h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Note: MealTicket referred to my "poor manners in public". As I have noted before, my comments are not aimed at smokers in general; merely those who display the "poor manners in public" to inflict their habit on others willy-nilly.

OK, I smoke, and yes, I've just had a great night out smoking, I just don't understand how people can condemn smokers, "everyone who smokes deserves cancer"?? What kind of sick individual are you??? Don't even suggest that. I am losing my faith in human kind when someone can say such a thing. That is possibly the worst thing I have ever heard. So I smoke. So what? Yes, it's a bad thing, a habit, an addiction, do you feel that everybody who has a 'sin' deserves to die? You disgust me with your narrow minded attitude, can't you accept that some people are different? Some people may not be as pure as you, that dosen't make them less human. In fact having weaknesess may make them more human. Try a little undestanding instead of judging us. I certainly don't judge people for not smoking or drinking. Think about it.

As I keep repeating, but no-one seems to pick up on... I don't condemn smokers. I DO condemn people who inflict smoke on others against their will.

As far as I know, most smokers will smoke where and when they want to. So by condemning one you condemn all.

Having reviewed the entire chain of these arguments I have to comment -

If the room/area/car you are in is fairly well ventilated, then having someone smoking in there with you is not a problem.

Even as a smoker myself (though I find that title a strange one) I have found myself moaning that a pub/bar/room is too smokey. It can sometimes just make my eyes water.

There can many impolite smokers as there can be many impolite car drivers. Some smokers need to be a little bit more thoughtful of others. At the sametime non-smokers (especially ex-non-smokers) need to be less aggressive about their moaning. If you tell someone not to do something they enjoy, it is not going to make them listen to you at all.

I do think this article is not quite as balanced as it could be, but as the author said, the guide can not give you all the answers. That is the trouble with any guide, it is based on human's points of views (with some facts thrown in!).

I too was upset at this article at first but then I re-read it and the comments following and thought it was not so bad after all.

Smokers are getting very edgy because of all the bans being thrown around over the last 10 years. California has a lot to answer for.

I think that Peet's '... should die ..' message was over the top even for a non (anti) smoker. Not even my Father (an ex-non-smoker) would go that far! If people are caught making such comments on H2G2, then they should get punished for it. Maybe the introduction of a football style yellow/red card system???

"If the room/area/car you are in is fairly well ventilated, then having someone smoking in there with you is not a problem." is a common opinion amongst smokers. It's just not true, but smokers like to delude themselves that it is for their own comfort.. It's not a simple "health" issue - the smell of burning tobacco products turns my stomach, even when having to walk along behind a smoker in an open street. If someone walks into my house with a lit cigarette, I can smell it for the best part of a week afterwards - smokers just don't consider that a "problem"...

I am enraged by this narrow, self-serving attitude, and choose to respond in kind. From *my* point of view, for justice to be served, I should be able to spray noxious carcinogenic substances in their face with no warning as and when I feel like it. Since this is obviously both illegal and impractical, I resort to verbally abusing smokers as my only form of release. If I was denied this relief, I might eventually "crack" and resort to physical violence, and despite my feelings towards the disgusting perpetrators of this filthy, noxious, anti-social habit, I'd prefer to avoid the likelihood of a bloodbath in the near future.

I am truely sorry that you think this way, that you can not see any way to find common ground. It is people like you that continue the problems in Northern Ireland/Middle East, etc.

I am sorry that you don't want to listen and discuss this article, that you only want to upset people. I am disappointed people like you are allowed to gain access to websites like H2G2.

"It is people like you that continue the problems in Northern Ireland/Middle East, etc."

I firmly believe I have a right to breathe fresh air. I am regularly denied that right. The people who deny me this right show no signs of apology or remorse - many become agressive if you complain about it. So, I'm expected to shut up and just take it. Yeah, right.

If one side in a conflict, as mentioned above, keeps assaulting another, I take it *you* would blame the target of the assault for complaining about it.

"you can not see any way to find common ground"

I can - people who want to smoke should do it in the privacy of their own home, or in places where anyone who might be remotely expected to be affected by the habit has given their consent. I only object to having the filth forced upon me, not to people smoking per se.

"I am sorry that you don't want to listen and discuss this article"

This *is* a discussion. Next time you light a cigarette in the street, and hear the person walking behind you coughing, reflect on the fact that you just invaded their space and deprived them of the fundamental human right of freedom of choice by your selfish, addiction-fueled actions.

I have strong feelings on the subject, and so far your arguments are weak. This does not mean I'm not discussing it.

Actually, OB1 Knordic, there IS a system of sanctions to stop offensive postings on h2g2. It begins with a warning e-mail from Peta the Community Editor, and I believe that Peet has already had one such message as a result of his appalling remarks in this forum.
By the way, I gave up smoking a couple of weeks ago. But I promise that if I'm ever knowingly in the same room as Peet, I'm going to light up again on principle.

My parents both gave up smoking at Christmas.

I was home last week and they actually apologised to me for inflicting their foulness on me for the twenty years I lived at home. They asked me, "why didn't you say?". They aren't "zealots" trying to persuade others to give up, but they have reached new understanding, now they've quit, of just how badly their sense of taste and smell were degraded.

So, to Pete and the other victims of passive smoking I say, forgive them - they know not what they do.

To the smokers, I say - I don't want to ban you from smoking, but please try to realise how actively unpleasant it is for the rest of us when you do it nearby, especially when we're trying to eat. We're not complaining to gratuitously offend you, we're complaining because *you're* unwittingly offending *us*.

Please note that this posting is intended in a calm fashion and a spirit of discussion rather than conflict. I of course condemn any suggestion that smokers - or non-smokers - deserve anything bad to happen to them.

Hey GVI, Ormy,
good of both of you to oil the waves a little, OB1 and Peet were going more 'on the man' than 'on the subject' lately.
Anyway, I have the same question your parents had for you GVI... if a non-smoker (or even a smoker with sensitive eyes) is bothered by a smokers' smoke, why not speak up? The few occasions I have heard a 'victim' ask the smoker to stub out the fag / go somewhere else / consider him a little in general, the smoker always reacted in a satisfactory way, according to me.

Especially nowadays, with the anti-smoking lobby so strong everyhere, smokers are like the indians in america: they have small reserves to practice their beliefs, and for the rest they're forced to assimilate.

So, with that delicate cliamte for smokers in general, I would find it hard to imagine a smoker who doesn't consider his surroundings when lighting up.

First of all, why didn't I speak up to my parents? Because that was how things had always been, so I didn't know any different. Anyway, I still don't feel I have the right to order them about, and they're the only people allowed to smoke inside my house.

As for others, I haven't had the same experience as you. Especially if you're in a non-smoking train carriage, or a non-smoking part of a restaurant. If someone is arrogant enough to ignore the signs, I find the reaction to a polite "Excuse me, this is a non-smoking area" gets the reaction "So what?" and a hard stare (the people who do are are normally young males with short hair. Frankly, they intimidate me).

In an area not specially designated - and in some countries such as Germany that tends to include the *whole* of most restaurants - it's even harder to get anyone to stop. They have "a right" to poison my air - and for other examples of the same attitude just read some of the posts above. I really can see how Peet got to thinking the way he does, though he takes and says it further than I'm comfortable with.

There are other, even more difficult situations - such as when airlines believe that if row 31 is non-smoking then people sitting there are fine, even when someone in row 32 is puffing nervously through the whole flight. Same goes for restaurants. Smokers, and too often the people catering for them, have no concept of how far cigarette smoke travels or the discomfort it causes. I have an asthmatic friend who suffers much worse than I do - I guess 20 years of living in a smoke-filled home somewhat deadened my sensitivity. Still, an unirritated nose and eyes, and unspoiled taste of my food or drink (don't even *talk* to me about pubs), are maybe pleasures - or basic freedoms - I value even more through having obtained them so late.

On the side, I notice that the entire article has been redone. Still, my post starts with 'I despise this article' and has read so through the entire thread. Just to state the obvious, ladies and gentlemen who didn't read the first version of the Cigarettes article, it was a lot more narrow-minded, biased and on the whole not a good description of cigarattes at all.

But GVI, on one side I can agree with you a great deal. If you consider smoke-filled air poisonous, and you do, and a lot of people do, then smokers should take their surroundings into account. Smokers who don't are probably assholes, and there's a lot of assholes in the world, smoking and non-smoking.

On the other hand, there are so many noxious factors in the world today that I wonder how high smoking actually rates in the harm chart.
You can SEE smoke, but for instance smog you can't see and it's much more noxious. You can directly approach a smoker, but a guy in car is out of your reach, so he goes unchecked. My point is: why hit on the smoker? it's so easy, when there are much larger poisoners around.

It's because, for some of us, it's not a health issue. It's simply that the smell is unacceptable, and it lingers for days. I've never complained about the health risks of "passive smoking", just the fact that a whiff of burning tobacco in a room is enough to make my eyes and nose sting (which traffic fumes don't) and make me feel sick (which traffic fumes don't). Buses and taxis rarely creep up behind you in a pub while you're trying to eat a toastie and completely put you off the food you just paid for.

When I get home after spending any time in a room/pub with smokers, I need to put all the clothes I was wearing into a different room before I go to sleep because the smell sickens me so.

According to Ru Paul, some people wear clothing that 'should be against the law, baby.'

Sometimes, a fart can be so severe, the entire compartment in the train is deadly with the stink.

Garlic! stay away from it, or i won't be able to control my actions!
All garlic-eating people deserve cancer! SLow and incurable!

Is this your line of thinking?

On the side, don't worry about the cancer wish. it'll come true.
I expect to develop lung cancer around the age of say, 44. Happy?

Farts tend, on the whole, to be involuntary. Garlic... well... If that's your opinion then you're entitled to it...

Gentlemen,

I have come back to this forum because it keeps popping up on my page again lately. I will not re-enter this discussion but I would like to ask you to start a new continuation-thread, so that the old thread may die in peace. As you all know, old threads can be somewhat of a problem(a form of pollution in itself perhaps?), so by starting a new one you will undoubtably earn a couple of cheers from the people who are no longer participating in it.

A new thread might be better anyway, as the article has been revised since this infamous thread started.

Thank you for your attention and good luck with the argument,

TM.

pedantic punctuation is your middle name, peet, but maybe it looks better on someone else...

but anyway, I think this thread has gone on long enough. I agree with some, I disagree with others, and I don;t think stances are up for changing anymore. Good luck OB1. Me, I'm stepping out. Peet, I hope your uncrackable view of the world remains intact for years, to come, since you seem to derive a lot of security from it. More power to you.

"As far as the alcohol is concerned : How many crimes and how much agression has been caused by it ?"

Granted, but I think if you compare the number of lingering, painful deaths caused to innocent bystanders by the two, then cigarettes would be out in front by a long way.

The moment anyone starts banging on about their rights (any rights, not just to be able to smoke), my hackles start to rise, because 9 times out of 10 their rights infringe someone else's right to do something else. Sitting in a pub where other people are drinking does not make my throat sore, nor does it make my clothes and hair smell (unless it's tipped over me). The mere fact of sitting next to someone and drinking alcohol does not affect them. However you dress it up, sitting next to them and smoking a cigarette does. I don't want to stop people smoking, but I just wish they would acknowledge that it does affect others. If I'm feeling particularly waspish, my answer to the question 'Do you mind if I smoke?' is 'Do you mind if I fart?'.

I am in favour of smoking and non-smoking areas that have some sort of divider between them to stop the smoke drifting to where it's not wanted. Trains - fine, nobody's forcing me to go into the smoking carriage. Cinemas - hmmm, how can you stop the smoke going over to the non-smoking side? Restaurants, bars, etc - as long as there are two different rooms, again fine. I think much of the problem comes from non-smokers suddenly discovering, after years of being thought slightly weird, that it's OK to say that they find the habit offensive and going a bit overboard. The smokers are suddenly forced onto the defensive and are biting back, then before you know it, everyone's shouting and it's all got very unpleasant.

The smell of those clove imitation cigarettes make me physically ill. I'd much rather smell a good pipe tobacco.

Most smokers (and I'm not a smoker) do ask permission to light up. And the reasonable ones will accept it if you say "no".

There are, unfortunately a samll group of selfish smokers who give the rest a bad name. Just as there are selfish drivers, soccer 'fans', alcohol drinkers etc etc etc.

No one's perfect. It's just some are less perfect than others...