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Well, if you’re saying things everyone agrees with, you probably won’t have problems, and it won’t even come up whether you have the right to speak. Freedom of speech only comes up as a concept when it is in conflict with other interests.
Many legal issues are defined by their extremes. That doesn’t mean they only encompass extremes. Just that it’s the extremes that delineated the actual boundaries.
What I see are anecdotes about people who vaped and then quit. FDA has said they find no evidence that vaping improves outcomes for people trying to quit. There are other proven therapies, too, that don’t have all the health risks.
I also see a lot of anecdotes right here from people who switched to vaping and then did not quit.
The bottom line is that vaping may or may not have played a part in this or that person’s story, but there is no firm basis to hold it up as a quitting aid. So we should stop doing that.
Mayo Clinic says, in the link I posted, that a good proportion of cases they’ve handled had THC additives, but not all. And they repeat what I said earlier: that it is not well understood but there are signs of trouble. They link to another panic mom / monied interest, the American Lung Association, who say:
A study from the University of North Carolina found that the two primary ingredients found in e-cigarettes—propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin—are toxic to cells and that the more ingredients in an e-liquid, the greater the toxicity.2 E-cigarettes produce a number of dangerous chemicals including acetaldehyde, acrolein, and formaldehyde. These aldehydes can cause lung disease, as well as cardiovascular (heart) disease.3 E-cigarettes also contain acrolein, a herbicide primarily used to kill weeds. It can cause acute lung injury and COPD and may cause asthma and lung cancer.4 Both the U.S. Surgeon General and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine have warned about the risks of inhaling secondhand e-cigarette emissions, which are created when an e-cigarette user exhales the chemical cocktail created by e-cigarettes. In 2016, the Surgeon General concluded that secondhand emissions contain, “nicotine; ultrafine particles; flavorings such as diacetyl, a chemical linked to serious lung disease; volatile organic compounds such as benzene, which is found in car exhaust; and heavy metals, such as nickel, tin, and lead.” The Food and Drug Administration has not found any e-cigarette to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit. If smokers are ready to quit smoking for good, they should call 1-800-QUIT NOW or talk with their doctor about finding the best way to quit using proven methods and FDA-approved treatments and counseling.
It sounds like you vaped for a while and then quit (congratulations btw). I smoked for many years and then quit, and that doesn’t mean cigarettes helped me quit, or that I quit with cigarettes. You quit the day you “decided to just throw it all away.”
FDA has said that they find no evidence vaping improves quitting outcomes for smokers.
Panic moms like… the Mayo Clinic?
a Mayo Clinic study published in The New England Journal of Medicine finds that lung injuries from vaping most likely are caused by direct toxicity or tissue damage from noxious chemical fumes.
…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported more than 800 lung injury cases that are associated with electronic cigarette use, or vaping, over the past few months. Twelve deaths have been confirmed in 10 states
I found this question surprising. “Do they work?” At first I didn’t understand - work at what? Then I realized that you’re thinking of them as quitting smoking devices. They’re not that. It’s an alternative to smoking. You inhale fewer particulates but often more nicotine, and there have been some health questions about the oils that serve as a medium for the nicotine and how healthy they are to inhale. It’s not thoroughly understood yet and there’s a big range of products out there.
The companies that sell them will swear up and down that they are to help you quit. And some users of them will tell you how much healthier it is and how they’re halfway to quitting. This is all, essentially, lies that they are telling themselves and you.
If you want to see a nicotine abatement product, check out nicotine gum or patches. There is nothing enjoyable about them. They allow the user to divide quitting into two stages: first, getting the habit out of their system, and second, phasing out their nicotine addiction. They do not deliver any enjoyment or rush, and are designed to be clinical and dull. The gum is hard and has a medicine flavor and plain grey color.
E-cigs on the other hand, enhance smoking. They allow you to smoke in more places. They add fruity flavors. The gadgets are cool and the different things you fill them with are stylishly presented. You still go through most of the motions of smoking and you’re getting more nicotine than before.
Why would anyone consider that a quitting tool? It absolutely is not.
No, you don’t need to go around making other people agree with you, on the fediverse or anywhere, really.
But if you are going to enter into a mutual risk/benefit relationship with another party, it does help to understand what their motivations are, so you can figure out if they’re going to line up with your own, or lead to conflict.
My post is about trying to understand those parties’ motivations. Not make everyone agree with me.
We need to think this through from the standpoint of an instance admin who is trying to figure out how to use Threads to make their instance grow. That’s really the only motivation I can think of to federate with Threads. Otherwise it’s just all downside. As a corporate social media entity, they are entirely opposed to everything Lemmy stands for philosophically, and their scale is a massive threat to the culture and operations of the much smaller fediverse. Why would anyone ever want to federate with them? Because they see it as an opportunity. To ride the dragon, thinking it can be controlled. This is madness. Choice 4 all the way and if it becomes necessary, 5.
I might have these numbers off a little bit, but I learned recently that the amount of energy hitting the earth from the sun every second is equivalent to 2500 of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb going off.
Those were not large nukes by today’s standards, but weather is powered by the sun and it should give you a relative idea of how much energy is involved.
Basically there is farrrrr more energy in weather systems than in nukes.
Helen Keller naturally came to my mind as well. She was not born blind and deaf though. She lost those sense at 19 months, so about a year and a half in. That is still quite young, but enough to establish the basis for things like object permanence and 3 dimensional space. In the climatic scene of The Miracle Worker, the main character says a word she learned as a baby, underscoring the importance of her early months.
To truly be born deaf and blind I think would be another degree more challenging.
I had a chemistry teacher who would put a chemical formula on the chalkboard and say things like:
“This’ll clean your teeth really well. Once.”
Or
“This’ll make your car go really fast. Once.”
That’s how I think about pressure washing a deck. It looks amazingly clean at first but the damage is there. Maybe sanding after would help. But you can only do that so many times.
I guess I could maybe imagine paying for that once every other year. But I think people underestimate how damaging pressure washers can be. Lots of folks have torn up their decks thinking they’ve “cleaned” them. People spray pressure washers UP at their house’s siding despite the fact that it is specifically lapped to repel water that is falling DOWN. And while concrete can stand up to a pressure washing, it will begin to develop any cracks you have if you do it frequently.
“Networking”
The realtor who helped me sell my last house posts on Facebook a lot. Pictures of interesting houses, gardens, local wildlife. NOT ads for her service or “check out this house I’m now selling” bullshit. Ostensibly, she’s just sharing cool content that’s related to her area of expertise, but it also keeps her visible to me and top of mind. If I need a realtor again I will remember her. I think much LI posting is the same shit. But there are many situations. Someone who needs to hire a lot may put out content that makes them look smart or nice to work for. Someone who is trying to get a job may post things they think will make them appear professional and engaged with their career. People with a service to sell will want to keep themselves visible at all times. A lot goes on on LI.