this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2026
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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.
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Fair. However, what do you think about people who drive recklessly? They risk their own life and spend more money for fuel, perhaps also for a sports car but they also put others in danger, increase traffic deaths and pollution.
Is it an underlying psychological disorder that makes them do it? Is it the marketing of the auto industry and they fell for it or are they directly responsible?
It's a bad direct comparison with smoking but there is a line somewhere where people are either directly responsible or everything is predetermined and a result of outer circumstances.
I'm glad the social democracy in Germany can (so far) account for "selfish" individual decisions. It's also one of the fields where taxation could be very effective. E.g. taxes on tobacco are quite high in Germany but less for fuel and cars, mostly because of our own car industry but also because pretty much everyone depends on them, regardless of their driving style.
My comment sounded pretty salty but I just wanted to point out that harmful individual choices can affect others. What I'm actually mad about is that the social security in Germany is slowly deteriorating. There's enough money and resources to uphold it but US inspired management and economy styles direct the resources into billionaires pockets while at the same time playing the "look over there, the poor people and immigrants took your money and get everything for free" game.
If you want to drive recklessly, I have no problem with it IF you go somewhere where endangering others is impossible. I feel the same way about smoking. Overconsumption of fossil fuels harms the environment, the same way littering cigarette butts does, but you don't have to do either of these things to indulge in your vice. If someone chooses to harm themselves, they have a responsibility to fully mitigate the "real" risk to others. By "real", I mean unavoidable, tangible, physical and/or psychological harm caused by their actions. Not things that really result from economic math and policy decisions. The individual does not have a responsibility to constrain their choices based on their government's bad policy, and socially enforcing that they do (through guilt/shame) is really stupid. It only serves to hand governments more power than they ought to have, and it reinforces said bad policy.
I think there is a lot of confusion in society, both about what it means to mitigate harm and what harm is itself. One helpful (though not universally applicable) idea I have to clarify things is that if you need to use a calculator to determine if you're harmed or not, you should be blaming your government.