You Lads did some great research for this podcast on a subject matter that is not often addressed and when it is (by the establishment) it's hard to relate to and out of touch. QualeQualeson followed up in his articulate manner that kept the show rolling and I loved it. Great job from y'all. Prost!
So sad that we repeatedly get pigeon holed into narratives that are generated by perspectives that have no objective value. For starters, health and safety is not a principle guideline in human existence, it's _all_ contextual. For example: The last few summers in my country have been unusually hot, and so more people go bathing and swimming. The result has been that more people die from drowning than from for example traffic or drugs. There's a zillion people who devote their time to actively fighting drugs, often using draconic measures that make no sense from a perspective of claimed philanthropy, but there are _zero_ people who actively work to ban bathing. There are no people who go on forums for bathers and water sport enthusiasts and post pictures of drowned kids and stories of the tragedies that have befallen their families, but this happens _all_ the time on forums for drug enthusiasts working to legalize say cannabis or psychedelics. And I bet that most of the people reading this are so indoctrinated that they automatically think that these two things are not comparable right? After all, recreation in water is a completely natural and positive activity right? Whereas recreation with drugs is dirty and immoral and a road that leads straight to hell right? Wrong. Principally there is no difference, and your associations are taught. There are dangerous and less dangerous drugs. Some are legal and some are not, and the distinction is _not_ dictated by potency, but by enjoyment (think on that for a minute). Most of the most dangerous substances in existence are not classified. Some do drugs for recreative purposes and some are compelled. I could go on with all kinds of activities ranging from war to sports, but you should get the point. All of these things could in principal be mirrored between one form of activity and another, where the _only_ difference is cultural conditioning and the perspective that follows, and harm and death is rarely at the top of the list of priorities. Sometimes it _is the very point_ of the exercise. So what am I saying here? I'm saying that the entire premise for this discussion is not based in a credible concern for whether people get sick or die or not, but simply by our propensity for sorting all activity after a cultural model that we use to ultimately sort the value and hierarchical position of its members. In my work life, I was threatened by a woman who was so disgusted with the idea of my particular use of tobacco, that she suggested campaigning for my termination even though I had no personal beef with her and it had no practical effect on my job whatsoever. She lay awake at night thinking of it, seething with a growing hatred for the very idea of it. She was an habitual smoker of cigarettes. I've been threatened with a beating by beer drinkers for drinking wine, or for having longer hair and so on. There is no sense here, no rationale, no nobility. It's all just people who don their finest imaginary garments of morality and feigned interest in their fellow beings, in order to push people around and create identity markers that separate them from all the filth and problems of the world, making them pure in the process. It's part of that most terrible, widespread affliction of the human psyche: Narcissism, but I won't get into that right now. The topic can get quite complex. So what is this nonsense then? Am I saying that we should let sinister tobacco salesmen sell cancer sticks to our kids? No, but then again we don't let our kids jump in the deep end of the pool without supervision and training either do we? This is the premise of our existence. We raise our kids as best we can, and then we let them go. They can choose to lie on a floating mattress in a shallow pool, or they can go surfing on a 70 feet high wave that could kill them, or free dive so deep they lose consciousness in a legal contest. It's a fact of life, the truth about the inconsideration of the natural order, and the only logical response is to integrate it. Living is the ultimate dangerous enterprise, where pain, suffering and death are all guaranteed outcomes. The only valid measurement of the value of a lived life is the experienced reality of each individual. This is _purely_ a subjective experience. If you want to feed your identity image as a super healthy, morally superior person that goes for max longevity, by all means do so. I think you're a fool, but I wouldn't dream of making you to refrain from it by the use of force (as long as you're not actively bothering anyone else). When we're in fact creating a world that needlessly kills billions of people for the worst reasons imaginable, getting up in people's faces for using a marginally physiologically harmful product is completely absurd. We cannot coral everyone to our preferences, we cannot control the way people experience life, and we simply cannot decide what other people should choose to do to bring meaning to their existence. Trying to do so makes you a much more sinister and potentially harmful person than a tobbaconist. So how do we resist? Well for starters, we don't let the opposition freely dictate the narrative. It must be logically and principally rejected completely. There are no truisms in their crusade, only cherry picked preference, perspectives and ulterior motives. A certain kind of disclaimer only serves to cede ground before the battle has even started. Thanks for reading.
Wow, excellent and poignant comment. You phrased a lot of our deeper thoughts on this topic with perfection! Are you a student of psychology or philosophy? The way your arguments are structured are very much like what I studied in “theory of knowledge” in high school. You’re absolutely right, we allow people to play American football because a majority of society (including me I guess haha) has deemed it morally and inherently “good” even though risking brain damage for entertainment perhaps shouldn’t be. Thank you for adding so much more to the conversation man!
@@StogieLads Thank you for the kind words. I am self taught, but I would warn you against automatically assuming that academic credentials validate someone's opinions, especially in our time. Large parts of academia has become institutionalized insanity at this point, and some of the most celeb people in their respective (relevant) fields, are some of the dumbest people I know. But I won't get into that (too). Maybe over a drink sometime in an underground speakeasy for dirty cigar smoker haha. Cheers and thanks for another interesting episode.
Something I learned is to definitely go to the dentist on schedule twice a year, and tell your dentist you smoke. They're medically trained to look for mouth cancers and will keep an eye out for you.
At 16:30, there is a misrepresentation of the study. You guys are referencing chance of cancer when the study referenced death resulting from cancer. That the chance you will die from a cigar-caused cancer is not significantly elevated is an entirely different animal than the chance of just getting cancer. I see this mistake again, and again, and again. Forget the mortality part, cancer isn't a devil we care to dance with at all, whether we survive or not. I wish the study had also published the relative risk of simply getting cancer, as they would have said data by default. If it is myself who has misinterpreted the study, please let me know. Otherwise, fantastic channel. Stumbled upon it tonight looking for a Trinidad Coloniales review. Your point here about enjoyment vs habit is a salient one, and definitely hit home. Cheers from across the pond!
Hey man, thank you for your comment! Yes you are right in part that the study begins with the mortality rate and we certainly did mess up a bit by not distinguishing this well! Here’s the study in full though and it does in fact discuss general risk too: www.rstreet.org/2016/08/24/fda-study-cancer-risks-nearly-nil-for-1-2-cigars-per-day/ There are some discrepancies though as some of the studies show increased risks and some show barely any so it certainly isn’t conclusive and a be all end all study sadly!
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You Lads did some great research for this podcast on a subject matter that is not often addressed and when it is (by the establishment) it's hard to relate to and out of touch. QualeQualeson followed up in his articulate manner that kept the show rolling and I loved it. Great job from y'all. Prost!
Thank you man that’s really great to hear! Glad you enjoyed the podcast!
So sad that we repeatedly get pigeon holed into narratives that are generated by perspectives that have no objective value. For starters, health and safety is not a principle guideline in human existence, it's _all_ contextual.
For example: The last few summers in my country have been unusually hot, and so more people go bathing and swimming. The result has been that more people die from drowning than from for example traffic or drugs. There's a zillion people who devote their time to actively fighting drugs, often using draconic measures that make no sense from a perspective of claimed philanthropy, but there are _zero_ people who actively work to ban bathing. There are no people who go on forums for bathers and water sport enthusiasts and post pictures of drowned kids and stories of the tragedies that have befallen their families, but this happens _all_ the time on forums for drug enthusiasts working to legalize say cannabis or psychedelics.
And I bet that most of the people reading this are so indoctrinated that they automatically think that these two things are not comparable right? After all, recreation in water is a completely natural and positive activity right? Whereas recreation with drugs is dirty and immoral and a road that leads straight to hell right? Wrong. Principally there is no difference, and your associations are taught. There are dangerous and less dangerous drugs. Some are legal and some are not, and the distinction is _not_ dictated by potency, but by enjoyment (think on that for a minute). Most of the most dangerous substances in existence are not classified. Some do drugs for recreative purposes and some are compelled. I could go on with all kinds of activities ranging from war to sports, but you should get the point. All of these things could in principal be mirrored between one form of activity and another, where the _only_ difference is cultural conditioning and the perspective that follows, and harm and death is rarely at the top of the list of priorities. Sometimes it _is the very point_ of the exercise.
So what am I saying here? I'm saying that the entire premise for this discussion is not based in a credible concern for whether people get sick or die or not, but simply by our propensity for sorting all activity after a cultural model that we use to ultimately sort the value and hierarchical position of its members. In my work life, I was threatened by a woman who was so disgusted with the idea of my particular use of tobacco, that she suggested campaigning for my termination even though I had no personal beef with her and it had no practical effect on my job whatsoever. She lay awake at night thinking of it, seething with a growing hatred for the very idea of it. She was an habitual smoker of cigarettes. I've been threatened with a beating by beer drinkers for drinking wine, or for having longer hair and so on. There is no sense here, no rationale, no nobility. It's all just people who don their finest imaginary garments of morality and feigned interest in their fellow beings, in order to push people around and create identity markers that separate them from all the filth and problems of the world, making them pure in the process. It's part of that most terrible, widespread affliction of the human psyche: Narcissism, but I won't get into that right now. The topic can get quite complex.
So what is this nonsense then? Am I saying that we should let sinister tobacco salesmen sell cancer sticks to our kids? No, but then again we don't let our kids jump in the deep end of the pool without supervision and training either do we? This is the premise of our existence. We raise our kids as best we can, and then we let them go. They can choose to lie on a floating mattress in a shallow pool, or they can go surfing on a 70 feet high wave that could kill them, or free dive so deep they lose consciousness in a legal contest. It's a fact of life, the truth about the inconsideration of the natural order, and the only logical response is to integrate it.
Living is the ultimate dangerous enterprise, where pain, suffering and death are all guaranteed outcomes. The only valid measurement of the value of a lived life is the experienced reality of each individual. This is _purely_ a subjective experience. If you want to feed your identity image as a super healthy, morally superior person that goes for max longevity, by all means do so. I think you're a fool, but I wouldn't dream of making you to refrain from it by the use of force (as long as you're not actively bothering anyone else). When we're in fact creating a world that needlessly kills billions of people for the worst reasons imaginable, getting up in people's faces for using a marginally physiologically harmful product is completely absurd. We cannot coral everyone to our preferences, we cannot control the way people experience life, and we simply cannot decide what other people should choose to do to bring meaning to their existence. Trying to do so makes you a much more sinister and potentially harmful person than a tobbaconist.
So how do we resist? Well for starters, we don't let the opposition freely dictate the narrative. It must be logically and principally rejected completely. There are no truisms in their crusade, only cherry picked preference, perspectives and ulterior motives. A certain kind of disclaimer only serves to cede ground before the battle has even started. Thanks for reading.
Wow, excellent and poignant comment. You phrased a lot of our deeper thoughts on this topic with perfection! Are you a student of psychology or philosophy? The way your arguments are structured are very much like what I studied in “theory of knowledge” in high school.
You’re absolutely right, we allow people to play American football because a majority of society (including me I guess haha) has deemed it morally and inherently “good” even though risking brain damage for entertainment perhaps shouldn’t be.
Thank you for adding so much more to the conversation man!
@@StogieLads Thank you for the kind words. I am self taught, but I would warn you against automatically assuming that academic credentials validate someone's opinions, especially in our time. Large parts of academia has become institutionalized insanity at this point, and some of the most celeb people in their respective (relevant) fields, are some of the dumbest people I know.
But I won't get into that (too). Maybe over a drink sometime in an underground speakeasy for dirty cigar smoker haha. Cheers and thanks for another interesting episode.
Something I learned is to definitely go to the dentist on schedule twice a year, and tell your dentist you smoke. They're medically trained to look for mouth cancers and will keep an eye out for you.
Those are great tips man! Yeah it’s definitely better to be honest with your doctor in the long run!
Scrape your tongue lads
At 16:30, there is a misrepresentation of the study. You guys are referencing chance of cancer when the study referenced death resulting from cancer.
That the chance you will die from a cigar-caused cancer is not significantly elevated is an entirely different animal than the chance of just getting cancer. I see this mistake again, and again, and again.
Forget the mortality part, cancer isn't a devil we care to dance with at all, whether we survive or not. I wish the study had also published the relative risk of simply getting cancer, as they would have said data by default. If it is myself who has misinterpreted the study, please let me know.
Otherwise, fantastic channel. Stumbled upon it tonight looking for a Trinidad Coloniales review. Your point here about enjoyment vs habit is a salient one, and definitely hit home. Cheers from across the pond!
Hey man, thank you for your comment! Yes you are right in part that the study begins with the mortality rate and we certainly did mess up a bit by not distinguishing this well! Here’s the study in full though and it does in fact discuss general risk too: www.rstreet.org/2016/08/24/fda-study-cancer-risks-nearly-nil-for-1-2-cigars-per-day/
There are some discrepancies though as some of the studies show increased risks and some show barely any so it certainly isn’t conclusive and a be all end all study sadly!