You have a situation where even an idiot can use the technology of 1000’s of years of genius, and the wealth of 1000’s of years of corruption only to laugh at a present day genius for not being able to do, or not wanting to do it the old fashioned way; as well as they can. The difference in this scenario is that most people, through lack of mapping permanence as a cognitive stage, actually think that the competition is fair in the first place; or the the superiority is inherent in the ‘champion’; and the ‘champion’ will always claim as such either explicitly if they want sexual selection or implicity if they want the seat of an official or private designation which pays a lump sum to sit in.
You’d have to be a complete moron to believe that because you had a particular life experience, than so did everyone else. You’d be an utter fool to assume that KNOWLEDGE NOW = KNOWLEDGE THEN. And, finally, you’d be the mental equivalent of a drooling crackhead to presume to know the social workings of every single human social group 30 years ago and make sniffy little comments based on some priggish concept of How I Want The World To Have Been.
Who said they shouldn’t be? Go back and read my post again; the argument is over what comprises an informed choice. You want to hold children to be as culpable as adults in all things, which is the sort of thinking that led to children being executed for petty theft.
Really? I said they were victims and exempt from consequences? How odd. I don’t see that statement anywhere.
I also don’t recall saying they should or should not sue. Would you be so kind as to point out where I said those things and re-post them for us. Or this is something you’re making up to detract from the point? Which, in case you’ve missed it, is that children are not capbale of making the same informed choices that an adult makes.
Hmmm… you still seem to be claiming that I said I was a victim. What else do the little voices tell you?
Sure. Every few days, I’d go to the corner store at Southshore Shopping Center and buy a pack of Pall Malls.
Oh, I don’t know. I imagine some of them used their allowance instead.
Oh, my God! You got a clue! Huzzah!
Well, then that must settle it. You don’t think it happened, therefore it didn’t. A well-reasoned argument indeed. Well done!
Very far out of my way; it was all of 7 blocks or more! Not only that, but I had to walk all the way back, too! But I’m forgetting myself. It can’t have happened because you don’t think it happened. So I didn’t.
My brother, who is 4 years older, didn’t really notice the difference. Not that I’m sure the 9 year olds had a better grasp of social issues… but wait! Children are actually tiny grown-ups, right? Those darned 4th graders were holding out info, that’s what happened.
That’s nice, dear. It’s good and proper that you were scanning all the news, print, TV, and radio, every day when you were seven but I wasn’t. Too busy doing homework or playing outside, probably.
I’ll repeat the point, because I can tell that the previous times aren’t going to be enough:
**children are not capbale of making the same informed choices that an adult makes. **
Are you planning to actually address this or are you just ridding your inventory of strawmen?
xcheopis: part of the premise of this debate is that people can’t make informed choices on smoking. Because of that, the “liability” of cigarette companies is still a factor, because the warnings everyone was exposed to weren’t enough, and because the consequences were too distant in years to fully comprehend (or this is my interpretation).
I see that you have been or are currently a smoker. (Color me utterly shocked.) Do you consider yourself a victim? Do you think that (if you were to become ill) that you would be entitled to sue, because you were not allowed to make an “informed” choice? Do you think that the cigarette companies are responsible for your habit? Were you unaware of the illegality of underage smoking when you started to smoke? Are you trying to claim that you were not aware that there were any negative impact or consequences connected to smoking when you started? Even with the warning label on each and every pack? Were you unable to read?
The consequences of smoking are real, and no amount of “but I didn’t know” or “but I was a child” will take them away. But just because someone is young and “defies authority” does not mean that someone else should be liable for your stupid or bad choices, even if you made them as a child. No one forced you to break the law, and no one forced you to ignore the warnings. Are you disagreeing with this? Do you feel that someone else is responsible for your youthful decisions? Just asking. I am not sure what you are trying to imply here.
xcheopis: I was addressing the whole of the discussion, not just you. I brought up liability because it was mentioned in the OP, not by you. But it’s a good question. Do you, as a smoker, feel that because as a child you did not make an informed choice (and this is obviously what you feel) that the cigarette companies are still liable for your youthful decision?
Anyone? I am not just asking you, xcheopis.
And I might gently remind you, we are in GD, not the Pit, so keeping your personal insults to a minimum is probably appropriate.
I’ll respond to this general line. Anybody who feels entitled to sue a tobacco company is a bit off their rocker if you ask me.
There is no amount of financial benefit which can repair this degree of of calculated and pre-meditated murder and torture of not only the physical body but of ones cognitive space and perception with regards to their ability to function as well as those who were not within the calculated statistical range of the commodity being produced.
The very minimal which can be provided is painless suicide. An apology is irrelevant; hypocritical and self-serving for those still running profits from this game.
You assume that the decryption only goes back to cigarettes themselves; which is a foolish presumption. I’d guess that there are popular and nationally consumed mixtures in the form of products which further trigger susceptability to cigarette addiction; so as to render the transparency one layer back and effectively make intent impossble to prove even if the connection is discovered. ‘Plausable’ deniability.
When you are calculating biological addictions; the labels and the costs are irrelevant to the existence of these drugs and the existence of people who only feel ‘whole’ in their presence.
The tobacco lawsuit itself has been irrelevant because both the manufacturer raises have already made back the some odd 800 million that the settlement amounted to; not including the rediculous STATE taxes now in place. Cigarette manufacturers are making more money now then they were back then; even with the states raping in on this (I believe Oregon charges over a $2 now just in state tax per-pack). The percentage/ratio of quitters to increased revenue has not dissolved the mass profitability of cigarettes as a social tax determined from pre-determined biological slavery. These are raises which would NEVER have been able to occur in this short span of time without the tobacco lawsuit!!! The addictive substance is NOT just nicotine; and nicotine programs will be quite ineffective to the majority of addicts.
Being able to smoke brand name cigarettes is becoming an indicator of financial security in social perception; as packs are now ~$5 in places on the CONTINENTAL!!! US.
You also have a situation where theft is going to increase to trigger this ability to obtain something which has been designed specifically to trigger biological dependence, and to have the ‘cool’ image of being able to wrecklessly smoke and bum $15 bucks worth of cigarettes per-day. These people are either working jobs, have very generous allowances or are stealing from stores, friends or relatives to maintain this addiction. Since stores are beefing up their security; guess where the money comes from? Some other shmuck, in the form of taxes paid against consent.
Oh, to make matters worse; Zyban (used to be named Wellbutrin), an ‘anti-depressant’ infamous for triggering ‘perma-trips’ in people who have otherwise not aquired one from the use of psychedelics in general or from other ones already used. Wellbutrin can seriously screw with your brain for life. The effect of this damage makes the quitting of cigarettes next to impossible, as the brain will effectively be trained that an attempt to quit = less functionality.
“”"#1 Paxil does cause withdrawal. However, ( Cite Dr Amy Brodky a licensed and practicing MD and psychiatrist. Damn good one too) stepping down the dosage gradually rather than stopping cold turkey eliminates withdrawal symptoms. This takes 2 weeks at the outside."""
I’ll look up a cite on the exact percentage of pateints who have had the electrical tremours for life from having had taken Paxil in clinical trials. I believe the protracted withdraw in the trials was over a two month period; at which subsequent attempts to extend it for over a year still did not resolve the electrical shock withdraw.
Though it is noted that it can go away within a period of a few months to a few years; many still have the damage from the innitial trials and are dependant on Paxil as a result. I’m not aware of any known cure for this.
It’s technical name is “Paresthesias”, which falls under a general technical catagory of “Akathisia”. Even worse, is that the dependency forces lifelong debilitation in one of two ways; Akathisia or the resultant brain damage from long-term use which fries the very receptors they are creates to stimulate.
I recall a 20% Akathisia rate from the trials I read; and that this can be triggered from a single dose; though the numbers probably lower to 5% for permanent Alathisia from a single dose.
I can’t find these trials for the life of me.
Another source, still no clinical trial; or at least not the one I read innitially. This is however a clinical trial review; with trial statistics mentioned off and on. The thing I read was MASSIVE, it took me two days straight to read it. Now they have a name for this effect: SSRI syndrome or some such, and lawsuits and legal batles. My the time flies…
One of your cites is Dr Breggin’s site. The PyschMinded story also relies heavily upon him as a source, and a link to his AntiDepressant fact book is on the page. Dr Breggin has written several books around the theme that SRI’s cause problems. Whether he’s correct or not, he’s clearly not an objective source.
My personal experiences contradict all your claims. It is possible I’m just a statistically insignificant minority. However-
I’ve been on Prozac.
I’m currently on both Paxil and Wellbutrin(Which is the drug JustThink refers to as being prescribed to help quit smoking. Smoker’s experiences with it are the subject of an IMHO thread).
Due to my HMO, I once ran out of Paxil.
This did lead to withdrawal. Withdrawal lasted 3 days.
My hands do shake. However, they’ve been shaking since years before the invention of SRI’s let alone my taking them.
A double blind clinical trial conducted by an objective organization with no interest in the outcome, or Qagdop the Mercotan agreeing with will convince me.
Stop. Stop, stop, stop, for the love of God, please stop. Could you at least try to, like, consolidate your posts? It’s hard to have a back-and-forth when five or six quixotic posts in a row keep interposing themselves.
I personally know 2 people who are still permatripping from Welbutrin and one person who is still permatripping from a single dose of Prozac. I would also be curious if you took some of the OLDER drugs before taking SRI’s; lithium perhaps, colazapine<sp>? I personally have only been able to endure 6 months of Paxil withdraw as a result of of having it administered to me by the state; it was that or permanent lockdown in an institution for my arbitrary eating habits (ward lockdown in the local hospital that was treating me). I played the lottery to get out and I lost; though I did manage to get out before being institutionalized. My penalty for not eating was to either become a slave to clinical trials for life or to endure Paxil dependency for life. I am much freer as a result of having taken Paxil; however, I can assure that with as much as I’ve personally endured in life; my tolorance threshold for pain and suffering is astounding - and 6 months was the longest I lasted waiting for Parethesias to stop. I’m starting to develop tics as a result from the receptor damage done over time as well; which I expect to only become worse as my brain incurs more damage. Considering that I’m a relatively astute person who spends quite a bit of time straining acausal synchronicity from causal observation; I’d suggest to the best of my ability that the odds of me knowing three people who are permatripped as a result of these anti-depressants and my own experience would lend themselves to what this doctor is suggesting. I certainly could be mistaking, and I plan to find out at somepoint how to tell the difference between these things if I make it long enough.
As a timeline; I read the clinical trials on the web three years before given this option. I was well aware of what was occurring and was well aware that dependence might be the result of making this decision. The numerous phychiatrists I referred to the trials stated that they saw no such evidence in their links to the Lilly site. I have also tried various methods of detox over the few years that I’ve been subsiquently taking Paxil.
Six months was the longest I held out consecutively not taking Paxil; however, I have spent significant time in this state running very slow detox routines and then waiting a few months after the final stage; only to try a different detox method. I’ve spent a good portion of the last three years in parethesis, yet it doesn’t count if I’m actually nibbling off a 1/2milligram of Paxil on the final stages of a detox routine shrug. I’ve only started noticing the tics in the last couple months. Ironically, I haven’t checked on Paxil since I read the trials way back in the day, so it was mildly humorous to me that they have a syndrome named after this now.
Apologies to Gadarene for not posting well. I do however agree with the gist of this OP and believe my general arguement is there now, so I’ll butt out.
ok, I have kind of lost track of what is going on here (can you guess why?) but to answer these points briefly,
So far as I can see it hasn’t been pointed out here yet that many many people quit smoking. So, even if the child begins smoking at 12, by the time they are 18, at least in society’s view, they are capable of recognizing the danger and quiting. Yes, quiting smoking is difficult, no it is not impossible. If smoking were a drug that, if used once at age 12, would cause cancer at age 60, then you might have a point about holding the 60 year old responsible for the actions in his youth, but that is not the case w/ smoking.
I see what you are saying about the indestructability complex of youth, and my response is two fold. One, as stated above, people can quit smoking at any time if they want to. It can be done! And secondly, I say that we can hold children to an adult standard of care for their actions when the participate in adult activities.
** Rhum, ** (and everyone who thinks that quitting can be done at any time) I am an ex-smoker. I am 44 years old and I quit a little over two years ago.
Nicotine was an amazing drug for me. I became hooked the very first night I smoked, and I do not exaggerate. I went from 0 to 60 overnight, became a pack + a day smoker immediately. I had just turned 16 years old. (When I finally succeeded in quitting permanently, it emerged that I have a little bit of ADD or something like it, and I had responded so powerfully to nicotine because it was perfect for getting me to focus. I struggle with that every day, and sometimes I really wish I could smoke, just for that effect.)
What’s especially galling about this is that I had spent my childhood up to that point bugging my mother to stop smoking, taunting her about her black lungs and the cancer she was going to end up getting. So it’s obvious that I was “informed” about the evils of smoking. Yet somehow, it didn’t apply to me.
It took me 26 years to finally stop. I tried a dozen times in between, and could not sustain it. Not simply because it was hard, but because it was hell. It took a particular confluence of life circumstances and wisdom and strength to finally rid myself of that addiction, and my first attempt to do so was 2 years after I started.
Yes, it is possible to quit. But it is not simply a decision that any smoker can make any time.
(My mother, by the way, is 79 years old, has had three heart attacks and two strokes and a triple bypass…and still smokes.)