4 ms·

Afaik smokers and alcoholics are a blessing for most states. What is additionally spent on them due to healthcare costs is far less than the taxes they pay + th

Afaik smokers and alcoholics are a blessing for most states. What is additionally spent on them due to healthcare costs is far less than the taxes they pay + the retirement payments they don't receive due to premature death. Funny clip from Yes, Prime Minister https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWxukctTlsY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWxukctTlsY I think choice is good, and taxing appropriately a good measure. Not sure about today's health and safety obsession in general. Wonder if in today's world (hypothetically given the same technological means as back then) we would ever try something like a lunar landing. And one wonders what we will forbid in 20, 30 or 40 years. Prohibition again? All those "poor people, suffering from alcoholism, disproportionately those who can't afford therapies (esp with regards to long term alcoholism), people on the fringes of society, who we must help, and who can't be trusted to make their own choices, because _we_ know better"?

atlasunshrugged 5y ago
Ha, I've seen that clip and really enjoyed it. I also am pretty sure I saw some research that says that's not true but I've just been searching the last few mins and can't find it. I have a bunch of files from when I was working in the field that I really need to sort through. But yeah, I also am concerned about how safety driven we are for things and unwilling to take risks as a culture but that might be recency bias because I'm reading "Where is my flying car?" and they basically make the same point about the regulatory state stymieing innovation in the name of safety (often for absurd things like nuclear)
- Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
  It's really difficult to come up with good statistics, because of the number of things one can factor in. Tobacco industry in-country producing, or it's imported for example (total cost of cigarette smoking)? How many jobs directly, how many secondary (marketing, product chain, the news stand which sells them). How to factor in second-hand smoking exactly? Are smokers more likely to consume other drugs, if so, why? Because they have a tendency to try, or smoking causes them to try? How do you factor in that? How do you even "measure" that? With alcohol: how to factor in violence due to alcohol? How much less police incidents Friday / Saturday evening due to less alcohol? But what about people maybe going out less than before, or spending less money when doing so (will they pay the same prize for drinks if there's no alcohol involved)? What about sports betting and gambling industry (where it's legal)? How will it affect illegal drug use (we've been through that, but it's been long enough for people to say "well, it was different than"). Even the death statistic is tough to do. "Pre-mature death due to smoking", maybe the person also was overweight and had diabetes, how do you estimate how long this person would have lived, if they didn't smoke? In every step of the way is the possibility for variance. Social sciences, from sociology, to psychology, to health, is such a minefield. Medicine of course is half and half. You can do a lot of stuff on the level of biology, chemistry, hard science in a lab, but health benefits/damages are "observed" in practice (observational studies). And the number of problems there are just ... huge. I could go on and on and on...
BTCOG 5y ago
Oh, you can bet your ass that prohibition of alcohol again is coming far sooner than 20-40 years from now. Newsflash, everybody dies! The government should have no rights to infringe on what people want to consume. This is a slippery slope. I am not pro-cigarette here but pro choice of drug consumption. That, and the distinguishing of cigars and pipe tobaccos from that of what a cigarette really is, which is not natural tobacco. Cigarettes are 50% "mother's liquor," which is ground up floor scrap and stem tobacco parts into a nice little puree with added re-uptake nicotine boosting agents. This is then dried into sheets and chopped up to look like ribbons of tobacco. It is not smoking tobacco naturally. Leave the natural cigars and pipe tobaccos in another category. The FDA is going to target all tobacco cleverly as if it's all the same when they know very well that it is not. You think all these Addy popping, Vyvanse downing, benzo-calming programmers aren't dying way earlier? You are fooling yourselves so hard.

atlasunshrugged 5y ago

Ha, I've seen that clip and really enjoyed it. I also am pretty sure I saw some research that says that's not true but I've just been searching the last few mins and can't find it. I have a bunch of files from when I was working in the field that I really need to sort through. But yeah, I also am concerned about how safety driven we are for things and unwilling to take risks as a culture but that might be recency bias because I'm reading "Where is my flying car?" and they basically make the same point about the regulatory state stymieing innovation in the name of safety (often for absurd things like nuclear)

Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
It's really difficult to come up with good statistics, because of the number of things one can factor in. Tobacco industry in-country producing, or it's imported for example (total cost of cigarette smoking)? How many jobs directly, how many secondary (marketing, product chain, the news stand which sells them). How to factor in second-hand smoking exactly? Are smokers more likely to consume other drugs, if so, why? Because they have a tendency to try, or smoking causes them to try? How do you factor in that? How do you even "measure" that? With alcohol: how to factor in violence due to alcohol? How much less police incidents Friday / Saturday evening due to less alcohol? But what about people maybe going out less than before, or spending less money when doing so (will they pay the same prize for drinks if there's no alcohol involved)? What about sports betting and gambling industry (where it's legal)? How will it affect illegal drug use (we've been through that, but it's been long enough for people to say "well, it was different than"). Even the death statistic is tough to do. "Pre-mature death due to smoking", maybe the person also was overweight and had diabetes, how do you estimate how long this person would have lived, if they didn't smoke? In every step of the way is the possibility for variance. Social sciences, from sociology, to psychology, to health, is such a minefield. Medicine of course is half and half. You can do a lot of stuff on the level of biology, chemistry, hard science in a lab, but health benefits/damages are "observed" in practice (observational studies). And the number of problems there are just ... huge. I could go on and on and on...

BTCOG 5y ago

Oh, you can bet your ass that prohibition of alcohol again is coming far sooner than 20-40 years from now. Newsflash, everybody dies! The government should have no rights to infringe on what people want to consume. This is a slippery slope. I am not pro-cigarette here but pro choice of drug consumption. That, and the distinguishing of cigars and pipe tobaccos from that of what a cigarette really is, which is not natural tobacco. Cigarettes are 50% "mother's liquor," which is ground up floor scrap and stem tobacco parts into a nice little puree with added re-uptake nicotine boosting agents. This is then dried into sheets and chopped up to look like ribbons of tobacco. It is not smoking tobacco naturally. Leave the natural cigars and pipe tobaccos in another category. The FDA is going to target all tobacco cleverly as if it's all the same when they know very well that it is not. You think all these Addy popping, Vyvanse downing, benzo-calming programmers aren't dying way earlier? You are fooling yourselves so hard.