> Arguing that we should let unfettered capitalism solve tech addition like it's solved obesity is... I don't even know how to finish that sentence it's such an inane fly-in-the-face-of-reality statement.
The Hollywood trope of needing to hire a thief to catch a thief is a strong one, but there's also a reason for that.
> The tool that has been effective at getting a large number of people to make choices that favor long-term outcomes over short-term ones is culture. ... Cigarette use has cut in half over the past fifty years. That didn't happen because tobacco startups invented innovative technology, and it didn't happen because we outlawed them.
This is correct, but maybe overstated.
Would it be too much to suggest that part of what contributed to the decline in the use of tobacco was the emergence of a competing substitute that worked better? You can almost directly correlate the slow decline of smoking culture with the slow emergence of coffee culture. It was easier for society to move from one stimulant that helped you get work done and had a social component in exchange for another that offered similar benefits than to simply abandon it.
It's not like coffee killed nicotine or caused it to decline, but the market did provide substitute experiences which I'd argue contributed to getting smoking down to the level that it is today, even if individual consumers didn't consciously look at it that way. Culture doesn't emerge entirely independently of market forces, there is a complex interplay between cultural developments exposing market opportunities, and the market discovering and enabling cultural expression. E-cigarettes are now further chipping away at the market for combustible tobacco, by providing a more precise substitute to the holdouts. The same can be said for the astonishing success of smokeless tobacco in Scandinavian countries (look up "snus"). Our culture is pushing back against the lack of hygiene around digital devices, and there are a lot of opportunities to engage with that culture as a business person, some of them could be totally orthogonal and it could take entrepreneurs to risk capital in testing some of them out.
Obesity isn't worse than it has ever been; it seems to have peaked in the US and has been declining for the last few years. A lot of the $66B spent on weight-loss is wasted, but this is usually how markets work, and the search space for solutions to a complicated problem can be large and can seem wasteful until previously unrecognized solutions become more widely adopted. The US market (both in commerce and ideas) has innovated like crazy in fitness and food culture over the last 2 decades to the point where it is almost unrecognizable. The cultural shift represented in cooking shows, Michael Pollan, farmer's markets, and shopping at Trader Joe's/Whole Foods, are probably having a slow but larger positive effect on obesity than a lot of snake oil out there – but a lot of failed approaches have also been discarded along the way, and the culture that develops around that and counteracts against obesity requires the failed approaches to develop. Is the emergence of athleisure like Lululemon as the dominant fashion trend and the culture and marketing around in the last decade culture? Or is it actually part of the market solution to obesity? It's not easy to disentangle.
Anyway, apologies for the long and late reply. I had your comment open in a tab from yesterday and thought you made a very compelling point, and felt compelled to add my thoughts while relaxing over a 3rd wave coffee instead of a cigarette.