[naasking]

Should the cost of CPUs be separate from the cost of CPU research? I understand it seems distasteful to place a cost on health and life, but isn't that just a reality? Everything has a cost. As long as the cost of drugs were reasonable, we wouldn't need to have these conversations.

[scotty79]

> Should the cost of CPUs be separate from the cost of CPU research?

Maybe not now when researching CPUs is fairly easy. But a century in the future? When faster CPUs will be very hard to invent but essential to human survival? Maybe.

Business is great at researching processes of manufacturing. Not so good when it comes to researching actually new stuff.

> As long as the cost of drugs were reasonable, we wouldn't need to have these conversations.

But they must become unreasonable at some point if they cost as much as the incentive for research for companies. Companies are most risk-averse entities in existence. It's not unexpected that they need unreasonably high incentives to take up the risk of doing research.

[naasking]

> When faster CPUs will be very hard to invent but essential to human survival? Maybe.

I'd say we're already at the point that they are essential to our survival, at least for societies as they currently exist. CPUs are also hard to invent, and hard to progress already, requiring hundreds of millions of dollars for each new iteration.

> Business is great at researching processes of manufacturing. Not so good when it comes to researching actually new stuff.

I don't believe it. Most of the things we currently use were invented by businesses, or by someone who then started a business to sell it.

> But they must become unreasonable at some point if they cost as much as the incentive for research for companies.

Again, you're assuming the conclusion. Maybe this is the case in some circumstances, but it's a assuming a lot to claim this is the case for all companies and all drugs.

And if the cost is really this high, then incentivizing more creative approaches to treatment might just be better anyway. It shows a lack of imagination if we can only use a hammer when faced with a health problem.

[scotty79]

> Most of the things we currently use were invented by businesses, or by someone who then started a business to sell it.

Yes. I don't say business is useless when it comes to research. Business is great at researching how to tune the production process so that the thing they went to produce is affordable for as many people as possible.

Every invention goes through business to reach you. But it usually starts at the university on in military research.

> Again, you're assuming the conclusion.

I don't think I do.

1. Companies fund research with selling drugs they invent.

2. Inventing drugs gets more expensive.

1 & 2 => drugs get more expensive.

[naasking]

> 2. Inventing drugs gets more expensive.

1. You're assuming drug research gets more expensive, but in some ways it actually becomes easier, ie. with better computers we can ensure some clinical trials have a higher success rate with computer modelling.

2. Your original claim was that they become unreasonably expensive, which is a stronger claim than just expensive. Furthermore, this expense would still be incurred by any other entity that does this research, so you're not saving anything in the end.

[scotty79]

1. I think I never seen any claim that inventing new drugs gets less expensive although I agree that's theoretically intermittently possible untill the fact that we are running out of substances to try overcomes cost benefits of given technological breakthrough.

2. If something gets constantly more expensive it will eventually become unreasonably expensive for any chosen definition of unreasonable. Unless general wealth of human race grows faster than cost of research which doesn't look plausible.

What I'm saying in the end is that the cost will be higher if the company is involved because companies are so risk averse that they demand insanely high potential rewards to take the risk. The other thing I'm saying is that if you are going to fund reserach with drug sales but in the end will have to subsidize drug buyers from taxes (because they can't afford meds) it may be just better to fund research from taxes directly and charge for drugs only as much as their manufacturing costs as it is now in case of generics.