Jul 17, 2024

It mildly terrifies me that a lot of things we think are natural are just things that were invented by American advertising agencies in the 40s and 50s

The nuclear family, diamond engagement rings, owning a motor car, etc are all works of fiction that we have subsumed into being part of our culture, instead of it being astroturfed by a bunch of skilled marketers

Show threadLen0w0ThinkBad
@yassie_j cigarettes, and thus nicotine addiction, are less than 200 years old! Prior to cigarettes there was no convenient way to ingest enough tobacco smoke to actually get addicted.
Jul 17, 2024 at 2:17pmWeb
Show threadLen0w0ThinkBadJul 17, 2024
@yassie_j oh and even then, they had to wait for a safe way to light them! Old matches were acutely toxic, and we didn't have cheap petrochemicals to produce lighters
Show threadLisPiJul 18, 2024
@yassie_j @Len0w0ThinkBad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_piston ?

Or some warmed up bit of metal/stone set in fire for a moment.

Definitely more of a ritual thing than a convenient than a "on the go smoking".
Fire piston - Wikipedia

Show threadLen0w0ThinkBadJul 18, 2024
@lispi314 @yassie_j cigars were lit with oil lamps in smoking lounges, cigarettes were invented for on the go smoking. Their popularity was limited at first because of the lack of suitable means of lighting. A fire piston could certainly work, but a reliable one would require more manufacturing effort than the average person in the target demographic could (or at least want to) afford.