From the smoker's/vaper's perspective: If puffing away satisfies your ego—maybe it's pleasurable, rebellious, or just habitual—go ahead and do it. Why stop for others? Concepts like "public health," "consideration for bystanders," or "environmental harm" are just more spooks, invented by society to guilt-trip you into self-sacrifice. Stirner might say something like: "The air isn't 'sacred' or 'collective property'; it's whatever you can use in the moment." However, if exposing others leads to consequences that annoy you (e.g., people confronting you, kicking you out of a space, or worse), then weigh if it's worth it. Egoism isn't about being dumb; it's about calculated self-enjoyment.


From the exposed person's perspective: If the fumes bother your ego—making you cough, feel sick, or just pissed off—don't whine about "rights" to clean air or appeal to laws (those are spooks too). Instead, assert your ownness: leave the area, tell the smoker to stop, remove them if you have the power (e.g., in a space you control), or band together with like-minded egos to create smoke-free zones. But do it because it serves you, not some abstract principle of justice or harm reduction. Stirner emphasizes that conflicts aren't resolved by ethics but by power—whoever has more "might" (through persuasion, force, or association) gets their way.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9203939/

I think about this a lot when I shoplift

Wikipedia is suppressing me from making this the portrait for his biography.