As a smoker, I have had so many amazing conversations with fellow smokers. Back when they used to have those outdoor boxes outside of hospitals, I’d always meet someone interesting in there when I had a reason to be at a hospital.

I met an old dude one time that was nearly blown in half in Vietnam. He was so cheerful and joked about it, which blew my mind. We talked for three days. I was there with my ex for her uncle and he was there for his wife. He said, “It hurts getting blowed up, but not as bad as someone randomly puttin’ uh fanger up ya butt when you’re froggin’.” Then he looked around and said, “Lord, I better watch my mouth. My wife’s sister would drop dead if she knew her sister put her fangers in my butt and made her food with those hands. She’s one uh them Bible thumpers that would sleep on a pew if she thought it would make her look pious. She’d never leave the church. She’s on her way to hell like the rest of us but, bless her heart, she don’t even know it.”

Crude, I know, but he had me dying laughing. Had this real thick accent that made everything sound funny. He was also very insightful and intelligent. When it was just me and him out there he was so crude. The second someone else would show up he’d drop it. It’s crazy how you can make a connection with someone in such a short time and get to know their “at home” self.

Nowadays the smokers are all hiding behind a bush somewhere far away from each other.

I’m standing outside freezing right now for a cigarette because I don’t smoke in my home. I did when I was younger and it just ruined everything. It’s nice to repair something and it isn’t sticky inside when I open it up these days.

I gotta quit this crap. I really do.

That’s not quite what positive reinforcement is but im not sciency enough to understand it either lol
I’ll paste Wikipedias explanation:

In the behavioral sciences, the terms “positive” and “negative” refer when used in their strict technical sense to the nature of the action performed by the conditioner rather than to the responding operant’s evaluation of that action and its consequence(s). “Positive” actions are those that add a factor, be it pleasant or unpleasant, to the environment, whereas “negative” actions are those that remove or withhold from the environment a factor of either type. In turn, the strict sense of “reinforcement” refers only to reward-based conditioning; the introduction of unpleasant factors and the removal or withholding of pleasant factors are instead referred to as “punishment”, which when used in its strict sense thus stands in contradistinction to “reinforcement”. Thus, “positive reinforcement” refers to the addition of a pleasant factor, “positive punishment” refers to the addition of an unpleasant factor, “negative reinforcement” refers to the removal or withholding of an unpleasant factor, and “negative punishment” refers to the removal or withholding of a pleasant factor.

This usage is at odds with some non-technical usages of the four term combinations, especially in the case of the term “negative reinforcement”, which is often used to denote what technical parlance would describe as “positive punishment” in that the non-technical usage interprets “reinforcement” as subsuming both reward and punishment and “negative” as referring to the responding operant’s evaluation of the factor being introduced. By contrast, technical parlance would use the term “negative reinforcement” to describe encouragement of a given behavior by creating a scenario in which an unpleasant factor is or will be present but engaging in the behavior results in either escaping from that factor or preventing its occurrence, as in Martin Seligman’s experiment involving dogs learning to avoid electric shocks.

(These paragraphs are one after the other but I can’t figure out proper formatting)

Positive punishment is different from positive reinforcement. Shame is a punishment

Punishment for bad behaviour is negative reinforcement.

negative reinforcement is what punishment for undesired behavior is called.

positive reinforcement is rewarding when the desired behavior is exhibited.

edit: negative reinforcement requires forever conditioning and develops sick and twisted conditioners eventually. positive reinforcement takes longer to work but it doesn’t require forever conditioning. And rarely causes revolutionary acts.

Positive reinforcement tends to work best, but people should never underestimate the power of “you smell like an old leather ashtray”

You don’t get rewarded for doing what’s expected of you

My parents said the same thing over 15 years ago, but this kind of shit just isn’t true. When you own your home or business, doing what’s expected of you results in your investments retaining or even increasing their value. That’s why the owner works 12 hours a day, and the homeowner fixes the broken windows.

When you’re just living or working somewhere but you don’t have a stake in it, what do you actually get out of your efforts? Communities of all types, big and small, are held together by the stake we have in them. If people have no stake, they have no reason to care. This is why you pay employees, and this is why parents should thank their kids for doing the damn chores.

Problem is so many people believe that you don’t deserve thanks for “doing what’s expected” while also refusing to allow young people the opportunity to become invested in their communities. This is why the social contract is destroyed and no one cares anymore. Why should they? The youth will never get to be part of their community the way we are. They will never benefit from it the way we do… Unless things change.

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My eldest brother had asthma, so my parents were generally careful not to smoke around us. They had a dedicated room in the house for smoking so that the rest of the house would get less contaminated. Fortunately, this meant that they didn’t generally smoke in the car while driving us around. Also, my dad worked and/or commuted thirteen hours a day so I was mostly around my mom, who smoked a lot less.

The car borrowing I mentioned was years after my brother had moved across the country when my dad drove his car almost exclusively alone, so at least no one else (who wasn’t borrowing the car) was engulfed.

I’m sorry you had to suffer through that.

How dare you impose your right to a thing that impacts no one else. I use vapour to scent my hous but how dare you use it for whatever you want. Under the guise of “quitting smoking for the betterment of your health”. spits

The world and it’s people needs to be how I want them to be. Only then can people be as tolerant as me.

Didn’t ban them, just restricted who could sell them.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-24/vaping-ban-watered-down-greens-support/104016012

i through they also stopped the sale of cigs to anyone born after a cutoff date?

Lol I’m a school bus driver and a number of my colleagues vape on the fucking buses. They imagine they’re being super-secret about it - they’re somehow oblivious to the giant cloud of smoke each hit creates. Never underestimate the power of nicotine addiction to force people to relentlessly push the boundaries of where and when.

Dennis Miller’s downfall was swift and prophetic.

When my lungs give out I’m getting gills.

You are right but just imagine that plus tetra ethyl lead.

How practical were electric cars in the 70s really though? I feel like the technology back then would have meant much shorter ranges, less performance, and also more environmental damage than even modern battery technologies cause in manufacturing.

The trunk may have been safer! If the car had seat belts, its not like anyone wore them.