Should we stop people from doing high risk activities in general? Mountain climbing? Sky diving?
Those impact society as well, and my medicinal expenses are higher when they get hurt.
Those impact society as well, and my medicinal expenses are higher when they get hurt.
> The cost burden from diabetes, including medical expenses and productivity loss, is expected to rise from beyond $940 million in 2014 to $1.8 billion in 2050. The prevalence of diabetes among Singapore residents (Singapore citizens and permanent residents) has increased over the decade. [...] Table 2 shows that even after accounting for Singapore's ageing population, the prevalence of diabetes in Singapore (10.5 percent) is higher than the world's average (8.8 percent). Rising obesity is also a significant contributor to the rise in diabetes prevalence. [1]
> Diabetes is a serious health concern in Singapore. One in three Singaporeans is at risk of developing diabetes in their lifetime. [...] The Ministry of Health (MOH) launched a War on Diabetes (WoD) in 2016, in response to the significant health and societal burden posed by diabetes, and established the national Diabetes Prevention and Care Taskforce (“Taskforce”) to spearhead a whole-of-nation initiative to tackle diabetes. [2]
References:
[1] https://www.healthhub.sg/a-z/diseases-and-conditions/626/dia...
[2] https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/HESA/Brief/B...
This is not comparable. We're not talking about banning sugary drink, but banning brainwashing people (including kids) to make them consume them.
Expected payoff = Probability * Impact.
Extreme activities have a low probability of resulting in anything bad (especially with the gear and protocol we have today), but the impact can be high when it happens -- though if we take the summation across the population the overall impact is low because only a small sliver of society will participate.
Sugar consumption has medium probability of leading to poorer health outcomes, and impact is also medium, but I suspect the overall payoff (or harm in this case) is much higher when summed across the population.
So yes, from a purely rational perspective, we should try to stop people from doing things that harm the system as a whole.
If they want to do things that harm themselves at a localized level (with no 2nd or 3rd order effects -- though this is rare), then on balance policies should allow them to.
The bleedin' obvious answer is where the benefits outweight the cost. Benefit obviously extends further than 'can kill with x% probability'.
This is a useless post, try answering the question, or giving a framework within which it can be answered, instead of asking it.
So from this you talk about banning them, right? Except you ban everything because everything has a risk, which is something no-one would accept. Alternative is you try and answer the question instead of asking it.
A utilitarian viewpoint.
A 'You-can-{smoke/drink/parachute/motorrace}-if-you-have-enough-money-to-cover-your-own-hospital-costs' approach.
An attempt to quantify where the line should be drawn, which is what I was getting at.
Or not ban them at all, as some people will propose, which certainly has some merit.
Hand over that decision to the government (which seems to be happening anyway) and wash your hands of it as an individual - the conformist approach.
And doubtless others.
Don't ask obvious questions, questions are easy, and this one is trivial to ask. Try to answer them instead.