Re:Singapore to become first country banning ads on sugary d...
by wenc on Sunday October 13, 2019 @07:15PM
(#21243934)
Well, we know that:
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.
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.