Humodour

I agree, but I'm not sure how we can fix it.

Sounds like the Tea Party.

IBM has a rather promising solution to the problems you pose: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/artic...XQUkVCjDHJlRU8w And I want to make the point, so that there is no confusion for anybody scared of technology and robotics: Watson only ADVISES doctors. The final diagnosis will still be up to them.

Tanning beds are a bad idea in general, but certainly such beds which rely on ultraviolet-A radiation should probably be banned: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-07/uv-r...28/?site=sydney

IMO, education had a far larger affect in reducing smoking than the taxes ever did. Ive never known one person to quit smoking because it was too expensive, only for their health. Now that I think about it, Im not sure Ive ever seen anyone quit any vice due to cost. But how many people didn't START smoking in the first place because it was too expensive?

I was contemplating this the other day. Still, even in 10 years time modern medicine will be far more progressed than it is today (given historical trends and the current pace of scientific development, thanks in part to supercomputing), so I am somewhat confident that if I ever do get cancer, it should be in a time where the likelihood of survival (and without ****ing my life over too much) is reasonably good. (in reference to the thread and the cultural response to his death in general) That said... you know what? **** Jobs. I'm sorry, he's not a bad person as far as dictators and rapists go, but god, the man was no good Samaritan. He was a manipulative capitalist* who, in all honestly, didn't really do anything significant to improve the world. I hate being negative about people but in this case there are better, more deserving people of our praise. So he marketed a product you enjoyed mildly more than the competing product and then died? Oh ****, I guess that DOES mean he changed the world. *I have no overall qualms with capitalism - I admire it's efficiency, but if you want to go there, I do think markets do need sensible and strong regulation. I'm neither a Libertarian nor a socialist.

I would say the main problem with modern medicine and psychiatry is not the science at all, but the practitioners - doctors, nutritionists and psychiatrists. It is unfortunately often the case that, because they get stuck in their ways and aren't able to sufficiently keep up with current scientific developments, in order for new scientific understanding and theories to flow through to the medical community, the older generations of practitioners have to leave the field and be replaced by the younger generations who were taught the updated/new/more complete theories.

Great post. I'm thinking that "everyone" knows that smoking is bad, even though we don't fully understand how cancer really works - only that there's a strong (though not 1) correlation between smoking and developing some kinds of cancer. Interestingly, not everyone who breathes some benzene in on a regular basis develops cancer, though apparently they should. "Rigorously" understanding how something is harmful, and precisely to what extent, is not trivial, and if we were to make that the deciding criteria for banning substances in foods, we'd be eating way more crap than we need to. Unfortunately, there's this pernicious idea floating around that science can provide the same level of certainty that good ol' religion used to - which by definition it can't - only with science "it's for real". Often, this is an idea promoted by scientists, too. To be honest, I don't think "harmful" is useful as a scientific descriptor, despite the fact that research is essential for determining whether something is in fact harmful. We understand more about molecular biology, gene regulation, epigenetics, genetic mutation, and cancer every day, so it stands to reason that even if, as you say, science doesn't have complete certainty in some areas yet, well that doesn't preclude it from having that certainty in the (potentially very near) future. There are many areas of health and medicine which we now DO have a very thorough, clear-cut understanding of - and understanding which in many cases didn't exist 50, even 10 or 20 years ago. As to your comment about aromatics like benzene: every human is different (there's actually quite a lot of mutation and evolution still occurring in newly born humans). Some people will have stronger mechanisms for defending their body against carcinogens, or repairing/limiting damage than others. But when you analyse benzene on a risk assessment basis, and you notice that in the vast majority of people 'x' amount of consumption causes cancer, it's worth doing something about that (regardless of whether such action might not be necessary for a subset of the population with more robust molecular mechanics). Honestly, when it comes to my health I'm pretty happy to err on the side of caution and - if science is actually wrong (the error factor attributed to science in this thread is rather inflated), it corrects itself soon enough, and I'll change my behaviour accordingly when it does. I think governments should also act in this manner. Regarding smoking being only 'correlated' with cancer: well it has been shown to cause genetic mutations pretty rapidly. I'm no expert on oncogenes but to me that's a bit more than a mere correlation with cancer.

It also has a better markup than crack cocaine. The drinks industry aren't going to simply abandon it. Although equally one could easily tax it more than it is already. Bottled water is almost as bad, imio...only it's not as popular/been around as long as a mass-market thingie as soda. There are uses for bottled water of course, but as a "trend" it's stupid. "Let's filter and rebottle tapwater and sell it back to idiot customers for a huge proft!" Not to mention the fact that is contained in plastic bottles. Which are often left in the sun. What a brilliant idea.

NATO isn't falling apart any time soon, and frankly I can't see how NATO actions in Libya are in any way evidence of that. Certainly Turkey is still part of NATO and will be for a long time to come. Turkey also still has US nuclear weapons ready to be equipped to its fighter aircraft (requiring US auth codes of course), and the mutual defence obligations of NATO ensure that Turkey's security isn't of concern for the foreseeable future. Although Turkey may be worried that the Syrian border will be a source of state-sponsored terrorists from Iran, and that is probably a legitimate concern. That isn't something that NATO's mutual defence trigger really covers. But also, Turkey appears legitimately incensed by the Syrian regime's brutality. It has spoken vocally against the Syrian regime and called for strong action against it almost from day 1.

The Australian PM just announced a bill, with little press coverage to my surprise, that will extend the existing new "buy Australian" regulations on Government departments to ALL enterprise in the country - including for example our mining companies, banks, whatnot. It's a bit more nuanced than that, and it only enforces buying Australian if there is a viable Australian alternative within a similar price range. Basically it would seem to be an anti-outsourcing bill for hardware. I'm not sure what country it will most impact but the obvious candidate is China. Seems a bit protectionist to me, but then maybe in this current climate of political and economic uncertainty in the rest of the world, this kind of protectionism - bolstering Australian manufacturing can be forgiven.

You have to keep in mind that everything Turkey does in this kind of thing (within reason), it does so as part of Europe, part of the West, and specifically part of NATO. Obviously it's a sovereign country with its own goals, but at the end of the day, Turkey is a strong ally of Europe and America, a member of NATO, and the current Turkish administration is fairly democratic and sensible (even if it is an Islamist party in power). It's hard to see Turkey doing anything militarily that doesn't have the backing and support of NATO. I highly doubt anybody is planning to go to war with Syria, but rather Turkey is playing bad cop to Europe's god cop in laying pressure on Syria to stop being so outright vile. Something else of interest lately is the alliance between India and Afghanistan. Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of state-sponsored terrorism with respect to their support for the Taliban, and has aligned itself with India. India is obviously very sympathetic to these accusations, since Pakistan is also responsible for sponsoring terrorist cells within India. Looks like India is providing huge amounts of aid to

Volourn, do you age backwards by any chance?

Well you're about to see whether or not a fat tax works, because in a couple of years Denmark will have solid figures to show you. That's part of how evidence-based policy works. Try things, then a few years later, evaluate their performance. It beats banging to the drum of some blind ideal like "TAXATION IS ALWAYS BAD, AVOID ANY POLICY THAT INVOLVES TAX!!!11" Yes, because this is the first time that a sin tax has ever been applied. Oh wait, no its not. Perhaps we can look back over a few hundred years to see how its worked out. Do so. I would like some examples of where it has been applied and hasn't worked to reduce consumption. I have an obvious immediate counter-example: a price on pollution caused by a product (e.g. carbon dioxide) is in effect in various countries around the world, and it has been effective at reducing pollution levels.

Well you're about to see whether or not a fat tax works, because in a couple of years Denmark will have solid figures to show you. That's part of how evidence-based policy works. Try things, then a few years later, evaluate their performance. It beats banging to the drum of some blind ideal like "TAXATION IS ALWAYS BAD, AVOID ANY POLICY THAT INVOLVES TAX!!!11" There is such a thing as thinking policy through before applying it. 1. Real world 'trials' have huge costs associated with them in terms of little things like people's lives and businesses. And their results are watched by a huge audience - all the governments of the world. Successful government policies in one country rapidly spread round the globe until they become the norm. And I'm pretty sure that these guys did think this policy through before implementing it? What gives you the feeling that they did not?

Don't confuse trans-fats with the naturally produced fats (saturated or not) - it's ignorant. Trans-fats are the worst type of fats. They aren't required in any food and are orders of magnitude worse than saturated fats. They are not natural fats and are produced by only partially hydrogenating oil (saturating double bonds into single bonds), resulting in the hydrogen atoms in the cis orientation at some double bonds flipping to the trans orientation (going from next to each to opposite each other). This change in the shape of the molecule makes them far less tolerable to the human body, and they mess with organs all over the body in significant ways (brain, heart, liver, etc). This is analogous to how heavy metals cause damage to the body. They don't cause immediate damage and are harmless in small mounts, but they never leave the body because the body can't process them. The reason for that is the body never needed to process them before we had tools and technology because it did not encounter them... and thus nature never evolved enzymes for humans which matched the shapes of heavy metal (or trans fat) molecules. So, they accumulate there every year, eventually causing permanent damage. As to your "infringement of freedom crap" - the government already bans things from food - oh no! They definitely should on the same list of things to ban from food as abortifacients, carcinogens, teratogens and heavy metals. Why? Because there is a difference between protecting freedoms and letting toxic crap (as explained above) on the markets.

For a start, trans fats should be banned in every country. Does this tax apply to saturated or unsaturated fats? I would hope (and I am guessing) that it is only saturated fats, because otherwise it is not a very science-based policy. Some people here have argued that a tax on cigarettes only hurts the poor, too (because the poor have the highest smoking rates - probably tied to their level of education). Yet smoking rates ARE falling over time (in concert with other measures, so it's hard to directly identify taxation of cigarettes as the cause, but you could check smoking rates in the years directly after jumps in the cig tax). Short-term pain for the poor if it leads to long-term health improvements is worth it. Personally before something like this were implemented here, I would prefer a ban on junkfood advertising during children's television hours. Childhood is the age when dietary patterns are formed for life, and that's especially true for the adipose tissue. There is much more to unhealthy food than just a high fat content, though. That needs to be kept in mind. High salt, high sugar, lack of vitamins and minerals, lack of fibre, high amounts of additives.

Well you're about to see whether or not a fat tax works, because in a couple of years Denmark will have solid figures to show you. That's part of how evidence-based policy works. Try things, then a few years later, evaluate their performance. It beats banging to the drum of some blind ideal like "TAXATION IS ALWAYS BAD, AVOID ANY POLICY THAT INVOLVES TAX!!!11"

God I hope so!

An interesting study from John Hopkins university seems to indicate (larger sample size needed with a more diverse range of personalities) that a single high dose of magic mushrooms induces a permanent positive change in personality for the majority of people who take it (obviously a lot of variables were controlled in this study, but it does match anecdotal evidence). No negative side effects were recorded (aside from temporary anxiety in some people during the psychedelic trip). Specifically, the only personality trait that changed (of the 'big five' personality traits tested) was 'openness', which covers things like empathy, tolerance, and open-mindedness. The study: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-dose...ersonality.html Big five personality traits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits A decent online big five personality quiz: http://test.personality-project.org/

Well the thing is you're conflating restrictions on 2nd hand smoke with the war on drugs. We've really got two entirely different discussions going concurrently in this thread. Unfortunately (in the context of wanting a debate on the drug war), the passive smoking discussion is dominating. I am generally extremely in favour of ending the drug war and legalising drugs (with my own ideas on the best way to achieve that, as detailed earlier). But I am also extremely in favour of regulating all drug use: legalise drugs, tax them (not necessarily heavily), secure supply to licensed vendors such as pharmacies/pubs/marijuana coffee shops, limit sale to adults, spend revenue raised on educating populace on the pros and cons of the respective drugs, and provide incentives for chemists to produce safer analogues. And in the case of smoking, I personally favour banning it entirely in favour of consumption methods which are better for all involved (e.g. e-cigarettes and marijuana vapourisers). I think you'll find that many people are pro-legalisation but also pro-regulation. This is an intellectually very disingenuous post. Smoking HARMS others. Having to look at fat people all the time doesn't cause somebody physical harm, no matter how uneasy it might make them. And cutting in front of somebody in traffic is illegal if I am understanding correctly what you mean. It's illegal because it causes crashes. Where people die. So yeah, it should be banned. **** that prick's right to 'pleasure' from driving recklessly.

Demanding that they don't smoke in public places (which they don't own) because their smoke harms others (is in conflict with the liberties of others) is completely legitimate. They have their private dwellings for that. It's the law here (although I don't think it extends to the street). I don't know where America is up to with this, but this is already done in Europe and Australia has just signed it into law, too. Huge emissions cuts on all car emissions: particulates, hydrocarbons, NOx, and others. Excellent article on vehicle emissions (relevant to anybody, with some specifics about what Australia is now doing locally to slash them): http://www.caradvice.com.au/122835/new-car...tralia-finally/ So yes, we definitely SHOULD be tackling vehicle and industrial pollution AS WELL AS passive smoking. But it's not an either/or scenario, guys. We can limit both.

I thought a few of you yanks might find this interesting. Some of the retention polices are a bit worrying. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-docume...os-private.html

Dude, nicotine by itself is as harmful as caffeine. They are pretty much the same type of alkaloid. Indeed, that was sloppy of me - my problem with nicotine lies almost exclusively with the method of consumption. I have little problem with the oral form of most drugs (although as I said, I believe the sale of some drugs should be banned for health reasons as an incentive for chemists to produce analogues which have the same behavioural profile minus the worst health impacts). I see no problem with banning the sale of smokable products while allowing the sale of e-cigarettes (vapourisers), nicotine gum, patches, for example. According to 213374U that makes me a fascist, but I think I can live with that. P.S. They are NOT the same type of alkaloid! They have different rings (with different amounts of nitrogen replacing carbon), come from very different species of plants, have very different structures in space, and act on very different receptors. Neither are true stimulants like amphetamine as they do not directly increase dopamine or noradrenaline levels (but rather do so through a neurotransmitter cascade).

Yep. I could explain why, but [...] Go on, explain why. Who is throwing you in gaol for buying cigarettes, exactly? Smoking around others or in shared dwellings directly harms others, at least according to those fascist scientists and doctors, so restrictions on your right to smoke in these circumstances are easily justifiable (although I'm not sure anybody in this thread has proposed throwing you in gaol for it). It is easy to make a case for respecting individual rights with respect to drug use. However, there are numerous instances of drug use which violate the rights of others. In these situations, the rights of others come first. Such as with smoking drugs around others. It is further viable to make a case against some drugs with respect to the societal harm they cause (passive smoking, addiction, violent behaviour, cost to the public health system, etc). It is not 'fascist' for a society to pass laws regulating these drug-taking behaviours which impact on others. It is certainly wrong for a society to do so arbitrarily or without evidence, but even then I don't know if that counts as fascism.