Swimmer963 comments on Prediction is hard, especially of medicine - Less Wrong
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Comments (47)
Most people don't spend their own money on saving their grandparents, they spend other people's money. Don't act surprised that other people's willingness to throw tens of millions at your grandfather's last year is not unlimited.
Also if people really cared about how long other people in their country lived, total cigarette ban would be a super simple and super cheap way to start (especially since e-cigarettes are an existing and viable low-cancer substitute - people want the psychoactive bits not the tar). And trans fat ban - or at least strict labeling requirement (which would amount to the same, since nobody want that, and trans fats don't have any special taste or anything, they're just industrial poison in food). Or throwing some money at making roads safer (most accidents happen on small fraction of bad spots). And in countless other ways. Throwing ridiculous amount of money at people when they're oldest is stupid way to achieve an already stupid goal.
I think you overestimate the degree to which people are intentional about their food intake.