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by greggman
3913 days ago
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Aren't you falling prey to the exact problem being brought up? You seem to be claiming murders have a bigger social impact than deaths by smoking. How can we know that's true? By what measure? If we assume murdered people have on average the same number of social connections then 500000 smoking deaths have exactly 500k/16k more social impact than murders. By focusing on the murders aren't we ignoring the much larger social impact? |
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My main point is that the numbers are not directly comparable, and that is misleading. The numbers are not measuring the same thing; all deaths are not equal.
It's quite logical to think murder is vastly more impactful than smoking deaths. For instance: with murder you have the burden of a police investigation, a court case, possibly many appeals, jail time for the convicted. Maybe even the death penalty (which is incredibly costly). You also have families torn apart by sudden and unexpected grief, as well as the families of those who go to prison now having that burden.
Deaths from smoke related disease are signalled a long way off. People have time to prepare, and adapt to the passing of their loved ones. There is definitely social cost, but I don't think it's irrational to expect it to be much lower than the social cost of a murder.
But even if deaths from smoking related disease are more impactful than murder, my point still stands: the two quantities are not directly comparable.