Read this interview with a Greek doctor who has been doing e-cigarette studies. He’s still setting up the protocols and whatnot and there isn’t anything hard and fast in his answers, but it sounds like common sense. My opinion is that both the pro’s and con’s, the folks arguing, are a bit rabid, lean heavily towards fanaticism.
He said something I hadn’t thought of, I mean hadn’t thought of in the modern light. Something along the lines of how decades ago specialists were in favor of cigarettes even going so far as calling them healthy, and modern specialists are loathe to be proven wrong. My first thought was seeing if I could remember any name associated with cigarettes being healthy. I could not.
This is the 2000’s. Fat kid playing Jedi Master goes viral. Every minute of every day is recorded. Every opinion stated by the famous, the infamous and every fat kid playing Jedi master goes out to the world at large. Logically, however, erring on the side of caution is still an error; I mean if one thinks of one’s opinion in terms of their reputation. Me personally I don’t have a problem with saying “I was wrong” but, you know, I’m more the fat kid playing Jedi knight. Logically it would make the most amount of sense to withhold an opinion until you’ve got grounds for it if you are concerned about your reputation.
It leads me to a sort of interesting line of thought; mob mentality in text. It’s not hard to get the villagers to pick up torches and pitchforks once the patchwork man comes down from the castle, but, you know, it’s not hard to get them to that anyhow if you’ve got them gathered in the town square. Does that happen on line? I mean the fat kid playing Jedi knight was in his own bedroom with a web cam, and for weeks he was the topic at water coolers around the world. How easy it would have been to make that a talking point for morbid obesity or violence induced by entertainment.
All those cat-falling-off-ledge types of YouTube videos; animal rights groups, torches and pitchforks. Is there research being done into group behavior from groups not in the town square but at home? That’s actually more interesting to me than whether vaping is good or bad, my only interest in that argument is that they don’t tax the living bejesus out of the shit until I get a chance to stock up. I mean I’m going to do it anyway. I smoked knowing the risks. I’ve certainly done things for myself and too myself that weren’t in accordance with medical advice or the law. Whether it’s safe for me or not is not my concern.
The idea that viral videos could be used for subtle and subliminal propaganda is. How jacked up do people really get in the information age? I mean I’ve gotten into very heated arguments on social media, but, sitting at home I was smirking not snarling. Were the other guy/gal, guys/gals, observers? For the people selling ejuice and personal vapors, I think, all publicity is good for business. The concern about teenagers vaping as a gateway to smoking? The surest way to make that happen is to throw a hissy fit. My considerable experience with teenagers is that telling them something is dangerous and they are not allowed to do it makes a significant percentage of them curious enough to try it.
Living is a gateway to death; teenagers are immortal. Nobody is pro-minors-vaping. The people against vaping raise that alarm all the time though, it’s the surest way to make it happen. Just about everyone on this site sat through anti-drug presentations as part of the regular curriculum. We had a cop come once a year to our grade school with a box full of things that at least looked like drugs, they’d talk and show films, show of hands, how many of you didn’t try controlled substances by the time you were eighteen? Alcohol? Cigerettes? And if and when you were doing it thought about that lecture and scoffed?
What about birds and bees stuff and/or hearing it on the street corner? You know the fat kid Jedi had a hard drive full of porn, he had too, if he didn’t he was the only fat kid Jedi master in the universe without a hard drive full of porn.
I don’t know. The internet, the narrowing walls of the world, sure is a game changer for peer pressure and mob mentality.
I thought it was an interesting insight from the Greek doctor; professional fear of being wrong. Incidentally, though I found it through a pro-vape source, the guy didn’t really say more than it can’t be as unhealthy as cigarettes. He was doing research, he was not committing to where the research would lead or even a time frame. The guy’s day gig is cardio research in Belgium. He did keep qualifying that such and such is occurring in the states; the interviewer asked questions that were pretty focused on US policies and legislation.
We do that a lot. I saw a bumper sticker the other day; a bald eagle and an American flag and the Script over the top was something like Jesus is Right. Can you imagine FOX news interviewing anybody about the politics of a pharmaceutical debate in Belgium? Greece? About what sort of patriot Jesus might be in Israel? Palestine? Thailand?
Ok, I’m shutting up now.
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