• fireweed@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    There have been, like, five societal things that have improved since the 90s, and banning smoking in basically all public spaces is one of them.

    I can’t even imagine air travel before the smoking ban. Mega yuck.

    • WizardOfFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      I’ve lived through both eras.

      Take all the tech companies away from the far-right, raise taxes on the wealthy, break up the media monopolies, overturn citizens united, ensure one full-time income can support a small family, restore actual journalism, make universities places for education and research again….

      And you can smoke wherever the fuck you want. Do it in my living room for all I care.

      • fireweed@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Sorry, but this is a really ableist take. Not everyone is healthy enough to tolerate secondhand smoke; I would rather live in a literal 1984-style dictatorship than somewhere that smoking everywhere was normalized. There’s not a political system out there worse than feeling like you have the flu every day for the rest of your life.

        • Tamo240@programming.dev
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          1 month ago

          Are you perchance a race and gender that hasn’t historically been persecuted under fascism? There are a few things worse than a flu.

          • fireweed@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I think you’re underestimating the flu a bit there. Pretty hard to fight the power when you struggle to remain upright. At least if you’re healthy under fascism there’s, like, a chance things will get better. I can’t imagine a fate worse than being sick all the time and unable to do anything about it because, ya know, you’re too sick to do anything about it.

      • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        I remember flying into Germany in '06 and being able to light up anywhere in the airport, went back in '13 or '14 and they had little booths.

        • ramble81@lemmy.zip
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          1 month ago

          I was in Germany in the early 00s and I hard associated the Frankfurt airport with the smell of smoke. Went back a few years ago and I almost didn’t recall things because that olfactory link wasn’t there anymore.

      • gwl [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 month ago

        Depends where, and sometimes it varies wildly in the same country.

        Hamburg, I didn’t see a single smoker. Berlin, fucking rife with them

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        Not just US. A few years back japan banned it in restaurants (but not bars) and public buildings unless there’s an actual smoking room in them.

        • fireweed@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Japan’s smoking situation has gotten so much better over the last few decades. Which is good, because it used to be everywhere.

      • mobyduck648@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Continental Europe maybe but as a Briton it’s pretty shit to be a smoker here. Extremely expensive unless you go black market, you have to stand outside in the pissing rain in virtually all cases, and people can be very judging about it.

        Source: ex smoker

    • Karjalan@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I recall reading that in some ways air quality was better when smoking in airplanes was legal because they had to cycle air through the outside through ventilation systems.

      Now they don’t so the air is more stagnant and circulates germs etc.

      I have no idea if that’s actually the case, or if so, if that’s actually better. But it was a point I hadn’t considered.

      In hindsight, it feels like the sort of “study” that a tobacco company would put out. Like a petrol company funding one that says “climate change is good actually!”