why do people like cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and sugar and gluten??
all of those things only harm the human experience and end up making people live less!! no drug!! why do people like these things if they only harm your body… i don’t understand… gluten is bad for your heart too
Because they make us feel good in the short run, and are pressured by society to cope now. Especially when the boss man demands we function and do our job.
If we treated our workforce like human beings (or our school children, for that matter) they might not be so susceptible to vices, but that would also harm a major market and western civilizations prioritize economies over the good of the public.
am i in western civilization?? mexico. some people would say im not, but i dont care, the west is a good place but all countries share problems and vices are bad
You’re definitely influenced by the market of western civ. Big tobacco, for instance, lobbies the government of Mexico to let them sell cigarettes without restriction (e.g. to kids, without warning labels, without PSAs warning people that smoking is dangerous).
I should clarify when I say it happens in western civilization, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen outside of western civilization. China, for instance has its own set of vices sold to the people fully aware of their ill health effects. I’m less familiar with them, and can’t give an informed opinion about it.
But as Russia’s history with Vodka shows us, personal responsibility only carries us so far, and a state may gladly sacrifice the integrity of its households to squeeze more production from the workforce.
?? that is false because here in mexico, all cigarrete brands have smoking labels and you cant smoke in public, only in special areas, and you need an id to buy them. but its sad that here some people dont take that seriously, or in the entire world, oh no!!
I have Celiac, so I particularly hate gluten. But I recognize that for most people, it’s innocuous - it’s just a grain protein that I and some other people have a particular problem with, for no real reason. I’d love if American society (and plenty around the world) would de-emphasize wheat and barley vs. other grains, as often wheat flour is used in dishes simply out of habit or convenience. It’s also particularly bad the way the US does the glyphosate ‘dessication’ bullshit, but that’s not about gluten itself.
Anyway, ‘why do people like drugs’ is a very different question. Your premise that people get no benefits from them is technically correct in a long-term view, I guess… but most people aren’t looking at “will I be glad I drank beer 50 years from now?”. Sometimes people manage to consider that their lives would be better without a certain substance, and can see harm in the present - other people actually don’t ever have any issues with a substance and it’s a net positive, for them.
Most of these things are coping mechanisms, that we use to deal with living lives structured in ways that are bad for people. The 9:00 to 5:00 5-day work week is bad for you, but weed and cigarettes and caffeine and alcohol help you to keep doing it day after day. That helps the soften the physical pain, or to help you relax after a particularly bad shift, etc.
I disagree with the statement that sugar and gluten are bad for you, but at least in the US they do have excessive amounts of it into everything.
One other thing is that I think it's bad to lump all drugs into the category of saying it's bad for you, because every drug is different and the way they affect you varies dramatically. It's important to evaluate drugs individually - remember that the medication that you get at the pharmacy are drugs too.
Alcohol in low to moderate quantities helps people in social situations. It makes people more, how to say, myopic. A little drink and you don’t think as much about long term consequences. This makes it easier for people to talk about some things, or take risks like asking your date if they want to make out. Excessive drink will fuck you up, though, especially over a long time period.
Drugs are many and varied. I don’t really use any so I can’t speak to them, but generally they make people feel great. There’s a huge cost to pay for some of them, but people chose that for various reasons.
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