seems this thread has hit the limit of depth...
First, the american indians called it a peace pipe for a reason, and also, only used it when there was a fight between two or more tribes. It reduces people's overall aggression reactivity.
The hypothesis has to do with the chain of communication that the inner dialogue is part of. When we think, there is a subthreshold signal activation sent to the muscles that wolud actuate the words we are thinking. This extra-cranial memory system (there is several, GI, musculo-skeletal, endocrine) creates these semi-automatic reactions.
Nicotine is a drug which disrupts specifically nicotinic, but generally acetylcholine synapses. It can act as a poison in its own right, but it also can block other poisons, it is not too distantly related to stuff like scopolamine and other anticholinergics (and btw, nicotine makes you smell cyanic acid gas, which normally is not sensible).
The acetyl-choline system is deeply intertwined with the musculorskeletal system, it controls muscle tension and release and coordinating all the muscles concurrently, and it's what people talk about "muscle memory", and those with impulse control often this thing runs away with the whole show now and then (funny for you, HAH).
Thus, as I have laid out, nicotine has an interaction related to the muscle memory and semi-automatic coordination in the musculoskeletal system, and thus it interfaces with the ability to speak.
Before a person says no, they have to think no. Nicotine makes that thought weaker by generally reducing that automatic interconnection system and putting a mental program in place, which usually is something like, no exaggeration "if I don't say yes he is gonna hurt me". The nicotine helps keep the "fuck you" voice from leading to a motivation to say out loud.
That's it, basically. I should also point out that in general, the breathing system regulates the arousal level of the brain, as in, you can calm yourself down and get yourself excited by changing your breathing, and your breathing changes, it changes your arousal, via the many mechanisms including CO2/O2 balance, glutamate, endocrine signals, adrenalin, etc. So nicotine also generally weakens the will against brainwashing, is basically what I'm saying. It takes some of the control away from the always wise non-ego memory of the extracranial nervous system.
"I got a bad feeling about it but I said yes anyway, even though I knew I was gonna be very angry about the result" - the story of every smoker's life. IMO. Look deeper, and you will see it. It was a stroke of luck in some respects, that Berneys started the field of mass manipulation aka "public relations" with a drug that weakens people in a very subtle way to persuasion, especially when it is hooked into the terror of traumas many of us experience in our early years.
Thank you for the thorough and interesting explanation 😯 I need to look deeper into it 🐇
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