How far should we go to accomodate those with problems?

[Art Eatman]

Envision a room about 20'x24'. No A/C system. Put a bunch of guys in it, playing poker. All are smokers but one. At the end of a four-hour session, they'll all walk out, some feeling pretty grungy from the miserable atmosphere. The non-smoker may well be sick.

Now envision the same deal, except that during the four hours, a small car is in the room with them, engine running. Will any walk out at all?

So why is smoking on a public sidewalk, out on the street, such a big deal? There's one heckuva lot more auto/bus grunge in the air than there is second-hand smoke.

Back some 25 years ago at a medical convention in Barcelona, Spain, some doctors chided a fellow attendee for smoking. His rejoinder was that since he lived in NYC it wouldn't hurt him. Just living there was the equivalent of two packs a day.

I attended a business conference in Mexico City in 1978. I automatically cut my smoking to under a half-pack a day. Didn't feel any need, given how much "freebie" the air gave me. Example of problem: At a rooftop garden at the Maria Isabella hotel, a waiter would bring a fresh table cloth every fifteen to twenty minutes. The "old" one would have a speck of soot at one-inch spacing, all over it. You quickly learned to sit with your hand over your coffee or your drink.

I've owned a couple of night clubs, back before the anti-smoking fetish. From nothing but courtesy, I instituted non-smoking areas; it was easy. They were to the upwind side of the air movement. An exhaust fan provided "fresh" air, if city air can be called fresh.

Yes, there are many problems as we try more and more to make life nice for everybody. At some point, however, we begin to ignore the personal responsibility of those who are so unfortunate to have these various handicaps.

You think it doesn't jangle my nervous system to meet some beauteous sweet young thing, and her sweet-smellum gives me a case of the choke-up? Or to know a bunch of folks who gripe about my cigarettes, but are happy to roll a joint? And talking about odors which give you a case of the gripes, try being stuck with somebody who bathes at least once a month...

, Art

 

[Blackhawk]

nualle:

Thanks for the interest. :blush: Your answer's in your PM.

Thanks for the PM. "Opera is the supreme musical art form," and it's too bad that it's not better appreciated. With DVD players and headphones, a great deal of it can be enjoyed at home, and it sure puts the other so called "entertainment" to shame by comparison.

Best to you!

 

[Monkeyleg]

Nualle, you're talking about harm done. Knowingly, I assume. How can the restaurant owner, for example, know what ingredients may cause harm to someone? Should restaurant owners go through medical school?

There's a fair number of people allergic to fragrances. Are perfume wearers guilty of doing harm? After all, they should know that if they're going into a public place, there's a fair chance of encountering someone who's allergic.

What about plants? Should the plant rental places that service shopping malls research which ones may cause a reaction sometime in somebody? If they don't do the research, are they then guilty of assault?

(BTW, the black mucus response is strange. As heavy as I smoke, mine is only light brown. Eewww! What a disgusting topic).

Interesting about your involvement with opera. The only opera I know is "The Bunny of Seville."

 

[nualle]

Nualle, you're talking about harm done. Knowingly, I assume. How can the restaurant owner, for example, know what ingredients may cause harm to someone? Should restaurant owners go through medical school?

Med school for chefs and restaurateurs? No need. But they must know exactly what they put in each dish. When someone with an allergy asks about a given ingredient, they are bound by honesty, good sense, good faith, and good business to answer accurately. That's all that's needed. Only if the restaurateur answers an inquiry inaccurately and the customer sustains harm is the restaurateur liable. One can only be responsible for what one knows. (You might be amazed how easy it is for food-service workers to learn about food-related ailments and how to help customers who are trying to avoid harm. -- And we tip those ones really well.)

Perfume: if G in a public place sustains harm from H's perfume (and G can demonstrate that it was H's perfume and not an unpredictable aggregate of several perfumes mixing), then I say: G should go ahead and seek redress from H. H is free to recoup the loss by suing her perfume manufacturer, which thereby gains incentive to brew hypo-allergenic perfumes in future.

Plants: I think I covered that in the TFL thread. The properties of many plants, especially the decoratives that might be rented out, are well known (having been the basis of intense study for centuries). If some exotic causes an unforeseen reaction, then yes... the provider of that plant should bear some liability. One has a reasonable responsibility to research before the fact the effects of one's anticipated actions. Does that rise to "assault?" Of course not, so long as the effect was indeed unexpected. As I understand assault, it assumes either malice or willful negligence. It leaves out plain ignorance. Again: one can only be responsible for what one knows.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.

"The Bunny of Seville."

My favorite! Far better than "What's Opera, Doc!" But no mezzo role. out:

 

[Zander]

Perfume: if G in a public place sustains harm from H's perfume (and G can demonstrate that it was H's perfume and not an unpredictable aggregate of several perfumes mixing), then I say: G should go ahead and seek redress from H. H is free to recoup the loss by suing her perfume manufacturer, which thereby gains incentive to brew hypo-allergenic perfumes in future.

I find this profoundly disturbing, not only for the Utopian-inspired notion that the "public air" be secured against any an all "offense" but for the incentive it offers to the totalitarians of the legal profession who masquerade as class-action attorneys.

Such a viewpoint, IMO, is inimical to our freedom as American citizens. It is not incumbent on me to ensure that my usage of a product such as aftershave will not "harm" those who might be exposed to it.

When I go to the local supermarket, I take great pains to avoid the aisle where detergents, fabric softeners and household cleaners are stocked...that 'space' irritates my olfactory senses, but I do not insist that they stop selling such products. And I don't insist that my neighbors "scrub" the emissions from their dryer vents so that I can smoke the occasional Macanudo on my back deck.

Assess any label you choose to your ideology...I'm in firm disagreement.

 

[nualle]

...notion that the "public air" be secured against any an all "offense" ...

If you don't believe the air is public, I gotta wonder who sells you the air you breathe. If you don't pay anyone, you better find out who owns it because you're deep in debt. That which ain't public is private.

We covered "offense" on the other thread. I'll type it slowly this time. The issue is:

h - a - r - m also known as i - n - j - u - r - y.

Being harmed is different from being offended.
Being injured is different from being irritated.

I think you're right about one point. If a product causes harm when it's being used correctly, the one who should bear liability is the provider, not the user (who used it in good faith). I therefore adjust my position: G should seek redress from the perfume maker, not H.

 

[Zander]

If you don't believe the air is public, I gotta wonder who sells you the air you breathe.

I gotta wonder how a self-professed anarchist could even pose such a question.

h - a - r - m also known as i - n - j - u - r - y.

Next time you could post it in boldface, with dashes, in caps, italicized...but it still won't make your argument.

I think you're right about one point. If a product causes harm when it's being used correctly, the one who should bear liability is the provider,...

I don't recall saying any such thing in the context of this discussion.

Perhaps you'd best "adjust" your position again...

 

[Monkeyleg]

"If a product causes harm when it's being used correctly, the one who should bear liability is the provider, not the user (who used it in good faith)."

A few months ago we had a serious pile-up on the interstate in an extremely dense fog, with several people killed. The lawsuits have only just begun.

Assuming that everyone was driving at a prudent speed, and that SUV's squashed Geo Metro's, should the SUV manufacturers be the ultimate defendants?

 

[Blackhawk]

Regarding plants tobacco, and peanut products:

Should such nanny-state laws be enacted, restaurants need only post signs at every entrance of the building and property stating:

"WARNING: Live plants are inside that may cause harm to people sensitive to them."

"WARNING: Peanut products may be contained in some of the items served here, and they may cause harm to people sensitive to them."

"WARNING: Tobacco smoke has been detected from time to time on and within these premises. Enter at your own risk."

Actual and constructive notice trumps lawsuits from mere inadvertence.

 

[nualle]

Monkeyleg:

A few months ago we had a serious pile-up on the interstate in an extremely dense fog, with several people killed. The lawsuits have only just begun.

Assuming that everyone was driving at a prudent speed, and that SUV's squashed Geo Metro's, should the SUV manufacturers be the ultimate defendants?

In a dense fog, a prudent speed is very much slower than I've observed 90% of drivers willing to drive. Therefore, I couldn't assume that everyone was driving at a prudent speed. That leaves the manufacturers out of it.

Blackhawk:

Actual and constructive notice trumps lawsuits from mere inadvertence.

Works for me. This provision obviates the "nanny state laws."

edited to add:
I'll reiterate again: I'm against bans. I think people should be perfectly free to do exactly what they want to themselves. I just think they have no right to do what they want to me, when I haven't volunteered for it. This is just the NAP.

 

[Art Eatman]

Nualle, regardless of how correct your attitude might be, you're still wanting a frictionless world--and that ain't gonna happen. One way or another, people are gonna unintentionally harm other people, and certainly are gonna bother them.

One problem in today's litigious society is that too many folks can't tell the difference between bother and harm, and regularly take to the courts with lawsuits over what I'd call "bother".

So on stuff like "second-hand smoke" or equivalent, I just look at the relative harm to me; whether or not it's really worth getting all excited about. Generally, most folks' excitements stem from having too much time on their hands--which leads to a lot of picking fly-poop out of pepper. None of this stuff is nearly as hazardous as driving to where one could be offended or endangered.

Stuff like wheel-chair accessible street-corners and warning signs for stores that have narrow aisles/hallways makes sense. A lot of this worrying doesn't.

Art

 

[nualle]

Not frictionless, Art, just reasonably polite and, more to the point: accountable.

One problem in today's litigious society is that too many folks can't tell the difference between bother and harm, and regularly take to the courts with lawsuits over what I'd call "bother".

I agree. As many times as I've hacked up black muck after catching an unasked-for lungful of someone else's smoke, I've never sued anyone over it. Not enough harm. But people with less robust health than mine have as much right to breathe in public as I or anyone else. Avenues of redress have to stay open for their use, even despite other people's abuse of them (frivolous lawsuits over "bother").

 

[Monkeyleg]

Nualle, by refusing to assume that everyone in my example was driving at a prudent speed, you avoid the question.

Nevertheless, you've moderated your position considerably since our debate over on TFL. There you advocated legal action against the person doing the "perfuming" or whatever. Now you're advocating going after the manufacturer.

If this is indeed your position, aren't you holding the manufacturer of a legal product liable for the product's effect on situations beyond the manufacturer's control? (Time, place, persons, etc). It's much like the gun lawsuits: the gun manufacturers certainly know that a tiny percentage of their products will wind up in criminal hands, but they have no way of controlling where their product goes or what is done with the product.

 

[bbrins]

O.K. I've deleted what I've typed several times because I don't want to offend or cause mental harm. I feel bad for anybody with the problems that have been discussed in this thread, but I don't think that warnings for these additives, etc should be mandatory. I have an uncle with a serious milk allergy problem, he almost died once, and he seems to be getting along just fine by reading what the ingredients are on things that he buys or by asking at restaurants. Since manufacturers are already required to tell you what the ingredients are, maybe some of the burden should be on the consumer, educate yourself about your disability as much as possible.

 

[Ed Brunner]

nualle

I'm old and slow and I sure don't want to offend you, but I can't help wondering how tobacco smoke causes your black mucus. Have you seen a doctor about this?

 

[Zander]

That leaves the manufacturers out of it.-- Nualle

If you want to deny basic physics.

The simple fact is that a Yugo is going to come out second-best in a collision with a Chevrolet Suburban.

What's your argument for punishing the mfr. of a 2.5 ton vehicle if it's involved in a collision with a 1.5 ton hybrid-fuel skateboard such as those mandated by law in the PRK?

I hear, over and over, that the cost of acquiring and driving an SUV is more than justified by its superior collision protection. Wacked-out arguments by advocates like Robert Kennedy, Jr. to the contrary [and, of necessity, betraying the basic tenets of an anarchist such as yourself], what's your point?

 

[nualle]

Monkeyleg, you said:

aren't you holding the [perfume] manufacturer of a legal product liable for the product's effect on situations beyond the manufacturer's control?

If the perfume manufacturer has produced an allergen, they need to quit manufacturing it or reformulate it to remove the allergen. The lawsuit is the method I know of to effect that change (and get the harmed party recompensed for the harm). I am assuming that the wearer of the perfume wore it in good faith, ignorant that it contained an allergen.

The analogy to gun manufacturers is inapt because a gun requires a user's independent act (intentional or negligent discharge) to cause harm. Same, generally speaking, with cars. With both tools, the vast majority of the harm that comes to third parties from them comes from the use the second party made of the tool -- either intentional harm with this as the weapon, or negligent use of the tool, resulting in harm. Both these scenarios leave the first party (the manufacturer) out of the liability picture. The tool they provided worked as designed... the user simply misused it. This part of the argument should be unproblematic. It's "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," which we've been trying to convince the antis of, for years.

Car pile-ups in fogs happen fairly regularly (at least one newsworthy one every couple of years). They happen because some, at least, of the people in them were driving too fast for conditions. Carmakers are not responsible for that.

Please understand that I'm not trying to find a "guilty party" for every conceivable harm. The people who burn themselves with the coffee they just drove away from McD's with should not win their cases against McD's. They knew the coffee was hot and voluntarily took that risk.

If the perfume manufacturer did business according to the NAP, they wouldn't sell allergens. It's their responsibility by being in that business to see that they don't and to make due recompense when they screw up.

 

[nualle]

Zander, you said:

The simple fact is that a Yugo is going to come out second-best in a collision with a Chevrolet Suburban.

The Yugo owner knew that, yet chose the Yugo anyway, assuming the risk.

 

[labgrade]

"A few months ago we had a serious pile-up on the interstate in an extremely dense fog, with several people killed. The lawsuits have only just begun.

Assuming that everyone was driving at a prudent speed, and that SUV's squashed Geo Metro's, should the SUV manufacturers be the ultimate defendants?"

The assumption that everyone was at a prudent speed can't be supported. Otherwise, they wouldn't have piled into each other.

Henley's "Driving with your eyes closed" comes to mind somehow.

In Colorado, there is often a pile up "caused by the weather." Pure bunk. It was caused by people driving too fast for the road conditions. Physics dictates speed limits.

& not be seen as uncaring, but if I had such a disorder, I'd likely buy a mask to filter out the junk so often found in "my" air.

Only seems prudent to save yourself from those less thoughtful souls.

 

[stockpile]

smokers drink more

smokers do drink more than non smokers because the nicotine in tobacco smoke slows the absorbtion of alcohol. aside from other habbit reasons this is a direct connect between tobacco and alcohol.


stockpile.

 

[Khornet]

The 2nd hand smoke

'science' from the CDC has been shown to be corrupt, and deserves the same respect as the breast-implant business, in which the implants were never shown to cause any disease, yet the mfgrs were crushed.

Sorry, Nualle, exposure to tobacco smoke doesn't produce black sputum. Seek medical attention.

You can demand all day long that the world accomodate itself to you. You could even be right, though in the cases at hand you aren't. But no matter, 'cause the world don't care, and if you persist your life becomes the smilie::banghead:

 

[Khornet]

A better approach

is, paraphrasing/adapting what my Dad used to say to me:

'Michael, you just worry about keeping yourself from offending/assaulting other people today. That's a full-time job by itself. If you have any time left over, THEN you can worry about what other people are doing wrong.'

 

[nualle]

You can demand all day long that the world accomodate itself to you. You could even be right, though in the cases at hand you aren't. But no matter, 'cause the world don't care, and if you persist your life becomes the smilie: :banghead:

and

'Michael, you just worry about keeping yourself from offending/assaulting other people today. That's a full-time job by itself. If you have any time left over, THEN you can worry about what other people are doing wrong.'

So what you're saying is that the NAP is just a utopian ideal... not a real basis for how human interaction ought to look. If that's so, what differentiates some rights (like the 2nd Amendment) as being real enough to demand apply in the world?

I believe all human rights are real. All I can do about it is more or less what your dad said: arrange my own actions to apply them. But what I hear some of you saying is that the NAP grants some exceptions—that some preventable harm is ethically permissible—and I don't see where you're getting that from.

 

[Khornet]

???????????

To be armed is a basic human right; to require the rest of the world to adapt to one's own peculiar problems is not.

It is as if one person's peculiar physiology created a zone around her in which everyone had a duty to adapt. But of course, that means there can be endless competing zones. And a lawyer's paradise, since the solution you prefer is the lawsuit.

As the man says, we need to leave each other the hell alone, and we need to put up with each other a lot better than we do.

 

[nualle]

Monkeyleg: your initial inquiry was:

...how far as a society we should go to accomodate the physical problems of others, especially when those problems are found in just a tiny minority of the population.

When I see that, I see: Is there a minority so small that the NAP doesn't apply to them?

For me, the answer is, unproblematically, "No." Others apparently disagree with me on that.

Also: I don't believe in societal application of the NAP. I believe in individual application. For each choice made, the buck stops somewhere.

Have fun with the rest of the thread, folks. I'm tired.