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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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What does Japan have that America lacks, which might give them better long term health outcomes and a higher life expectancy?
Not relative to a public universal health care system, no.
If your diagnosis is "we need to cut cigarette use to save lives", but we're ignoring the very successful early medical interventions against cancer that save lives, then we've traded actual useful policy for This One Neat Trick that clearly doesn't deliver the intended results.
I'm saying not at all. With public universal health care, without public universal health care... it does not matter. There is a negative correlation between smoking and life expectancy.
Yes, that is a conclusion one could draw from this.
For the purposes of discussing this correlation, it does not matter. If we have universal health care, then cutting cigarette use will save lives. If we do not have universal health care, then cutting cigarette use will save lives. Conclusion: cutting cigarette use will save lives. That is true. No amount of discussion about unrelated third variables will make that not true.
If a third variable makes the model better, go ahead and add a third variable. But if someone doesn't even understand the two-variable model, we should make sure they understand THAT model before we add even more stuff that they don't understand.
It matters enormously. Literally the difference between surviving and not surviving.
You know, the thing you're measuring for.
Not for the purpose of establishing whether there is a negative correlation between smoking and life expectancy.
Also that comic is saying that adding a third variable does not always make the model better. Also p-hacking is a thing. It's the opposite of what you're trying to establish, which is the existence of a third variable which improves the model. And once again, I will say that if you find two correlated variables confusing, adding a third variable is NOT going to help you.
If you have tools to mitigate the risk, then you eliminate the correlation. That's the magic of modernization.
The thing about education is that it's not apolitical. You can receive an education that encourages social proclivities and biases. Conservative states produce conservative leaning academic institutions, which yield a higher rate of conservative voters even as they reward these people with degrees.
Going to BYU or Stanford or Princeton or Liberty will not turn you into a Liberal, pretty much by design. The Federalist Society is not turning out Democrats.
No, only if you eliminate the risk. Smoking is still negatively correlated with life expectancy in Japan. The correlation exists if you only look at the USA. It exists if you only look at Japan. It exists if you look at the global population.