I was looking at this sign in the room similar to signs I have read in a hundred rooms over the last twenty years and wonder, is it still needed? Is there anywhere in the world where smoking in hotels is permitted still? At least, I don't think in any of the places I have travelled lately. Of course, just because it isn't permitted doesn't mean that people aren't going to smoke in the room, but for those who will smoke in a room anyway, is the sign going to stop them?
Probably not.
There are lots of rules and laws like this, with another that comes to mind the smacking of children, which used to be commonplace when I was a kid, and I don't think I was ever injured by it. Sure, I get that beating children isn't acceptable, but I don't think that having a law that says "no smacking of children" is going to stop a person from beating a child - it is a completely different event, and the mindset and reasoning behind it is very different also.
Another is for murder, where as far as I know, every country on earth has some kind of "don't murder" laws, yet the estimate is about 6.1 murders per 100,000 people, so around 500,000 annually. While it seems that laws are there to keep us safe, for those who are going to break the law anyway, they aren't going to worry if there is a law or not.
Suicide is illegal in most countries too.
The laws that countries employ aren't to keep us safe as much as they are to control our activities in order to keep the governments that employ them safe. Sure, there are some that make sense like "don't kill neighbors" perhaps, but for the most part, the laws are largely economic, aren't they? They are around taxes and property, around military and trade. They aren't made for the daily user.
Where are the laws that state that a government has to work in the best interest of the health of its people?
These kinds of laws seem more of an afterthought, token gestures that make it look like the government is there for us, but really don't do much of anything. For instance, in Finland there has been a huge amount of time in government spent on the strength of alcohol that can be sold in supermarkets, as if that is the biggest concern for health in the country. At the same time as this, they are cutting back on healthcare in other areas that affect the entire population.
I am an adult - I can decide when and what I drink.
In the US for instance, a person has to be 21 to drink alcohol, yet they only need to be 18 to vote, or be in the military and go to another country and kill people. Doesn't anyone find it strange that they are considered too immature to decide what liquids they put into their own bodies, but mature enough to choose governance, or kill in the name of their country?
I find it strange.
Societies and communities need rules to function well and part of the reason humans have been able to evolve so well and innovate is because we have been able to develop common frameworks that allow us to work together. However, we have fractured our communities and have instead aligned at national levels, as if people within a nation all want the same outcomes and reached in the same way. It just doesn't work at scale, which we can see in the global political climate. The rules of countries are no longer serving the global communities that have formed across borders, yet governments will keep protecting themselves through the laws they can create and enact, or inflict, upon its people.
It is a broken system.
Because all systems break. Because all systems are designed for a certain set of conditions and when those conditions change, which is inevitable, the system is no longer suitable to manage it. We see this happening at all levels of the system, whether it be social, governance, or economic structures, and the longer it is in place trying to operate in conditions that no longer exist, the more rapid the collapse of the systems, and the more damage they do to those that are meant to benefit from the organization.
What we can see now in the world is what happens when rather than health, monetary wealth is the guiding force of decision making. When the incentive is to generate money as if it is an indicator of success, inevitably the people are going to suffer, because they are not money, they are tools to generate it only. This means that the people that should benefit, end up suffering at the hands of the system, and due to the laws of economics, the alignment will keep aligning more closely to the incentive driver, which will continually refine tools, and crush down resource costs - humans.
There is not a lot of love in the air of law.
Well - maybe the love of money.
Taraz
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