Thanks for this one. I love the idea of a trans-fat ban and I agree it’s plausible for rich countries at least given some governments already have limits. It’s worth noting there is already sme public support for moving away from trans-fats. Many products now list “no trans fats” on their label which indicates people care enough that companies are incentivised to advertise that. Many people though still don’t know how bad trans-fats are as well. Trans fats are one of the very few dietary things to have pretty solid evidence for the harm they cause
As a small note (which might be irrelevant as it doesn’t affect your calculations), the poorest of the poor (usually subsistence farmers) around the world effectively don’t consume trans-fat, so its not going to help them.
As a lolz note, for somene still getting used to EA things, this kind of thing cracks me up too. Love it :D “Thirdly, I discount for the probability of the world being destroyed anyway”
Agreed that the the poorest don’t consume trans fat—though I think the worry would be more that as countries get richer the problem gets worse, and you kind of want to nip the problem in the bud.
I find that one of the most useful heuristics when it comes to assessing whether a cause area is potentially >= GiveWell’s top charities, is looking at whether the problem is counterfactually solved by economic growth anyway (e.g. as countries get richer, sanitation/nutrition/access to healthcare improves, and stuff like malaria or diarrhoea becomes less of a problem) - not so for non-communicable diseases (or longtermist stuff like nuclear war, obviously).
Thanks for this one. I love the idea of a trans-fat ban and I agree it’s plausible for rich countries at least given some governments already have limits. It’s worth noting there is already sme public support for moving away from trans-fats. Many products now list “no trans fats” on their label which indicates people care enough that companies are incentivised to advertise that. Many people though still don’t know how bad trans-fats are as well. Trans fats are one of the very few dietary things to have pretty solid evidence for the harm they cause
As a small note (which might be irrelevant as it doesn’t affect your calculations), the poorest of the poor (usually subsistence farmers) around the world effectively don’t consume trans-fat, so its not going to help them.
As a lolz note, for somene still getting used to EA things, this kind of thing cracks me up too. Love it :D “Thirdly, I discount for the probability of the world being destroyed anyway”
Agreed that the the poorest don’t consume trans fat—though I think the worry would be more that as countries get richer the problem gets worse, and you kind of want to nip the problem in the bud.
I find that one of the most useful heuristics when it comes to assessing whether a cause area is potentially >= GiveWell’s top charities, is looking at whether the problem is counterfactually solved by economic growth anyway (e.g. as countries get richer, sanitation/nutrition/access to healthcare improves, and stuff like malaria or diarrhoea becomes less of a problem) - not so for non-communicable diseases (or longtermist stuff like nuclear war, obviously).