
Falling inequality in mortality in the US - MaysonL
http://voxeu.org/article/mortality-inequality-good-news-county-level-approach
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cromulent
What great news. Congratulations to all those working hard in that area.

"Underlying explanations include declines in the prevalence of smoking and
improved nutrition, and a major cause is social policies that target the most
disadvantaged."

It will be interesting how history treats smoking in the long term (next
century). I am still interested in the solutions proposed (and defeated) in
Singapore and Tasmania where persons born after 200x may not purchase
cigarettes. I lean libertarian but this is one area I think government is
needed. Taking (or taxing) a pleasure away from someone who has enjoyed it for
years is not nice, but preventing people from falling into the trap is
different.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'm curious about the moral justification for banning things that cause harm
primarily to the people who do them.

I recently learned that gay (man to man) sex is actually super dangerous -
having gay sex for a year costs between 0.088 and 0.97 QALYs (due to spreading
HIV). This is significantly higher than most of the estimates I've heard for a
year of smoking.

[https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/are_gays_or_guns_mor...](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/are_gays_or_guns_more_dangerous.html)

Should we adopt some of your solutions for that too? Perhaps reintroducing
sodomy laws for people born after 200X?

If not, what principle distinguishes these two cases?

(Note: I'm perfectly ok with people engaging in self harm. So I obviously
don't favor such solutions. I'm just pointing out that this reasoning is
applied incredibly inconsistently.)

~~~
cromulent
I'm not saying things should be consistent, but dealt with case by case.
Definitely not a blanket ban things that cause harm primarily to the people
who do them. I'm talking specifically about smoking.

In the case of smoking, we have an industry that sells addictive items that
kill you, and has a history of lies and cover ups. I'm not sure of the
benefits, as I don't smoke, but I hear from people who have smoked and quit
that they are happier not smoking. I'm no expert, just someone who's
interested, as I said. Growing your own tobacco and smoking it would be a
different thing.

If tobacco smoking was introduced today, I think it wouldn't get past the FDA
and similar. Can we "turn off" a legal industry that is grandfathered in?
Should we?

Your slippery slope question of sodomy is different. There are no large
multinationals marketing and selling it. Just free individuals engaging.

The sale of tobacco products does seem to impose quite the externality on
society. Are we willing to put up with it long term? That's the question I'm
interested in.

~~~
blfr
_There are no large multinationals marketing and selling it._

Massive multinationals sell antiretroviral drugs and are heavily subsidized by
governments across the world. They directly profit from harm men having sex
with men cause to themselves and make you (and me) pay for it on top.

The average costs of such therapy is 15-50k USD a year, I googled[1],
depending on strain, circumstances, etc. Wouldn't that also be quite an
externality? Smokers are probably cheaper[2], because they die sooner.

[1] [https://www.poz.com/article/hiv-costs-
medication-19139-5119](https://www.poz.com/article/hiv-costs-
medication-19139-5119)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-
obese.1.97488...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-
obese.1.9748884.html)

~~~
cromulent
This is just silly. These drug companies aren't selling sex, nor encouraging
people to do it. They also sell chemotherapy drugs, which are also subsidized.
Tobacco causes 1 in 5 deaths _and it causes income inequality_ which is _what
the article is about_.

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noobermin
I have to wonder, this largely seems to have coincided with the fantastic
decrease in crime since the 2000's onwards. Coincidence?

I largely agree with the article. This needs to be lauded and discussed.

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tux1968
Rising equality in US mortality.

Is nice to see some progress.

~~~
home_boi
Dat double negative clickbait title

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hodwik
Uh oh, this doesn't fit the class-war narrative so no one is going to touch
it.

~~~
adrenalinelol
The article does say:

"Overall, these findings show that even in times of great economic inequality,
inequality in health outcomes is not inevitable but is strongly mediated by
policy."

Acknowledging income inequality as a problem, even if it isn't have a negative
effect on whether you die earlier or not.

~~~
hodwik2
How does that sentence acknowledge income inequality as a problem? It just
acknowledges it exists, it doesn't make any claim about whether or not it is a
problem.

~~~
adrenalinelol
The snippet:

"...in times of great economic inequality..."

^Is intentionally sensationalized, the notion being that economic inequality
in our society is generally viewed as a negative. Consider the following:

"...in times of great famine..."

Now you could try to make the argument that someone is merely stating a fact
and picked an adjatiave which helps the reader picture what's going on, but I
don't think anyone would assume the author considered famine to be a "neutral
fact". Similarly, the end snippet is clearly addressing the elephant in the
room given the title of the article, which was certainly chosen due to the
subject matter, but also due the phrase which we are debating (income
inequality), which is essentially another way or saying that a class of people
are losing wealth to another class.

~~~
hodwik
It acknowledges that some people think it is a problem, but it does not itself
make any statement about whether or not it's a problem.

For those of us who believe economic inequality is both good and natural, this
is a great rhetorical device for undermining the left -- "in this time of
great economic inequality, life is better than it has ever been for the
general populace."

A person on the left may use the opposite rhetorical device, "in this time of
great economic freedom, people are increasingly poor."

As this is written, there is no way to know which rhetorical device they were
using.

