The guy wasn’t talking about vaping though, but smoking. The one we know for sure gives you a ton of issues and health problems.
Whilst I agree it’s not a great analogy for right wing beliefs, I’d say it works as a good analogy for incel behaviour. I knew a guy who had fallen into that trap but managed to find his way out. When I asked him about it, he said it helped him cope, that it was easier to believe that it wasn’t his fault things were so shitty.
I really respect how he was able to realise that the things he and the people around him were saying was bullshit, and it made me realise that a lot of these people are being taken advantage of by “influencers” spewing this harmful rhetoric.
Game mechanics can be patented. It’s stupid, but things such as “loading screen mini games” and “overhead arrows pointing to your objective” have been patented. The second I believe even got enforced once.
I think these kind of things have been getting approved less and less, but I wouldn’t be surprised if “balls that contain monsters” was patented back in the early days too.