I think it's important to look at this in terms of matter of degree. Being around others in general is ACTIVELY HARMFUL to me; in particular, I get sick purely because I'm around other people. Further, if I didn't go driving, I wouldn't be at risk of being hit by other cars. All interaction with other people is dangerous at some level.
Yes, second hand smoke has an impact, but that impact varies greatly based on density and other factors. In Indiana, there's a Red Lobster that allows smoking, but has separate sections; being in the non-smoking section is still unpleasant due to the residual smell, however there's no visible smoke or haze. While annoying, to say that the second hand smoke in that location is more dangerous than the diseases of the sniffling children at the neighboring table is completely fraudulent. In my experience, this is typical of most restaurants that allow smoking.
My point is that we live in an actively harmful world simply by existing. This is a classic slippery slope, where the extreme of preventing all active harm results in an unusable world on the one hand, while the other extreme results in an unacceptably risky world on the other.
Where do you draw the line? Libertarian policies generally draw it farther toward active harm than socially protective policies, but both of them pick places to draw the line.
Personally, I think a lot of this 'active harm' crap will be going away in the future, and be replaced by 'compensated harm'. A big problem with harm right now is that a lot of it, health in particular, is irreversible. People fear smoking not because it does damage, but because it does -damage they cannot fix-.
In not very many years, cancer and a lot of other currently deadly medical problems will be manageable. Not very many years after that, they will be irritating yet trivial medical concerns, like cavities. When the damage from second hand smoke and low level nuclear radiation are be trivially dealt with at your yearly doctor visit, how relevant will this level of 'active harm' really be?
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ninetydegrees
(no subject)
Yes, second hand smoke has an impact, but that impact varies greatly based on density and other factors. In Indiana, there's a Red Lobster that allows smoking, but has separate sections; being in the non-smoking section is still unpleasant due to the residual smell, however there's no visible smoke or haze. While annoying, to say that the second hand smoke in that location is more dangerous than the diseases of the sniffling children at the neighboring table is completely fraudulent. In my experience, this is typical of most restaurants that allow smoking.
My point is that we live in an actively harmful world simply by existing. This is a classic slippery slope, where the extreme of preventing all active harm results in an unusable world on the one hand, while the other extreme results in an unacceptably risky world on the other.
Where do you draw the line? Libertarian policies generally draw it farther toward active harm than socially protective policies, but both of them pick places to draw the line.
Personally, I think a lot of this 'active harm' crap will be going away in the future, and be replaced by 'compensated harm'. A big problem with harm right now is that a lot of it, health in particular, is irreversible. People fear smoking not because it does damage, but because it does -damage they cannot fix-.
In not very many years, cancer and a lot of other currently deadly medical problems will be manageable. Not very many years after that, they will be irritating yet trivial medical concerns, like cavities. When the damage from second hand smoke and low level nuclear radiation are be trivially dealt with at your yearly doctor visit, how relevant will this level of 'active harm' really be?