[flagrant]

> Next it talks about how businesses profit from this. While true it's also totally misses the point. The economist wrote an article on how the world is vastly underspending on solving this problem.

Is it supposed to make me feel better that not only are we not spending enough on the problem, but what little we are spending is going to line the pockets of Big Pharma instead?

[CydeWeys]

They're the ones actually making the vaccines to solve the problem?? What better use of our money is it than funding and buying the vaccine? How is that "lining their pockets"? If anything they're selling doses for much much more cheaply than people would be willing to pay for them.

[flagrant]

But this is about profit. Profit is by definition money that wasn't required to create the vaccine.

[graeme]

The companies presumably diverted resources from profitable activities to work on this.

[bradleyjg]

It’s necessary to incentivize people to invent and manufacture the vaccine.

It’s amazing to me that we now have a generation coming up that doesn’t know that we—-that is the human race—-tried socialism, really gave it the old college try, and it. did. not. work. For a significant period of time most of the educated people in the world thought it would work. This was not some fringe idea that was never given a fair shot.

(I’m talking here about actual socialism, not welfare capitalism that many on the contemporary left and right call socialism for their own propagandist reasons.)

[Ericson2314]

Please do not spout these things while utterly neglecting NIH and NSF funding the basic research.

If you want I'll critique the rest.

[bradleyjg]

The current approach used by the NIH is a response to the failures of socialism. The Bayh–Dole Act was passed in 1980 and signed by noted right winger Jimmy Carter.

Advocating for central planning in 2021 is like advocating for NoSQL—-lots of pretty arguments vs the overwhelming weight of real world evidence.

[CydeWeys]

We've never remotely had anything akin to socialism in the US. The USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela, yes, absolutely. But neither socialism nor communism were ever used here in the US.

[anigbrowl]

Oxford, the inventors, were originally willing to give the invention away for free. It's the central contention of the article we're discussing. How can you omit that from your argument?

[flagrant]

What on Earth does that have to do with anything?

[Ericson2314]

They are only making the vaccine because IP law and a culture that separates research and development allowed them to hoard the utility of publicly funded research.

We are paying off the ransomers we outfitted.

Maybe it's unavoidable this time, but I would sure like to see the system reformed to not get in the bind again.

Finally, taking a step back, US/EU complete reliance on a vaccine is also preventable. See East Asia, where the non-abysmal quarantine would allow a less desperate negotiation with the drug lords.