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Comment by rtkwe | Hacker News Reader

That would be an interesting analysis: savings of premature deaths from smoking vs long terms costs of people that smoke and don't die and costs of treating those early deaths before they die. Intuition says the costs probably outweigh the benefits there. Even so it feels pretty macabre (and species threatening at the extreme [1]) to consider someone dying before they need medical care a savings.

[1] Considering killing someone before they're born saves the cost of them and any children they would statistically have. So if we wiped out everyone we'd save all the money ever spent on healthcare.

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The high taxes for cigarettes (and similarly alcohol) should also be taken into account when considering net gains/losses. According to this [1] in the uk at least the taxes more than cover it for tobacco

[1]https://fullfact.org/economy/does-smoking-cost-much-it-makes...

Here in the US the taxes are much lower for a large portion of the country [1] so it probably doesn't come out so much in favor. Though long term health care is also more expensive here so it might all come out as even or similar enough.

[1] http://taxfoundation.org/blog/state-cigarette-tax-rates-2014

It creates enormous social pressure to increase cigarette and alcohol taxes. In Canada both are quite high and the general population supports it due to the public healthcare burdens.

For health issues I think this type of pressure is a positive social force.

How is [1] distinct from rational control of population (eg birth control by default), which will presumably be necessary to avoid food and resource waste (or war/starvation)? Health care seems to be just another factor affecting population cap.

[1] Differs from normal population control in it's extreme application of reducing costs by any means. Also population control has additional concerns beyond just reducing costs by not having people to deal with like sustainability of resource consumption and to me there's a large difference between a person never being born and dying early. Really my [1] wasn't meant to be seriously at all.

Another way to think about this is if a person comes into existence, then BI demands their immediate universal right to the resources to sustain their life comfortably without any contribution from that body.

So really, those who multiply the fastest win the resource war of the future? Or having kids is somehow constrained now through other hoops, like a "procreation license."

> Or having kids is somehow constrained now through other hoops, like a "procreation license."

Possibly, though better educated and better off people tend to have fewer children so there are other ways to limit population beyond strict China or Ender's Game style limits.

Or maybe asteroid mining will finally break and crash the whole materials economy making everything but space, food, and water extremely cheap.

My point is this: universal BI requires some level of population control (to prevent poverty and misery), and eventually some level of reproductive planning.

Universal BI leads to universal resource control.

Really we'll need either population control or (more likely and) to drastically limit consumption (or the impact of it maybe more closed cycle recycling) with or without BI.

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