>...was all the vaping done thus far and into the future worth even one person dying needlessly?
This is a reduction to absurdity that I can't quite grasp: People die of all sorts of maladies every year and a single person dying from vaping is your apex priority because, "it could've been prevented by banning vaping"?
This almost seems like a variation of the "won't someone think of the children" argument.
To whit: What of all of the vehicular deaths every year? Or deaths via trains or planes? Should we just ban all life because it will result in death at an astounding success rate of 100%?
Reductio ad absurdum is similar to whataboutism, but it's not the same. Whataboutism is more like an abrupt detour off into a different issue to try to confuse the conversation or transform the topic of discussion into a referendum on the personal morals/motivations of the involved parties. The appeal to extremes does have to ask the question "what about x" but it's relevant because it's done to demonstrate the logical consequences of the other person's line of argument. It's not trying to deflect, it's getting to the heart of the issue.
This is a reduction to absurdity that I can't quite grasp: People die of all sorts of maladies every year and a single person dying from vaping is your apex priority because, "it could've been prevented by banning vaping"?
This almost seems like a variation of the "won't someone think of the children" argument.
To whit: What of all of the vehicular deaths every year? Or deaths via trains or planes? Should we just ban all life because it will result in death at an astounding success rate of 100%?