this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2026
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Post memes here.
A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.
An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.
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- Ei selkeän poliittista sisältöä (poliitikoista, poliittisista tapahtumista, vaaleista jne) parempi paikka esim. !politicalmemes@lemmy.ca
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It makes health insurance more expensive for everyone, at least here in Germany
It is crucial to draw a distinction between direct and indirect harms, tangible and abstract harms. Does the problem lie in the individual's right to bodily autonomy and self determination? Or does it lie in the design of a system that forces the consequences of individuals' decisions to be diffused across the entire population? I don't really know, but it raises a lot of questions. Is it fair to punish those who don't make the choice to smoke? Is it fair to treat those who make the choice to smoke differently? Discussion around smoking induces a very, very strong bias.
Consider something else: Should I be made to feel guilty for the economic impact if I choose to cut myself with a knife vs. if someone else chooses to cut me with a knife? Obviously, any compassionate person would be more focused on what caused the decision. Anybody would know in this scenario that inducing guilt over the economics of self harm is fucked. Now, if someone else cut me, the obvious way to repair the situation would be to punish the perpetrator.
Do you see what I'm getting at? You shouldn't be mad at the smoker. Generally, nobody chooses to harm themselves. They misunderstood the risks, fell for it, and got addicted. You should be mad at the cigarette companies for not paying restitution for their societal harm. Maybe smokers should be held responsible for those they spread the social contagion of smoking to, but they are in no way culpable for the indirect, abstract harms you perceive. They aren't choosing to cost you money, your government is choosing it by not holding the perpetrator responsible.