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SilasBarta comments on Build Small Skills in the Right Order - Less Wrong
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(splutter) That's probably more hazardous than Scientology, yes.
An important thing for the strong to realise when talking about hazards is that other people may not be as strong.
Trying cigarettes is more dangerous than trying Scientology classes?
Surely more people die from it.
I don't think people become addicted by TRYING a cigarette. It takes several if not dozens or more. The physical dependence is acquired and comes by degrees.
People don't typically get trapped in Scientology by trying it out either.
But if you try a cigarette there's some risk you'll want to smoke another and then another.
I'm confident smoking is a bigger danger to me than Scientology.
Agreed. I just sounded like this discussion was trending into hyperbole about the dangers of smoking.
More reliably addictive, I expect. I must admit I don't know of any comparative studies.
Mind you, Scientologists notoriously smoke like chimneys. Because not smoking enough will cause lung cancer. Hey, you could always bum a smoke from Ron.
For a proper comparison, you wouldn't just consider addictiveness, but also the harm resulting from becoming addicted. It's not obvious to me which does more expected lifetime damage to you.
Cigarettes (chain smoker): Spend a lot of your money, become uglier and smellier, get excluded from lots of places, lose health while alive and die earlier, lose some connection to family and friends
Scientology: Spend a lot of your money (probably more than a chain smoker on cigarettes), eviscerate your thinking ability, lose most connection to family and friends outside of Scientology.
Is the health hit worse than the mind hit? I really don't know.
With Scientology, there's a bit more of a lottery effect: if you lose, you can lose big. Cigarettes are more gradually hazardous (with a bit of a lottery effect).
If you had to choose to be one or the other which would it be?
Well, I already know far too much about Scientology, to the point where I used so much of the jargon that an ex-Scientologist on IRC many years ago refused to believe I wasn't an ex-member ... and I used to smoke (and still tend to bum cigs when sufficiently drunk). So the actual answer appears to be "both", though more the cigarettes.