ANTZ: Evil is the disease, not smoking or vaping!

Many people talk about an addiction to nicotine as a disease.  In fact there is a larger, more insidious "disease" involved with respect to the efforts to stop vaping: evil.

Now I understand that's a pretty strong statement.

But let's break down what's happening bit by bit...

First off, ANTZ (and by ANTZ I include government officials, the various heart and lung associations, etc.) view the world from a perspective of "justice" and "happiness."

Everyone, i.e., not them, would be "happy" if they didn't smoke.  There would be social justice ensuring that everyone was not subjected to the unpleasant will or actions of others.

But is that really possible?

There is plenty of evidence that, in fact, everyone tests positive for cotinine (a metabolite of nicotine described elsewhere on this blog).  Cotinine, along with nicotinic acid (vitamin B3), is involved in how the brain processes serotonin.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine that not everyone has the right balance of serotonin in their bodies.  After all there is plenty of medical evidence that people of different cultures and genetics process nutrients in their food differently.  So why not vitamin B3?

And what does cigarette smoke do in the human body?

Why it converts, among other things, to vitamin B3 and cotinine, which control serotonin.

However the ANTZ idea of "social justice" requires that everyone process nutrients in their bodies the same way hence no one should need to smoke or chew.

Now not only is this silly and ridiculous, but its also very wrong...

While you might not like me smoking to get these nutrients you have no business telling me I don't need them.

So there's a problem - we have people in authority dictating to you, now a former smoker (vaper), what you should be doing with your body.

I am sure many readers have seen "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."

This applies here.  I can tell you over and over not to smoke - but if you need to smoke you are going to anyway.

So these people are, by any reasonable definition, simply insane.  You'd think after 50 years of telling people not to do it they'd have figured out there must be more to it.

Personally I think that ANTZ and their friends have turned into what's called a "ponerogenic association."

A ponerogenic association stated goals are often at variance with its true nature. Colorful literature and humanitarian values often mask its true motivations, i.e., we all want to live in a "happy" world so you will do what you are told.

The people at the top of these groups are nuts - literally banging away with the same shit over and over and over and expecting a different result.  And this trickles down to the members of the these groups.

Imagine - you are Glantz or the head of the California Public Health (CPH) - do you really think its possible that no one vapes or smokes around them?

Do they have no families, no friends, no children, no associates at work?

About 18% of the population smokes (or vapes)... that's about 1 in 5 people.

So its highly unlikely that they don't know anyone trying to quit smoking or who vapes.

Instead they must be living in some sort of egotistical "bubble" thinking that their decisions and thought processes are somehow above everyone else.

And what about the people that work for these people?

Surely they must know someone who vapes.  Like the all employees of CPH are non-smokers?  Again, even more unlikely...

So what you have are a group of people basically run by egomaniacs that insist that the entire state or planet or whatever follow along with their model of the universe.

And one supposes their lackies employees just have to go along with them, despite the fact that their mom or sister or brother or kid vapes, just to keep their job...

So we arrive at First Criterion of Ponerogenesis (from the link): “One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals as such, interpreting their behavior in fascinated, heroic, or melodramatic ways” (Lobaczewski, 158). When a group has succumbed to pathological influence its members soon lose the ability to distinguish normal human behavior from pathological. 

So these support people, staff, etc. are working for kooks and they are stuck.

Secondary Ponerogenic Unions: ... The secondary ponerogenic associations are groups founded with an independent and attractive social ideal [ such as stopping smoking ], but which later succumb to moral degeneration. This degeneration leaves an opening for "infection and activation of the pathological factors within, and later to a ponerization of the group as a whole, or often its fraction” (Lobaczewski, 160).

So the bottom line here is simple.

While the ideal of stopping everyone from smoking is a good basis for a group or association.  What's happened over time is that all connection to rational thinking has been lost, i.e., it becomes incomprehensible that some people might actually need what smoking provides them.  Instead "these people" (smokers or vapers) are just out trying to poison children with their nicotine juice or aren't grown up enough to stop or trying to cause society to glamorize smoking again (as if they, the ANTZ, are the sole social arbiter of such things).

To paraphrase from the above link: When the ANTZ leadership are treated as normal, more perceptive individuals will leave the group. When the group has become sufficiently pathological, members will either perceive its new direction in moral terms (e.g., “We must make them continue to smoke cigarettes on the principle that vaping doesn't really solve the "smoking" problem”), or as a form of psychological terror.

Ultimately you end up (and you can read more on the above link) with a "pathocracy."

You end up with what we are seeing today in relationship to vaping: social hysteria.

"Oh my God! They are making smoking glamorous again!"

Implied is this: Vaping is just an extension of smoking.  So we shouldn't sell vapes to children under 18.

However, the converse of this is exactly what?

We all no no child ever gets hold of a pack of cigarettes before they are 18... (right).

But if the child is smoking cigarettes the child apparently should continue to do so until 18 and not vape because vaping is bad too.

So, instead of letting them "eat cake" we let them smoke because its good for them not to vape...?

Really? Why is this?  So they might continue to use tobacco when the turn 18 so governments and big Tobacco can continue to profit?

This is truly insane.

And in fact EVIL.

If anyone cared for the "lives of the children" one imagines they would actually want them to STOP SMOKING...