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If a cure is invented in Country X and monopolized, every other country in the world has an incentive to replicate it by some combination of espionage and rever

If a cure is invented in Country X and monopolized, every other country in the world has an incentive to replicate it by some combination of espionage and reverse engineering. If it can be invented at all, what makes you think that it can be used without other parties figuring out how to copy it? The atomic bomb was duplicated within 4 years.

tsimionescu 6y ago
This is not about countries, it is about the rich and powerful vs the rest of us. Do you think the rich in the US would steal the secret of eternal youth from the rich of China and just give it to everyone? Or just keep it for themselves?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ben_w 6y ago
  The rich? Perhaps, perhaps not, depends how much money they could make from it. Some biohacker equivalent to Linus Torvalds or Aaron Swartz? Almost certainly, and for free.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  Did these rich people stop wanting money?
- sdfin 6y ago
  What you say seems to imply that every rich person is an evil and greedy. There are philantropists too.
  - Banana699 6y ago
    Hey, I'm also not a fan of "Rich Bad!" simplistic narratives, but billionaire "philanthropy" is about the most dubious and laughable concept on the table here. It's pennies-on-the-dollar nature is carefully designed to dupe your statistics-naive hind brain into believing there is something being done when it's really the opposite ; it's the microoptimization of the economic world, equivalent to transforming a multiplication-by-two into shifting while the code above you is allocating one million boxed objects. Just a small, pointless thing you do to make yourself feel better for no actual reason. A few millions here and there, no matter what they do or how much happiness they cause, is nothing compared to billions upon billions^(TM) continuesly pumped out of the world into one person's coffers. I don't care what kind of persons billionaires are, allowing someone to have wealth equivalent to several countries' economies is ugly and injust. No amount of gift-giving and hospital-visiting is gonna make that any less of a moral disaster. Maybe when we discover arbitary-destination wormholes can we be that inefficient and injust with resources distribution, but with just one freaking planet? good luck convincing me (and the several billions who are not billionaires) that philanthropist billionaire overthere isn't stealing somebody's (probably several million somebodies) food in their pointless unending quest to pile wealth they're not going to use 10% of in their wildest dreams.

tsimionescu 6y ago

This is not about countries, it is about the rich and powerful vs the rest of us. Do you think the rich in the US would steal the secret of eternal youth from the rich of China and just give it to everyone? Or just keep it for themselves?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ben_w 6y ago
The rich? Perhaps, perhaps not, depends how much money they could make from it. Some biohacker equivalent to Linus Torvalds or Aaron Swartz? Almost certainly, and for free.
Dylan16807 6y ago
Did these rich people stop wanting money?
sdfin 6y ago
What you say seems to imply that every rich person is an evil and greedy. There are philantropists too.
- Banana699 6y ago
  Hey, I'm also not a fan of "Rich Bad!" simplistic narratives, but billionaire "philanthropy" is about the most dubious and laughable concept on the table here. It's pennies-on-the-dollar nature is carefully designed to dupe your statistics-naive hind brain into believing there is something being done when it's really the opposite ; it's the microoptimization of the economic world, equivalent to transforming a multiplication-by-two into shifting while the code above you is allocating one million boxed objects. Just a small, pointless thing you do to make yourself feel better for no actual reason. A few millions here and there, no matter what they do or how much happiness they cause, is nothing compared to billions upon billions^(TM) continuesly pumped out of the world into one person's coffers. I don't care what kind of persons billionaires are, allowing someone to have wealth equivalent to several countries' economies is ugly and injust. No amount of gift-giving and hospital-visiting is gonna make that any less of a moral disaster. Maybe when we discover arbitary-destination wormholes can we be that inefficient and injust with resources distribution, but with just one freaking planet? good luck convincing me (and the several billions who are not billionaires) that philanthropist billionaire overthere isn't stealing somebody's (probably several million somebodies) food in their pointless unending quest to pile wealth they're not going to use 10% of in their wildest dreams.