Porn. (Oh, wait a minute – Gore already took care of that.)
How would that result in a huge return? People overestimate the cost savings of treating chronic illness because people just get sick and die of something else.
I have seen studies which found the obese and smokers cost less over the lifetime of a patient vs a healthy weight non-smoker. Curing obesity isn’t going to result in cost savings. If anything, healthy people will cost more because they live longer and when they get truly sick they probably survive longer against the illness (racking up more costs).
Having said that, yeah a cure for obesity and diabetes would be nice but I’m not sure how far off that is. right now altering the endocrine system either via drugs or bariatric surgery is the best we can do.
Finally releasing the first two Shriekback albums on CD would be mine. A decent box set of everything up to 1986 would be favourite, too, but science has its limitations.
Near and dear to Doper’s hearts, I’d suggest trying to tackle ignorance. Ignorance is what stands in the way of social, scientific, environmental and economic improvement.
For example, climate change will cause massive social, environmental and economic problems, but ignorance stands in the way of mitigating it:
I knew those panels were no good!