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Every way of dealing with something has its flaws, the point is to fix them. The patent system is flawed in its foundation, i.e. claiming a discovery for yourse

Every way of dealing with something has its flaws, the point is to fix them. The patent system is flawed in its foundation, i.e. claiming a discovery for yourself and keeping this technology away from the rest of humanity. For the rest, I wouldn't know why there wouldn't be multiple medicines. Labs would still come up with multiple compounds that have more or less the same result, and if not, research would continue for the people who fall outside the bell curve of the other medicine. The whole difference would be that instead of competition, there is cooperation, and the aim is not to make money or profit, but to help humanity. This is not unrealistic, it's basically what we (at least in NL) learn in primary school: "Two know more than one", "Many hands make light work", etc. It's only that the schools after that tell us to forget it all and teach us how we need to compete each other and especially to keep everything for ourselves and never do anything without expecting something in return. [quote]where companies use controlled distribution (such as with Daraprim) to prevent generics from being tested, and thus, being brought to market. [/quote] This wouldn't happen, as the resulting medicine IS the generic.

Kalium 11y ago
> For the rest, I wouldn't know why there wouldn't be multiple medicines. Labs would still come up with multiple compounds that have more or less the same result, and if not, research would continue for the people who fall outside the bell curve of the other medicine. The issue is that this process happens right now because of independent development due to competition. As soon as you unify multiple efforts into one cooperative effort, you no longer have multiple efforts that produce multiple viable drugs. You're appealing to unify research efforts to put more wood behind fewer arrows to help people. And that's fine. It just that this has consequences, not all of which would likely be ones you want. So, yes, the resulting medicine would BE the generic. And that's great! But there is a drawback. And these are just the consequences we can easily predict. We haven't even thought about the psychological effects of enforced monoculture yet.
anigbrowl 11y ago
That's a nice worldview, but it is predicated on the assumption that people are basically good, as suggested by Rousseau. Many of us adhere to a more gloomy philosophy as suggested by Hobbes, that people are more likely than not to be selfish assholes given the opportunity (as demonstrated by the subject of the story). From a game-theoretic point of view, you need a strategy for dealing with defectors, just as in nature plants and animals need to evolve responses to parasitism or suffer the consequences. Symbiotic/cooperative mechanisms which are mutually beneficial can emerge in nature and in markets, but it's by no means a sure thing that they will in any given instance.
deelowe 11y ago
It deeply concerns me that so many people fundamentally misunderstand the point of patents. The point isn't to grant ownership over tech simply for being the first to file. Patents, as originally intended, are to encourage documenting the invention and the eventual transfer of this knowledge to the public sector. They were never intended to be abused and twisted for personal gain as they are today.

Kalium 11y ago

> For the rest, I wouldn't know why there wouldn't be multiple medicines. Labs would still come up with multiple compounds that have more or less the same result, and if not, research would continue for the people who fall outside the bell curve of the other medicine. The issue is that this process happens right now because of independent development due to competition. As soon as you unify multiple efforts into one cooperative effort, you no longer have multiple efforts that produce multiple viable drugs. You're appealing to unify research efforts to put more wood behind fewer arrows to help people. And that's fine. It just that this has consequences, not all of which would likely be ones you want. So, yes, the resulting medicine would BE the generic. And that's great! But there is a drawback. And these are just the consequences we can easily predict. We haven't even thought about the psychological effects of enforced monoculture yet.

anigbrowl 11y ago

That's a nice worldview, but it is predicated on the assumption that people are basically good, as suggested by Rousseau. Many of us adhere to a more gloomy philosophy as suggested by Hobbes, that people are more likely than not to be selfish assholes given the opportunity (as demonstrated by the subject of the story). From a game-theoretic point of view, you need a strategy for dealing with defectors, just as in nature plants and animals need to evolve responses to parasitism or suffer the consequences. Symbiotic/cooperative mechanisms which are mutually beneficial can emerge in nature and in markets, but it's by no means a sure thing that they will in any given instance.

deelowe 11y ago

It deeply concerns me that so many people fundamentally misunderstand the point of patents. The point isn't to grant ownership over tech simply for being the first to file. Patents, as originally intended, are to encourage documenting the invention and the eventual transfer of this knowledge to the public sector. They were never intended to be abused and twisted for personal gain as they are today.