Huh? I implied that my prejudice is irrational. But I'll say it explicitly now: it's irrational because the mere act of smoking does not disqualify one from being intelligent. That's why I went on to say that the source of my prejudice is not deduction but induction.

As for "fashionable", I don't know or care.

I'm not prejudices against you.

lol "fashionable".
Smoking ****ing sucks and if you do it you're a real ****ing dumbass. that's like bottom line. And yes, I judge people in my age bracket who do it.

sidenote: mother died of lung cancer.
They're smart enough to know how little they know.

"If she smokes she pokes" is a saying for a reason. Of the female smokers I've known I can't think of any who are particularly selective about their sexual partners. Same for women with visible tattoos.

I've seem to lost my prejudice towards addiction. Actually, I do not recall having much of one. I've understood addiction as a health problem, when it is an actual problem, rather than a moral or character problem for a long time now.

Smoking does suck but a lot of the prejudice against smokers is independent of how much it sucks.

It's become a learned response that takes a lot of getting rid of even to the extent some would struggle hard if some e-cig turns out to be popular and not suck (and would struggle hard against evidence of such even if it was working as an effective alternative for smoking addicts).

What the Germans are doing to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc. right now is hardly random or harmless.

Lol wat?
People dislike smoking because it causes cancer, emphysema, copd, and a whole host of other ****. People dislike smokers smoking around them because second hand smoke can cause negative health effects. Even third hand smoke can have consequences. Smoking also smells incredibly bad and can be quite noxious to those who are sensitive to it.

This is one of the dumbest arguments like ever.
And like my mom started smoking in the 60s. She made a really good effort to quit multiple times. I understand how hard it is to kick as much as someone who hasn't had to quit can understand it.

But people who are in their 20s who smoke are dumb as ****, even if they started smoking when they were in their impressionable youth.

calling a dislike for smoking fashionable is as dumb as calling believing in climate change "fashionable".

yeah, it's a learned response because we've learned how bad smoking is for people and the people around them. That's ****ing science!

And ecigs that help people quit smoking/nicotine are great. I still don't want it done around me, in public places because there is not a lot known about it at this point. But I'm all for methods that enable people to quit! I've had a few friends quit through ecigarettes.

I can absolutely respect people who are attempting to quit smoking.

yeah okay gizmo, we aren't disagreeing that smoking is very bad for you and hard to quit.

I find brilliantly intelligent people wonderful to be around, whereas run-of-the-mill intelligent people are often the worst. Pretty much the same goes for poker, the absolute best poker players I've been at the table with have --EV aside--been great guys to play the game with, whereas other players good enough to beat the game are often the biggest *******s.

I feel the same way about people who eat curries and do high impact exercising in urban environments.

Wrecking their own bodies and they smell bad.

You are grossly underestimating how hard it is to quit smoking. And your strong opinions about how "stupid" people are who smoke is as offensive and insensitive as saying how stupid people are who are addicted to drugs & alcohol.

Aren't you a nurse? Are you at all familiar with how chem dependence works? Like, so sorry that it smells bad and is scientifically proven to be bad for you, but that knowledge has next to nothing to do with quitting.

Good God.
Jesus what a bad look.

On second thought, maybe being a nurse is precisely what biases you. Like the only part of the process you're in is the end for those who couldn't quit.

Might be because more people smoke in Australia than average, but I've met a fair few very smart smokers. Most of them have quit though.

Is this just because the people who didn't smoke and got into e-cigs are dragging the population's average towards 'douche'? I think if you're a smoker who "can't" quit, e-cigs make a lot of sense

For a lot of people it is fashionable. So many people have never seen a graph about % of scientists agreeing it is a human-caused phenomenon, or read at all into the subject. Most people think climate-change deniers are ****ing dumbasses because everyone else calls them dumbasses.

The line between 'doing something about climate change is one of our generation's most important issues' and 'lol conspiracy theorists' is pretty thin and could definitely be argued as based on what's fashionable

If it's not about being fashionable, where is the equivalent dislike for alcohol and sugar?

Smoking isn't nearly as fun as booze or cupcakes ldo

My prejudice is restricted to Americans.

Sugar is only toxic in excess. In moderation, sugar is a nutrient. If someone drinks soda then burns it off biking and doesn't eat/drink too many other calories that day, how is that comparable to smoking? Smoking cigarettes is strictly toxic. Not to mention, junk food/drinks aren't the only sources of sugar.

Alcohol, a carb similar to sugar, is harder to defend, but still isn't analogous to cigarettes. Some research says moderate drinking has health benefits (aside from the resveratrol in wine). I'm not sure they outweigh the toxicity, but if you sip on one beer and are physically active then I doubt that's as bad as smoking a cigarette. And then look at the the Tarahumara tribe. They drink beer like we drink water, but they also run 60-100+ miles a day and their health is just dandy. The beer hydrates them and fuels them for their runs. If they smoked 2 packs a day, I'm not sure they'd be able to do all that running.

That being said, I would think the dislike toward actual drunks is larger than that toward smokers. Drunks kill people on the road, they beat their wives and are unlikeable in general, and I'm still not entirely sure alcohol itself is addictive aside from the withdrawal effect. I suspect a good number of alcoholics would be curable by a menstruating statue of mary (though tbf probably the same is true of any addict, a big enough inspiration can trump the chemicals).

I like to think so.

Pretty sure recent research suggest sugar has addictive qualities

Sugar is also necessary. Not easy to know how much is correct but we can't just not do sugar.

Interesting. It would be hard to avoid unless artificially removed from all plant foods, but if that were done, you're saying we couldn't live off those foods and just starches, fats and proteins?

Lets not carried away with interesting .

it may be theoretically possible to have zero sugar, I have no idea.

Depends on what insane definition of "sugar" cheezelawg is using.

If he means like glucose or whatever, yeah, the human body may need or produce some of it.

But I'm unaware of any consumable sugar that's required to live.

Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose so there are lots of foods that provide glucose that don't include processed sugar. Beyond that, your liver can produce glucose through gluconeogenesis.

The brain needs a lot of glucose though, so it is a vital nutrient.

****ing whooooosh.