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I agree that it's unlikely that medical research is less well funded than sports. I do think it's plausible that "critical" medical research (excluding ailments
by mistercow 15y ago
I agree that it's unlikely that medical research is less well funded than sports. I do think it's plausible that "critical" medical research (excluding ailments like small-penis and spring allergies) is less well funded than sports, for some reasonable definition of "critical", but I'd be unwilling to put any money one way or the other without doing a bit more research.
I will say, however, that pharmaceutical companies put a tremendous amount of money into researching and marketing treatments for common minor ailments.
- tptacek 15y agoWhen you say "better funded than sports", you're implicating advertising. But advertising revenue is in part of function of the broader economy. F-500s don't buy Super Bowl ads because they love football.
- mistercow 15y agoWell, let's not get excited here. I don't think anybody is saying that they think there's some capitalist in a top hat allocating funds, saying "We will put $4B into cancer research to keep the eggheads quiet, and $9B into football to distract and pacify the proles." At least, I hope nobody thinks that. But the point is that when we, as a society, allocate resources this way, it is an indication of pathological economic behavior, and we need to find solutions for that.
- tptacek 15y agoI disagree. I think what you're seeing with professional sports is just an artifact of the concentration of revenue in a very few organizations.