How could Ayn rand smoke?

[Peter]

Generating second hand smoke is the initiation of sneaky force. Twice in the last week I could smell leaves burning and another time it smelled like trash burning, even though the folks burning it must have been 300 or 400 yards away with woods in between. Thank goodness, my new central air conditioning system scrubs the air so I don't smell it unless I step outside. And someone had been smoking in the Food Lion bathroom last week and that really pisses me off. You come out of the bathroom and your shirt smells like smoke. It wasn't worth a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. I may have been overstating the risk of smoking, but why take the risk?

And, no offense meant, but riding a motorcycle is not worth the risk when your odds are so much better with a ton of steel surrounding you. Too bad, airbags on a motorcycle don't work . . . . unless they were filled with helium and you got be whooshed upwards when your inboard computer sensed a crash coming. 

 

[Jon Letendre]

43 minutes ago, Peter said:

Generating second hand smoke is the initiation of sneaky force. Twice in the last week I could smell leaves burning and another time it smelled like trash burning, even though the folks burning it must have been 300 or 400 yards away with woods in between. Thank goodness, my new central air conditioning system scrubs the air so I don't smell it unless I step outside. And someone had been smoking in the Food Lion bathroom last week and that really pisses me off. You come out of the bathroom and your shirt smells like smoke. It wasn't worth a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. I may have been overstating the risk of smoking, but why take the risk?

And, no offense meant, but riding a motorcycle is not worth the risk when your odds are so much better with a ton of steel surrounding you. Too bad, airbags on a motorcycle don't work . . . . unless they were filled with helium and you got be whooshed upwards when your inboard computer sensed a crash coming. 

 

You’re doing it right, Peter, if your goal is to arrive in your coffin in perfect shape.

But thats not eveyone’s goal in life.

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

Generating second hand smoke is the initiation of sneaky force. Twice in the last week I could smell leaves burning and another time it smelled like trash burning, even though the folks burning it must have been 300 or 400 yards away with woods in between. Thank goodness, my new central air conditioning system scrubs the air so I don't smell it unless I step outside. And someone had been smoking in the Food Lion bathroom last week and that really pisses me off. You come out of the bathroom and your shirt smells like smoke. It wasn't worth a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. I may have been overstating the risk of smoking, but why take the risk?

And, no offense meant, but riding a motorcycle is not worth the risk when your odds are so much better with a ton of steel surrounding you. Too bad, airbags on a motorcycle don't work . . . . unless they were filled with helium and you got be whooshed upwards when your inboard computer sensed a crash coming. 

 

Sneaky force is okay. Why? Because Rand never wrote that it wasn't. 

--Brant

natch

[Brant Gaede]

5 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

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.

A smoker has a 1 in 7 chance of getting lung cancer. If he stops ten years later it's still 1 in 7. The data for 20 years still hasn't been publicly reported. A smoker who drinks a lot of green tea may beat a lot of the risk.

There are a lot of x-smokers walking around with oxygen bottles.

--Brant 

[Jon Letendre]

38 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

A smoker has a 1 in 7 chance of getting lung cancer. If he stops ten years later it's still 1 in 7. The data for 20 years still hasn't been publicly reported. A smoker who drinks a lot of green tea may beat a lot of the risk.

There are a lot of x-smokers walking around with oxygen bottles.

--Brant 

Thanks for the correction.

I said “most”, but it’s not just the majority, it’s the vast majority, 6 in 7, more than 85%, of smokers don’t ever get lung cancer

She loved it. So it was a reasonable bet..

Obviously, if one hates it, like Peter does, then smoking is irrational, for them.

If one hates hair-raising velocity, then getting on a motorcycle is all risk, no benefit and therefore irrational. 

My issue is with asserting that something is categorically too unsafe irrespective of the person and their varying values.

[jts]

4 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

You’re doing it right, Peter, if your goal is to arrive in your coffin in perfect shape.

But thats not eveyone’s goal in life.

That's rationalisation. Rationalisation is the misuse of the faculty of reason as a tool of deception instead of a tool of knowledge. Health is a rational value. 

 

[Jon Letendre]

5 hours ago, jts said:

That's rationalisation. Rationalisation is the misuse of the faculty of reason as a tool of deception instead of a tool of knowledge. Health is a rational value. 

 

No. If there is a mistake to be made in this debate that could be described as rationalism, it would be the position that the rationality of choosing a risk can be evaluated without reference to individual values.

[Brant Gaede]

Young men evaluate risk differently than older men. Different values come into play. I went to war. I'd go on an operation wondering if that'd be the day I'd get it. It didn't bother me too much for I intended to dish it out. My reality was the present. Now I intend to write two or three books and my reality extends into my hopefully competent future and doesn't include getting shot at.

Rand smoked for it helped her write. The nicotine helped her concentrate by straining out distractions, especially noise. No smoking, no novels, no Rand. Smoking saved her working life. Today it'd be irrational. Today she'd vape. 

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I stopped smoking almost 50 years ago. A year and a half after Vietnam.  General Eisenhower died on my 25th birthday. Three and a half years before I'd spent 13 nights with him after he had a heart attack at Augusta, GA. I was undergoing training to be a Special Forces Aidman at Ft. Gordon Army Hospital. I decided I didn't want any health issues from smoking. Unlike Rand, who had no medical training, I knew a lot about human physiology.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

How could Grant drink?

Grant: I fight.

Lincoln: He fights. He gets to drink.

Rand: I write. It'd be irrational to drink.

--Brant

I suck my thumb (no elaboration)

[Jon Letendre]

5 hours ago, jts said:

That's rationalisation. Rationalisation is the misuse of the faculty of reason as a tool of deception instead of a tool of knowledge. Health is a rational value. 

 

I am embarrassed to admit I only just now noticed that you probably meant rationalization. My brain saw rationalism.

I don’t know what you think I’m rationalizing. I don’t understand your point yet.

My point, with my coffin comment to Peter, is that he seems to me to be placing an absolute value on physical preservation and longevity. Such that, in the motorcycle example, he evaluates it as too dangerous, period, full stop. His evaluation of that matter seems to have no need to reference how much a person may love motorcycling, deriving great value from the pure joy of the experience itself, such that the risk, a real negative to be sure, is simply swamped by the positives - making it a perfectly rational pursuit.

What am I rationalizing?

[Brant Gaede]

Life is risk taking.

--Brant

being rational is knowing and controlling risk re what you seek and that's your job not the other fellow's who, if you aren't initiating force, needs to explain his interest (no son, you can't play with the rattlesnake . . .)

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Life is risk taking.

--Brant

being rational is knowing and controlling risk re what you seek and that's your job not the other fellow's who, if you aren't initiating force, needs to explain his interest (no son, you can't play with the rattlesnake . . .)

Cigar Smoking is safer (less likely to produce disease) than is cigarette smoking.  Yet Rand scorned her  "villains" who smoked cigars and praised cigarettes.   Fire at Man's fingertips. Hah.  You mean poison for Man's  lungs. 

LLAP  \\//

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Yet Rand scorned her  "villains" who smoked cigars and praised cigarettes.

Bob,

It probably had something to do with how old-guard Republican Chamber of Commerce dudes kept selling out.

They always had cigars in the mouths and mendacious bromides on their lips.

 

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

10 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Cigar Smoking is safer (less likely to produce disease) than is cigarette smoking.  Yet Rand scorned her  "villains" who smoked cigars and praised cigarettes.   Fire at Man's fingertips. Hah.  You mean poison for Man's  lungs. 

LLAP  \\//

U.S. Grant smoked cigars--and died of throat cancer.

--Brant

[jts]

21 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

I am embarrassed to admit I only just now noticed that you probably meant rationalization. My brain saw rationalism.

I don’t know what you think I’m rationalizing. I don’t understand your point yet.

My point, with my coffin comment to Peter, is that he seems to me to be placing an absolute value on physical preservation and longevity. Such that, in the motorcycle example, he evaluates it as too dangerous, period, full stop. His evaluation of that matter seems to have no need to reference how much a person may love motorcycling, deriving great value from the pure joy of the experience itself, such that the risk, a real negative to be sure, is simply swamped by the positives - making it a perfectly rational pursuit.

What am I rationalizing?

I thought you were talking about smoking.

 

[jts]

Ayn Rand was a poor excuse for an Objectivist. Smoking is anti-reason and anti-life.

 

 

 

 

[BaalChatzaf]

12 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

U.S. Grant smoked cigars--and died of throat cancer.

--Brant

He smoked them by the barrel.  Most people who smoke cigars, do not inhale  and  do not smoke as much.  Ditto for pipes.  Cigar and pipe smoking can produce throat cancers and cancers of the lip and mouth but these are not as frequent or as serious as lung cancers and emphysema induced by cigarette smoking.  Part of the problem is the stuff in the cigarette paper. There are some harmful compounds produced by the burning paper.  Overall  cigarette smoking is much more likely to cause harm than cigar or pipe smoking.   The best way of all is to avoid tobacco  entirely.  Even tobacco chewing (ugh!) can cause  damage to the mucous membrane of the tongue,  mouth and throat. While tobacco smoke may smell present,  tobacco as not good for one's health.

 

[Jon Letendre]

16 hours ago, jts said:

I thought you were talking about smoking.

 

Smoking, motorcycle riding, highway driving, romantic relationships.

I’m talking about choosing any risk.

You’re stuck on focusing exclusively on the risk involved in a choice. If you blank out the reasons to accept a risk, it’s quite easy to declare acceptance of risk, any risk, anywhere, at any time, to be anti-life. But at that point, why not hurry up and kill yourself before something goes wrong and you get hurt? 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

8 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

I’m talking about choosing any risk.

Jon,

They think tobacco is something.

They ought to try crack cocaine.

 

I'm lucky I didn't kill myself. I'm so lucky, I still have my goddam teeth. But, still, when it started wrecking my life, I felt like Slim Pickens in Doctor Strangelove riding an A-Bomb like a rodeo horse as it was falling out of a plane.

 

It was one wild ride while I was on it...

It was my life, so no regrets. I did it. I lived it. I loved it. I paid the price.

But I won't be doing that one again. One ass-kicking of that magnitude is enough.

 

Later on, I might take up motorcycle riding, though. Every time I've been on one, I've loved it. Seeing you do it in your videos tugs and something primal in my heart and makes me see a flock of wild geese I want to chase down...

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

On 10/9/2018 at 10:33 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jon,

They think tobacco is something.

They ought to try crack cocaine.

 

I'm lucky I didn't kill myself. I'm so lucky, I still have my goddam teeth. But, still, when it started wrecking my life, I felt like Slim Pickens in Doctor Strangelove riding an A-Bomb like a rodeo horse as it was falling out of a plane.

 

It was one wild ride while I was on it...

It was my life, so no regrets. I did it. I lived it. I loved it. I paid the price.

But I won't be doing that one again. One ass-kicking of that magnitude is enough.

 

Later on, I might take up motorcycle riding, though. Every time I've been on one, I've loved it. Seeing you do it in your videos tugs and something primal in my heart and makes me see a flock of wild geese I want to chase down...

Michael

“I loved it. I paid the price.” That sounds like a healthy view. More ownership than “I relied on the assurances of tobacco companies.”

”I loved it. I paid the price.” I’m using that if I ever wake up in an ER.

Your final lines are so poetic. Not riding would be immoral, now!

 

[Jules Troy]

I used to skydive, loved it!  My son did a jump last year from 13500 feet

[Peter]

On 10/7/2018 at 10:13 PM, Brant Gaede said:

How could Grant drink?

Grant: I fight.

Lincoln: He fights. He gets to drink.

Rand: I write. It'd be irrational to drink.

--Brant

I suck my thumb (no elaboration)

I remember Rand's lecture on "60 Minutes" and she actually said we should be so honored and thankful we should kiss a smoke stack.

[Peter]

On 10/9/2018 at 11:33 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

He smoked them by the barrel.  Most people who smoke cigars, do not inhale  and  do not smoke as much.  Ditto for pipes.  Cigar and pipe smoking can produce throat cancers and cancers of the lip and mouth but these are not as frequent or as serious as lung cancers and emphysema induced by cigarette smoking.  Part of the problem is the stuff in the cigarette paper. There are some harmful compounds produced by the burning paper.  Overall  cigarette smoking is much more likely to cause harm than cigar or pipe smoking.   The best way of all is to avoid tobacco  entirely.  Even tobacco chewing (ugh!) can cause  damage to the mucous membrane of the tongue,  mouth and throat. While tobacco smoke may smell present,  tobacco as not good for one's health.

 

Sigmund Freud smoked cigars and got mouth and lip cancer. It smelled so horrible no one could be around him. Even his beloved dog could not stand to be around the smell as his face rotted off. Oh oh. Hurricane Michael is getting close to the Chesapeake  Bay. 30 to 50 mph and 3 to 5 inches of rain are expected for us, starting around 3 pm this afternoon. After looking at the destruction of those beach front properties in Florida a guy on the Weather Channel wondered out loud if anyone would want to rebuild in such a risky location.

[Peter]

12 minutes ago, Jules Troy said:

I used to skydive, loved it!

That was always on my bucket list until I got older. We have a winding country road with trees on both sides in spots so I drive slowly which annoys younger drivers behind me.