this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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A Boring Dystopia

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https://fortune.com/2026/03/04/palantir-tech-companies-offices-vending-machines-tobacco-worker-productivity/

Free drugs for being a good cog? Man now we are talking business perks.

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[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 165 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Now that's some cyberpunk dystopian shit. Corpos drugging up employees for productivity.

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 80 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

in the 1960s American cigarette companies used to leave free packs of cigarettes in freshman dorms at the beginning of the school year because at least some of them would get bored and try it.

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 26 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Don't worry, the Kent Micronite filter cigarettes helped with cancer thanks to the power of asbestos.

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[–] zeezee@slrpnk.net 51 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I mean that's not new - tech companies will still advertise "coffee on tap" as a perk to work for them

[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 30 points 3 weeks ago

Can confirm, my time at microslop in the mid 2000s included break rooms with coolers full of every caffeinated beverage you can think of.

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[–] GorGor@startrek.website 21 points 3 weeks ago

the whole idea of a coffee 'break' was created to pump stimulants into workers to improve productivity.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 19 points 3 weeks ago

Hey with the added benefit of addiction they can't afford to leave the office now!

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[–] CubitOom 54 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)
[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Is there more footage of Hitler tweaking? Show modern nazis what their shitty "master race" looks like.

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[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's fucking hilarious, hitler was a tweaker

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[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 29 points 3 weeks ago

Only because they don’t yet have approval to hand out amphetamines

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 27 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm still going outside for a smoke when I get my 15. They are only providing pouches (snuff) so people don't have to leave their workstation to get their fix.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 21 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah. I can't wait for my complimentary IV and catheter at my cubicle and 0 breaks.

I used to take smoking breaks without smoking cause it wasnt fair to dish them out to only smokers.

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[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

What do you think free coffee is for?

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Less for the caffeine, more for stopping people from going out for coffee.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago
[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 16 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago

If Russia invades Finland just give them a crate of pervitin and they will be in Moscow by sunrise.

[–] kungen@feddit.nu 5 points 3 weeks ago

Nicotine is synergetic with amphetamines, double win.

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[–] Gerudo@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Hmmm, how much you want to bet the tobacco companies slipped a little money under their door mat

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 4 points 3 weeks ago

I don't want to lose money having to take the opposite of you. The likelihood they are actually just buying this at market price and don't have a contract is so low it might as well be rigged.

[–] TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today 14 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

It's appalling that they're doing it but they aren't tobacco products, they nicotine products.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

A lot of the nicotine in products like these is made from tobacco. Some of it is synthetic nicotine, some is plant-derived.

I couldn’t find statistics but at least some companies have different product names for synthetic vs natural.

e.g. “VELO” is plant-derived while “VELO Plus” is synthetic.

https://nicokick.com/us/pouch-perfect/products/velo-vs-velo-plus

[–] youCanCallMeDragon@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

In my opinion this is splitting hairs. Chewing tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, etc., are tobacco products having tobacco as a main ingredient. Nicotine gum, pouches, patches, and ecigs are nicotine products as they have nicotine (synthetic or derived) but no actual tobacco. If the got the nicotine from eggplants you wouldn’t call it an eggplant product.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

I wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t say someone else was wrong if they did.

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[–] tburkhol@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

And here's me, reading that tech companies are feeding their employees tabasco and wondering just what that's supposed to do.

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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 3 weeks ago

The original nazis used meth, but these fash aren't quite there yet.

[–] arcine@jlai.lu 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Nicotine : one of the only drugs that makes you a better slave ; therefore, one of the very few legal ones.

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[–] oopsgodisdeadmybad@lemmy.zip 12 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Fuck this to hell. I want tobacco to go extinct, not be more accessible.

If there was a button that just made every tobacco plant (and the backups in that one seed vault place) die, I would keep pushing it for days just to make sure it was all gone. Including existing smoking products.

Not sorry not sorry. Addicts all going cold turkey that day.

[–] ImNotThatPokable@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

As a nicotine addict, I wouldn't advise this. Making every one of us go cold turkey in one moment will be the end of humanity. Nicotine withdrawal is no joke.

I don't understand your fury to be honest. It's unhinged. So what happened to make you feel this way?

[–] dsilverz@calckey.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

@oopsgodisdeadmybad@lemmy.zip @Krauerking@lemy.lol
@aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

First, I don't smoke and never had smoked (not considering the passive smoking from being close to smokers), the only "drug" I use non-frequently is alcohol (a vodka-saké beverage).

This said, your paternalistic implied thought ("drugs are bad, people shouldn't use drugs"; are their bodies yours, to begin with? Do you happen to have some kind of ownership over other's bodies? Who gave you this almighty authority, do you happen to be a Demiurgal Archon of sorts?) is missing the forest for the trees.

I'm barely knowledgeable about biology, but I know enough to remember about symbiotic relationships in nature, as well as phylogenetics. The plant responsible for tobacco wasn't some kind of lab creation, IIRC tobacco plant even predates us homininae, and this means there are certainly species biologically interacting with the tobacco plant, perhaps species reliant of tobacco plant (not necessarily because of nicotine, but because it's a plant which siphons nutrients and resources from the soil, displacing water and somehow contributing to water cycles).

The moment this Archonic hubris illustrated by your text were to render tobacco extinct, unbeknownst to you, other species would be going extinct as well, and this may include humans due to how food web is so interconnected in ways we're still trying to figure out. That's part of why we try to classify species taxonomically and phylogenetically, because this is also valuable for us to identify potential interspecies relationships. I mean, this is exactly what phylogenetics is about: study of evolutionary relationships among biological entities.

So, please, seek some phylogenetics and biology awareness before feeding paternalistic, bigoted anti-drug thoughts. Others bodies aren't yours for you to wish for control, let alone other species.

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 weeks ago

Yes drugs are bad, we should all have to rawdog experiencing the planet boiling.

What an enlightened take, that's positively upvoted — no less!

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[–] 01189998819991197253 11 points 3 weeks ago

Why don't they just use their job replacing AIs?

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

Always with the "extract every ounce of yourself for us", never with the "take care of yourself to maximize your potential for us".

[–] StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago

It works...at first.

[–] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Coffee is my drug of choice and my work provides it for me. Thank you, work.

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Is coffee not good enough anymore?

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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

just realized decaf is not an option in my office 🤔

[–] FalschgeldFurkan@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

Until they have newbies trying that stuff and ending up puking and/or having headaches

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I mean, tech jobs and stimulants have always gone hand in hand. My theory is that's because the field attracts a lot of people with ADHD.

This is functionally no different than a company providing coffee.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 18 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

I'm as much of a "caffeine is an addictive psychoactive drug" person as the next but nicotine is so much worse.

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[–] RazTheCat@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Man, just modafinil or adderall lol.

I've heard Meth keeps you on even longer, the Nazis knew that already with Panzerschokolade.

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[–] lemjukes@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

for anyone just interested in reading a recent study on the effects of nicotine.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11350241/

[–] Lucius_Sweet@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I found this review paper interesting and I don't doubt that nicotine can have therapeutic effects but the funding source worried me.

Conflict of interest

Authors YC, XW, XZ, HT, YZ, JZ, and SZ were employed China Tobacco Anhui Industrial Co., Ltd.

The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The authors declare that this study received funding from Technology Project of Anhui Zhongyan Industry Co., Ltd. The funder had the involvement in the study design, data analysis, decision to publish, and preparation of the manuscript.

Funding Statement The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was financially supported by the Technology Project of Anhui Zhongyan Industry Co., Ltd. (2022156), Science and Technology Projects of State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (110202201046XX-05), Startup Program of XMU and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

[–] prenatal_confusion@feddit.org 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Damn. That study is toasted.

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