violence ie people shot and killed intentionally by other people, it does not include suicide (about 20k dead a year) or accidental shootings (about 700 dead a year)

Secondly, lets look at these other causes of death: Lets see, all of these, except drunk driving, is people KILLING THEMSELVES, unintentionally. Theres a pretty big difference. Drunk driving is ILLEGAL, and nobody is arguing that it would be a good idea to have more of it. And you know, its not like we're trying to get more people killed by tobacco, for instance, in fact, lots of people are working on trying to lower the number of deaths from all these other things, but just because more people die from alcohol or tobacco use, ten to fifteen thousand murder by guns a year doesnt really count??

Secondly, people are on the whole not actually working to get guns BANNED, but to implement restrictions, perhaps in the same way owning and driving a car has its restrictions. Cars, you see, are not banned. But there are RESTRICTIONS. Does anyone feel there arent enough cars around?. No. But there are restrictions. You need a drivers license. you need to follow some traffic rules. Similar things could be implemented for guns. It would be a start.
Another place to start is gun CULTURE, which is probably the intent of this video, changing people minds about guns.

Heres a challenge to your statistics: The number of people SAVED by guns. We always hear of the elusive situation of a bad criminal breaking in to kill your family, but luckily dads an NRA member and chases the bad guy away with a trusty old gun. How often does shit like that ever actually happen?

So, lets start a list shall we?

1. Incorrectly secured gun
2. Incorrectly secured gun
3. Incorrectly secured gun(s)
4. Legally owned gun(s) that were registered. Due to a series of errors, the shooter was not stopped.

2015 deaths so far in the USA:

Tobacco: 229875
Alcohol: 65678
Drunk Driving: 22204
Drug Abuse: 16423
Prescription Drug Overdose: 9852
..........
Gun related: 8,561

When you break it down, this is fucking low brow propaganda to scare people into banning something without a true understanding of how that will affect their other freedoms.

http://people.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm.....if you want some facts instead of this crap.

Whatever FDA is doing with tobacco is still more than what's going on with those robot penises.

You know that the tobacco industry isn't regulated either, right? The FDA has been wanting to for decades, but there's way too much money at stake for politicians to let that happen.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/why-smoking-addictive-its-probably-not-just-nicotine-despite-what-weve-been-told-years-260839

The chemical acetaldehyde in tobacco is suspect for lowering monoamine oxidase in the brain, resulting in higher dopamine levels which stimulates addiction.

The e-cigarettes I tried years ago when they first came out were crap and no substitute for what they have now, which has really only been around for a year or so in a convenient form. Probably there will be some decent studies in the very near future.

Part of the problem is that the drugstore stuff really doesn't work (and many are made by the tobacco companies, which is suspicious--they don't provide dosage information for one thing).

ed: Oh, and there are also a lot of people who don't quit nicotine, they just quit smoking and vape instead. Though it's too early to tell, vaping is almost certainly less harmful than smoking and may be effectively harmless. I don't know if you'd count that or not.

Because nicotine itself is not terribly addictive. The main components of addiction to tobacco are now believed to be other substances.

Now consider the mechanical act of smoking; inhale, exhale cloud, reward.
Using a vaporizer reproduces the physical act that smoker's brains associate with the reward.

There does seem to be a period at the beginning of using a vaporizer, where there's a craving for cigarettes, perhaps because of the other addictive chemicals that are absent. But this craving isn't particularly difficult to overcome when you're satisfying the other elements of your habit. Not to mention, lungs clearing, sense of taste returning...

Then there's the final stage of using a vaporizer, which I've seen happen with others and I've experienced...you lower the nicotine levels further and further and then one day you start forgetting to use it at all. Your frequency of use may drop to nothing. Not always though. Some people go truely insane. We call them "scuba vapers". One of my buddies has earned the nickname "Darth Vaper".

A couple of things:

I have verifiable evidence than Marijuana is both addictive and harmful

unless you've conducted double-blinded randomised controlled trials, you don't have evidence, you have anecdotes. Yeah, that sounds kinda dickish, but it's really important.

no one should dictate what plants others can eat

That's pretty ambiguous. First, we're not just talking about eating, we're talking about using in other ways too (in this case, smoking). Second, we already regulate other plants/products, like alcohol and tobacco.

For me, it's pretty simple. Marijuana does not cause sufficient harm as to warrant making it illegal. If an informed consenting adult chooses to smoke, drink or get stoned, that should be their choice. Obviously you shouldn't be drunk or stoned while driving or doing surgery or caring for kids, etc, but we already control for these cases with alcohol.

TBH, as much as I love beer, whiskey and wine, it's much harder to justify keeping alcohol legal than it is to keep marijuana illegal.