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When I go to Pet Smart to buy dog food, the credit card reader asks me if I want to donate $1, $5, $10, etc., to help homeless animals. I imagine that if I was

by tjr 14y ago

When I go to Pet Smart to buy dog food, the credit card reader asks me if I want to donate $1, $5, $10, etc., to help homeless animals. I imagine that if I was at Walgreen's buying NyQuil and the credit card reader asked me if I wanted to donate $1, $5, $10, toward medical research so that people just like me can get over a cold faster in the future, I'd probably say yes.

melling 14y ago
You'll spend $200 for a new smartphone every few years. Samsung and Apple are fighting a war to make the better phone. Billions are spent. Likewise, Intel and ARM are competing for the future of the CPU. Someday soon, someone like iRobot will be competing with another company to automate the home. The "Apple II" of home robotics isn't too far off? The race starts then. Now find a way to commercialize companies that will also do more medical research. We do have big pharma but that research takes many years.
- tjr 14y ago
  I don't think that people want to spend money on medicine like they want to spend money on phones. Even when they are ill, it comes across as more of a necessity than something inherently desirable, though at least when feeling ill they might give more thought to how much nicer things would be if medicines worked better than they do now. But to expect folks to cash their paychecks, run out to the store and buy some new cough syrup just because it's so cool?... that's what happens with phones, but it seems unlikely to happen with medicine. And in fact that'd be ridiculous. If one isn't even feeling ill, why should they go out and buy medicine? Unless they are buying it for someone else, but this sort of gets us into the realm of charity and donations. I don't know; what do you think? What sort of situation can you imagine in which a consumer treats funding medical research the same way they treat buying a new phone?
  - melling 14y ago
    People don't fund semiconductor research directly either. Hundreds of millions of people pay Apple.

by tjr 14y ago

melling 14y ago

You'll spend $200 for a new smartphone every few years. Samsung and Apple are fighting a war to make the better phone. Billions are spent. Likewise, Intel and ARM are competing for the future of the CPU. Someday soon, someone like iRobot will be competing with another company to automate the home. The "Apple II" of home robotics isn't too far off? The race starts then. Now find a way to commercialize companies that will also do more medical research. We do have big pharma but that research takes many years.

tjr 14y ago
I don't think that people want to spend money on medicine like they want to spend money on phones. Even when they are ill, it comes across as more of a necessity than something inherently desirable, though at least when feeling ill they might give more thought to how much nicer things would be if medicines worked better than they do now. But to expect folks to cash their paychecks, run out to the store and buy some new cough syrup just because it's so cool?... that's what happens with phones, but it seems unlikely to happen with medicine. And in fact that'd be ridiculous. If one isn't even feeling ill, why should they go out and buy medicine? Unless they are buying it for someone else, but this sort of gets us into the realm of charity and donations. I don't know; what do you think? What sort of situation can you imagine in which a consumer treats funding medical research the same way they treat buying a new phone?
- melling 14y ago
  People don't fund semiconductor research directly either. Hundreds of millions of people pay Apple.