How could Ayn rand smoke?


nicholasair

Recommended Posts

Why I stopped smoking:

1. Shortness of breath

2. Frequent recurrence of bronchitis

3. Technicolor Sputum

4. I felt like shit.

When I stopped, my wind got better, I had bronchitis much less frequently and I felt much better.

And that is why I stopped and I stayed stopped.

Quit 1962, no more cigarettes since then. 48 years.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Drgonfly:

I think posting such ridiculous long and unreadable posts is useless.

End quote

I want you to consider this. I saved those letters from years ago because they were of substance. How many of these OL letters, on the same subject, will I save? A few. If someone smokes or were truly contemplating smoking, and wanted to know what the best and the brightest thought, then those old posts might supply the answer.

As always, no one is obligated, by unwritten rule of civility or by law to read anything. This is Ameica. (or Canada, or Europe, or the Philippines. In other words, you are free to do as you please.)

About 8 years ago several school districts were considering joining a writing contest about Atlas Shrugged but there was resistence from parents because they thought the book encouraged the under-aged to smoke. I wrote Leonard Peikoff, asking him to add a disclaimer about smoking to Atlas Shrugged. He never replied.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Smoking by itself (extracted from all other factors)does not constitute a definitive evidence of it being a cause of lung cancer but rather of harming your biological system in at least one more other way. In the end, as an average person of knowledge, it all boils down to which factors do you consider to be significant enough to be decisive in your question of whether to smoke cigarettes or not. The point I'm trying to make is, you cannot, under any circumstances, force a person to choose to see any other "realities" except than what he chooses to perceive. In an Objective argument, you will be relying only in his good reasoning to influence him.

You have some peculiar expressions like [force a person to choose to see any other "realities"] and I'm often not sure what you mean. I suspect English is not your first language and I appreciate your efforts to communicate. I am saying that statistics show that smoking is a cause among many. I am not a cancer researcher and I don't know all the details so as an "average person" I rely on the work of others to base my decisions. We humans have to do this because we don't have time to know everything, we have to specialize our knowledge and work together.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is Ameica. (or Canada, or Europe, or the Philippines. In other words, you are free to do as you please.)

Actually Peter, the country where we live has little to do with this. It is the list owner and software that decides how long a post can be. Now if it was my list....:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Smoking by itself (extracted from all other factors)does not constitute a definitive evidence of it being a cause of lung cancer but rather of harming your biological system in at least one more other way. In the end, as an average person of knowledge, it all boils down to which factors do you consider to be significant enough to be decisive in your question of whether to smoke cigarettes or not. The point I'm trying to make is, you cannot, under any circumstances, force a person to choose to see any other "realities" except than what he chooses to perceive. In an Objective argument, you will be relying only in his good reasoning to influence him.

You have some peculiar expressions like [force a person to choose to see any other "realities"] and I'm often not sure what you mean. I suspect English is not your first language and I appreciate your efforts to communicate. I am saying that statistics show that smoking is a cause among many. I am not a cancer researcher and I don't know all the details so as an "average person" I rely on the work of others to base my decisions. We humans have to do this because we don't have time to know everything, we have to specialize our knowledge and work together.

GS, you are a skilled proofreader. You noticed my verbal nuances before I did. Sadly, that is not going to change my stand since you never attempted to refute any of them. For that favor (which I never asked but I feel obliged to return) I meant to say: "you cannot force a person to see any other realities..." Neither am I a cancer researcher but I won't ask the next guy what to do with my life as I may not know everything, but at least I know up to what I have now.

And what will you do if you met a cancer researcher or an oncologist who smokes? That would be ironical...

Everyone, if GS should turn out to be a open-source editing software or AI (which I'm starting to suspect), let me know, I'd offer no more than $5 for that technology. Thanks!

Edited by David Lee
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Smoking by itself (extracted from all other factors)does not constitute a definitive evidence of it being a cause of lung cancer but rather of harming your biological system in at least one more other way. In the end, as an average person of knowledge, it all boils down to which factors do you consider to be significant enough to be decisive in your question of whether to smoke cigarettes or not. The point I'm trying to make is, you cannot, under any circumstances, force a person to choose to see any other "realities" except than what he chooses to perceive. In an Objective argument, you will be relying only in his good reasoning to influence him.

You have some peculiar expressions like [force a person to choose to see any other "realities"] and I'm often not sure what you mean. I suspect English is not your first language and I appreciate your efforts to communicate. I am saying that statistics show that smoking is a cause among many. I am not a cancer researcher and I don't know all the details so as an "average person" I rely on the work of others to base my decisions. We humans have to do this because we don't have time to know everything, we have to specialize our knowledge and work together.

GS, you are a skilled proofreader. You noticed my verbal nuances before I did. Sadly, that is not going to change my stand since you never attempted to refute any of them. For that favor (which I never asked but I feel obliged to return) I meant to say: "you cannot force a person to see any other realities..." Neither am I a cancer researcher but I won't ask the next guy what to do with my life as I may not know everything, but at least I know up to what I have now.

And what will you do if you met a cancer researcher or an oncologist who smokes? That would be ironical...

Everyone, if GS should turn out to be a open-source editing software or AI (which I'm starting to suspect), let me know, I'd offer no more than $5 for that technology. Thanks!

LOL, first I am a "Toohey" now I am internet "bot" - you are hilarious! :) I agree that can't force people to see other realities but you can try and educate them. After raising 3 daughters I know a bit about this. :) Also, it would be ironic if a cancer researcher smokes but certainly understandable - after all smoking is extremely addictive and maybe they started before they had such intimate knowledge of it's effects.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Drgonfly:

I think posting such ridiculous long and unreadable posts is useless.

End quote

I want you to consider this. I saved those letters from years ago because they were of substance. How many of these OL letters, on the same subject, will I save? A few. If someone smokes or were truly contemplating smoking, and wanted to know what the best and the brightest thought, then those old posts might supply the answer.

As always, no one is obligated, by unwritten rule of civility or by law to read anything. This is Ameica. (or Canada, or Europe, or the Philippines. In other words, you are free to do as you please.)

About 8 years ago several school districts were considering joining a writing contest about Atlas Shrugged but there was resistence from parents because they thought the book encouraged the under-aged to smoke. I wrote Leonard Peikoff, asking him to add a disclaimer about smoking to Atlas Shrugged. He never replied.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Peter:

You may, or may not, have a great many important and incitefull, or insightful, ideas to communicate.

As McLuhan opined..."The medium is the message." Showing a video, with the sound off, to a blind man, will communicate virtually none of your ideas or information, and frankly, should get you, either whacked in the side of the head with his cane, or, his seeing eye dog should attack!

Marshall, an "electronic" guru, wrote a book in 1964, called Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, explained that:

If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness?

{2}

[
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html]

In a bizarre way, you are addressing every potential person on the planet when you are typing.

It is a matter of using the tools you have before you in a persuasive way.

You do not.

Adam

Edited by Selene
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adam wrote:

You may, or may not, have a great many important and incitefull, or insightful, ideas to communicate . . . It is a matter of using the tools you have before you in a persuasive way. You do not.

End quote

Why are you using this thread to get in a cheap shot? Lives may be at stake.

I am not persuasive? I disagree. However, you are definitely not persuasive. A few of your letters about the Tea Party have been readable. I can easily maintain that your letter’s middle “filler” about the “medium being the message,” is irrelevant, and by cutting it, I retained the “heart” of your argument with what I just quoted. I did that by using Rand’s razor.

Go back and look at the letters from me that I reposted. My position is unequivocal and passionately defended.

More reasons not to smoke? Those horrible bags under a person’s eyes. Smoking ages a person. No, non smoker wants to be near smelly hair and clothing, or kiss someone with smelly breathe, breathe smoked filled air, or be near a person who may die young from smoking related diseases, including cancer. If you are single, this means smoking limits the number of potential lovers you might have.

Just don’t smoke

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Peter:

I was addressing form and you are addressing content.

You did not understand what I was trying to explain to you.

There was no "cheap shot" intended. This was a one way piece of information to you.

You wish to turn it into a meaningless argument about the tea party which is a waste of my time.

Suffice it to say I was attempting to give you some advice.

Adam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 years later...
On 2/27/2010 at 6:06 AM, Chris Grieb said:

Nicholas; Cigarettes were called "coffin nails" when I was growing up. They were said to shorten your life.

And sure enough, they did.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, jts said:

It is often said the health effects of smoking were not known in Ayn Rand's time. Here is a book published before Ayn Rand was born.

http://medicolegal.tripod.com/lizars1859.htm

The Use and Abuse of Tobacco 
by John Lizars, M.D. (Edinburgh: 1856, 1857, 1859, reprinted, 
Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co, 1883)
 

In those years,  manufactured rolled in paper cigarettes were not widely available.  Most people who smoked, smoked pipes and some smoked cigars.  In this form the tobacco smoke was not inhaled deeply so it probably did less damage. 

L.L.A.P.  \ \ / /

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oddly enough, I never answered the question in the title: How could Ayn Rand smoke?

And that's since about eight years ago.

So here's the answer.

1. She stuck a cigarette in a cigarette holder.
2. She put the cigarette holder in her mouth.
3. She applied fire to the end of the cigarette.
4. She puffed.

Doing it that way, it was easy for her to smoke.

I hope the mystery is now cleared up.

:) 

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bob_hayden

Re that book from the 1850s -- I'm sure you could find publications from that era citing the horrible dangers of masturbation or premarital sex as well.  The fact that someon3e made a claim back then does not mean what they said was/is an established fact.  I think Rand saw all such claims as anti-pleasure. anti-life Puritan pronouncements which she abhorred.    Discussion of the effects of smoking as a scientific, rather than moralistic, issue dates from 1950.  Rand questioned this research because it was based on obsrervational studies in which other possible causes had not been ruled out.  In this she agreed with R. A. Fisher, the father of statistics as we know it today (and who also smoked;-)  While they raised a valid point, it is one that pertains to nearly all knowledge of human beings, as it is rarely possible to randomly assign patients to things like smoking, gender, homosexuality, etc.  Nor is it usually possible to control all extraneous variables.  Their position makes human health and behavior unknowable.

Fisher pioneered the design and analysis of experiments, and Hill, a leading opponent of smoking, was the first to apply those methods in medicine.  But Hill was also a pioneer in figuring out how to do the best we can with what we have.  With human subjects, we often have to be satisfied with weighing the evidence pro and con while accepting that "proof" is not possible.  In medicine today, clinical trials are considered the gold standard, but these typically control NO extraneous variables, and would be considered laughable in physics.  (For example, we may compare two oral medications, but we cannot measure or control genetics, diet, exercise, etc. of the subjects.) 

Were I to fault Rand on this issue it would be over her tendency to make up her mind and not consider new information, and her tendency to rely on abstract reasoning over empirical evidence. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/4/2018 at 2:18 PM, jts said:

It is often said the health effects of smoking were not known in Ayn Rand's time. Here is a book published before Ayn Rand was born.

http://medicolegal.tripod.com/lizars1859.htm

The Use and Abuse of Tobacco 
by John Lizars, M.D. (Edinburgh: 1856, 1857, 1859, reprinted, 
Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co, 1883)
 

This book is not about morality. It is about health effects of tobacco.

The title is 'The Use and Abuse of Tobacco'. In the book tobacco has only 1 use, insecticide or insect repellent. It does nothing good for health according to the book.

The reason why I posted this book is not merely to point out that it exists but also for you to read it and consider the evidence in the book. I thought this would be understood without being said.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/28/2010 at 6:25 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Why I stopped smoking:

1. Shortness of breath

2. Frequent recurrence of bronchitis

3. Technicolor Sputum

4. I felt like shit.

When I stopped, my wind got better, I had bronchitis much less frequently and I felt much better.

And that is why I stopped and I stayed stopped.

Quit 1962, no more cigarettes since then. 48 years.

Ba'al Chatzaf

You could have taken drugs to stop all those symptoms.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guy Martin, when banning the Isle of Man TT race comes up...

fab403b056f2ac15cbccf7fb66e82333.jpg

He knows it’s dangerous and isn’t saying otherwise.

She knew, too.

”I relied on the tobacco companies’ assurances that their product was safe” is a little embarrassing, frankly, and I wish she had never said it. I think she was embarrassed that the smoking gamble caught up with her.

Also, she was born into a 19th century milieu that gave credit to the notion of physical ailment reflecting character ailments and “I kept smoking even though I knew I was gambling” sounded to her ears - upon losing the gamble - like a character ailment, so she distanced from it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, jts said:

You could have taken drugs to stop all those symptoms.

 

THe hell with symptoms.  I went after the cause.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When are the PC police a good thing? I like watching “nostalgia TV shows” like Magnum PI and others, but it is so strange to see someone light up a cigarette or smoke a cigar, like it is the normal thing to do. To me it looks horrible, and even when I was overseas in the Army I would not go into a bar or restaurant that looked hazy from the smoke. I think movie theatres have always had “no smoking” policies too. Good for the people who owned them. Just recently I came out of a store and two cars over, a guy was lighting up after opening his door. It was awful. I tried to hold my breathe until I shut my car door.      

A local man in Lewes, Delaware (it's pronounced Louis, not Lews) just died in a trailer fire after falling asleep smoking. Smoking is dangerous in the short and the long term. As Yul Brenner, who died from smoking said in a public service announcement, “Just don’t smoke.” Peter

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Peter said:

When are the PC police a good thing? I like watching “nostalgia TV shows” like Magnum PI and others, but it is so strange to see someone light up a cigarette or smoke a cigar, like it is the normal thing to do. To me it looks horrible, and even when I was overseas in the Army I would not go into a bar or restaurant that looked hazy from the smoke. I think movie theatres have always had “no smoking” policies too. Good for the people who owned them. Just recently I came out of a store and two cars over, a guy was lighting up after opening his door. It was awful. I tried to hold my breathe until I shut my car door.      

A local man in Lewes, Delaware (it's pronounced Louis, not Lews) just died in a trailer fire after falling asleep smoking. Smoking is dangerous in the short and the long term. As Yul Brenner, who died from smoking said in a public service announcement, “Just don’t smoke.” Peter

That’s all good for you, Peter.

But you have to use your imagination if you want to understand anyone other than you. In this case, you have to imagine loving all those aspects of smoke and smoking. Imagine that the ONLY negative is that it probably increases certain health risks. Like loving to drive and driving every day of one’s life, despite knowing that US highways consume about 40,000 Americans a year.

There is no one objective answer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you drove with the tail pipe pointing into the car, that would be the same as smoking.

Ralph Cramden from, “The Honeymooners.”  “Gee Alice. Driving, instead of walking, is so grand. That’s why people take my bus.”

“But Ralph. Couldn’t you at least vent the diesel fumes out the back instead of into the transit bus?”

I know addiction has its benefits (har dee har har) but why get hooked in the first place? The hazards from daily life are not intentional but smoking is deliberately “willing yourself” to live a shorter life and die a horrible death. It’s like opting for slow strangulation over the electric chair. I can better understand someone getting hooked on opiates after a back operation. You have no need to smoke unless you are trying to be one of the Kool Kids.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Peter said:

If you drove with the tail pipe pointing into the car, that would be the same as smoking.

 

 

Ralph Cramden from, “The Honeymooners.”  “Gee Alice. Driving, instead of walking, is so grand. That’s why people take my bus.”

 

 

“But Ralph. Couldn’t you at least vent the diesel fumes out the back instead of into the transit bus?”

 

 

I know addiction has its benefits (har dee har har) but why get hooked in the first place? The hazards from daily life are not intentional but smoking is deliberately “willing yourself” to live a shorter life and die a horrible death. It’s like opting for slow strangulation over the electric chair. I can better understand someone getting hooked on opiates after a back operation. You have no need to smoke unless you are trying to be one of the Kool Kids.   

 

 

No, smoking is no guarantee of a horrible death, you’re overstating the gamble. Most smokers do not get cancer and do not die a horrible death.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now