Business Insider: Cig Tech
In the noise of optimization, some techies say smoking has become the new signal. (9/16/2026)
https://www.businessinsider.com/smoking-cigarettes-silicon-valley-counterculture-2026-9
@ai6yr Have they tried chute-less BASE jumping while smoking? The AI can fix everything while you’re in free fall.
@ai6yr Ah, so masculine. Nothing says "Macho" like smelling the same as an ashtray.
Macho, macho man
I want to be a macho man...
@BackFromTheDud @ai6yr
It's a weird, weird subculture. Apparently high tea is macho too, must be about the pinky thing when you hold the teacups.
@ai6yr
I bet AI can design them a new lung to replace the COPD lung and it will be like nothing happened at all.
Oct 14, 2026, 5:14 PM@ai6yr it is a horrible way to die. I know because that's how my dad died.
@ButchH11 🙏 Sorry about your dad.
Oct 14, 2026, 8:09 PM@ai6yr thanks - it was 16 years ago. I was glad I never took up smoking.
@ai6yr Tech Bros have reinvented the 90s
Oct 14, 2026, 8:36 PM
@ai6yr God dammit. I just want one cheeky cigarette with an espresso every now and again, and these assholes are ruining it! I mean this genuinely: Silicon Valley ruins everything.
@ai6yr this reminds me when ecigs were the new thing.
bunch of kids landing in silicon valley tried to act like they were living for a future smoking trend and I laughed in their face and wrote this:
2012 "At the recent Structure conference, a young woman who had just moved from the east coast to San Francisco boasted of her boyfriends’ addiction to “Vaping”. She showed photos of all the accessories he has been obsessing about, from batteries to different colors and patterns. A young man visiting from New York echoed her story and said he was happy to be spending money on hip new e-cigarettes."
@ai6yr fast forward to 2019: "Doctors say vaping is different because far more acute damage that can lead to seizures with lungs “burnt” leading to death in under a year." https://www.flyingpenguin.com/vaping-death-toll-nears-double-digits/
@ai6yr re a quote sometimes attributed to Einstein: “
Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity.”
from a longer passage:
Furthermore, this impatient, greedy attitude is responsible more than anything else for the excessive stupidity we find in the world. Just as such people have no patience to chew up real food, so they do not take sufficient time to “chew up” mental food.
As modern times promote hasty eating to a large extent, it is not surprising to learn that a great astronomer said: “Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity.” To-day we know that this statement is not quite correct. Einstein has proved that the universe is limited.