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Clarity comments on Open Thread, Feb 8 - Feb 15, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Here's a hint, replace "tobacco" with "marijuana", or some drug that's currently fashionable. Note, how your intuition changes.
I don't follow. Can you elaborate?
Do you think the people advocating for marijuana legalization would be satisfied with legalization under the terms you proposed for tobacco?
I think there were be different strata of marajuana legalisation advocates who would be satisfied with different things. But when I put forward a policy position, it isn't to maximise political tractability, but rather to maximise public health gains. Political tractability can itself be advocating for with spin, coalitions, maneuvering and other such politics.
The fact is. marajuana is not tobacco. They are not interchangeable, in the same way that meth and marajuana aren't interchangeable, or chocolate for that matter. They all have different weights of costs and benefits.
So why didn't you simply propose a ban?
Oh, maximising public health gains would probably require force-feeding vegetables (in prison, if necessary) and mandatory exercise (ditto). But in the meantime you can start by banning sugar.
keep things simple, but never simpler than they are
because that wouldn't maximise public health gains. Would people be overall less or more happy? It's pretty obvious and that's a pretty dumb solution.
Bans are bad because smoking is addictive and withdrawal is harmful. It would be cruel. This kind of black and white thinking and slippery slope argumentation is really suprising to see on LW.
edit: maybe you're on to something. Take a read of this about options for a tobacco endgame. The number of good options available to the regulatory community is sufficient to make any gentle-nudge policy researchers and advocates feel like they're wasting their time (and maybe they are!)