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https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/anarchist-drugs-again https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/anarchist-drugs-ag... >"Our ultimate hope is to get t

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/anarchist-drugs-again https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/anarchist-drugs-ag... >"Our ultimate hope is to get to a point where we're no longer necessary because the notion of DIY medicine, no matter anybody's opinion of it is common enough that if it comes up in conversation, someone can say 'Oh I'm just going to 3D print a replacement'". >No, no, that is not going to be happening any time soon, or (frankly) at all. I could go one for another couple of thousand words about why that is, about solvents, waste disposal, availability of starting materials, purification, analytical data, formulations, particle size, excipients, and plenty of other topics that complicate that vision enormously. But really, why bother? The people who believe this stuff when they hear it will not be persuaded, because I'm obviously a Big Pharma Shill. Perhaps it will be worthwhile to just note that anyone who actually knows about drug synthesis and manufacture just rolls their eyes when this sort of thing comes up, rather than shaking with fear that their livelihood is under attack. It's like saying that you're going to make your own aluminum foil. >But I'm sure that no matter what, Four Thieves will continue to make a big noise at biohacker events and the like, giving exciting presentations about how they're changing the world. But it's all. . .a joke. A show. Performance art. A cartoon. I hope they're enjoying themselves.

borski 2y ago
This is a tone-deaf response that essentially boils down to “they’re small and it still isn’t trivial to do, so they don’t matter.” This reminds me very much of the comments on HN when Dropbox first launched, swearing that nobody would ever need it because everyone can just do what they’ve already always done.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  It’s the opposite of the Dropbox comment, which asserted it was already easy to do. This criticism asserts it’s too hard.
  - borski 2y ago
    Sorry, the implication was that it’s “easy to do” insofar as simply getting it from a pharma manufacturer. The problem is getting the drugs you need is not easy to do, and while 4 thieves isn’t “easy” yet, it actually is way easier than arguing with insurance, needing a PA, getting a letter of medical necessity, only to still get rejected, and then having to argue with your state insurance board through an IMR. That’s what I meant. All it takes is one or a few people to start doing this for friends, and it begins to spread. And that says nothing of when Shkreli or anyone else jacks up the price of an important life-saving medication simply because, well, they can.
    - astrange 2y ago
      > All it takes is one or a few people to start doing this for friends, and it begins to spread. Has this in fact happened? If the drugs are "actually" cheap and easy to make, I suggest importing them from India. If they aren't "actually" easy to make, you aren't going to successfully make them.
      - borski 2y ago
        Yes, it has. Abortion access is one example.
        HarryHirsch 2y ago
        Regular people would buy their mifepristone from across the border, in Mexico or ask a friendly Mexican. That's the correct way of hacking the system, not that kind of circus show. That said, one wishes that you hadn't dragged abortion in, they use it to derail the discussion around universal medical care. Hey, you can't afford the dentist, but at least we fight for abortion.
        borski 2y ago
        Perhaps, consider, that there may be more than one way to skin a cat.
0xcde4c3db 2y ago
I get the snark on the technical merits, but saying that Four Thieves is just a joke is sort of like saying that Luigi Mangione is just a murderer. The reason that they have such notoriety is that countless people are deeply disappointed and frustrated by the state of the systems that they're lashing out against. It's arguably a cousin to the Silicon Valley "disruption" mindset: playing by the rules has only made things stagnant (if not worse), so the new heroes are the ones who make their own rules.
- tptacek 2y ago
  Luigi Mangione is just a murderer.
  - gsf_emergency 2y ago
    Hey.. can you back that up with data, like this one?: https://www.macpac.gov/publication/national-health-expenditu https://www.macpac.gov/publication/national-health-expenditu... That suggested, I looked at the table and could not plainly see the problem. Would imagine that time series presented like with an analog of Tim Morgan's Energy cost of Energy for energy markets might help..
    - tptacek 2y ago
      That table shows insurers incurring roughly 1/9th the costs of providers, which seems plain enough.
      - gsf_emergency 2y ago
        Wpuld nobody pleaase think of the slopen!
hooverd 2y ago
Personally, I find this guy to be unbearably smug.
- fl0id 2y ago
  This. And it’s partially not even true. They clearly did create a lot of resources, that they present on their website and GitHub. Is everybody printing their own meds at home yet? No, and I get that the people might be offputting if they react quite confident but they can still do very good and very valuable work.
- 0xcde4c3db 2y ago
  Lowe is known and (probably rightly, on average) lauded for his frankness in light of his expertise. He's sort of the chemistry equivalent of a Raymond Chen or John Carmack. I like him a lot overall, but I think he badly failed to "read the room" in this particular case.
motohagiography 2y ago
Is the 4thieves content specifically wrong? I would rather take some risk with some autonomy than be subject to dealing with the sort of people I have encountered in the drugs and illness business, like said author. hacking is a way to provide dignity to people in how they relate to systems. be warey of the ones who object to that.
- tqi 2y ago
  Are you going to dispose of your waste responsibily, or are you going to just dismiss local regulations as "infringements of your freedom" and dump it down the drain? Are you going to make sure your manufacturing processes don't create problems for your neighbors, or are you just going to say "screw them, it's my house" and be on your merry way?
  - fullspectrumdev 2y ago
    Funnily, responsible waste management has been an extremely well covered topic in a lot of the DIY science/chemistry forums over the years. It’s even come up regularly on YouTube channels like NileRed/NileBlue - he has a couple of videos on processing wastes/cleanup work done after a reaction.
feoren 2y ago
It's nice to have an expert's perspective, but he undermines himself a bit. He says this: > The people who believe this stuff when they hear it will not be persuaded, because I'm obviously a Big Pharma Shill. Pre-empting any counterpoint to his arguments by saying they'll unfairly dismiss him. A rather smug approach to the "little guy", but possibly warranted. But his previous post on the subject has this gem: > What I'm getting at is that people like Four Thieves Vinegar are not developing drugs. They're trying to find cheap, easily replicable ways to make and distribute drugs that other people have already spent the time and money to develop. If the capitalists of the world hadn't ponied up the at-risk funding to find those drugs in the first place, there would be nothing for anarcho-hacker pharma collectives to do. Speaking for the Big Evil Pharma Industry, if I may, you Vinegar Thieves are living in our basement and subsisting on what we provide. First of all: we've been hearing for over century the line about superhero-capitalist John Galts deserving to billionaires because they were the ones who "ponied up the at-risk funding", and it's extremely shaky, if not outright bullshit. Especially in the pharma industry, where X% of "discoveries" come straight from government funding, not private capital (with X being an endlessly argued number, but almost certainly above 50). Secondly: Four Thieves Vinegar Collective don't appear to be claiming any discoveries, so what exactly is he arguing here? Couldn't he levy the same complaint against every generic drug manufacturer, that they're "living in the basement" of the Big Smart Important Guys like him? These statements are pretty close to what you'd expect from a "Big Pharma Shill" that he's pre-emptively trying to immunize himself from being accused of.

borski 2y ago

This is a tone-deaf response that essentially boils down to “they’re small and it still isn’t trivial to do, so they don’t matter.” This reminds me very much of the comments on HN when Dropbox first launched, swearing that nobody would ever need it because everyone can just do what they’ve already always done.

ceejayoz 2y ago
It’s the opposite of the Dropbox comment, which asserted it was already easy to do. This criticism asserts it’s too hard.
- borski 2y ago
  Sorry, the implication was that it’s “easy to do” insofar as simply getting it from a pharma manufacturer. The problem is getting the drugs you need is not easy to do, and while 4 thieves isn’t “easy” yet, it actually is way easier than arguing with insurance, needing a PA, getting a letter of medical necessity, only to still get rejected, and then having to argue with your state insurance board through an IMR. That’s what I meant. All it takes is one or a few people to start doing this for friends, and it begins to spread. And that says nothing of when Shkreli or anyone else jacks up the price of an important life-saving medication simply because, well, they can.
  - astrange 2y ago
    > All it takes is one or a few people to start doing this for friends, and it begins to spread. Has this in fact happened? If the drugs are "actually" cheap and easy to make, I suggest importing them from India. If they aren't "actually" easy to make, you aren't going to successfully make them.
    - borski 2y ago
      Yes, it has. Abortion access is one example.
      - HarryHirsch 2y ago
        Regular people would buy their mifepristone from across the border, in Mexico or ask a friendly Mexican. That's the correct way of hacking the system, not that kind of circus show. That said, one wishes that you hadn't dragged abortion in, they use it to derail the discussion around universal medical care. Hey, you can't afford the dentist, but at least we fight for abortion.
        borski 2y ago
        Perhaps, consider, that there may be more than one way to skin a cat.

0xcde4c3db 2y ago

I get the snark on the technical merits, but saying that Four Thieves is just a joke is sort of like saying that Luigi Mangione is just a murderer. The reason that they have such notoriety is that countless people are deeply disappointed and frustrated by the state of the systems that they're lashing out against. It's arguably a cousin to the Silicon Valley "disruption" mindset: playing by the rules has only made things stagnant (if not worse), so the new heroes are the ones who make their own rules.

tptacek 2y ago
Luigi Mangione is just a murderer.
- gsf_emergency 2y ago
  Hey.. can you back that up with data, like this one?: https://www.macpac.gov/publication/national-health-expenditu https://www.macpac.gov/publication/national-health-expenditu... That suggested, I looked at the table and could not plainly see the problem. Would imagine that time series presented like with an analog of Tim Morgan's Energy cost of Energy for energy markets might help..
  - tptacek 2y ago
    That table shows insurers incurring roughly 1/9th the costs of providers, which seems plain enough.
    - gsf_emergency 2y ago
      Wpuld nobody pleaase think of the slopen!

hooverd 2y ago

Personally, I find this guy to be unbearably smug.

fl0id 2y ago
This. And it’s partially not even true. They clearly did create a lot of resources, that they present on their website and GitHub. Is everybody printing their own meds at home yet? No, and I get that the people might be offputting if they react quite confident but they can still do very good and very valuable work.
0xcde4c3db 2y ago
Lowe is known and (probably rightly, on average) lauded for his frankness in light of his expertise. He's sort of the chemistry equivalent of a Raymond Chen or John Carmack. I like him a lot overall, but I think he badly failed to "read the room" in this particular case.

motohagiography 2y ago

Is the 4thieves content specifically wrong? I would rather take some risk with some autonomy than be subject to dealing with the sort of people I have encountered in the drugs and illness business, like said author. hacking is a way to provide dignity to people in how they relate to systems. be warey of the ones who object to that.

tqi 2y ago
Are you going to dispose of your waste responsibily, or are you going to just dismiss local regulations as "infringements of your freedom" and dump it down the drain? Are you going to make sure your manufacturing processes don't create problems for your neighbors, or are you just going to say "screw them, it's my house" and be on your merry way?
- fullspectrumdev 2y ago
  Funnily, responsible waste management has been an extremely well covered topic in a lot of the DIY science/chemistry forums over the years. It’s even come up regularly on YouTube channels like NileRed/NileBlue - he has a couple of videos on processing wastes/cleanup work done after a reaction.

feoren 2y ago

It's nice to have an expert's perspective, but he undermines himself a bit. He says this: > The people who believe this stuff when they hear it will not be persuaded, because I'm obviously a Big Pharma Shill. Pre-empting any counterpoint to his arguments by saying they'll unfairly dismiss him. A rather smug approach to the "little guy", but possibly warranted. But his previous post on the subject has this gem: > What I'm getting at is that people like Four Thieves Vinegar are not developing drugs. They're trying to find cheap, easily replicable ways to make and distribute drugs that other people have already spent the time and money to develop. If the capitalists of the world hadn't ponied up the at-risk funding to find those drugs in the first place, there would be nothing for anarcho-hacker pharma collectives to do. Speaking for the Big Evil Pharma Industry, if I may, you Vinegar Thieves are living in our basement and subsisting on what we provide. First of all: we've been hearing for over century the line about superhero-capitalist John Galts deserving to billionaires because they were the ones who "ponied up the at-risk funding", and it's extremely shaky, if not outright bullshit. Especially in the pharma industry, where X% of "discoveries" come straight from government funding, not private capital (with X being an endlessly argued number, but almost certainly above 50). Secondly: Four Thieves Vinegar Collective don't appear to be claiming any discoveries, so what exactly is he arguing here? Couldn't he levy the same complaint against every generic drug manufacturer, that they're "living in the basement" of the Big Smart Important Guys like him? These statements are pretty close to what you'd expect from a "Big Pharma Shill" that he's pre-emptively trying to immunize himself from being accused of.