Sure, I expect that if you gave me the LD99 of some poison, I will die. But there are still many things (and my point is this is one of them) where all it takes to be an outlier is to decide to be one.

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runarberg 19 hours ago | parent [-]

I am pretty sure that likewise in the 1950s many smokers did indeed decided to be the outlier who smokes occasionally, and for the right reasons, and using the “correct” method/brand of cigarettes. And that every one of them decided that they were not gonna get addicted to nicotine. I am also sure that every single one of them did indeed get addicted to nicotine, and many of them died from cancer.

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kragen 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It sounds like you aren't very familiar with the research on tobacco addiction.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002204260203200220

https://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-3-health-effec...

The majority of smokers did get addicted to nicotine, but significant percentages did not. However, it is true that even many "non-daily" smokers died from cancer as a result of their smoking.

	▲	runarberg 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I know that research on tobacco is full of bad science and bad actors, and experts in different fields (such as social psychology) continued to publish bad science on the topic well into the 2000s. This includes your 2002 German paper (which I can’t read because of a paywall). Your second source says nothing about addiction in the chapter you posted, however they do talk about addiction in chapter 6, and they claim that most people agree that smoking is addictive, but heavy smoking is more addictive.

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ndriscoll 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A better analogy is probably TV. You could watch the Flintstones (along with smoking ads!), or e.g. Mr. Wizard.

	▲	runarberg 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I am specifically talking about this cognitive bias of believing that the mean behavior does not apply to you. Very few people believe this about cigarettes anymore because the evidence is simply overwhelming and public health experts along with anti-smoking activists were able to (despite incredible odds) shift the common rhetoric closer to what is true. There is a similar phenomena going on with ads. Most people believe they are unaffected by ads, but in reality they absolutely are. And the advertising industry has vested interest in the general public believing this illusion (otherwise they risk being regulated). We are seeing the exact same phenomena with AI usage as we did with smoking in the 1950s. All the evidence is pointing towards these products being bad for you and being addictive. Yet most users of AI believe they are not addicted, and that they have found a way to use AI in a way which is less harmful for them. This is bias, these users are wrong, so are you, and so is OP. This is addictive to you, and it is bad for you. I know research is lacking, but eventually we will have the evidence to show the case as clearly as we do today with tobacco.