As I said:

The risk of all-cause mortality from smoking is, in average years of life-expectancy lost, ten times greater than for daily eating of processed (and only processed) meat. So on Q2: nope.

The answer to Q1 therefore does not matter. It’s still an all-cause 10:1 difference in mortality. Obsessing over one single diagnosis has no bearing on this.

That doesn’t help at all. I disagreed with you on the effect size you claim to be trivial. I posed two questions along with my comment. You didn’t answer any question at all. You just restated your previous points which I disagreed with and gave reasons for it. I don’t see how my response is irrelevant in the light of information. I’ll make it clear again.
Q1) Do you think light smoking increases risk of CVD?
Q2) Q2) Would you accept that CVD mortality risks of consuming processed meat are greater in absolute terms than the risk of dying due to lung cancer from Smoking?

I did answer you.

Your points are irrelevant in light of the information I returned to focus.

I see you didn’t answer the questions I posed. Can you let me know your response to my questions.

Smoking knocks ten times more years off of your life than eating bacon. Bacon only knocks a year or two. These are not comparable outcomes. One is trivial. The other is severe. Smoking also readily causes decades of disability (e.g. emphysema); bacon does not. Etc.

If you, personally, want those one to two years, then by all means, eat as you please. But don’t go around saying everyone should share your unreasonable desires. Most people prefer a better life to a mere extra year of it. For most people, “The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

And certainly don’t go around saying bacon is like smoking. It is literally not even remotely like smoking in the damage, misery, and death it causes.

Dr carrier i disagree with you on dismissing 18% risk as low. Let me elaborate.

Smoking is associated with 2-3X risk of mortality compared to people who have never smoked(PMID 25671255).Keeping in mind that regular smokers are consuming 1+ packets per day. We don’t usually get the same amount of contrast in meat intake(it’s usually less) Moderate smoking(less than 1 cig/day is associated with 64% increase risk in CVD while 1-10 cigs is associated with 87%risk(PMID27918784).Compare this to a serving of processed meat per day. If we hone in on a specific Outcome like coronary heart disease(PMID29367388) light smoking is not comparable to foods like processed meat and not too far off unprocessed red meat. Plus data on smoking trends do not do a good job of adjusting for the confounders as nutritional epidemiology

Q1) Do you think light smoking increases risk of CVD?

Further, if we take the 18% risk CRC from WHO report, that translates into a little under 1% increase in absolute risk. However if we take the number 1 killer CVD and assume about 20% relative increase risk and baseline risk of 25% for the sake of argument, it would then mean about 5% absolute increase in risk. Now let’s look at smoking. Let’s say smoking can increase the risk of lung cancer by 10X for this demo. Well that only translates to an absolute risk of 1%.This is why presenting the numbers you did and dismissing ‘low’ numbers is misleading

Q2) Would you accept that CVD mortality risks of consuming processed meat are greater in absolute terms than the risk of dying due to lung cancer from Smoking?

That’s an illogical statement. You can’t claim humans are simultaneously not smart enough to know something and smart enough to know it.

But “smart” is not relevant here. Intelligence has nothing to do with cognitive self-modeling. Even my desktop computer is incredibly smart. And we’ve built robots smarter still. They still aren’t self-conscious.

We can only arrive at conclusions from knowledge. Not fantasies contrary to all existing empirical evidence.

Far from impossible to know, it’s already a confirmed scientific fact. Read the actual article you are commenting on. And if you want more on the science that has established what abilities animals cognitively lack see my debate with Paul Bali.

Something from article:

“Meat is murder

But let’s imagine for a moment that the technology could do something more – it could reveal more of the animal’s mind to us. One way this could benefit animals is it would show us that animals think about their future. This might stop us from eating animals because it would force us to see animals as beings who value their own lives.

The whole notion of “humane” killing is based on the idea that as long as you take efforts to minimise an animal’s suffering, it is okay to take its life. Since animals do not consider their lives in the future – they are stuck in the “here and now” – they do not value their future happiness.

If technology could allow animals to show us that animals do have future aspirations (imagine hearing your dog say: “I want to play ball”), and that they value their lives (“Don’t kill me!”), it is possible that this technology could stir in us deeper compassion for animals killed for meat.

However, there are also reasons to be sceptical. First, it is possible that people would simply attribute the speaking ability to the technology and not to the animal. Therefore, it would not really change our fundamental view of the animal’s intelligence.

Second, people are oftentimes motivated to ignore animal intelligence information anyway.”

How do we know for certain animals we eat doesn’t value life? It’s impossible to know… If you ask me.