Hacker Cinema
Thank You for Smoking
2005 · Film · 92 min
Directed by Jason Reitman
Nick Naylor is a charismatic spin-doctor for Big Tobacco who'll fight to protect America's right to smoke -- even if it kills him -- while still remaining a role model for his 12-year old son. When he incurs the wrath of a senator bent on snuffing out cigarettes, Nick's powers of "filtering the truth" will be put to the test.
19 positive16 neutralfrom 35 commenters
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36 comments on Hacker News
There is a nice old comedy called "Thank You for Smoking". Worth watching if you haven't.
> At least half of the 3,309 fugitives arrested in FIST VII were later released on bail
Lmfao god bless America right?
That reminds me of one of my favorite lines in one of my favorite movies, Thank You for Smoking. seriously if you are reading this and have not watched it, stop what you’re doing and go watch it right now.
Nick Naylor’s (a tobacco lobbyist) son asks, “dad, why is America the greatest country in the world?” Nick is reading something, doesn’t look up and takes a slight beat to think about it, then just calmly responds, “our endless appeal system.”
That movie is unbelievable. I know out of context that line just seems like edge lord nonsense, but Aaron Eckhardt (sp?) just sells it so hard.
> But giving you a gun limits my liberty, because I would feel threatened and unable to express myself fully in a society where I would have to assume that random people on the street carry guns.
Yes, I understand the point. There are others who feel threatened and affected by people of different sexual orientations, even if those people never interact with them different than everyone else. You'll protest, no doubt, their feelings aren't legitimate - those are phobias while yours are rational feelings!
In pretty much every EU member state, you'll have to assume that random people on the street carry guns. Not everyone, not most, but some, none visibly. Would it make you more or less comfortable if the same number of people openly carried the same guns?
"Wholistic view of individual freedoms" sounds to me like a quote from the movie Thank You For Smoking. My memory is terrible, but it goes something like this (context, old movies are being edited to remove cigarettes in order to not promote smoking): "Aren't you altering history" - "No, we are improving history".
I find it much better to just flat out say "the collective over the individual", and not dance around it with fancy terms. Redefining liberties as privileges instead of rights isn't the way to go. Arguing for the merit of something is much better than trying to sneak it in by bending language and concepts.
Movies I think I truly great I usually only watch once, sometimes twice. If a movie ends and I just sit there thinking to myself… “wow”… I will probably never watch it again.
Movies I watch over and over again are movies that I relate to in some way or find comforting. These are ones I’ve watched at least 5 times, and some I’d bet more than 30 times.
- Back to the Future
- Home Alone
- What About Bob?
- It Could Happen to You
- Matilda
- As Good as It Gets
- Office Space
- Cruel Intentions
- Boiler Room
- Finding Forrester
- Training Day
- Super Troopers
- 8 Mile
- The Transporter
- Elf
- Bad Santa
- Mean Girls
- Saved!
- Garden State
- V for Vendetta
- Thank You for Smoking
- Stick It
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Idiocracy
- Hot Rod
- Run Fatboy Run
- The Other Guys
- Wreck-It Ralph
To name a few.
In all seriousness (although half joking) - these days it seems perhaps the best way to get people not to do something is to make them think that some "Big" corporate monopoly - with an army of lobbyists - want to sucker them into buying their mass produced product for huge $$$ profits.
The movie "Thank You for Smoking" has a great scene between Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol and Big Firearms lobbyist caricatures [1].
[1] Merchants Of Death Thank You For Smoking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss0jLHvMO20
In the movie, Thank You for Smoking, there is a great scene where the main actors are sitting in a restaurant, and there's a sign just behind them that says:
"Be thankful for your government, it's the best that money can buy"
Thank You For Smoking was an all-around great movie.
The movie Thank You For Smoking about a tobacco lobbyist introduced a term for this.
The Yuppie Nuremberg Defense, I've got a mortgage to pay.
“Thank you for smoking” is a great one about marketing and the lobby industry it. Definitely a movie that engineers should watch to learn how selling (dishonestly) works.
The documentary "Thank You For Smoking" illustrates this.
Kind of odd there's no mention of the only movie I know of about the tobacco industry itself, "Thank You For Smoking", which has some of the funniest scenes about lobbying and marketing in film history.
This is the game right? Build something people need, and ideally situate such that a larger player with deep pockets goes "yes, this" and cashes you out. Much like the "Thank you for smoking" film trope, you can't take the money AND call the press for the expose on how dirty the whole thing is. I'm reminded of the South Park founders more or less laughing "yeah we sold out" because why wouldn't you? Everyone has a number (unless you're a martyr, bless you, or already fuck-you-money). That number turns out to be much lower than you might expect when the real deal knocks on your door.
>The problem is that bad behavior is normalized and rationalized in our society, 'everyone needs a paycheck.'
The movie Thank you for Smoking, about a tobacco lobbyist, calls this the "Yuppie Nuremberg Defense." All manner of immorality, even shilling for a tobacco firm, will be excused away with hey man, I've got a mortgage to pay.
Recently I watched the film "thank you for smoking" and there's a sign I saw hanging in the background of a scene and it said "be thankful for your government, it's the best that money can buy" and I just thought that was absolutely perfect
A good time to plug the movie Thank You For Smoking, a satire about lobbyists (tobacco in particular) that label themselves "Merchants of Death".
Quote: "That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong."
This (not so much the article, but the discussion so far) reads to me like that essay in the movie "Thank you for Smoking." Highly recommended.
> In general we look for a new law by the following process: first we guess it, then we compute the consequences of the guess... and then we compare those computation results to experiment. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn't make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment its wrong, that's all there is to it.
That elides a lot of complexity, mostly around the validity of the experiment design and execution. Confounding factors, confirmation bias, selection bias, p-hacking, etc. can all skew the results in ways both overt and subtle.
The following quote from the movie 'Thank you for smoking' may illustrate:
"This is where I work, the Academy of Tobacco Studies. It was established by seven gentlemen you may recognize from C-Span. These guys realized quick if they were gonna claim cigarettes were not addictive they better have proof. This is the man they rely on, Erhardt Von Grupten Mundt. They found him in Germany. I won't go into the details. He's been testing the link between nicotine and lung cancer for thirty years, and hasn't found any conclusive results. The man's a genius, he could disprove gravity."
So no, 'if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong' is a gross oversimplification.
Not to mention that there may be very good reasons that an experiment can't (or shouldn't) be done, or that various 'natural experiments' must be relied upon.
One tactic I've found that works (with people I know): From the outset, insist on
1. answers and not questions.
2. positive evidence, and not hypotheses.
For the first, that means that statements like "Don't you think it's strange...?" statements are not permitted. Generally, conspiracy theorists won't provide answers, they will merely provide doubt to demonstrate a gap in your understanding, and then will happily try to fill the gap with a plausible (but usually wrong) theory.
It will start with "Don't you think it's strange/unlikely...?" regarding some aspect of the official narrative, and then follow with statements like "The only way it could make sense is if ..."
I point out that while he may have a compelling hypothesis, he didn't point to any proof of his hypothesis whatsoever. They are much more likely to point out absence of proof in parts of the official narratives, so use this same strategy with them. Positive proof means something actually demonstrated, not inferred.
It works really well. Most of them will fail right at step 1: "You've asked a lot of reasonable questions, but have not provided any proof for your theory."
Providing proof is hard. Coming up with ideas is easy.
Not sure if it'll work with random people though. It may have worked only because I know these people personally.
Edit: One more important tactic. Most of them rely on the "If you're wrong I must be right!" strategy[0] (or rather, they fall for it). So be very open to accepting that the official narrative is wrong. Say (sincerely) "I can believe the official narrative is problematic or even wrong, but I'm not sure I see a reason your narrative is correct. It's quite possible the true explanation is something else entirely."
[0] See the movie Thank You For Smoking for a good reference to this.
If it helps you triangulate these things, its worth keeping in mind that very little of these tactics (and even many of the actors!) are unique to the oil industry.
Merchants of Doubt [1] goes into the pattern in an almost legal/academic way: https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1608193942
Thank You For Smoking tells the same basic message but as a semi-satirical movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/
In the movie Thank You For Smoking a tobacco industry spokesman calls it the 'Yuppie Nuremberg Defense.' Instead of "I had orders" it's "I had a mortgage."
1. Thank you for smoking (Go watch that movie)
Weed industry in the US (Miraculously legalized in most key states in record times)
One of my favorite movie lines of all time is Aaron Eckhart’s (who plays a lobbyist for the tobacco industry) line at the beginning of “Thank You For Smoking” where he introduces the doctor:
“This is the man they rely on—Erhardt Von Grupten Mundt. They found him in Germany; I won't go into the details. He's been testing the link between nicotine and lung cancer for thirty years, and hasn't found any conclusive results. The man's a genius—he could disprove gravity.”
This reminds me of the last scene of the movie "Thank you for smoking". The tobacco lobbyist was out of job when FDC declared smoking is not safe. He became the lobbyist for the cellular industry.
At that last scene, he was training the Cell phone executive: "Repeat after me: There are no conclusive evident that cell phone usage can cause brain cancer." Since I worked in Nokia at that time, that scene just etches into my mind even after so many years.
I was afraid that 20,30 years from now, some percentage of generate of kids grow up with cell phone next to their head were detected with some brain abnormality. Someone will do an experiment by putting cell phone / wifi next to lab rats and find some correlations between long extend exposure of wifi/cell signals and some kind brain damages.
Wifi/Cellular microwave can't cook turkey with its 1 watts output. But I can certain feel the warm on the side of face/ear next to it for just a few minutes. I definitively WILL NOT do that for an extend period of time.
I asked my family to reduce the bluetooth headset usage although I know for sure BT's power is much lower than wifi. Using wire headset or speaker is much better in my mind.
What?
My advice is to study the techniques, to better guard against them. This much is obvious, no?
Though illustrative, I acknowledge The Illuminati and the Subgenius stuff are not very accessible.
Thank You for Smoking https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944 and Network https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958 are probably more your speed.
>Ah sorry, "A con of a con stands indirectly of support of the original pro" — better? :-)
From a logical standpoint, not at all.
From a social standpoint, it often does persuade people towards the pro. However, that is a known fallacy. It is a standard tactic in persuasion.
From the movie "Thank You For Smoking":
Joey Naylor: ...but you didn't prove that vanilla was the best...
Nick Naylor: I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong I'm right.
The yuppy nuremberg defense. From the excellent movie "thank you for smoking"
> "If my own daughter told me she wanted to be an adult film actress, I’d tell her, ‘look, there are risks, but it’s something for you to decide.”
This is so similar to Thank You For Smoking, I have to wonder if that's where he got the idea from.
Thank you for smoking.
Best movie clip ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrxRCTUt6OY
It also helps when you have investments in cigarette companies, because why not? When there are advertisements sent out by the very companies themselves to avoid their product, and people still do it? There must be something to it! And money to be made!
But in all seriousness, everyone chooses their poison which comforts them, whether it be alcohol, prescription drugs, cigarettes, food, television, etc. This is the beauty of free will and choice. No matter what the research says, people will still do it. I've work in a hospital before and saw plenty of patients with lung cancer who passed away right before my eyes. Once the scene was cleared and cleaned up, the nurses and doctors would go right outside and smoke cigarettes. They know the possibility is there, yet make the choice to continue doing self-harm.
Although not overly on topic, for those that don't know, this is a quote from the movie "Thank You for Smoking" -- I normally wouldn't upvote a comment like this, and maybe shouldn't, but it really is a fantastic movie for those that may not have seen or heard of it before!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/
> "NSA is literally Hitler now, is it?"
The "Yuppie Nuremberg Defense" is a pop-culture reference to the movie Thank You For Smoking. In the movie, the phrase is used to describe the defense "I've got a mortgage to pay", offered up by a lawyer^W spokesperson who worked for large Tobacco firms.
(The Yuppie Nuremberg Defense should not be confused with the Superior Orders defense (often called the Nuremberg Defense); with the Yuppie version the defendant asserts that the listener should excuse them because they did it for the money, not because they were commanded to.)
So, if we assume that analogies, references, and allusions to history are verboten, I am actually saying "The NSA is literally Big Tobacco". How senselessly inflammatory of me.
Would you happen to have a list of the movies available?
And just a few recs (not really 'hidden', per se): Moon, Pi, Soylent Green, The Producers (2006), and Thank You for Smoking.
YAMMER helps turn the mayhem of the corporate world into return-on-investment unicorns and leveraged-employee-engagement butterflies. We are a medium sized start-up that is battling several big enterprise software companies in this space. So yes, our target customers are in the enterprise space BUT we are turning this space upside down with our viral approach and how we build solutions for the user (which doesn’t include an army of salesmen). We are solving consumer type problems but also monetize like enterprise software. (i.e. real revenues with fewer users)
What's in it for you?:
-GOOD catered Lunch and Dinner daily
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-Ability to have influence without authority.
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-Wine and Whiskey Connoisseurs onsite at your disposal
-Our CEO is David Sacks, and yes, he is responsible for making the movie, "Thank You for Smoking".
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Check us out! https://www.yammer.com/about/jobs
I can't help but think that that this statement of "building things because you like building things" was very scripted at Startup School. The reaction of the crowd was 100% predictable and it was a very smart move and completely re-framed the movie and all the other bad publicity around Facebook.
"Their argument/story/point of view is not valid because they don't understand that you can just build things because you like building things" - 100% crowdpleaser. He is not addressing the issues, he is completely reframing it.
If you look for more examples check out the movie "Thank you for smoking": The question is not whether smoking is good or bad for you or whether we knew about that. The argument is whether we should make decisions for the people of this country or if it is their freedom to make their own decisions.
"By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?"
I immediately thought about the movie Thank you for smoking where this guy said that the best way to win a discussion was to prove the opponent wrong. You didn't have to be right, as long as he was wrong.
Watch the film Thank You For Smoking and find out.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060323/REVIEWS/60314009/1023
Might seem like offtopic, but it's not: Have you seen the movie "Thank you for smoking"?