Thread: I'm Glad I'm on the Downhill Side of This Life

Your comparison isn't useful because it presumes that smoking is the overwhelmingly most significant cause of shortened life expectancy; outweighing all other causes combined. Without this presumption, you can't draw any conclusion from the data you present.

For instance, the number of homicides, the obesity rate and related illnesses, the number of fatalities in automobile accidents, and several dozen other causes of death are significant enough that they would need to be removed from your life expectancy calculation to get a truly representative sample. And at that point, I'm fairly certain the numbers would look a lot worse for the point you are making.

Originally Posted by IanS

And at that point, I'm fairly certain the numbers would look a lot worse for the point you are making.

Nice to be certain if only fairly certain.

Homicides and obesity I know are much much higher in the US vs Japan.

Car accidents, ya that's a presumption, but I'd wager it's a pretty sound one.

Also, I trust that the life insurance industry isn't bigoted towards smokers. They're smart fellows. They give smokers much less coverage because they run the numbers and they can prove mathematically that a smoker is X times more likely to die. That is how they determine coverage and rates.

Originally Posted by IanS

Your comparison isn't useful because it presumes that smoking is the overwhelmingly most significant cause of shortened life expectancy; outweighing all other causes combined. Without this presumption, you can't draw any conclusion from the data you present.

For instance, the number of homicides, the obesity rate and related illnesses, the number of fatalities in automobile accidents, and several dozen other causes of death are significant enough that they would need to be removed from your life expectancy calculation to get a truly representative sample. And at that point, I'm fairly certain the numbers would look a lot worse for the point you are making.

But is this not the point!Overall lifestyle.These countries have extremley high smoking rates and there living longer than us, so if smoking is so bad why isn,t their life span less.The anti smoking brigade, the government have been telling everyone that it is the most significant cause.So someones telling porky pies.So do you agree with me that there are more pressing issues that need to be looked at, diet obviously is the number one factor in health and life expectancy.Second hand smoke, and third hand smoke(now theres a joke if I ever heard one) have been made out to be the cause of every ones troubles.Smokers have been made the whipping boys in todays society and are fair game for anyone with an axe to grind.The scandal of this social engineering experiment will surely go down as the biggest con of the 20th century.
Can you please explain this

Originally Posted by AussiePostie

But is this not the point!Overall lifestyle. These countries have extremley high smoking rates and there living longer than us, so if smoking is so bad why isn,t their life span less.The anti smoking brigade, the government have been telling everyone that it is the most significant cause.So someones telling porky pies.So do you agree with me that there are more pressing issues that need to be looked at, diet obviously is the number one factor in health and life expectancy.Second hand smoke, and third hand smoke(now theres a joke if I ever heard one) have been made out to be the cause of every ones troubles.Smokers have been made the whipping boys in todays society and are fair game for anyone with an axe to grind.The scandal of this social engineering experiment will surely go down as the biggest con of the 20th century.
Can you please explain this

I think that is exactly the point. You just simply can't compare those figures - you have to compare smokers and non-smokers with similar lifestyles and background.

As for Japan, how do you prove their smoking hasn't decreased their life-expectancy? Who knows how high it would be without smoking.

"government have been telling everyone that it is the most significant cause." Please, reference us when exactly the goverment has claimed this. I don't believe for a minute the goverment would make such claim.

Where is smoking being officially made cause for everything? Where are smokers being made whipping boys for everything?

With all due respect, your post tries to make smokers look like scapegoats, feigning hurt and injustice to try to emotionally affect readers. If you think that is not the case, please provide references to your claims that smokers have been blamed for everything, and I'll withdraw my words back.

Originally Posted by ursus

"government have been telling everyone that it is the most significant cause." Please, reference us when exactly the goverment has claimed this. I don't believe for a minute the goverment would make such claim.

Where is smoking being officially made cause for everything? If you think that is not the case, please provide references to your claims that smokers have been blamed for everything, and I'll withdraw my words back.

Sorry I forgot to answer your question.Where I come from There are government addvertisments on TV and mandatory warnings on cigarette packs "telling" everyone they are not claiming this as fact they are just "telling" people that smoking is the No1 cause of premature deaths. As for causes there are mandatory GOVERNMENT warnings on cigarette packs stating that smoking "CAUSES", not may or might be a contributing factor but "CAUSES"
strokes
heart attacks
cancer
gangrene
impotence
blindness
asthma
copd
sids
birth abmortalities
premature deaths
and the list goes on.
The strange thing is non smokers actually die of all these as well,these are actually just diseases of old age, so smoking is obviuosly not the only factor. The other strange abnomilly is that there is no premature age death set for smokers, so if you die when your 100 years old and your a smoker it will still be listed as a premature death on statictical records. If you die of a heart attack and weigh 200kgs and never excersiced a day in your life, but if you smoked it will be listed as a smoking related death for statictical records.As a smoker you virtually have to get run over by a bus not to recorded as a smoking related death!

A friend of mine used to say that if he were to be struck by lightning everyone would say that the booze finally got him. My father smoked cigarettes from the time he was 15 until he was 40. He quit the cigarettes and exchanged them for a pipe with occasional cigars. He died at 84 of old age and smoked a pipe up until a week before he passed on.

I still say at 61 that not being sure how much time I've got left I am glad I am on the downhill side. I see society becoming more and more totalitarian as the years go by and I'll be ready when my time comes. Smoking G L Pease Blackpoint right now in an old Comoy Specimen Straight Grain.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

A friend of mine used to say that if he were to be struck by lightning everyone would say that the booze finally got him. My father smoked cigarettes from the time he was 15 until he was 40. He quit the cigarettes and exchanged them for a pipe with occasional cigars. He died at 84 of old age and smoked a pipe up until a week before he passed on.

I still say at 61 that not being sure how much time I've got left I am glad I am on the downhill side. I see society becoming more and more totalitarian as the years go by and I'll be ready when my time comes. Smoking G L Pease Blackpoint right now in an old Comoy Specimen Straight Grain.

That is is so strange, booze had nearly killed my father by the age of 28,when he gave it away.But he has smoked since he was 8 years old and I mean he chain smokes roll your owns.He has bowel cancer now but he is 82.He has refused any treatment, told them not to waste the money, spend the money on sick children not old buggers like him.
He reckons god looks after drunks an fools and he,s been both.

Just had a couple of home made pasties straight out of the oven,have poured myself a nice english breakfast tea and filled the falcon with erinmore flake. What away to finish the weekend. As the old man allways says to me "remember son yesterday,s history,tomorrow,s a mystery,today is the only reality"

Originally Posted by AussiePostie

But is this not the point!Overall lifestyle.These countries have extremley high smoking rates and there living longer than us, so if smoking is so bad why isn,t their life span less.The anti smoking brigade, the government have been telling everyone that it is the most significant cause.

I agree, smoking did get singled out. Largely as a backlash of the public going "Holy shit, look how much money the tobacco lobby is giving BOTH parties?!"

So the politicians said "Oh, crap... Tobacco... BAD! I'm not for sale... God I hope they don't figure out all the other lobbies I've been sold to."

Obesity is getting targeted next... but while tobacco use is among like 40% of the population, gluttony is among closer to 100%, so it's a great deal harder to address. Also, McD's has a lot less damning memo's about how they want to hide the fact that BigMacs are addictive and cause cancer and get kids hooked on them in grade school. Basically once it came out that pretty much every tobacco exec in the past 60 years has been almost comic-book villian evil, the tobacco industry had to realize it was going to have some rough days ahead. It's hard to argue for compromise and fairness with regard to some rich guys sitting around sending memo's back and forth asking for better methods to kill your children without you finding out.

Look guy,s,I know the tobacco giants are no angels,I know primary smoking isn,t totally harmless and I do realise that people may find second hand smoke annoying. But in the last 10 years the anti tobacco movement which is largely funded by the pharmacutical companies has totaly lost the plot with decitfull information,dodgy research papers and with an agenda of fear and hatred.Any phsycolligist will tell you the easiest way to control people is to firstly give them something to fear and hate, then they will believe and act on any information you supply them on the chosen subject even if that information is untrue.
I do not care how good the ultimate goal is. To blatently supply the public with misinformation on any subject to achieve that goal is not justified.
PS. In 1998 the WHO carried out its own study on the effects of second hand smoke, results no catergory studied showed anything of statistical signifigance, except one, they did find it was annoying to people.Suffice to say this report was buried.
Two of the biggest people in tobacco control in the U.S.A, DR. micheal siegel and david gorlitz have in the last 5 years disasociated themselves from the anti tobacco crusade citing the fact that these people have become far worse than the tobacco industry ever was in lying and with absurd statments like third hand smoke and their attack,s on smokers instead of smoking, and are making the whole issue of tobacco control look like a joke. Just google FORCES INTERNATIONAL to get some information on the smoking debate.You might not agree with everything there but in my opinion they take a more realistic approach to the subject than the emotive non substantiated articles at sites like ASH.So you see I do like to look at things from all sides and check on the credability of so called experts and their research papers.

Anyway take comfort in the fact that I am considerant off other peoples comforts and well being and not just on the subject of smoking.My mode of transport is a small motor bike,all my heating and cooking is done using renewable energy resources,I recycle everything, I have many trees on my property which are replenishing the atmosphere and even though I live in a bushfire prone area I am planting more for the good of the planet.My main concern in life is not how long I can live, it is in being happy within myself, and leaving as small of a footprint on the planet as I can.
So Ursus,MichaelP and IanS if you don,t mind being around a pipe smoker and your in Australia, drop in for a cuppa and a chat I,m sure you will find me a nice and friendly sort of bloke.