[jaggederest]

I suspect that at some point there will be a backlash in the form of someone or some people with nothing to lose becoming violent in the face of an effective death sentence in the form of unaffordable healthcare.

"Ultima ratio regum" is an appalling way to enforce fairness, but it doesn't seem to me that greed in general will stop short of a true class war or an external threat ala a World War.

Also to be clear I am definitely not advocating this route, I'm trying to figure out what anyone can do to prevent it and thus far I am at a loss.

[Mz]

I'm trying to figure out what anyone can do to prevent it and thus far I am at a loss.

You quietly find another path and make these insanely expensive drugs vastly less relevant. The real challenge is effectively spreading the word. Something truly disruptive in this area seems to be about the most offensive thing a human being can do.

[jaggederest]

The funny thing is that pharmaceuticals are simply one of a number of unconscionable negative-sum-games that are being played these days.

I just don't understand how people can make such a blatantly destructive set of choices when it's really clear that it will come back and bite them in a way even the most psychopathically mercenary people should understand, let alone anyone with a more advanced morality than "I got mine".

[Mz]

Currently, the world actively makes it hard to make any other choice. I have made other choices. Part of the result:

I spent ~5.7 years homeless while classist assholes (online and off) shit all over me.

I believe part of this is happenstance. Humans are little monkeys with brains designed to parse a social order for a tribe of 150 members. With 7 billion people on the planet and a global economy by necessity, the paradigms developed to parse our tribe break in the face of a sudden new world order.

It is actively dangerous to give a damn about the welfare of other people. Some of that is also happenstance. Strangers from extremely different backgrounds face substantial obstacles to good communication.

But, we really need to solve this, even if we are all cold hearted sociopaths who don't give a damn about anyone but ourselves. Like you said: If we don't, this will eventually go very bad places.

Given the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas, the record destruction of hurricanes in Texas and Florida, and the ongoing fires in California, I think it is reasonable to assert that our choices are already coming back to bite us. We can do something more sensible or continue to suffer the consequences.