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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
 Posted - 04/21/2010 : 06:48:06
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I'd like to discuss what I perceive as a contradiction between what skeptics and/or Atheists think and what their political views tend to be.
I will be speaking VERY generally so please don't take offense.
I notice that most skeptics/Atheists ultimate goal is to get people to think for themselves and to not just absorb the ideas that are fed to them and believe they are "The Truth".
I also notice that these same skeptics/Atheists tend to want government to regulate many things because they don't believe that ordinary citizens have the ability to know whats best for them.
I would like to use a personal story to illustrate my point of view.
I am a long time smoker who is trying to quit. I have always been fully aware of the adverse effect it has on my health. Government has been trying to point me in the direction of quitting for years. Extreme taxes on cigarettes and smoking bans in restaurants and taverns have not done one thing to make me want to quit. You know what made me want to quit? The last surfing trip I took a couple of months ago did. I had a really had a hard time with my breathing and my endurance was very low. I could only be out catching waves for a half hour at a time before I had to go take a break. It was then and only then that it finally clicked that I had better damn well quit smoking. I love surfing more than smoking.
My point is that no matter how much the government tried pointing me in the direction of quitting the only thing that really worked was my own personal experience.
I feel that the best way for people to change things is to talk to their friends and neighbors and open a dialogue with them. Some big government trying to impose views on people, no matter what is the best for them, will only make people resent that government. A properly run democracy combined with a free market economy should make this all possible without having government interference.
Claiming that the general public is ignorant is no excuse for intruding on their personal lives.
Thoughts?
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Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
 Posted - 04/21/2010 : 08:37:45 [Permalink]
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Skepticism means that you follow the evidence and not your ideology. We might have different opinions but the facts should be the same.
| I am a long time smoker who is trying to quit. I have always been fully aware of the adverse effect it has on my health. Extreme taxes on cigarettes and smoking bans in restaurants and taverns have not done one thing to make me want to quit. |
In principle I support your right to choose to engage in a hazardous activity if it is your informed choice, but there are some problems with many drugs and one particular with smoking. The first is addiction. If you are "trying to quit", do you really make the informed choice to smoke a cigarette?
The second problem is specific for cigarettes, passive smoking. Smoking bans in restaurants are not there to infringe your right to smoke. They are there to protect the right of other people not to smoke.
| A properly run democracy combined with a free market economy should make this all possible without having government interference. |
Define "properly run", "free" and what constitutes "interference"!
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"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 08:54:20 [Permalink]
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On the smoking issue? I've always seen smokers complaining about the ban as a bunch of whining jackasses.
On the smoking ban, it's not about your health, it's about mine
For me, I've never been in favor of smoking bans to get other people to quit, although I do know that this is one of the reasonings behind it. My problem with smoking has always been that people who smoke infringe upon my personal space. If my collegues are allowed to smoke at work, I'm the one having to sit in their stench the whole day. I'm not the one who made my clothes so filthy after a night at the pub that I had to wash them out every time the day after. If I don't smoke and don't want to spend a night in the stench, why should the only choice available to me be to stay at home. Instead of the choice I have with the ban, which is a fun night out or stay at home, with the smokers going outside or into a smoker's area whenever they need to satisfy their addiction. Not to mention the health effects of second-hand smoke. So for me, smoking has never been an issue of public health, it's always been an issue of not infringing on my personal space. Which is not what you were asking.
The right of the individual should trump the right of the company
I feel the same way about food in a certain way. If I can only buy a certain type of food in the stores (salted), where is my choice? If I want salted food, I have a little thing in my cupboard called a "salt jar". I use it with some regularity, because I like some of my foodstuff salty. But quite a lot of it I like without salt. I don't see that discussion in the light of "taking choice away". It takes choices away from companies, but I don't think companies should be treated as if they are individuals. If companies are putting salt in most of their products, they are actively taking away the choice to live healthy from the individual. In that case, the choice of the individual should be more important than the choice of the company.
The government should enable persons to make an informed decision
On a more general level, I definitely think that the government should make sure that information is available to people on the health effects of their behavior. This still is not the same as directly influencing it, but the first thing that they should do is actively make people aware of the risks. This is not contrary to the tenents of skepticism, since to make an informed decision we need good information to be easily available, even if people do not want to hear it. And yes, actively putting out a commercial stating that smoking is bad for you can be viewed as being intrusive. In my opinion, from a skeptical point of view, this is preferable to the alternative. "Didn't you know smoking causes lung cancer? But you could have looked that up on that totally not intrusive, obscure government website that nobody ever looks at."
It is hard, if not impossible, to present information in a neutral way
Then the question becomes whether the government should actively try to influence that behavior. First, I do think there is a gray area here. In actively informing the public, they will already be influencing their life style. If the risk of smoking is actively promoted, this becomes part of the discussion. It will add to the weight of making a certain decision (stopping with smoking) over another (continuing smoking). It may not be the final straw, but it will nudge people in a certain direction. I think that on many issues, it is impossible to give neutral information. "Smoking increases your chances of dying earlier to diseases that aren't fun" is not neutral information, regardless of the way you give it.
Does actively promoting behavior conflict with skepticism
I don't think so. Because while it tries to steer behavior in a certain direction, nothing prevents people from doing the exact opposite. It may make it harder to engage in a certain behavior, it cannot make people into mindless drones. Regulating industry to put less salt in their products will not stop me from using salt if I so choose. It does not take away this choice, although it will force me to make this choice in a more conscious manner. Seems to me to be perfectly in line with skepticism.
How far should government go
I think there are a number of things at play here. We are not just individuals, we are individuals in a society. Our actions influence others. Even if we had a minimally regulated free market system, with very little government, this doesn't change. Your decision to smoke will affect the sum I pay for my health insurance, since you'll be more likely to have a serious illness than me (not just lung cancer but virtually all cancers, as well as cardiovascular diseases) and the money for your treatment will in part be coming from me. Although you might die earlier, so you'll be paying for my pension plan (cost of disease always remains a hard question).
In my view, one of the jobs of government should be to try and ensure the well-being of its citizens and I think this includes providing citizens with the means to make decisions leading to a healthy life style. This includes actively enabling healthy life styles (promoting sports etc) and discouraging unhealthy ones (fastfood diet etc). I do not think it should go so far to make unhealthy life styles illegal (lift the ban on drugs!), but it should regulate unhealthy life styles in such a way that they have the least adverse impact on people not engaging in those life styles (ban on smoking in bars and reducing salt in my food). |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 08:55:24 [Permalink]
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| And that was way too long a post. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 09:20:04 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by tomk80
And that was way too long a post.
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No it wasn't. It was exactly what I was looking for.
Please forgive me if I don't respond very soon. You gave me a lot to digest. You may have possibly changed my opinions about some things.
Even though the smoking thing was just an anecdote I was using to express my POV I would like to give my opinion on that subject seeing as how I brought it up.
It never bothered me about banning it in restaurants....but banning it in taverns bothers me. I go to the tavern to get wasted and smoke lots of cigarettes, not because I'm trying to improve my health. I don't really care about what the non-smokers think about smoking in taverns. Taverns are not health clubs. Selfish, I know. |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 09:22:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by tomk80
And that was way too long a post.
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Yes, but read-worthy. And I agree with most parts of it.
I disagree with de-criminalization of drugs.
While under influence, people usually have diminished reasoning capacity which makes them prone to making bad decitions that affects people around them.
Just recently in Gothenburg, a driver under influence of narcotics killed 3 men when he crashed in a tunnel by reckless speeding. Narcotics made him more stupid than he already was, and the result was three dead men in their early 20s.
The point of having bans of dangerous substances is to prevent morons from causing harm to innocent people.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 09:25:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
Originally posted by tomk80
And that was way too long a post.
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No it wasn't. It was exactly what I was looking for.
Please forgive me if I don't respond very soon. You gave me a lot to digest. You may have possibly changed my opinions about some things.
Even though the smoking thing was just an anecdote I was using to express my POV I would like to give my opinion on that subject seeing as how I brought it up.
It never bothered me about banning it in restaurants....but banning it in taverns bothers me. I go to the tavern to get wasted and smoke lots of cigarettes, not because I'm trying to improve my health. I don't really care about what the non-smokers think about smoking in taverns. Taverns are not health clubs. Selfish, I know.
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I don't have a problem with selfish perse. As long as people recognize that I go to the pub to get waisted, but not to breath in their soot.
One of the problems I had with the discussion around the smoking ban in pubs was that somehow me breathing in your soot was by many considered to be the default, which I think is precisely the reverse as it should be. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 09:38:29 [Permalink]
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I lean towards the idea of causal determinism, so it would make sense that society, not just government, would encourage healthy, constructive behaviors and discourage unhealthy, destructive behaviors. How exactly we do that is another matter, but the whole idea is consistent with the idea of naturalism. There are natural causes to our behavior. No, that doesn't mean that individuals don't have some responsibility for their own behavior (and to some extent can change the causes of their behavior), but they're not separate from the whole. When things change on a societal level, behavior changes statistically. You may still smoke as much, but x percent may smoke less because of education, or availability of smoking cessation clinics, or because smoking is banned in certain places.
I also agree that addictions should be placed in the realm of science, not politics. We need to study why people do harmful things and help them to change. Some level of punishment may be needed, I don't know, but not as an emotional reaction, or the idea that "bad" people "need" to be punished for their evil actions. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 10:15:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
I notice that most skeptics/Atheists ultimate goal is to get people to think for themselves and to not just absorb the ideas that are fed to them and believe they are "The Truth".
I also notice that these same skeptics/Atheists tend to want government to regulate many things because they don't believe that ordinary citizens have the ability to know whats best for them. |
No, the ordinary citizens have the ability to know what's best for them, they just don't often use that ability. For example, people will go out of their way to save $25 on a $100 microwave oven, but won't expend the same amount of extra effort to save $25 on a $1,000 plasma-screen TV. The buying power of the $25 is the same in both cases, but people irrationally choose to throw away that money if it's too small a percentage.| My point is that no matter how much the government tried pointing me in the direction of quitting the only thing that really worked was my own personal experience. |
What if cigarettes had been illegal?| Some big government trying to impose views on people, no matter what is the best for them, will only make people resent that government. |
We're not talking about "views," we're talking about public health policies.| A properly run democracy combined with a free market economy should make this all possible without having government interference. |
But free-market economies are fictitious. They depend upon rational actors who simply don't exist in large enough numbers.| Claiming that the general public is ignorant is no excuse for intruding on their personal lives. |
We're not just talking about ignorance, though. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 11:36:45 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Ebone4rock
I notice that most skeptics/Atheists ultimate goal is to get people to think for themselves and to not just absorb the ideas that are fed to them and believe they are "The Truth".
I also notice that these same skeptics/Atheists tend to want government to regulate many things because they don't believe that ordinary citizens have the ability to know whats best for them. |
No, the ordinary citizens have the ability to know what's best for them, they just don't often use that ability. For example, people will go out of their way to save $25 on a $100 microwave oven, but won't expend the same amount of extra effort to save $25 on a $1,000 plasma-screen TV. The buying power of the $25 is the same in both cases, but people irrationally choose to throw away that money if it's too small a percentage.
So why should it be governments job to take care of this lack of reason?
| My point is that no matter how much the government tried pointing me in the direction of quitting the only thing that really worked was my own personal experience. |
What if cigarettes had been illegal?
I really don't care what's legal or whats not. If I like it and I can get away with it I will do it.
| Some big government trying to impose views on people, no matter what is the best for them, will only make people resent that government. |
We're not talking about "views," we're talking about public health policies.
When it comes to things such as factories spewing tons of toxic smoke into the air then I totally agree about the public health concen. When it comes to things like cooking with salt then I don't see that as a public health concern because each individual has the choice to read the labels on food packages.| A properly run democracy combined with a free market economy should make this all possible without having government interference. |
But free-market economies are fictitious. They depend upon rational actors who simply don't exist in large enough numbers. [quote] |
Then I guess the smarter big businesses win. |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 11:44:52 [Permalink]
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| Please excuse me. I'm still trying to figure out the quote thing. I'm getting clser I think. |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 12:01:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
So why should it be governments job to take care of this lack of reason? |
Because it's a social problem, and our tool for solving social problems is our common government.| I really don't care what's legal or whats not. If I like it and I can get away with it I will do it. |
If cigarettes were illegal, they'd surely cost a lot more than they do. Wouldn't that have an effect on whether you "like" them?| When it comes to things such as factories spewing tons of toxic smoke into the air then I totally agree about the public health concen. When it comes to things like cooking with salt then I don't see that as a public health concern because each individual has the choice to read the labels on food packages. |
And each individual has the choice to move away from the toxic gas plumes. Why the double-standard?| Then I guess the smarter big businesses win. |
And they do until they get charged with price-fixing or antitrust violations or other such corruption, or their lies can no longer support their prospectus and their shareholders flee. At which point a lot of regular people get hurt through no fault of their own. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 12:35:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
And each individual has the choice to move away from the toxic gas plumes. Why the double-standard? |
Toxic gas plumes near your house encroach on you against your will. You don't eat too much salt against your will. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 12:41:26 [Permalink]
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Because it's a social problem, and our tool for solving social problems is our common government.
I understand your position but the degree to which I agree depends on the definition of each individual "social problem".
If cigarettes were illegal, they'd surely cost a lot more than they do. Wouldn't that have an effect on whether you "like" them?
Actually they'd probably be cheaper. There would be no HUGE tax on them then.
And each individual has the choice to move away from the toxic gas plumes. Why the double-standard?
I think there is a huge difference between families having to uproot their entire lives because they live close to a factory and simply reading food packages. Situational ethics come into play at this point.
And they do until they get charged with price-fixing or antitrust violations or other such corruption, or their lies can no longer support their prospectus and their shareholders flee. At which point a lot of regular people get hurt through no fault of their own
Agreed
Each time I try a new quote strategy I seem to get a little closer but I'm not quite there yet. |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2010 : 14:10:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Machi4velli
Toxic gas plumes near your house encroach on you against your will. You don't eat too much salt against your will. |
When fully grown adults can not know that pork, ham, sausage and bacon all come from the same animal, then yes people can eat too much salt without knowing it.
People could even carefully total up the salt on all their packaged foods and come up right below the daily limit, then eat one or two apples right off a tree and go over. It's not like they'll drop dead the next day, but that's never been the point. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Contradictions of philosophy
