Social media encourages us to follow those we envy

Re:Social media encourages us to follow those we envy by necessity on Wednesday December 09, 2015 @11:07AM (#10704444)

Nor should they be (although they are, IDK what absence of laws you're talking about, there are pictures of dead children in cigarette packs and advertising is illegal in most of LA). Everyone knows the risks, people smoke because they want to. Or do you think we, citizens of third world countries are all illiterate know nothings who got tricked by tobacco companies? I can't understand people wanting so bad to be other people babysitters. If you don't want to smoke don't, don't want your children to, teach them not to. Is that so hard?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Social media encourages us to follow those we envy by DanBC on Wednesday December 09, 2015 @11:23AM (#10704571)

> Everyone knows the risks

No, they probably don't. People don't know that smoking is the leading cause of erectile dysfunction; or that smoking is linked to penile cancer; or what the actual risks of lung cancer are.

People just know that smoking is harmful, but they laugh that off with "I might get hit by a bus tomorrow".

> Or do you think we, citizens of third world countries are all illiterate know nothings who got tricked by tobacco companies?

It's not about citizens of developing world being illiterate know-nothings, it's about tobacco companies being abusive manipulative arseholes who lie and who have millions of dollars to fund those lies.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Social media encourages us to follow those we envy by necessity on Saturday December 12, 2015 @02:59AM (#10722131)

>No, they probably don't. People don't know that smoking is the leading cause of erectile dysfunction;

Yes, there is a picture of a man covering his genitalia with a thumbs down and a big IMPOTENCE written on the back of cigaret packages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_mess...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Social media encourages us to follow those we envy by saiya-jin on Wednesday December 09, 2015 @11:45AM (#10704783)

now don't make people people completely stupid just because they don't have an university degree (or read HN). the fertility/ptence issues are not that famililar (and definitely should be spoken about more loudly, this would have bigger impact than photos of cancerous lungs), but even in very remote and undeveloped places, all know that smoking = potential lung cancer, and that's a very miserable way to die.

but guess what - all sorts of biases step in, we like to lie to ourselves, nicotine addiction isn't neglible either. in 2015, this information is world-widely known for years and years (apart from north korea, maybe), but people like to ignore it. somebody gets cancer from smoking? well man up and blame his own stupidity/weakness.

[ Parent | on HN ]