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One-shot cures for diseases are not great for business—more specifically, they’re bad for longterm profits—Goldman Sachs analysts noted in an April 10 report for biotech clients, first reported by CNBC.
The investment banks’ report, titled “The Genome Revolution,” asks clients the touchy question: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” The answer may be “no,” according to follow-up information provided.
[...] The potential to deliver “one shot cures” is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically engineered cell therapy, and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies... While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.
[...] Ars reached out to Goldman Sachs, which confirmed the content of the report but declined to comment.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Tuesday April 24 2018, @01:51PM (11 children)
Sure - and let's go further and fill in the blanks from upthread, where "Party B" is "The Government", and the required "something" is to "define and enforce private property rights", and the "something in return" part is "X% of the money made by Party A".
Let's assume we can fill in those things and the original statement remains true. There are objections, but they are neither interesting nor unique, so for the sake of argument let's say you're right.
What is curious here is how you have called this "slavery" and "theft" elsewhere, and "reasonable" in this thread, yet the only substantive difference you've highlighted so far is that in the other cases Party A was you, and here Party A is someone else.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 24 2018, @06:21PM (10 children)
Patents and coyprights are not property rights. They are artificially created monopolies that would not exist sans government declaring them to. I have never been in the "yay monopolies!" camp. Very limited monopolies can serve a useful purpose but that does not imply that they should be without cost. You'll have to try a different approach.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Wednesday April 25 2018, @01:59PM (9 children)
Go on.
So, purely social and legal constructs? aka: the textbook definition economists use [sioe.org] for Property rights? [wikipedia.org].
And if you're going to try to draw a distinction here, are you now saying parties A and B from above can't enter voluntary agreements about things that *aren't* solely created by the government? Like land? Or stocks and shares? Or contracts?
Congratulations. But this has nothing to do with that. It's where you draw the line so that the whole "A provides a service to B in return for a cost" will work when A is the Government and B is "these other people", but won't apply to your case to such a dramatic extent that it's theft as opposed to paying what you owe. And honestly, I'm just curious at this point to see where it goes, and why you think that.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 25 2018, @02:53PM (8 children)
Property rights are natural rights. Nothing needs be granted you by an outside entity for you to claim and hold property (though disputes are likely if you go around claiming things others also claim). Patents and copyright are abstract social constructs that do not exist without first being defined and granted by an outside entity; they are not rights but at most contractual agreements between the government and its citizens. They are also in fact explicitly spelled out as being authorized only for a stated purpose. If said purpose is not being satisfied congress is not only legally entitled to adjust the contract but obligated to do so. The manner in which they are allowed to do this is left undefined and is thus entirely up to congress, subject to judicial review.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Wednesday May 02 2018, @05:38AM (7 children)
So, like money? (Government being the thing putting the fiat in fiat-currency)
So, exactly like money and taxation? I would think given those things that you would be happier about the latter.
You know that for a large part of history those things you call "natural rights" would have included other people [boredpanda.com], right? And we're really happy this is no longer the case, with "natural" rights being just another term for "social and legal construct", right?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 02 2018, @11:01AM (6 children)
You're confusing the idea of money with the ownership of a given amount of money. You're also under the misapprehension that the government controls money. It somewhat controls the dollar but the dollar is not remotely the only currency even Americans exchange and the government does not set its value relative to anything it is exchanged for.
No. Neither of those are actually true.
Utterly incorrect. You're still stuck with the idea that rights are created or granted by external entities. They are not. External entities of any sort can only either protect or infringe upon rights as rights exist independent of them. Anything they grant that you did not naturally possess is not in fact a right. It can be an entitlement but that is not remotely the same thing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Friday May 04 2018, @02:10PM (5 children)
You're simply describing what money is for and how it is used - this doesn't change what it _is_. (Although yes, I was specifically referencing the dollar, that being what you use, and what your arguments have references)
It's a fiat currency - which is to say, an inherently worthless object assigned a value that is backed by the government that issued it. That ticks the "do not exist without first being defined and granted by an outside entity" box on which you lean heavily, and from which you justify the power to arbitrarily define the terms under which it is provided.
Then you might want to find a different definition for what you believe the objectives of patents to be - it's on the same piece of paper, and if you do not stand by the notions at the top of the page you should not lean so heavily on a subsequent detail further down.
If personal property was such an independent right, as opposed to being inextricably linked to social constructs, then the definition of it would not change so fluidly over time: You would not be arguing that something regarded by "Wise men" in the 6th century as a natural right was some imposition of modern governments, or that the "havoc of paper-money", something objected to up until the 19th century, was not. We would not be horrified by the mindset that could consider other people property, but not land, though that was seen as natural around the 11th century.
However, it looks like you've decided to go with Lockian-17th-century-Jesus-put-our-name-on-it-natural-law, which I find unconvincing, but you really should have said that up front.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 04 2018, @10:43PM (4 children)
You misunderstand. All money is inherently worthless unless it's being used as barter of the underlying substance instead of as money. That does not make ownership of a given bit that you have exchanged goods or services for any less a right.
Definitions are social constructs. They cannot affect things that exist independent of societies. We could all start calling rain "dry" tomorrow but we'd still be using umbrellas.
Horse shit. I've repeatedly defined what a right is in this thread and it has nothing to do with being granted anything by any entity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Sunday May 06 2018, @08:47AM (3 children)
You've just restated what John Locke's natural law based labour theory of property rights *say*. And they're from the 17th century because it's not a new idea. And it's dependent on religion because that's one of the fundamental axioms in how natural rights are generally formed (and if you have a neat solution to that then tell Van Dun, or Rothbard, or Nozick, or any of the many politicians or economists or philosophers of the past few centuries who would have liked a neat obvious answer to this one that doesn't end up in "just because").
Aaaaaand at this point I realise I've been trolled, since you can't be doing this "say it's different, then highlight the ways in which it's identical" thing so much by accident. Crap. Well played.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 06 2018, @10:28AM (2 children)
*sigh*
Okay, I'll spell it out one more time. Rights do not come from anywhere. Not from other humans and not from any supernatural entity. The combination of every possible action a person could take or refrain from taking (from freedom of speech to the right to spontaneously turn purple) starts out existing as one big superset of rights in every human being. Only when the question of a specific subset of the superset being infringed upon or voluntarily set aside comes up is there even a need for the naming of a right. Like the infinite potential arcs in a circle.
We voluntarily set aside many rights for the sake of getting along with other people. More are infringed upon by whatever government we live under. For practical purposes, any named right is simply a part of the superset that is in contention enough to be worth defining.
So asking where a right comes from is not an intelligent question but a fundamental misunderstanding of what a right actually is. It makes precisely as much sense as asking where a particular arc in a circle comes from. Likewise asking why you have a right should always be answered "Because I refuse to surrender it." if the person being asked understands what a right is.
You're currently arguing that the ability to limit the rights of others, granted you and backed by implied violence by the government, is also a right. It, however, has an origin other than preexistence in every human and thus can not be considered a right. That can be an entitlement or whatever other word you care to call it but it can never be a right.
Does this clear things up for you?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Wednesday May 09 2018, @06:52AM (1 child)
Oh, for a minute there you had me going, and I though you might be serious despite everything, but then these lines gave it away, and that's the funniest thing I've read all week. Very *very* clever to bring in a geometry reference just there. I get that you don't necessarily want to break character, but that's such an excellently done joke that I think you deserve congratulating for it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 09 2018, @08:04AM
No joke. Take stepping off with your right foot when you start walking. Do you have the right to do it? Why? Where does that right originate from? Wrong question, ain't it? That right exists because it has not been called into question. Its origin is exactly the same as every other right. It does not have one. A right is simply a defined absence of oppression.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.