Thanks for joining in and that’s an interesting question. I’m sure different people within EA will have different opinions on this too,
Personally I don’t think the size of the problem is a deal breaker in working on an issue. I would happily work on a small issue if it was tractable (solvable) and neglected. If a small-ish problem could be solved cost-effectively, then why not go ahead and do it?
Type 1 diabetes especially is an interesting problem, in that there is some potential for it to be permanently “solved” and eradicated, somewhat like smallpox is. For example we could transplant pancreatic iselet cells into diabetics, effectively curing the disease meaning that diabetics wouldn’t need insulin and they could live normal lives. This kind of intervention could be extremely cost-effective due to the enormous effect it would have not only saving current lives (like mosquito nets do), but also future lives.
As a side in my opinion both diabetes type 1 and 2 would both fall in the category of pretty large scope problems.
Thanks for joining in and that’s an interesting question. I’m sure different people within EA will have different opinions on this too,
Personally I don’t think the size of the problem is a deal breaker in working on an issue. I would happily work on a small issue if it was tractable (solvable) and neglected. If a small-ish problem could be solved cost-effectively, then why not go ahead and do it?
Type 1 diabetes especially is an interesting problem, in that there is some potential for it to be permanently “solved” and eradicated, somewhat like smallpox is. For example we could transplant pancreatic iselet cells into diabetics, effectively curing the disease meaning that diabetics wouldn’t need insulin and they could live normal lives. This kind of intervention could be extremely cost-effective due to the enormous effect it would have not only saving current lives (like mosquito nets do), but also future lives.
As a side in my opinion both diabetes type 1 and 2 would both fall in the category of pretty large scope problems.