Start with whatever answer you like, and then ask the right questions to get the right answers, and you can make a spreadsheet that backs up your initial positi

Start with whatever answer you like, and then ask the right questions to get the right answers, and you can make a spreadsheet that backs up your initial position. All arguments inspire nihilism when deconstructed. Descartes started an argument with one axiom, "I think therefrom I am" and logiced his way back to his initial worldview. I kind of wanted to get into an argument about numbers, not an argument about what makes a valid argument. Because there are no valid arguments. Back to smoking. One of the more honest cost analysis of smoking is the chapter Estimating the Costs of Tobacco Use in "Tobacco Control in Developing Countries"(2000). The entire paper is riddled with admissions that they are using uncertain data, they are omitting missing data, and that even if the data was perfect the statistics relay on assumptions. They also don't calculate the benefit of early death and reach a price fairly close to neutral(1.1%-.1% of gdp). So yeah, personally I don't trust their numbers either. Thanks for asking.