<story><title>Big Tobacco knew radioactive Po210 in cigarettes posed cancer risk, kept quiet</title><url>https://www.uclahealth.org/news/big-tobacco-knew-radioactive-particles-in-cigarettes</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sershe</author><text>Long time ago there was a moment when the best performing stocks in my individual-stock portfolio were PM or maybe MO (cigarettes), DPS (Dr Pepper, it was later acquired), MCD, and AAPL. I joked that it makes sense, the best business is selling good-feeling, harmful crap to the gullible ;)&lt;p&gt;However, there is another side to this... Who are you (not you personally, but anyone) to decide how others  should live their lives? If someone wants to drink soda, smoke and eat fast food, why wouldn&amp;#x27;t they? If selling what people want is somehow bad, then I guess restricting it should be good, so we should just take all these people we have decided are too stupid to know what&amp;#x27;s good for them, and regiment their life until we are satisfied? As much as I dislike and disagree with their choices, this line of thinking seems abhorrent to me, at most I&amp;#x27;d argue we have some say on what they are doing if they use taxpayer-funded healthcare and such, but for me that is an argument against the latter, not the former. And in any case it has no bearing on the morality of the seller - he didn&amp;#x27;t ask or force anyone other than the buyer to deal with the 2nd order effects.&lt;p&gt;Viewed from that perspective, there&amp;#x27;s nothing wrong with selling cigarettes.</text></item><item><author>sebmellen</author><text>The deification of Buffet is strange to see. A lot of the businesses he invests in are just not net positives for society - cigarettes, Dairy Queen, Coca-Cola, etc.</text></item><item><author>kingstoned</author><text>&amp;quot;I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;- Warren Buffett</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>npteljes</author><text>What I gather from this comment is an attempt to distance from the attachment to clearly harmful things.&lt;p&gt;I think it would do good to just internalize what&amp;#x27;s happening - the desire for personal gain, and the indifference on the ways that are employed. There is no shame in not caring about other people on a societal level, I don&amp;#x27;t think most of us do, and I do think that many who say they do, don&amp;#x27;t really actually. Calling them names like stupid or gullible, just to defend contributing to the harm of them is not successful coping attempt however. It just says that these things do bother who&amp;#x27;s saying them, and that they feel something that&amp;#x27;s not desirable to them, like shame, or fear of retribution, or something else that&amp;#x27;s negative. There&amp;#x27;s no need to do any of this, it&amp;#x27;s okay to just not care.</text></comment>
<story><title>Big Tobacco knew radioactive Po210 in cigarettes posed cancer risk, kept quiet</title><url>https://www.uclahealth.org/news/big-tobacco-knew-radioactive-particles-in-cigarettes</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sershe</author><text>Long time ago there was a moment when the best performing stocks in my individual-stock portfolio were PM or maybe MO (cigarettes), DPS (Dr Pepper, it was later acquired), MCD, and AAPL. I joked that it makes sense, the best business is selling good-feeling, harmful crap to the gullible ;)&lt;p&gt;However, there is another side to this... Who are you (not you personally, but anyone) to decide how others  should live their lives? If someone wants to drink soda, smoke and eat fast food, why wouldn&amp;#x27;t they? If selling what people want is somehow bad, then I guess restricting it should be good, so we should just take all these people we have decided are too stupid to know what&amp;#x27;s good for them, and regiment their life until we are satisfied? As much as I dislike and disagree with their choices, this line of thinking seems abhorrent to me, at most I&amp;#x27;d argue we have some say on what they are doing if they use taxpayer-funded healthcare and such, but for me that is an argument against the latter, not the former. And in any case it has no bearing on the morality of the seller - he didn&amp;#x27;t ask or force anyone other than the buyer to deal with the 2nd order effects.&lt;p&gt;Viewed from that perspective, there&amp;#x27;s nothing wrong with selling cigarettes.</text></item><item><author>sebmellen</author><text>The deification of Buffet is strange to see. A lot of the businesses he invests in are just not net positives for society - cigarettes, Dairy Queen, Coca-Cola, etc.</text></item><item><author>kingstoned</author><text>&amp;quot;I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;- Warren Buffett</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TheOtherHobbes</author><text>Selling an addictive substance through media carpet bombing without informed consent is absolutely a crime.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;But people want it&amp;quot; is not a valid argument.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a quote about propaganda which says that the goal is to make everyone feel that forced-fed choices are their own spontaneous decisions.&lt;p&gt;There are entire industries devoted to making sure that those choices - often self-harming - are &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; spontaneous. At all.&lt;p&gt;Get rid of those and you may have a point. While they still operate, you don&amp;#x27;t.</text></comment>