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The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

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Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#91

Post by jsolson »

ygaf wrote: post #62
ryuuchin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the quote by George Steinbrenner[1]. "If you do something nice for somebody, and more than just the two of you know about it, maybe you're doing it for the wrong reason" [1] https://tree.mindbloom.com/apps/inspiration/detail/quote/563...

The Bible teaches this too.

Yes, but it's tied up in a bunch of other bits like not eating pork and worshipping a particular deity.

The secular quip raises the same questions about human motivations without the other baggage.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#93

Post by rhizome »

dsacco wrote: post #67
herodotus wrote: post #15

In my experience with local philanthropy, there are donors who have no interest in "naming opportunities" and those for whom it is all about the name. To me it says a lot about the character of the donor if they specifically want as little fuss as possible about the donation, and especially if they do not want something named after them. It is the cause they support, not their own egos. Personally, the more often I s…

I’m more of a consequentialist; I consider a larger philanthropist who cares about public attribution to be more admirable than someone who is a smaller philanthropist but doesn’t care about public attribution. Personally, I would absolutely like to have my name on something if I were to donate tens or hundreds of millions of dollars towards it. In my opinion the intention or ego of a philanthropist is approximately…

It's not about doing "good," they're both doing "good." It's about milking the charity like you can't give money away without getting something in return.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#94

Post by rhizome »

lostlogin wrote: post #71
username223 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One indicator is whether the person was still alive when the building was named. Naming stuff after yourself when you're still alive ( https://chanzuckerberg.com ) is a good way to cheapen it.

No, naming it after yourself cheapens it, dead or alive. Someone else has to do it.

Kinda hard to name something after yourself when you're dead.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#95

Post by dsacco »

burntwater wrote: post #90
dsacco wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to be implying that philanthropists who don't do naming rights only give smaller donations. No, I’m not. I constructed extreme upper and lower bounds as a baseline for comparing axioms. That was the purpose of my reference to the apocryphal, “now we’re just haggling over price” quote.

Axioms that don't exist in the comment you replied to, so I'm unsure why you're bringing them up here.

Of course they do. Axioms are inherent to all positive statements, even if they’re implicit. And you can’t construct (coherent) normative statements without positive ones.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#96

Post by frozenport »

andreasgonewild wrote: post #79
mabub24 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perdue Pharma, the producer of Oxy, is basically making half of its customers into drug addicts by lying about "12-hours" of "effective" pain relief. The LA Times ran an investigation into Perdue Pharma's claim[1] and the article is incredibly disturbing. This is the killer quote: > "More than half of long-term OxyContin users are on doses that public health officials consider dangerously high, according to an analys…

From my perspective, OxyContin is obviously designed to be as addictive as possible; and they have been lying all along. These people are not fully functioning humans, they will do whatever it takes to generate more profits. I promised myself to never touch their artificial crap again; if it doesn't grow on the ground, I'm not interested.

Heroin grows in the ground and probably isn't too for you.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#97

Post by craftyguy »

rhizome wrote: post #94
lostlogin wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, naming it after yourself cheapens it, dead or alive. Someone else has to do it.

Kinda hard to name something after yourself when you're dead.

You could add it to your will.

"From the time of my death, my compound that I leave to my yorkie shalt be known forever as rhiz(h)ome"

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#98

Post by QAPereo »

refurb wrote: post #65
QAPereo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question! I don't know and I assume others don't as well. Unsafe assumption. Why not go the self-education route before taking the "angry preacher" role so seriously?

Not angry in the least! Just surprised how quick people are to believe something without data. I guess it's just human trait to simply problems into "that person is at fault" rather than appreciate the multiple factors that resulted in a complex problem.

Again, you’re making assumptions, and offering only rhetoric. Why?

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#99

Post by savanaly »

cwyers wrote: post #24

I'm reminded of that line from Chinatown. "Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?" Is there really no point of diminishing returns, where you can tell yourself you've made enough money?

It's all about perspective. To a third world citizen, that statement applies to the lifestyle of a middle class american. To us, having a second jet seems like a ludicrous luxury. To them, having a second car probably seems like just as ludicrous a luxury.

Re: The Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis

#100

Post by rdtsc »

Animats wrote: post #63

... Medical Advertising Hall of Fame... This is a real thing.[1] They really give out awards for medical advertising. Typical writeup: "Ambien dominated the insomnia market like few products ever have. Our goal was to introduce a new way of thinking about sleep, and to introduce Rozerem as a new option for the treatment of insomnia. In order to take down Goliath, Rozerem needed to spend BIG. $200 million in broadcast…

> ... Medical Advertising Hall of Fame...

Same thing for political candidates. Apparently Obama won advertiser of the year in 2008:

http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market...

Beating Nike, Apple, and Coors

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