[forgotpwagain]

It is worth mentioning that China is heavily investing in biotechnology and they are getting genuinely good at the more commodified parts of the industry. This blog post [1] is long and aimed at a biotech expert audience, but one summary line that stands out is that "the drug industry is having its own DeepSeek Moment" [2].

To that end, I believe that this is the time to invest in the US biotechnology ecosystem so that we remain competitive with China. The ongoing crisis at the NIH is antithetical to this goal, as Derek Lowe's blog posts describe.

[1] https://centuryofbio.com/p/commoditization [2] https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/the-drug-industry-is-havin...

[tkel]

Honestly it's odd and out-of-touch to be motivated by being "competitive with China". Who cares? If you are a normal US resident, you care about improving the lives of you and your community, not competing against some far-away nebulous group of people whom you have never met and will never interact with. All while big brother is telling you that those far-away strangers are somehow your enemies. It makes sense as a rhetorical way to motivate action, but it's rather simple, short-sighted, manipulative, and divorced from reality for 99% of people.

I also reject the notion that progress is a zero-sum game, that we have to "compete" at all, that there needs to be a winner and a loser here. We could just as well work with others to improve the lives of us and our communities. Why isn't the notion "cooperate with China to uplift all"? Perhaps releasing your models under a MIT license is actually the right move here that is in everyone's best interest, perhaps the US should be following their lead?

[jvanderbot]

How does the "competition is good" crowd around here come to the conclusion that spurring a competitive mindset is wrong when it comes to international affairs?

Is it a slippery slope argument with apocalypse war at the end of it? Or something else?

[nradov]

Sounds good, but in the end possession of sovereign territory is a zero-sum game. Perhaps you could convince the Chinese Communist Party to stop trying to seize it from our allies? Because allowing China to dominate the Indo-Pacific Region certainly won't benefit normal US residents in the long run.

[tkel]

You've shifted the goalposts dramatically from economic cooperation, but my point is that your "allies" and your "enemies" are genuinely not your allies or your enemies in any real sense, nor are they for the vast majority of US residents. They are shifting designations fed to you by powerful people. But if you want to talk about respect for territorial self-determination, wait until you hear about the US and its disregard for the sovereignty of El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Philippines, Vietnam, Iran, Egypt, Korea, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Palestine, Hungary. And more recently, Greenland, Panama, Mexico, Canada. The US and its residents don't have a leg to stand on here.

[nradov]

Nonsense. Economic cooperation simply cannot exist when there is a conflict over sovereign territory. As a US citizen I claim no moral high ground but our interests don't align with China's. That is the reality regardless of your paranoid fantasies about powerful people.

[tkel]

It's really not hard to understand, just look at how US approval ratings of Ukraine have dropped dramatically in the last 3 months. Shifting designations led by powerful people.