International events

[Liffguard]

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

As to your previous point about capitalism being okay but the problem being humans I'd say it's almost precisely the opposite. 

I'd say the issue is that "human nature" is broad and flexible, and different aspects of it can be reinforced by different cultural expectations and incentive structures. And capitalism's strength and it's major downside is that, by positively incentivising certain negative (or perhaps antisocial) human traits (greed, insecurity, status-obsession) it channels those traits into productive ends. This results in enormous productive potential, which results in an enormous glut of material abundance (in the aggregate, distribution is another matter). But it also exercises no restraint on those traits. Indeed, very much the opposite. So you get endlessly expanding production, at any cost, without any thought to externalities, without any thought to whether or not what is being produced, or the manner in which it's produced, is conducive to human flourishing.

And of course the incentive structures are set up in such a way that even steady-state profitability is failure; if you don't grow, you fail. Which leads to endless attempts to find more and more revenue streams, to extract more and more resources, dump more and more waste, squeeze more and more out of the workforce.

Indeed, if I had to characterise what we call capitalism as simply as possible, it would be "always more." And often, more is good! An enormous amount of the physical abundance produced under capitalism has indeed made average quality of life much better for many people (physically at least, there are discussions to be had about capitalism's psychological/social/spiritual costs). But more isn't always good. And an incentive structure that mandates endless, accelerating extraction and endless, accelerating acquisition is obviously going to generate lots of negative externalities, especially on a closed, delicate ecosystem with unpredictable feedback loops.

Whenever "human nature" is invoked to explain/excuse certain negative outcomes, I wish people would be more specific. Is greed a part of human nature? Yes, certainly. Are altruism, cooperation and generosity parts of human nature. Also, yes. So which of these traits actually get expressed in society, and why? Do we live under sytems that actively incentivise some of those traits and repress others? Can we change those structures?

Edited February 23 by Liffguard

[Rippounet]

On 2/22/2024 at 10:58 AM, The Anti-Targ said:

People assume the right way is the way that won out over all the other possible ways.

Thank you.
It boggles my mind that whenever you point out that a given system or structure really isn't working well, there will always be people rushing to defend it because they are afraid what little good that is arguably being produced by the system or structure will disappear.
If you think about it for a bit, it isn't rational.

On 2/22/2024 at 10:58 AM, The Anti-Targ said:

Just because the current pharma industry model has delivered a great deal of benefit to humanity doesn't mean a different model wouldn't have delivered at least the same benefit without so much of the misery and suffering that the same industry has caused, and some times knowingly so.

We know this for a fact, because Big pharma is not that old, far from universal, and has to be heavily regulated to arguably do any good.
To defend Big pharma (of all systems or structures) is an astonishing failure of knowledge or imagination.

On 2/22/2024 at 12:37 AM, karaddin said:

Yeah the executives that run the companies are evil fuckers and you're misunderstanding me if you think I'm defending them, the world would be improved if we could flick a switch and change all the pharma companies into not for profits with exactly the same output.

You seem to be assuming you need maximal profits to keep the output.
This is quite simply not true. In most countries, the price of drugs is heavily regulated (and kept low) without the output being affected.
A different way to put it, is that the limitless greed of Big pharma, with all its adverse effects (hello, opioid crisis), is a recent phenomenon. The world was doing fine without Big pharma, and the world would be better off without it.

I know where you're coming from, but Big pharma is so evil that one doesn't even need to argue against private ownership and markets to improve it. Heavy regulation and a minimum of price controls already prevents the worst sides of it.

And again, we know this for a fact. Developed countries that heavily regulate the health and pharamaceutical sectors do great. Those that don't end up being shitshows.
Of all the topics to have an exchange about "left vs liberalism," health is the one where "leftism" (socialistic or socialist programs) has consistently delivered, and -economic- liberalism (unregulated profit-seeking) has consistently failed.

3 hours ago, Liffguard said:

I'd say the issue is that "human nature" is broad and flexible, and different aspects of it can be reinforced by different cultural expectations and incentive structures. And capitalism's strength and it's major downside is that, by positively incentivising certain negative (or perhaps antisocial) human traits (greed, insecurity, status-obsession) it channels those traits into productive ends. This results in enormous productive potential, which results in an enormous glut of material abundance (in the aggregate, distribution is another matter). But it also exercises no restraint on those traits. Indeed, very much the opposite. So you get endlessly expanding production, at any cost, without any thought to externalities, without any thought to whether or not what is being produced, or the manner in which it's produced, is conducive to human flourishing.

And of course the incentive structures are set up in such a way that even steady-state profitability is failure; if you don't grow, you fail. Which leads to endless attempts to find more and more revenue streams, to extract more and more resources, dump more and more waste, squeeze more and more out of the workforce.

Indeed, if I had to characterise what we call capitalism as simply as possible, it would be "always more." And often, more is good! An enormous amount of the physical abundance produced under capitalism has indeed made average quality of life much better for many people (physically at least, there are discussions to be had about capitalism's psychological/social/spiritual costs). But more isn't always good. And an incentive structure that mandates endless, accelerating extraction and endless, accelerating acquisition is obviously going to generate lots of negative externalities, especially on a closed, delicate ecosystem with unpredictable feedback loops.

This is a good summary, and a nice discussion starter, if this is to be a discussion (but outside the international events thread next time ).

But yeah, I think it's time people understood that more isn't always good.

[karaddin]

You're still not getting my point, none of what you are talking about in your reply to me is at odds with what I'm saying. I'm not wedded to the big pharma model, but there are a significant number of people that conflate the business model with the product and treat all drugs as a terrible part of big pharma. Those people would absolutely throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I don't like vague complaints about big pharma because to those people there is no distinction between what you're meaning and everything else, so general public sentiment when exposed to a prevailing negative sentiment towards big pharma is to treat drugs as suspect at best and a moral failing at worst.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, karaddin said:

I don't like vague complaints about big pharma because to those people there is no distinction between what you're meaning and everything else, so general public sentiment when exposed to a prevailing negative sentiment towards big pharma is to treat drugs as suspect at best and a moral failing at worst.

Its a good point. Complaints about 'Big Pharma' tend to go hand in hand with 'Deep state' and 'Secret underground baby eating cults' by certain people, and they see the alternative to 'big pharma' as only ever consuming 'natural' ingredients. Of course those people tend to die quite quickly when they try to cure life threatening illnesses with turmeric. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

55 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Its a good point. Complaints about 'Big Pharma' tend to go hand in hand with 'Deep state' and 'Secret underground baby eating cults' by certain people, and they see the alternative to 'big pharma' as only ever consuming 'natural' ingredients. Of course those people tend to die quite quickly when they try to cure life threatening illnesses with turmeric. 

I think that's a pretty big generalization.  Complaints about Big Pharma are not limited to conspiracy theorists.  Sorry if this is to US - centric a comment but when you have basic medications that were designed to be affordable like insulin being priced to the point that people are dying because they can't afford it, complaints about Big Pharma don't sound so conspiratorial, and are in fact common across political divides.  This isn't confined to people doing homeopathy and obsessing over GMO labelling.  

[Luzifer's right hand]

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

I think that's a pretty big generalization.  Complaints about Big Pharma are not limited to conspiracy theorists.  Sorry if this is to US - centric a comment but when you have basic medications that were designed to be affordable like insulin being priced to the point that people are dying because they can't afford it, complaints about Big Pharma don't sound so conspiratorial, and are in fact common across political divides.  This isn't confined to people doing homeopathy and obsessing over GMO labelling.  

But that is because of the CEO and investor caste having realized that acting utterly greedy has no repercussions.

That has nothing to do with how pharma research and production works. It's just late stage capitalism.

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, karaddin said:

You're still not getting my point, none of what you are talking about in your reply to me is at odds with what I'm saying. I'm not wedded to the big pharma model, but there are a significant number of people that conflate the business model with the product and treat all drugs as a terrible part of big pharma. Those people would absolutely throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I don't like vague complaints about big pharma because to those people there is no distinction between what you're meaning and everything else, so general public sentiment when exposed to a prevailing negative sentiment towards big pharma is to treat drugs as suspect at best and a moral failing at worst.

It seemed fairly obvious to me that attacking "Big pharma" meant attacking a specific economic structure/model, rather than the pharmaceutical products themselves. Surely you can't blame me for assuming that anyone with a functioning brain would want to keep the drugs.

Thanks for clarifying though. To be clear: I've never met, heard, or read anyone who would treat modern medicine as part of the problem (1). I suppose Ivan Illich comes dangerously close to that, but that's precisely an aspect of his writings that I disagree with.

 

(1) Ok, I did meet once this influencer who married my uncle-in-law who thinks everything can be cured with essential oils, but everyone in the family treats her as the lunatic that she is.

[Conflicting Thought]

45 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It seemed fairly obvious to me that attacking "Big pharma" meant attacking a specific economic structure/model, rather than the pharmaceutical products themselves. Surely you can't blame me for assuming that anyone with a functioning brain would want to keep the drugs.

Thanks for clarifying though. To be clear: I've never met, heard, or read anyone who would treat modern medicine as part of the problem (1). I suppose Ivan Illich comes dangerously close to that, but that's precisely an aspect of his writings that I disagree with.

 

(1) Ok, I did meet once this influencer who married my uncle-in-law who thinks everything can be cured with essential oils, but everyone in the family treats her as the lunatic that she is.

In my experience there is allot of people that belive the things that karaddin in saying, they conflate big farma with pills that make you lethargic or submissive to the system, and these are left wing people, at leats in chile, conspiracies are just as common (if not more, cuz of distrust of mass media, and goverments, specially anything comming out of the USA), they are increasignly believing in "alternative" medicine

[Altherion]

Rather predictably, the US campaign to deter the Houthis from attacking ships in international waters solely by targeting their weapon stockpiles is going rather poorly:

Quote

US officials have been grappling with how to increase the pressure on the Houthis, with some inside the administration arguing that the use of force alone is not working. It is also extremely expensive and impractical, some officials note, to keep firing multimillion-dollar missiles at cheap Houthi drones and missiles.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

But that is because of the CEO and investor caste having realized that acting utterly greedy has no repercussions.

That has nothing to do with how pharma research and production works. It's just late stage capitalism.

Yes, that's essentially my point.  Not everyone complaining about Big Pharma is complaining about the drugs.  They are complaining about lack of regulations, regulatory capture, lack of industry ethics, etc.  

I was refuting HoI assertion that most complaints about Big Pharma go hand in hand with conspiracy theory bs.  It's demonstrably not true.  

Edited February 23 by Larry of the Lawn

[Heartofice]

29 minutes ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

I was refuting HoI assertion that most complaints about Big Pharma go hand in hand with conspiracy theory bs.  It's demonstrably not true.  

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to say that if you complain or have concerns about big pharma then you automatically are a conspiracy theorist. However I do think there is a big correlation however because a large number of people who even use the term 'big pharma' tend to be of that ilk.

[The Anti-Targ]

10 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Thank you.
It boggles my mind that whenever you point out that a given system or structure really isn't working well, there will always be people rushing to defend it because they are afraid what little good that is arguably being produced by the system or structure will disappear.
If you think about it for a bit, it isn't rational.

We know this for a fact, because Big pharma is not that old, far from universal, and has to be heavily regulated to arguably do any good.
To defend Big pharma (of all systems or structures) is an astonishing failure of knowledge or imagination.

 

To be fair there will always need to be heavy regulation when it comes to pharmaceuticals. Because human and animal, and plant, life and welfare can be absolutely ruined by drugs that have severe side effects the process of releasing a drug for public use / prescription will always be a very long and rigorous process.

If we collectively live a generally healthier life in terms of what we put in our bodies on a daily basis the environment we live in and our level of activity the viability of big pharma would significantly diminish. The aim of a health system should be to reduce reliance on drugs not to constantly increase demand and consumption, so pharmaceuticals in a well functioning society that guarantees the welfare of everyone should be a shrinking industry not a growing one. If there is one thing capitalism hates it's a shrinking industry. When that is happening but at the same time there will always be residual demand and scientific interest in finding better ways of doing what needs to be done, then even in a capitalist system the best solution is nationalisation of the industry, because govt does not need to make a profit from essential but low demand goods and services.

I can even see an ongoing need for oil (probably not coal or gas) because there are a lot of very useful, products made by the petrochemical industry, but the level of demand for oil if all combustion / GHG releasing uses were eliminated would probably diminish to a few million barrels of global demand per year. And that is probably not a sustainable level of extraction for private, for profit business. So I predict oil will become nationalised eventually in order to keep supplying those sectors that use it for non GHG emitting purposes.