[mattmaroon]

The CDC has been unfortunately hopelessly politicized. It happened long before the pandemic.

OTOH, I would make the differentiating point that air travel has positive benefits to society and costs and one has to weigh those against each other. You can’t make the blanket statement “earth would be better off if air travel went away completely.”

It’s hard to find any benefit to smoking, first hand or second, so it’s easy enough to just shit on it. The ROI on whatever ills aviation may have is a topic of discussion, there’s 0 ROI on smoking.

[tomp]

As we've seen in the past 2 years, there's no real positive benefit to society to frequent business flying (at pre-pandemic levels).

Like smoking, we don't need to completely ban air travel. The equivalent would be severely limiting it (for example, prohibiting business flying).

[nitrogen]

there's no real positive benefit to society to frequent business flying

I'm seeing a lot of communication and alignment issues because people can't get into one room and hash things out.

[WalterBright]

I've seen this firsthand many times, too. Having a meeting over beers and longstanding disagreements just melt away.

[ccakes]

> The equivalent would be severely limiting it (for example, prohibiting business flying).

People fly to go on holiday and experience cultures other than their own which is something we should be encouraging rather than discouraging. I strongly agree with reducing needless business travel but if doing so also limited vacation travel I think it'd be a net negative.

[dleslie]

We should be discouraging all air travel. All of it.

[xyzzyz]

No, we shouldn’t. Instead, we should work on ensuring that as many people are able to enjoy new opportunities it provides if they do desire as possible. Everyone should be able to enjoy life.

[wolverine876]

Climate impact is significant. That's going to interfere with generations enjoying their lives.

[labster]

If you care about climate, get cryptocurrency banned. Air travel has all sorts of bad consequences, but also has economic and social benefits. Crypto on the other hand is an endless black hole of energy that even when used for its intended purpose creates economic and social harm.

Talking about taking away things that people like, like airplanes and red meat and gas stoves just get people up in arms. Start with the low-hanging fruit: crypto has no value except to speculators and criminals and tax evaders. Concrete is like 10% of our energy use, and we use way too much of it for temporary structures. No one likes leaf blowers, just ban the gas-powered ones.

[xyzzyz]

We should then work on enabling people to fly with no climate impact. For example, using zero emissions energy to synthesize jet fuel. The goal should be to enable people, not to block them.

[dleslie]

In no way is air travel necessary for anyone to find enjoyment in their life or to seek new opportunities, even overseas.

[Fricken]

My favorite thing about air travel is the opportunities it takes away. Destroying the planet is so important to the future of humanity

[airstrike]

> there's no real positive benefit to society to frequent business flying (at pre-pandemic levels).

I'm sorry but I don't buy that. Business flying has obvious benefits including, perhaps obviously, enabling businesses to be run efficiently.

[shard]

I started a new job after the start of COVID, and it has been really hard to build the personal relationships to become fully effective (our offices are spread out globally). My manager has said that pre-COVID days, I would have had the chance to meet many of my colleagues face-to-face and have a few beers with them, which would have greased the wheel to creating some personal connections. It's always easier to request help from someone who has a good impression of you.

Similarly with clients. It's much easier for people to go on attack-mode when they are displeased when it's only through email or a video conference where people have their cameras off. Unhappy clients can be placated and turned towards working together to a solution much more easily in person, and happy clients can be turned into long term partners more easily over dinner and friendly chats. This is especially true of customers in Asia.

[TameAntelope]

This isn't politics, it's safety. I accept the argument that the CDC has become overly innumerate in how to live a healthy life, but it's not a liberal or conservative idea to be cautious.

[area51org]

There is such a thing as being unnecessarily and overly cautious, however. This sure seems like a good example of that.

[hcurtiss]

Exactly. Precaution comes at a price. The question is whether the benefits of the precaution outweigh the costs. And that is an answer science cannot, and should not, answer. These days, it seems, many scientists are desperate to cloak their policy preferences in "science." That is precisely why there is presently so much distrust of scientists.

[psyklic]

I never understood distrust, because scientists base their work on research that is extensively cited. Making conclusions that are not supported by evidence, e.g. "desperately cloaking" policy preferences, could jeopardize one's scientific career.

Many people seem to unrealistically demand scientific recommendations to be "guarantees." However, scientific conclusions are very precisely made best guesses, built on humanity's knowledge.

[klabb3]

> I never understood distrust, because scientists base their work on research that is extensively cited.

It's good that the supply chain of science is traceable, but it doesn't guarantee truth by any means. Their are many non-scientific human endeavors that have traceability, take software development for instance.

I think the distrust comes from many fields having fairly obvious political trends, in particular social sciences. Another source of distrust is overextrapolation of science by authorities. For instance, science might say that certain drugs are harmful if abused, and politicians may use that to claim the war on drugs is based on science, which obviously is not true. Lastly, some fields struggle producing consistent and falsifiable results, such as economics and psychology.

[seirl]

The replication rate of Economics as a field is higher than replication rates for psychology, cancer research, pharmaceutical research, and many other fields. When was the last time you opened an econ journal?

[crocodiletears]

Choosing the level of safety we enforce in society is inherently political.

[noirbot]

There was a comment I saw the other day along the lines of "Science will tell you what the numbers are, but doesn't make a judgement of how big that number should be."

You can get a pretty good estimate of how many lives would be saved if we smoked less, or drank less, or did any number of other things, but ultimately that's an input into a public policy decision making system that doesn't have a provably right answer unless everyone involved agrees on what the desired outcome is.

[cleansingfire]

Nobody is enforcing anything, either in the parent or the OP, so don't panic. Your comment seems inflammatory and irrelevant in this context, but I'm sure that's not your intent. You'll be ok, don't worry.

[josephcsible]

Safety becomes politics once acting in "unsafe" ways becomes illegal.

[zdragnar]

Nicotine (especially when consumed via smoking) has some negative side effects, but is also a neurotrophic and can be quite beneficial.

Addiction and blood pressure are really the only downsides if you were to consume it in the form of, say, gum (and boy does the addiction suck).

[krrrh]

Regular consumption of nicotine also reduces Alzheimer's risk (and probably Parkinson's). This has been known for a long time. Few things are absolute.

1991: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC1670208/

> The risk of Alzheimer's disease decreased with increasing daily number of cigarettes smoked before onset of disease (relative risk 0.3 in those smoking greater than 21/day v 1 in non-smokers). In six families in which the disease was apparently inherited as an autosomal dominant disorder, the mean age of onset was 4.17 years later in smoking patients than in non-smoking patients from the same family (p = 0.03).

There is also ongoing research on this topic funded by the US government.

https://www.alzheimers.gov/clinical-trials/memory-improvemen...

[kortex]

Nit: that study is cigarettes. There is more to tobacco than nicotine, such as harmala alkaloids and miscellaneous MAOIs.

Either way, that's super interesting.

[drekk]

The addiction is one of the most difficult to quit. With repeated use the nice feelings stop as well. There's no benefit to it, you're hijacking some neural circuitry until it hijacks your life

[artificialLimbs]

>> It's hard to find any benefit to smoking...

Ritualistically, as an exercise in getting out of one's 'normal' consciousness, it can present useful information for self study. In habitual form, it is of course very destructive.

[groby_b]

So the "getting out of consciousness" that is the relaxation experience many "habitual" smokers have is worthless, while changing your state for ritualistic purposes is helpful?

Both are very tiny self-reported effects that are close to non-observable for outsiders. Why would one outweigh the other, if you allow self-reported epsilon effects at all?

[artificialLimbs]

>> getting out of consciousness

You mean sleep (as in, night time bed activity)? I'm not talking about sleep. I am discussing getting out of normative modes of being but not going to sleep.

>> that is the relaxation experience

This is not the only experience resulting from tobacco use. There are more subtle effects as well.

>> worthless

I haven't declared a value judgment against the habit. I am saying it is destructive to the body. Do you believe that to not be a fact?

>> helpful

Again, I'm not presenting value judgments here. I am saying it can present useful information. It sounds to me like you have taken offense somewhere for some reason. I am not putting weight on one or the other.

*edit: clarity

[wolverine876]

> The CDC has been unfortunately hopelessly politicized.

These accusations are a common way to tear down democratic institutions, handing power to corporations and powerful individuals. Do you have evidence of it? I've seen none, other than some things attempted by political appointees during the Trump administration.

[mattmaroon]

Yes. If you want a really good explanation of how it happened and the effects it’s practically the subject of The Premonition by Michael Lewis

[pirate787]

The CDC (formally Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has long tried to enter the gun control debate. That has nothing to do with their mission of communicable disease prevention. Congress has repeatedly voted to block them.

[wolverine876]

The wider medical community has been vocal about gun control, because guns are a leading cause of injury and death. The fact that it's not a virus or bacteria is arguably a pointless technicality, incidental to saving people's lives. The people who catch the 'bullet' disease are treated at hospitals by doctors.

You may not think it's appropriate, but many doctors disagree. There's nothing in that indicating it's politicized; people may want to politicize gun control, Coronavirus, and lots of other health issues, but that doesn't make the health institutions political for dealing with it. (They also want to politicize the CDC and every other democratic institution (the Post Office, etc.).)

[chana_masala]

Should CDC also be involved in traffic laws too?

[HWR_14]

They are not involved in writing traffic laws, but they most certainly are involved in researching traffic caused injuries. It makes sense, because they are a leading cause of death

[glennpratt]

"Involved in laws" doesn't really describe the CDC exactly, but whatever.

One example of many:

https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/drowsy_driving.html

[HWR_14]

The CDC is still the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's mission includes but is not limited to infectious disease. Congress has mandated they cover, in addition to infectious disease, research on food borne pathogens, environmental effects on health, occupational safety, injury prevention and how best to promote health. They do research on, for example, obesity and diabetes which are noncommunicable. They also are tasked with education to improve the health of US citizens (or residents, it's unclear). They specifically and explicitly replaced the National Communicable Disease Center, as their mission grew.

Meanwhile, all they've tried to do is research gun violence, not "enter a debate".

[hidudeurcool]

benefit of smoking is the buzz and social enhancement. it is not useless.

[avar]

> It’s hard to find any benefit to smoking, first hand or second.

The same is true about recreational travel. People expose themselves to high levels of radiation and travel risk purely for recreational purposes. Smokers inhale carcinogenic substances for recreational purposes.

[kaba0]

Is the risk for the two even remotely in the same ballpark?

[pas]

No, but the problem is that a scientifically informed (evidence based) public health site communicating risks should be consistent and shouldn't use inconsistent absolutist language.

[pvarangot]

Well, it depends on how much you smoke and how much you travel. Thing is if I smoke even one cigarette like as a digestive after a big dinner once every four months I have to pay 600 dollars of extra health insurance per year because of how all this bullshit messaging about how nicotine works. And of course it's to protect something like only 35% of the human population that will get addicted to it.

I stopped smoking for months or years many times and I never ever had any side effect except maybe I'm a bit tired the first days. I don't even put up extra weight or anything like that. I feel like an adult baby being treated like I need financial punishment to help me be a healthy person.

[HWR_14]

> Thing is if I smoke even one cigarette like as a digestive after a big dinner once every four months I have to pay 600 dollars of extra health insurance per year because of how all this bullshit messaging about how nicotine works.

Really? Where do you live? Because I'm not aware of any country that does this (other than with sin taxes on tobacco).

[pvarangot]

I live in the US and the 600 extra are binary, the question is "have you used any tobacco products in the past three months?" and a yes means an extra 600 per year. It's not that unusual if you get health insurance through your employer because it drives the cost down for everyone else, and of course scamming money off smokers even if they just casually do it a couple of times every three months is socially accepted.

Also except executives no one is above 60, which is where one would argue that if you are a smoker you may actually needing to tap heavy into health insurance money for smoking related conditions. There's even research that if you quit before 40 your smoking related cancer risks go down 90% https://www.healio.com/news/hematology-oncology/20211228/qui...

Of course I can drink a bottle of wine per day, not exercise, eat processed meat and not consume a gram of fiber and I don't have to pay extra health insurance. It doesn't make any sense.

[HWR_14]

I thought you were in the US.

By federal law, you cannot be charged more for smoking a cigarette every four months. You can be charged more for smoking with more regularity. There is a binary cutoff, but the level isn't zero (feds have a minimum level, but states can impose higher ones.). You may want to consult a lawyer if this is something that is really happening and concerns you. Plus, you certainly should consult a lawyer before you change your answer on a the form, in case you are in a grandfathered plan or some other special case.

[avar]

Health insurance in various places goes up if you consume tobacco products, and doesn't take the amount consumed into account:

https://www.kff.org/faqs/faqs-health-insurance-marketplace-a...

[HWR_14]

That's what I figured he was referring to, but you (and he, if that's what he meant) are just wrong. Your source points out that the amount consumed is taken into account:

https://www.kff.org/faqs/faqs-health-insurance-marketplace-a...

Now, it is binary. But US federal law puts "an afterdinner cigarette once every four months" very much in the "nonsmoker" category.

[josephcsible]

> Well, it depends on how much you smoke and how much you travel.

I find it hard to believe that smoking could be less dangerous than flying even for people who work as airline pilots or flight attendants.

[pvarangot]

Smoking every day? Sure it's more dangerous. Vaping at a party once per month? I don't think so.

[josephcsible]

If you say vaping now, then maybe. But actually smoking once a month I still doubt.