You've analyzed it properly. If you and your friends are in the habit of "joke-punch"-ing each other and your friends can reasonably foresee being "joke-punched" by you, you have the defense of consent to the "joke-punches" unless your friend says, "Hey, don't do that."
Joe, you keep falling back on US law, and arguing semantics. The difference between the legal definitions of assault, battery, negligence, etc. are not relevant to this conversation.
Pretend you are in a land where there is no law whatsoever, and only your own morality governs your actions. Do you feel it is right and good to breathe even slightly harmful smoke onto other people?
As for the joke-punches, it's a matter of consent. I think it's perfectly ok to beat the crap out of someone, if they agree to it. This is why football, hockey, boxing, and MMA are AOK.
Joe, you keep falling back on US law, and arguing semantics. The difference between the legal definitions of assault, battery, negligence, etc. are not relevant to this conversation.
Scott, you made those definitions relevant when you said that you would sue a person for assault if you breathed smoke. Also, you were talking about a possible smoking ban in New York, which is in the U.S. You can't expect to say that, then incorrectly use those terms and avoid having someone correct you.
Pretend you are in a land where there is no law whatsoever, and only your own morality governs your actions. Do you feel it is right and good to breathe even slightly harmful smoke onto other people?
In my pretend land, it's not a problem because my pretend land is Film Noir, where everyone smokes and everyone loves breathing smoke. See how useful pretend lands are?
In my pretend land, it's not a problem because my pretend land is Film Noir, where everyone smokes and everyone loves breathing smoke. See how useful pretend lands are?
In the real world we live in, do you think it is right? Or are your morals dictated by the congresses of the United States of America?
Saying it is battery is as much of a non-sequitur as hypothesizing that the periodic motion of an object attached to a pendulum depends upon its mass.
Because of drag, it does.
I'm talking about the period. Show me how the period depends upon mass.
Hmm, I checked Wikipedia, and it seems that viscous air effects have a negligible effect on the period (note: negligible effect still means that there is one; drag does have an effect, and since the drag force is independent of mass, it will have less and less effect for larger masses since a = F/m. I did, however, say drag when I ought to have said air resistance, particularly viscous - since the pendulum travels at a relatively low velocity, the Reynolds number of the flow is relatively low). However, other atmospheric effects are more relevant: From Wikipedia:
# By Archimedes principle the effective weight of the bob is reduced by the buoyancy of the air it displaces, while the mass (inertia) remains the same, reducing the acceleration and increasing the period. This depends on the density but not the shape of the pendulum. # The pendulum carries an amount of air with it as it swings, and the mass of this air increases the inertia of the pendulum, again reducing the acceleration and increasing the period.
These effects clearly depend on the mass of the pendulum - the more mass it has, the more negligible these effects are.
So increases in barometric pressure slow the pendulum slightly due to the first two effects, by about 0.37 sec/day per inch of mercury (0.015 sec/day per Torr).[57] Researchers using pendulums to measure the acceleration of gravity had to correct the period for the air pressure at the altitude of measurement, computing the equivalent period of a pendulum swinging in vacuum.
I'm going to sleep for the moment, but when I wake up I'll do up equations for the motion of a pendulum including buoyancy since that's the easiest atmospheric force to deal with.
Show the derivation of T, the period of a pendulum and how it depends upon mass.
Are we talking about a double pendulum here or a single pendulum?
A single pendulum. I did up a LaTeX document with the derivation, I just need to put it somewhere. I don't have my own hosting, but I guess I can either put it up as files on something like megaupload, or as images on photobucket. EDIT: Megaupload link (contains LaTeX source and compiled PDF) Here's my final equation for the period: where the pendulum is a sphere with uniform density, mass m and radius r, suspended on a string with its center of mass at distance l from the pivot point, rho is the density of the surrounding air, and g is the acceleration due to gravity in a downwards direction (i.e. g is positive). See that m in the equation, Joe?
It is possible Joe might take a cop-out approach and say "I meant in vacuum", though if that had been what he meant he would've said so the moment I started talking about atmospheric effects. Even in vacuum, however, there are yet other ways in which the period will depend upon the mass. For example, the cord will have elasticity and nonzero mass, which will have effects on the pendulum that also depend on the mass of the pendulum.
Smoking is not. Saying it is battery is as much of a non-sequitur as hypothesizing that the periodic motion of an object attached to a pendulum depends upon its mass.
For example, the cord will have elasticity and nonzero mass, which will have effects on the pendulum that also depend on the mass of the pendulum.
You also left out tidal forces, the position of Jupiter and the orientation of the pendulum with respect to the galactic coordinate frame ;-).
Seriously though, Joe is just being a stickler about the definition of assault and skipping on answering the real question. As I linked to earlier already, it has been shown that banning smoking lowers the rate of heart attacks in non-smokers by over a third. In light of this evidence is it moral to smoke?
You win. I should have remembered who I was dealing with.
Maybe I can salvage some of my point by saying, "Look at that term. Isn't it reasonable that, in most cases, m can safely be ignored? In most cases, won't its contribution be very slight?", but no, I used a bad analogy. I should have tried to think of a better one. You win.
Seriously though, Joe is just being a stickler about the definition of assault and skipping on answering the real question.
No. The terms used have real world definitions and a person is not being a "stickler" just because he points out that those definitions are being used incorrectly.
If I was being very Scott-like in my discussion with Mr. Cheese, I would say that he's being a stickler and that "no one cares" that he was able to show me that I was wrong. However, I constructed a bad analogy and Mr. Cheese was not being a stickler for showing me that I was wrong. I care that he was able to show it because, quite frankly, I am impressed with the skill he demonstrated. Bravo, Mr. Cheese. Your Kung Fu was better than mine.
Now, as to the "real question" - Is what Scott wrote the real question?
In the real world we live in, do you think it is right? Or are your morals dictated by the congresses of the United States of America?
As I pointed out earlier, the law of battery is much, much older than the U.S., so that gets me off on another discussion of battery. Scott can't seem to state the question without some reference to the law, and, when he makes a mistake, just as I made a mistake with the pendulum analogy, he should expect to be corrected just as I was corrected.
If the "real question" is whether a person should be able to smoke outside in a public park, I think that anyone should be allowed to smoke outside. In fact, I would encourage more people to smoke outside. I like smoking. I like everything involved with smoking. I think smoking is very cool. Cigarettes are not my personal choice of smoking pleasure, but I would not try to stop anyone from smoking a cigarette outside. Now, if anyone wants to begin on me with all the health risks, I've heard them all before, so you can save it. It's not that I don't care, it's that I think it's an acceptable cost for the enjoyment and coolness of smoking, just as all the risks of drinking, gambling, and many other vices you care to name are acceptable costs of the enjoyment and coolness of those vices. Should we ban drinking? Should we ban gambling? Should we ban knocking people into the path of oncoming subway trains?
If the "real question" is whether a person should be able to smoke outside in a public park, I think that anyone should be allowed to smoke outside.
Do you think that anyone should be allowed to smoke inside?
Inside what? Their home? A garage? A laboratory? A courtroom? A hospital?
I have no problem with anyone smoking inside with the possible exception of something like a hospital or a laboratory that might contain something that might go boom if the smoker was careless or that might contain some fragile equipment with fiddly bits that might go wrong if exposed to smoke.
I would LOVE to be able to smoke in the courthouse. One of my favorite stories is how this local defense attorney stuck a little wire in a cigar and smoked it during a prosecutor's closing argument. The wire kept the ash from falling, so the ash at the end of the cigar just kept getting longer and longer. No one on the jury paid any attention to the prosecutor because they were all watching the defense attorney's cigar to see when the ash would fall.
Side note: When I was in college and law school, I could smoke nearly anywhere I wanted except for class when an actual lecture was in progress or in a chemistry lab or computer lab.
I have no problem with anyone smoking inside with the possible exception of something like a hospital or a laboratory that might contain something that might go boom if the smoker was careless.
So you think it should be permitted to smoke, say, in an office near a bunch of co-workers?
I have no problem with anyone smoking inside with the possible exception of something like a hospital or a laboratory that might contain something that might go boom if the smoker was careless.
So you think it should be permitted to smoke, say, in an office near a bunch of co-workers?
I smoked in my office as late as 2005. No one had a problem.
You win. I should have remembered who I was dealing with.
I care that he was able to show it because, quite frankly, I am impressed with the skill he demonstrated. Bravo, Mr. Cheese. Your Kung Fu was better than mine.
Thanks, Joe. It was worth it.
As for the smoking issue, an outright ban is excessive. Whether or not smoking is acceptable should be handled case-by-case, requiring the consent of the people affected by it. Either: 1) You have to ask everyone in the vicinity before you smoke, or 2) You can smoke unless someone tells you they don't want you to. I'm not sure which of these is better.
In an indoor environment, the smoke lingers, so a greater extent is required - the explicit labeling of an establishment as smoking or non-smoking seems sufficient, though, since one's entry to a smoking establishment would constitute consent.
I smoked in my office as late as 2005. No one had a problem.
Science tells us differently. Does the crux of your argument boil down to the fact that since there is no way to prove an individual link between _your_ smoke and, say, a co worker of yours developing asthma? It is, if not a victimless crime, at least a perfect crime, in that you will never be brought to account.
As a rational human being you should look at all the hard evidence of the serious harm second hand smoke can (and statistically does) do to the people around you and decide whether the fact that you are legally allowed to do so justifies giving in to your need.
You win. I should have remembered who I was dealing with.
I care that he was able to show it because, quite frankly, I am impressed with the skill he demonstrated. Bravo, Mr. Cheese. Your Kung Fu was better than mine.
Thanks, Joe. It was worth it.
As for the smoking issue, an outright ban is excessive. Whether or not smoking is acceptable should be handled case-by-case, requiring the consent of the people affected by it. Either: 1) You have to ask everyone in the vicinity before you smoke, or 2) You can smoke unless someone tells you they don't want you to. I'm not sure which of these is better.
In an indoor environment, the smoke lingers, so a greater extent is required - the explicit labeling of an establishment as smoking or non-smoking seems sufficient, though, since one's entry to a smoking establishment would constitute consent.
As a smoker, I always ask those around me before lighting up. It doesn't matter if it's inside (in a smoking establishment, someone's (a smoker's) home, or even on the street corner). I believe this is common courtesy. If they show any objection, I simply do not smoke around them.
As a smoker, I always ask those around me before lighting up. It doesn't matter if it's inside (in a smoking establishment, someone's (a smoker's) home, or even on the street corner). I believe this is common courtesy. If they show any objection, I simply do not smoke around them.
The reason places like New York are so generally anti-smoking is that very few people share this courtesy. The streets are littered with cigarette butts (despite the fact that smokers respresent a small minority (less than 17% by most accounts) of the people actually using said streets.
Most everyone objected to people smoking around them, but smokers never asked, or worse even ignored requests to smoke elsewhere. Our city, by a large margin, thus decided to ban it in most public and some semi-private places. The vast majority of people here not only agree with the ban, but would gladly see it expanded. If more smokers had been courteous, then the ban wouldn't have been as necessary or in such high demand by so many people. Any individual smoker can say that they don't litter their butts everywhere, and that they ask people around them before lighting up, but you're the tiny minority within the minority of smokers to begin with. The public was fed up with average, un-courteous smokers, smoker-related litter, and smoke in New York.
As a side effect, New York has seen further drops in its smoking rate, significant reductions in heart disease and other smoking-related illnesses (among smokers AND non-smokers), increased bar business, and a marked increase in life expectancy. From one study:
The report reveals a steady decline in smoking-related deaths, which have fallen by 11% since 2002 (from 8,722 to 7,744 among adults 35 and older). Deaths from smoking-induced cardiovascular disease fell by 14% from 2002 to 2006. Fatal lung cancer fell by 8% during the same period, and deaths from chronic airway obstruction declined by 17%. Recent declines in NYC's smoking rate should yield similar benefits in future years. Smoking-related deaths are calculated by methods published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; these estimates do not include deaths from exposure to second-hand smoke.
The majority is satisfied, and the minority has retained its rights to personal private use.
Smokers are free to smoke in their own private homes. Or, they're free to live somewhere else. New York has seen staggering benefits from its ban: it's a demonstrably better place to live now, and it's getting better and better as the long-term benefits of the ban come to fruition.
Personally, as long as you don't smoke around me, or in any place I'll end up having to be (e.g., stinking up a hotel room or rental car before I use it), then go nuts. I view it the same way I view regular marijuana use: I think you're stupid for doing it, and I wouldn't visit your home if I could avoid it, but I leave you free to do your stupid thing as much as you want by yourself.
Personally, as long as you don't smoke around me, or in any place I'll end up having to be (e.g., stinking up a hotel room or rental car before I use it), then go nuts. I view it the same way I view regular marijuana use: I think you're stupid for doing it, and I wouldn't visit your home if I could avoid it, but I leave you free to do your stupid thing as much as you want by yourself.
But you're not yet looking at the bigger picture. With the current crisis in health care, models such as single payer, or to a lesser extent "the public option", make you care about other people being stupid.
Even without the added possible financial impact, just as a member of society who depends in a myriad ways on the well being of said society, you could argue that people wasting their brains with chemicals hurt you.
Personally, as long as you don't smoke around me, or in any place I'll end up having to be (e.g., stinking up a hotel room or rental car before I use it), then go nuts. I view it the same way I view regular marijuana use: I think you're stupid for doing it, and I wouldn't visit your home if I could avoid it, but I leave you free to do your stupid thing as much as you want by yourself.
But you're not yet looking at the bigger picture. With the current crisis in health care, models such as single payer, or to a lesser extent "the public option", make you care about other people being stupid.
Even without the added possible financial impact, just as a member of society who depends in a myriad ways on the well being of said society, you could argue that people wasting their brains with chemicals hurt you.
I could and would. However, I would nonetheless argue for their right to do so.
But you're not yet looking at the bigger picture. With the current crisis in health care, models such as single payer, or to a lesser extent "the public option", make you care about other people being stupid. Even without the added possible financial impact, just as a member of society who depends in a myriad ways on the well being of said society, you could argue that people wasting their brains with chemicals hurt you.
I am not weighing in on the overall topic, but I am compelled to point out that regardless of any public option, anyone that has health insurance is already paying a higher premium to compensate for those that are seriously ill (for any reason - whether smoking related or not).
The reason places like New York are so generally anti-smoking is that very few people share this courtesy. The streets are littered with cigarette butts (despite the fact that smokers respresent a small minority (less than 17% by most accounts) of the people actually using said streets.
Wait, are you saying that New Yorkers are assholes? Now that's just preposterous.
Sorry, I just find it deliciously ironic when people feed into a stereotype. And yeah, I do somewhat agree with the ban, if it's not enforced to the letter. Man sitting on a park bench smoking a pipe = good. Asshole blowing smoke in Rym's face as he walks by = bad. Both are illegal, but the cops shouldn't bother the first guy.
Comments
Pretend you are in a land where there is no law whatsoever, and only your own morality governs your actions. Do you feel it is right and good to breathe even slightly harmful smoke onto other people?
As for the joke-punches, it's a matter of consent. I think it's perfectly ok to beat the crap out of someone, if they agree to it. This is why football, hockey, boxing, and MMA are AOK.
From Wikipedia: These effects clearly depend on the mass of the pendulum - the more mass it has, the more negligible these effects are.
I did up a LaTeX document with the derivation, I just need to put it somewhere. I don't have my own hosting, but I guess I can either put it up as files on something like megaupload, or as images on photobucket.
EDIT: Megaupload link (contains LaTeX source and compiled PDF)
Here's my final equation for the period:
where the pendulum is a sphere with uniform density, mass m and radius r, suspended on a string with its center of mass at distance l from the pivot point, rho is the density of the surrounding air, and g is the acceleration due to gravity in a downwards direction (i.e. g is positive). See that m in the equation, Joe?
It is possible Joe might take a cop-out approach and say "I meant in vacuum", though if that had been what he meant he would've said so the moment I started talking about atmospheric effects. Even in vacuum, however, there are yet other ways in which the period will depend upon the mass. For example, the cord will have elasticity and nonzero mass, which will have effects on the pendulum that also depend on the mass of the pendulum. So, is it really?
Seriously though, Joe is just being a stickler about the definition of assault and skipping on answering the real question. As I linked to earlier already, it has been shown that banning smoking lowers the rate of heart attacks in non-smokers by over a third. In light of this evidence is it moral to smoke?
Maybe I can salvage some of my point by saying, "Look at that term. Isn't it reasonable that, in most cases, m can safely be ignored? In most cases, won't its contribution be very slight?", but no, I used a bad analogy. I should have tried to think of a better one. You win. No. The terms used have real world definitions and a person is not being a "stickler" just because he points out that those definitions are being used incorrectly.
If I was being very Scott-like in my discussion with Mr. Cheese, I would say that he's being a stickler and that "no one cares" that he was able to show me that I was wrong. However, I constructed a bad analogy and Mr. Cheese was not being a stickler for showing me that I was wrong. I care that he was able to show it because, quite frankly, I am impressed with the skill he demonstrated. Bravo, Mr. Cheese. Your Kung Fu was better than mine.
Now, as to the "real question" - Is what Scott wrote the real question? As I pointed out earlier, the law of battery is much, much older than the U.S., so that gets me off on another discussion of battery. Scott can't seem to state the question without some reference to the law, and, when he makes a mistake, just as I made a mistake with the pendulum analogy, he should expect to be corrected just as I was corrected.
If the "real question" is whether a person should be able to smoke outside in a public park, I think that anyone should be allowed to smoke outside. In fact, I would encourage more people to smoke outside. I like smoking. I like everything involved with smoking. I think smoking is very cool. Cigarettes are not my personal choice of smoking pleasure, but I would not try to stop anyone from smoking a cigarette outside. Now, if anyone wants to begin on me with all the health risks, I've heard them all before, so you can save it. It's not that I don't care, it's that I think it's an acceptable cost for the enjoyment and coolness of smoking, just as all the risks of drinking, gambling, and many other vices you care to name are acceptable costs of the enjoyment and coolness of those vices. Should we ban drinking? Should we ban gambling? Should we ban knocking people into the path of oncoming subway trains?
Carry on.
I have no problem with anyone smoking inside with the possible exception of something like a hospital or a laboratory that might contain something that might go boom if the smoker was careless or that might contain some fragile equipment with fiddly bits that might go wrong if exposed to smoke.
I would LOVE to be able to smoke in the courthouse. One of my favorite stories is how this local defense attorney stuck a little wire in a cigar and smoked it during a prosecutor's closing argument. The wire kept the ash from falling, so the ash at the end of the cigar just kept getting longer and longer. No one on the jury paid any attention to the prosecutor because they were all watching the defense attorney's cigar to see when the ash would fall.
Side note: When I was in college and law school, I could smoke nearly anywhere I wanted except for class when an actual lecture was in progress or in a chemistry lab or computer lab.
As for the smoking issue, an outright ban is excessive. Whether or not smoking is acceptable should be handled case-by-case, requiring the consent of the people affected by it.
Either:
1) You have to ask everyone in the vicinity before you smoke, or
2) You can smoke unless someone tells you they don't want you to.
I'm not sure which of these is better.
In an indoor environment, the smoke lingers, so a greater extent is required - the explicit labeling of an establishment as smoking or non-smoking seems sufficient, though, since one's entry to a smoking establishment would constitute consent.
As a rational human being you should look at all the hard evidence of the serious harm second hand smoke can (and statistically does) do to the people around you and decide whether the fact that you are legally allowed to do so justifies giving in to your need.
Do you trade legality for morality?
Most everyone objected to people smoking around them, but smokers never asked, or worse even ignored requests to smoke elsewhere. Our city, by a large margin, thus decided to ban it in most public and some semi-private places. The vast majority of people here not only agree with the ban, but would gladly see it expanded. If more smokers had been courteous, then the ban wouldn't have been as necessary or in such high demand by so many people. Any individual smoker can say that they don't litter their butts everywhere, and that they ask people around them before lighting up, but you're the tiny minority within the minority of smokers to begin with. The public was fed up with average, un-courteous smokers, smoker-related litter, and smoke in New York.
As a side effect, New York has seen further drops in its smoking rate, significant reductions in heart disease and other smoking-related illnesses (among smokers AND non-smokers), increased bar business, and a marked increase in life expectancy. From one study: The majority is satisfied, and the minority has retained its rights to personal private use.
Smokers are free to smoke in their own private homes. Or, they're free to live somewhere else. New York has seen staggering benefits from its ban: it's a demonstrably better place to live now, and it's getting better and better as the long-term benefits of the ban come to fruition.
Personally, as long as you don't smoke around me, or in any place I'll end up having to be (e.g., stinking up a hotel room or rental car before I use it), then go nuts. I view it the same way I view regular marijuana use: I think you're stupid for doing it, and I wouldn't visit your home if I could avoid it, but I leave you free to do your stupid thing as much as you want by yourself.
Even without the added possible financial impact, just as a member of society who depends in a myriad ways on the well being of said society, you could argue that people wasting their brains with chemicals hurt you.
Sorry, I just find it deliciously ironic when people feed into a stereotype. And yeah, I do somewhat agree with the ban, if it's not enforced to the letter. Man sitting on a park bench smoking a pipe = good. Asshole blowing smoke in Rym's face as he walks by = bad. Both are illegal, but the cops shouldn't bother the first guy.