Would you pay money NOT to smoke?

[Gori the Grey]

I'd pay my hundred til a lawsuit took the law down. There's be an immediate injunction, so I doubt I'd even pay a single hundred. But I'd track however many I did pay and file class action for restitution.

 

[Ryika]

I mean my response wasn't really intended with any kind of malice. And I didn't see your firing back as anything mean or uncalled-for either. Your initial post came across as an edgy non-answer so I snarkily pointed out that you were doing so. You fired back with some snark of your own, to which you were perfectly entitled (quality gif choice, btw), and that really should have been the end of it. And yet here we are for some reason?

I'm mostly in it because aelf invited me to dig deeper into the reason for why I reacted so strongly. That's interesting for me.

Like I said via PN, I don't think you did anything wrong (as in, I don't think your post was out-of-line, you were of course still wrong about my intentions ), when I don't get triggered, that sort of snarky back-and-forth is generally a lot of fun for me as well. So you don't really need to be part of this dialog if you don't want to.

 

[civvver]

If you rephrase the question it makes it more palatable. Maybe this should be a study on marketing? Original post said you have to pay $100 a month or you must smoke $100 worth of cigarettes. Using that wording, no I wouldn't smoke, but it seems like a really painful decision.

So let's rephrase it. Every citizen is taxed $100 a month. However you can get a rebate for this tax by turning in used cigarette butts. Let's pretend for ease of argument that the government can track who smoked them by the dna on the cigarette or something, and they're like $5 a pack so you have to smoke 20 packs. Every pack's worth of butts you turn in you get $5 back.

If that were the case, no, no way I would smoke a pack of cigarettes just to get a $5 rebate on my taxes. Smoking a whole pack just for $5 is like a super easy non painful decision.

So anyway, if that were to seriously happen how would it ever be enforced? It's cost prohibitive to test cigarette butts for dna or whatever like I suggested. What I would do is take the cigarettes and flush them or give them to my smoker friends and not pay the money.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I'd pay the fee. Smoking inside sucks and it's too cold here during winter to go outside to do it. Plus all the additional expenses of being a regular smoker would probably cost me more. My health insurance would go up significantly, for instance. $100 a month in cigs is more than I've ever smoked and I can't imagine the high would be as good then.

 

[warpus]

I would collect the free packs of cigarettes and wait until the law was overturned by the supreme court or whatever and then sell the cigarettes on amazon or ebay

 

[metatron]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...at-hypotheticals-and-stipulations-are.283166/

Moderator Action: Please don't link members to content that tells them they're stupid. Trolling is inappropriate. - Vincour
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

View attachment 478449

Not sure why your post makes me so angry (I know, that gif does not seem very angry at all), but go eat an apple.

My response was entirely valid, as the question of the OP was "Would you do it?", not "If you had to do one of these, which one would you choose?". My response clearly stated that no, I would not do it, and instead choose to protest against it, because that policy would be a serious infringement on the rights of every American Citizen. That's an option within the hypothetical as it was stated, as the op has not specified that I need to choose exactly between the two, he has merely outlined the situation of the law as it is being implemented and then asked if I would abide by the new law by "buying" my way out.

Moderator Action: In the future, report posts instead of responding with your own rule-breaking. - Vincour
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

The options are smoke $100 worth of cigarettes a month, or pay $100 a month. You chose "neither" which is not an option. Refer to Fifty's post.

Of course it's a valid answer. Don't pay, take whatever consequences they dare to impose on you.

There's virtually a new Quaker college professor who does that every year, you know, vis a vis income tax & Dep. of "Defense".
In the end they tase your balls and take your money, i suppose.
But it's still an option.
And you have made them expend some degree of labor and moral capital, which may just be Valessa's intention regarding the smoking thing.


Like, i see your point, but that's sort of out the window once you take the hypothetical out of the abstract and begin to furnish it with real world nonsense like Trump.
Like, i don't see any particular political motivation in the OP, none the less by being "colorful" and effectively lazy like that, they've lost protection agaist the above reasoning.
If you make it real, we'll make it real.

 

[caketastydelish]

If you rephrase the question it makes it more palatable. Maybe this should be a study on marketing? Original post said you have to pay $100 a month or you must smoke $100 worth of cigarettes. Using that wording, no I wouldn't smoke, but it seems like a really painful decision.

So let's rephrase it. Every citizen is taxed $100 a month. However you can get a rebate for this tax by turning in used cigarette butts. Let's pretend for ease of argument that the government can track who smoked them by the dna on the cigarette or something, and they're like $5 a pack so you have to smoke 20 packs. Every pack's worth of butts you turn in you get $5 back.

If that were the case, no, no way I would smoke a pack of cigarettes just to get a $5 rebate on my taxes. Smoking a whole pack just for $5 is like a super easy non painful decision.

So anyway, if that were to seriously happen how would it ever be enforced? It's cost prohibitive to test cigarette butts for dna or whatever like I suggested. What I would do is take the cigarettes and flush them or give them to my smoker friends and not pay the money.

You have to upload a video recording of yourself smoking the cigarette to the internet, and to healthcare.gov to be specific.

 

[Akka]

In the practical example provided, I would just stack my monthly cigarettes and burn them on my balcony (while being safely inside)
In a fictional hypothesis where it's possible to know if you actually smoked them yourself, then no way in hell, I'd pay. I can't even bear the smell of cigarette, having to smoke them is anathema.

 

[Mise]

Of course it's a valid answer. Don't pay, take whatever consequences they dare to impose on you.

There's virtually a new Quaker college professor who does that every year, you know, vis a vis income tax & Dep. of "Defense".
In the end they tase your balls and take your money, i suppose.
But it's still an option.
And you have made them expend some degree of labor and moral capital, which may just be Valessa's intention regarding the smoking thing.


Like, i see your point, but that's sort of out the window once you take the hypothetical out of the abstract and begin to furnish it with real world nonsense like Trump.
Like, i don't see any particular political motivation in the OP, none the less by being "colorful" and effectively lazy like that, they've lost protection agaist the above reasoning.
If you make it real, we'll make it real.

Well the point is to avoid having to make endless, increasingly absurd stipulations. It's already started happening in this thread:

You have to upload a video recording of yourself smoking the cigarette to the internet, and to healthcare.gov to be specific.

I mean it's fine if people enjoy that kind of thing -- it can be pretty fun. But it very often just gets silly and frustrating, having people constantly say "that would never happen" or "here's how i would avoid having to choose between those two things".

 

[Akka]

That's the reason why I simply give two answers : one about the letter of the formulation and the other about the spirit.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

In a fictional hypothesis where it's possible to know if you actually smoked them yourself, then no way in hell, I'd pay. I can't even bear the smell of cigarette, having to smoke them is anathema.

The upside is that when you smoke you get desensitized to the smell. You'll still stink to other people, but if everybody smokes no one will notice.
Maybe you could get away with smoking one or two a day. In that case I'd smoke the minimum amount I can get away with and sell the rest.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Is there a minimum amount I'd have to smoke per month? If it was like, a pack a month, I'd probably suck it up. Anything more than that and probably not.

Lobbyists being the sleazy professionals they are, they would likely (if such a thing was realistic to begin with) push for a low amount at first.
Later on, you may not mind a higher amount at all, after all.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Lobbyists being the sleazy professionals they are, they would likely (if such a thing was realistic to begin with) push for a low amount at first.
Later on, you may not mind a higher amount at all, after all.

Oh it's not a reservation about health risks or addiction, it's a physiological thing. I'm a twig and any more than one or two cigarettes in a day causes me to actually vomit.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Well then.. maybe you can vap.
And just noticed the irony of your avatar

 

[schlaufuchs]

Well then.. maybe you can vap.
And just noticed the irony of your avatar

I enjoy smoking the occasional cigarette; I'm just an extreme lightweight. Ironically, since I don't really get much of a buzz from alcohol until drink #3.

 

[metatron]

Well the point is to avoid having to make endless, increasingly absurd stipulations. It's already started happening in this thread:


I mean it's fine if people enjoy that kind of thing -- it can be pretty fun. But it very often just gets silly and frustrating, having people constantly say "that would never happen" or "here's how i would avoid having to choose between those two things".

No, no, no. That's the exact weasel nonsense that's in fifty's post.
Don't furnish your hypothetical.
All that can ever do is bring you deeper into uncanny valley.
If it's unrealistic, have it be unrealistic.
But: Better make sure you word it right.

This here is actually a wonderful example:
The hypothetical in the OP is 36 words long (without the explanation).
Most of that is furnishing that makes it worse:

1. Supposedly this is a law, from the silly senate you see, and it's "saying" things. And it's all new apperently.
2. This is supposed to come with a tax. Not a fine. Not a fee. A tax. (btw: good job GEFM reading the hypothetical better than it was)
3. And this is all Trumps handywork so now we are cued to conjure the image of a brand new Trumpish agency enforcing this fine fee tax.​

What? Is this hypothetical jailbait or something?
At some point we're past the entitlements outlined by fifty. At some point a hypothetical is shoddy craftsmanship and generally just godawful.

And the point #4 Fifty made can go home and be ashamed of itself in the first place.
Like that's 98% of hypotheticals (the other two are things like this mess here):
Some ********, Nazinazi or otherwise politically unsanitary person lacks the intelligence to draw people into their movie by normal conversational means, so they will translate the feces that is their depraved mind into a simple old false dichotomy, flip it around like a pancake and call it a hypothetical.
It's stupid, it's everywhere, it's the conversational equivalent of a rando dry humping your knee in the elevator.
And it doesn't need you and Owen and Fifty defending it.

 

[civvver]

So it's basically a would you rather game.

Would you rather fight a horse sized duck or 30 duck sized horses?

 

[aelf]

when I initially read it, my first thought was how can I circumvent this law? people break the law all the time, no? the bigger picture may involve binary thinking itself....you see, the extremists (moral absolutists, political zealots, etc) actually see things as black and white, right or wrong....that is their default. binary. it would take something truly extraordinary to get these people to look out of their little box.

Poster 4 is confusing a hypothetical case with an argument of a certain form. Being a strawman is a property of an argument, not of a hypothetical case. Hypothetical cases are not arguments. It is impossible for them to commit a fallacy, or be strawmen, or be right or wrong or true or false. What poster 4 thinks he is doing is heading off the threadstarter at the pass. He predicts that the threadstarter will use the results of the hypothetical in the following sort of argument:

1. Your position on issue x is A.
2. Your position on hypothetical p is B.
3. Issue x is relevantly similar to hypothetical p.
4. Position A and Position B conflict with one-another.
5. Therefore, you ought to either take position B on issue x, or position A on hypothetical p.

If Poster 4 thinks this is happening, there are two things he could do that wouldn't making himself look stupid. The best thing he could do is WAIT UNTIL THE FREAKING THREADSTARTER ACTUALLY MAKES THAT ARGUMENT TO CRITICIZE IT. If he just can't contain himself, though, he could explain his answer to the hypothetical, then explain to the threadstarter that he feels that the threadstarter intends to make the above argument, then explain why some premise of that argument is false (his quarrel will probably be with premise 3).

 

[Synobun]

Moderator Action: Consider this a final warning to everyone to stop linking to, quoting, or otherwise wielding a 10 year old thread as a debate tactic in this thread. Use your words, and when doing so try to at least make an effort to not present your annoyance with other people not sharing your particular party spirit in a trolling or dismissive manner.

 

[bernie14]

So it's basically a would you rather game.

Would you rather fight a horse sized duck or 30 duck sized horses?

the little horse....ducks are vicious creatures


tried to reply/quote @aelf 's post but there is literally nothing there....