I disagree. I believe that while your nation has prosperity/stability, you should use the resources on spreading that stability around the world.

I don't believe in the lines of "it's not our war" - forget nations and states - these are just man-made phenomena, and think about humanity as a whole, and think about fighting to improve the lives of civilians around the world - even if they're not your citizens.

Let's not forget that the reason why Canada doesn't need to spend on military is b/c the US is there.... same for lots of other countries with medicare. The US doesn't have anyone bigger to protect them.

Such costs are meanignless... they are indirect costs.

I can name DOZENS of indirect costs like that caused by things as indirect as reading.

Personally, I am quite against Western Intervention. I guess my opinion would be different if i had a financial stake in. After WWII The UN was supposed to prevent atrocities from happening, of course the only atrocities that were stopped were those that were strategically important for security and financial reasons. I guess I'm thinking of the U.N.s refusal to characterize the Rwandan genocide as a genocide, the mass murders of Khmer Rouge and the current "civil war" in Sudan and the intentional killing of civilians in that conflict. The desire promote "democracy and stability" often seems to destabilize the situation - too much blowback. I'm just cynical and maybe somewhat isolationist, because the interventions often seem too selective or unilateral.

How the hell are they meaningless? Just because you can't put a dollar sign next to something doesn't mean it's meaningless.

It's highly important, it's this kind of attitude that has led to many of the environmental problems that we're currently having, and a general break down in society (crime rates, depression, divorces, etc).

Go on, then, do it, name DOZENS (remember, dozens - that's at least 24) of indirect costs that come from reading - and how many of them are anywhere near as damaging as the indirect costs of smoking.

Also, are you just going to disregard the rest of my post? Didn't highwaystar101 accuse you of something similar to this just earlier in the thread?

They're meaningless because such costs can be attributed to virtually anything.  You think smoking has led to a breakdown in society?  How?

By the way dozens caused by indirect things = in many different things.  Looking hard enough i probably could come up with 24 with reading alone but i'll stop at 8.

1) Damage to the enviorment because of the paper used for the books.

2) Time spend reading could be used working which would generate money for their familes, themselves and the state.

3) The more you read makes it slower for you to respond about things you know about. (Repition priming)

4) Reading can give people an idealized view of the world and set them up for failure when things aren't as easy as they are in popular fiction where people succeed.

5) Reading can give people racist views by reading such things as mein kaumf.

6) Reading can make people influnce people into becomeing radical christains or muslims or some other group who bombs stuff.

7) People who are reading could be spending time with their parents.

8) People who read negative things may develop a negative world view, and optimisitc people are shown to live longer.

You can make these kinds of lists for EVERYTHING.  If you are worried about people not paying their fair share for this kind of stuff though... you should be for privatised healthcare.  Then they would be paying for it.

The arguement you have is largely baseless though... when the real truth is... smokers are just an easy target because they're a minority, gross, and looked at negativily.

Pretty much everything people do is going to cost society in some way, outside of working, buying stuff and raising a family.

Smoking has led to a breakdown in society in the sense that losing family members/friends early can lead to things like depression, which can have huge negative effects on work, relations, etc, and lead to divorce, further depression.

Also, you get a lot of cases of teens who start smoking and the parents find out, causing a greater strictness on parenting, resulting in greater rebellion, can lead to crime, etc.

However, that wasn't my point, I was remarking on the attitude that "indirect" costs don't matter in general, in which the breakdown of society would be a much bigger point.

As for your 8 points: 1 is the most valid, and I think that there should be legislation that all paper should be retrieved from sustainable sources, and the cost of the book would reflect this, thus turning the indirect cost into a direct cost.

3, 4, 5, 7, 8 only effect the person that is reading the book, people who don't read aren't effected by these, thus it's not an indirect cost (or, at least, not the kind of cost I was talking about).

2 is genuine, however, people work more effectively if they are rested. Reading is a great way to relax and rest.

6 is the only one I can't really respond to. So much for dozens.


Yes, you can make these lists for everything, and we should be - it's the only way we're going to turn society into a sustainable one - for actually paying for ALL costs, external and internal.

Your last statement is false. Tobacco duty is under the same band as Alcohol duty and Fuel duty - those two aren't in the minority, these are taxed to high heavens for two reasons: provides short term taxation revenues, and because they are three things which have extremely high external costs.

Nor reuw.

3) Effects your work, possibly makes you worse at your job.  Makes your company worse lowers GDP.

4) People who may have been huge drivers of the industry instead have failed.  The more people in a population primed for success, the more talented the workforce is going to be.

5) Racism doesn't effect other people?  What if this person becomes a manager somewhere?  Talented jewish guy can't get a job utilizing his skills.

7) Not spending time with their parents, or for that matter kids.  Distance with their children.  Children resent their parents.  Families are destroyed.

8) Possibly productive people die earlier.

Like I said.  I could come up with more i'm sure.  But I was talking about dozens for many harmless things.

Pretty much all personal choices negativly effect society in some way... and that's fine.  Because people aren't meant to ONLY be a collective.

Taxing everyone for everything negative they do that indirectly effects society is well... i hate to keep using the word but... Facist.

Nor reuw?

And I'm not talking about the little things, I'm talking about the bigger things... like the huge effects to the environment from smoking, etc - those are things that should be paid for, not a slightly slower response time from knowing too much.

It's funny how you completely changed the argument. Hell, you didn't even address the rest of my original post.

And what's not paying for these things? If these things go unaccounted for (I mean the big things, like environmental damage), and people suffer from it - EVERYONE, not just the people who used the good/service, isn't that infringing on rights more so? I don't really understand how paying the true cost of something is fascist in any way.

This is just another problem with government run healthcare. I think the government needs to charge people differently for healthcare if they are going to run it. Just like I think a company needs to do the same thing.