I'm not very eloquent, and also pretty much not-smart, but I would like to respond:
No. We are all humans, and we are all equal. And there lies the problem. You can define a very strict set of opinions, scientific facts and absolute truths, and there will always be a human that manages to get it all wrong. We are just not very clever..
<Skex>At the very minimum we do know that nicotine increases heart rate which at a minimum increases the wear and tear on our hearts potentially shortening our lives.<>
You're quite right. Stop vaping, it does the same.
Never argued that it doesn't, It's about being informed and honest about the risks one is taking.
<Skex>I think the position that many of us hold (including to some extent myself) is that if one isn't already addicted to nicotine that it would be foolish to start vaping. After all we don't know what the long term affects are. We think it will be less harmful but we don't really know.<>
Quite right again. But what are you saying? Are you just scaring yourself? And in the mean time also the rest of us? Should we feel death approaching with every puff we take? Should we feel guilty when we reach for our ecig?
Its not about scaring it's about being honest about what is known and not known. We don't know what the long term affects of vaping will be. We think it's better for us than smoking and the preponderance of the existing evidence definitely suggest such but there are too many unknowns to be certain.
As far as feeling death approaching with every puff well death is approaching every breath we take whether there is nicotine in it or not so no I don't suggest feeling guilt over the activity.
Of course it's understandable. And I totally agree with them. I don't mind being moralized. I just mind to be judged. It's them who say I'm a lesser being, for being addicted and weak and smelly and a bad parent and all. What do they think I will do? Roll over and cry and feel very, very ashamed? I'll show them.
People will always judge you just as you will always judge them in return. It's a part of human nature that most people feel better about themselves when they think someone is less than themselves in some manner.
It's a key control principle that's used to manipulate society. It's how rich slave owners convinced poor whites to support slavery in the U.S even though they gained no benefit from that institution and in fact were harmed by the effect unpaid slaves had on wages.
It's the core of racism, sexism and every other form of bigotry human societies suffer from.
I'm not saying it's a good thing in fact it's one of the worst aspects of our species psychology but it is a fundamentally human sentiment. It's why we enjoy watching Jerry Springer because no matter how bad our lives may be we can look at those fools and think "at least I'm not that screwed up"
The trick in my opinion is to be cognizant of this reality recognize it for what it is and give it exactly as much weight as it deserves, none.
People like those you complain about are generally just overcompensating for their own flaws and and failures or they are simply clueless and ignorant through a lack of education and life experience.
That said as bad as some anti's can be I find that there are an incredible number of smokers/vapers who are living in a fantasy world of rationalization and self deception. I don't look down on them because I've been there myself. I only try to make them see through their self deception to reality.
Because reality doesn't get any worse just because you accept it. Reality is reality whether you believe it or not. People didn't start dying of smoking related causes when those causes were finally recognized they'd been dying of them all long recognizing that reality simply enabled us to make better informed decisions.
The debate in question is complex with a number of consequences that could reach well beyond a single individuals choice. I'm trying to explain why some people would react in what you see as a moralizing way.
You see it as moralizing while they see it as sharing their own experience. Sadly it's a flaw of human beings that at a basic level we really think that everyone processes information in exactly the same manner we do.
This is utter nonsense as any cognitive scientist would tell you, brain chemistry is incredibly complex and poorly understood, Meds that work wonderfully for one person have the exact opposite affects on another. We each process differently on unique hardware filtered through our own unique set of experiences.
So what you see as moralizing condescension, they see as simply trying to share their personal experience and knowledge in the hope of helping you to see things as they do in order to give you the benefit of their knowledge and experience.
The perception of moralizing is most often in your own head. The defensiveness "I'll show them" is your attempt to deny something you fundamentally know as true.
I've dealt with a lot of anti-smokers in my time and I can't recall many if any instances of someone claiming that smokers "are lesser beings for being addicted and weak and smelly and a bad parent". Sure there are probably some who think this but most honestly just want to help. Neither I nor anyone I've seen in this thread have said such. That's your own insecurity talking there.
You are demonizing antis in your mind exactly the same way you imagine them demonizing you. You imagine them as these moralizing judgmental condescending monsters so you don't have to deal with them as individual humans and address their arguments in rational honest ways.
And don't think this is me moralizing and being condescending to you. I'm just as guilty of doing this sort of thing as anyone else, you should hear what I say about Republicans. It's always easier to identify this sort of self deception in others than in ourselves. I'm simply pointing it out.
In doing this you turn the opposition into a caricature in your mind and in so doing create a strawman. The problem with this is that instead of addressing their actual arguments in a rational manner you end up flailing about tilting at windmills that only exist in your mind and to the outside observer you appear to be a fool.
If you really want to promote vaping to the general public you have to be able to give rational arguments based on known and accepted science. You have to admit the truth of those arguments where the Anti's are right and concentrate on undermining those arguments where the science is against them.
Example Fact Inhaling burned tobacco has serious detrimental health effects. This is not a subject to debate it's a scientific reality, deny this and you surrender all credibility.
Fact Nicotine is addictive, Once again established scientific fact deny it and you surrender credibility.
Fact One of the known effects of nicotine is that it increases heart rate. Once again fact credibility and all that.
These are things that we have to admit because they are demonstrably true.
Doing this does not hand victory to the antis because we can go after some not facts that they like to use.
Not Fact, Nicotine causes cancer, The reality here is that there is no conclusive evidence that nicotine a carcinogenic. In fact as studied as this drug has been it's fairly safe to conclude that the absence of such evidence indicates that nicotine doesn't cause cancer
Not fact, Nicotine has no benefits. This is fundamentally untrue. Nicotine does indeed offer some beneficial effects particularly in the case of treating certain mental disorders such as schizophrenia and ADHD.
Then there are the strawmen.
My personal favorite
Flavors are used to appeal to children. This is just stupid on it's face no one accuses Absolut of being marketed to children because it comes in different flavors. Adults like tasty stuff too after all.
E-cigs are backed by big tobacco, Demonstrably false. None of the companies manufacturing these devices nor the company that created the concept have any connection to big tobacco.
There are also those arguments where the final reality simply isn't known.
E-cigs are no better than smoking, This is simply still up for debate. We vapers can accurately claim that based on the studies to date that vaping does indeed seem to be better from a health perspective than smoking. However this is a new technology and the amount of research that's been done up to this point is very preliminary. and honestly neither were particularly independent. As one it of testing was done by the FDA in order to try and justify their ban and the other was funded and sponsored by a company that wants to sell ecigs.
So in the end the best we can reasonably say is that the jury is still out on the ultimate safety of the device.
Obviously there is a hell of a lot more arguments out there on both sides and I'm not going to try and address them all.
What I want to do is try and help you understand why some vapers will hold some of the opinions you consider to be moralizing. As well as to point out where I think you are practicing some self deception.
I mean how the hell are you going to "show them"? Go out and smoke yourself to death?
20 years from now we'll probably have a good idea of who was right in this debate. As a vaper my only goal politically is to ensure that we get the opportunity to gain the potential benefit if the final reality comes out in our favor.
I think that smokers have plenty of reason to take the risk that there are unintended and unknown effects to vaping since we know the consequences of continuing to smoke analogues. Non-smokers however will in general be taking an unnecessary risk which I find hard to justify.
People like the OP who are using nicotine to self medicate are a special case. And frankly a problematic one from a regulatory and legal standpoint.
On the one hand the benefits to those individuals is probably sufficient to mitigate and justify the potential risks. After all we already take far more problematic drugs for treating some of these conditions (just started taking Vyvance myself which is essentially just prescription ....)
On the other hand this shifts the PV into the realm of a medical device as a drug delivery system, which was the original justification the FDA attempted to use to assert their authority over E-cigs.
The US regulatory structure at least, isn't well equipped to deal with homeopathic medicine and its not just because of the influence of big pharma.
After all snake oil salesmen have been plying their wares for centuries and a large part of the purpose of regulatory bodies like the FDA is to protect an ignorant public from such quackery that has as often proved to be not simply ineffective in treating what ever ailment it was purported to cure but turned out to be harmful in it's own right.
In the end, it's complicated.