How do I get people to realize that what I'm doing is very significant?
The Hulk said: Your entire angle is one that will fall on deaf ears with the majority of smokers and especially young ones. Â That's why your project is doomed before it even begins. Â And this... ...betrays an arrogance and complete ignorance of the deeper reasons smokers don't listen to "common sense" arguments.
Smoking cigarettes was doomed the day the project started
Atma Weapon said: Scribe, I think you should listen to everyone's feedback on this, but try not allow Hulk's firehose of cynicism discourage you too much. You have to put this into context on all sides and realize he's always like this. If you are passionate about this project, and you believe in it, you don't need to put it to a vote with some strangers on a tiny special interest website like this. Just do it as long as you find it rewarding. You don't have to change the world. If your efforts stops even one person from starting smoking, or influences their decision to stop, then your effort was already well worth it. But if it were me, I would work on it by investing my time, rather than my money. Behind the blinding fog of his cynicism, Hulk does raise some important points that you need to keep in mind, he's just not doing a good job of describing the problem or putting it into context for you. First, what you're trying to do here, from a rhetorical point of view, is to appeal to the reason and critical thinking skills of young people. There is actually a lot of empirical psychological and neuroscientific reasearch indicating that, sadly, this is not an effective tactic. The problem is that young people literally lack the hardware to grasp this argument, find it compelling, and act on it. Reason and critical thinking are highly dependent on the frontal lobes, which are pretty much the last parts of the brain to become fully developed, at an average of age 25 or so. It's also the part of the brain most important for impulse control and long term planning, which is exactly what the personal finance appeal against smoking is trying to appeal to. Add on top of that the fact that humans in general suck at giving their long term intrests the appropriate amount of weight in decision making. As a professional investment adviser, I'm sure you know that all too well. If your goal is just to influence the most people and run a successful marketing campaign against smoking, you might be more successful telling kids that if they smoke, potential partners will think they're gross and therefore you won't get laid if you're a smoker. There is still a fair amount of truth to it, and you are appealing to the lizard brain in a way that makes the negative outcomes associated with smoking more direct and immediate. I wouldn't advocate for using outright falsehoods to discourage people from smoking, because I care about truth too much, and there are still plenty of good reasos that don't have millions of years of evolution working against them like the money argument does.
Mavilu said: Well, as an ex-smoker yourself (and myself) I don't need to tell you that in order to quit, you need a powerful motivator that speaks to you and you alone, we all quit for very different reasons, making motivators incredibly objective. As you also know, smokers know such things as health complications, expenses and such, you aren't bringing anything new to the table. However, it's possible that a well thought out explanaton about the costs of smoking and management tools for those about to start (if I understood your proposal correctly) is needed and will help. And, if you have this strong hunch that an idea is good and will work, not matter what this idea is, just go with it, strong hunches are not something that happens all the time, it's worth paying attention to them. Besides, if you don't try and see what happens, you'll be always left with the"what ifs". As long as you prepare for all consequences, god and bad, before hand, I say, go for it.