Anarchists making their own medicine (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#201

Post by R0b0t1 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

nwiswell wrote: post #34

kragen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the DIY medicines weren't of dubious quality? What if they were higher quality than the ones that cost US$750 a dose? What if everyone had an analysis machine that could analyze the medicines, DIY or not, to find out what was in them, and the DIY stuff turned out to be purer and more precisely dosed? That's what happened with Linux versus, say, Solaris and Microsoft Windows, and it's what's happening now with…

> What if everyone had an analysis machine that could analyze the medicines, DIY or not, to find out what was in them I can fairly confidently predict this will not happen like it did for software. Chemical analysis has been around a long time and remains difficult for experts to do accurately without context, let alone for a layman. Gas chromatography, for example, requires large and expensive machinery and some ide…

A lot of machinery has been getting smaller. You can do GC/MS with a desktop device now.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#202

Post by denton-scratch » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

waterhouse wrote: post #48

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The computer market is not particularly regulated, yet we still have international big tech monopolies stifling competition. I think the US simultaneously needs: • less regulation, to reduce barriers-to-entry • more regulation, to allow competition Normally, I'd be concerned about reduced regulations having safety implications, but the existing situation is already unsafe.

Patents are a big part of how the stifling is done. Getting rid of them, or at least cutting their term by a factor of 3-4, would help a great deal.

Not with epinephrine, because it's out-of-patent. For clarity, I very much dislike the patent system.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#203

Post by denton-scratch » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #113

jjoonathan wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguments like "clearly fail to control the spread" are low effort Gish Gallops that need to be treated as such. Publicly slugging it out in the weeds grants an optical stalemate to an argument that deserves to lose. Do this a million times in a row and you can launch an entire contrarian movement off vapors -- which is exactly what we have seen.

At first I expected the advent of mass vaccination to end the pandemic, because it only had to drop R by a factor of two or so to drop below the critical percolation threshold, so even a vaccine providing 50% sterilizing immunity would be good enough, and the mRNA vaccines turned out to be even more effective than expected. I turned out to be spectacularly wrong about that; as you may or may not be aware, the pandemi…

> after the humans reach herd immunity

That doesn't appear to be on the cards; neither vaccines nor actual infection confers immunity, in either case you only get resistance. And if you can't get individual immunity, talk of herd immunity is silly.

COVID is going to be endemic.

My hope is that omicron confers cross-resistance to other variants. From what I've heard, an omicron infection is nastier than a bad dose of 'flu, but much less nasty than infection with delta. With omicron's extreme success at transmission, perhaps omicron will give the whole world a degree of resistance to all COVID variants, and endemic COVID will eventually become no more scary than endemic adenovirus.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#204

Post by notch656a » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #200

notch656a wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've looked it over. I understand leftists have a rich history of invoking anti-state ideology. I'm using the oxford definition of anarchism. I'm not saying leftists can't exist in anarchism as some sort of pact or contract amongst leftist, in the sense of without coercive hierarchy. But I don't see how anarchism is inherently leftist. If leftism means socialism or some form of redistributing property involuntarily,…

> I'm using the oxford definition of anarchism. Which Oxford definition? You've cited "The Oxford Dictionary" up-thread. There's a bunch of online lexicographical resources that are unrelated to the OED, but trade on its name and reputation. At any rate, a brief definition from a concise lexicon is no substitute for doing some proper reading on the subject. And even reading will leave you pretty confused about how it…

https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

Anarchism isn't some cursory subject for me. Someone up thread mentioned Rojava as an example of something closest to an anarchist collective. I went there and lived there. What I found was voluntary trade which we commonly call capitalism. I find this to be compatible with anarchism when trades are made voluntarily and not say, by strong arm of government forcing how you trade with people or the strong arm of some "anarchist" "opening up access" to your capital.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#205

Post by notch656a » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #199

notch656a wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself anarchist in the sense I do not believe in the legitimacy of government. I do not have any leftist view whatsoever, but I think people should retain ownership of their property except through consensual trade. Does that mean I'm not an anarchist, or does that mean I'm a leftist?

It means you're an extreme libertarian, but no anarchist.

That's just leftist gate-keeping of anarchism. A completely voluntary system of free trade isn't incompatible with a system without coercion. Note I consider something coercion when it is performed by violence by the aggressor, a victim can fight back and I won't classify that as coercion.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#206

Post by denton-scratch » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #204

denton-scratch wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm using the oxford definition of anarchism. Which Oxford definition? You've cited "The Oxford Dictionary" up-thread. There's a bunch of online lexicographical resources that are unrelated to the OED, but trade on its name and reputation. At any rate, a brief definition from a concise lexicon is no substitute for doing some proper reading on the subject. And even reading will leave you pretty confused about how it…

https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/ Anarchism isn't some cursory subject for me. Someone up thread mentioned Rojava as an example of something closest to an anarchist collective. I went there and lived there. What I found was voluntary trade which we commonly call capitalism. I find this to be compatible with anarchism when trades are made voluntarily and not say, by strong arm of government forcing how y…

I would consider "opening up access" to someone else's capital to be a kind of theft, in general, and not consistent with anarchism. When the capital in question is means-of-production that the workers have contributed to building, things are a bit less clear-cut.

Allowing workers to join the board, perhaps as a response to an all-out strike, might be a step towards worker's collectives.

It's much easier to articulate the objectives than the path.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#207

Post by denton-scratch » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #205

denton-scratch wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means you're an extreme libertarian, but no anarchist.

That's just leftist gate-keeping of anarchism. A completely voluntary system of free trade isn't incompatible with a system without coercion. Note I consider something coercion when it is performed by violence by the aggressor, a victim can fight back and I won't classify that as coercion.

It's only "leftist gatekeeeping" if you're wedded to the idiosyncratic notion that anarchism is not a form of socialism.

From the language you use, I suspect you are a USAian; the term "leftist" seems to be used mainly as a term USAians use to express their contempt for socialism. In most of the world, "socialism" is not a bad word. But the term "leftist" is often used by authoritarians to describe the "terrorists" they're using the army to suppress.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#208

Post by notch656a » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:51 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #207

notch656a wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just leftist gate-keeping of anarchism. A completely voluntary system of free trade isn't incompatible with a system without coercion. Note I consider something coercion when it is performed by violence by the aggressor, a victim can fight back and I won't classify that as coercion.

It's only "leftist gatekeeeping" if you're wedded to the idiosyncratic notion that anarchism is not a form of socialism. From the language you use, I suspect you are a USAian; the term "leftist" seems to be used mainly as a term USAians use to express their contempt for socialism. In most of the world, "socialism" is not a bad word. But the term "leftist" is often used by authoritarians to describe the "terrorists" t…

I could be wrong but I infered on your other response you're ok with people keeping the fruits of their labor. If you're ok with them trading those fruits I'd call you a capitalist, not a socialist. Some of those fruits and some of those trades may be means of production, like a drill press or factory floor or whatever. Unless of course you're strong arming someone with violence to hand over some of those fruits.

I'm ok with socialism when it's done consensually. If a bunch of people want to go live on a commune, more power to them. It's when you come for the equipment and capital I use to manufacture things and feed my family, is when you're gonna start needing the commune comrades to enact violence if you want to steal that from me. And to do that seems.... coercive and non-anarchistic.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#209

Post by notch656a » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #206

notch656a wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/ Anarchism isn't some cursory subject for me. Someone up thread mentioned Rojava as an example of something closest to an anarchist collective. I went there and lived there. What I found was voluntary trade which we commonly call capitalism. I find this to be compatible with anarchism when trades are made voluntarily and not say, by strong arm of government forcing how y…

I would consider "opening up access" to someone else's capital to be a kind of theft, in general, and not consistent with anarchism. When the capital in question is means-of-production that the workers have contributed to building, things are a bit less clear-cut. Allowing workers to join the board, perhaps as a response to an all-out strike, might be a step towards worker's collectives. It's much easier to articulat…

Isn't negotiating a wage (or choosing to accept the offered wage or not) how we determine how much of the means-of-production that a worker contributes to that they are owed? I've helped build houses for instance. When I performed the labor, I was paid cash which I can now use for ownership of my own home. The same for when I design electronics, I then used those proceeds to buy my own means of production to manufacture electronics.

If you can find some other way to allocate payment to workers that's fine if everyone is agreement. Me, I like commodities and currencies. If not dollars a gold bar will work fine, you needn't pay me in fractions of a factory floor or whatever. I ought to be able to negotiate with a factory owner to be paid that way.

Re: Anarchists making their own medicine (2018)

#210

Post by denton-scratch » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #208

denton-scratch wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only "leftist gatekeeeping" if you're wedded to the idiosyncratic notion that anarchism is not a form of socialism. From the language you use, I suspect you are a USAian; the term "leftist" seems to be used mainly as a term USAians use to express their contempt for socialism. In most of the world, "socialism" is not a bad word. But the term "leftist" is often used by authoritarians to describe the "terrorists" t…

I could be wrong but I infered on your other response you're ok with people keeping the fruits of their labor. If you're ok with them trading those fruits I'd call you a capitalist, not a socialist. Some of those fruits and some of those trades may be means of production, like a drill press or factory floor or whatever. Unless of course you're strong arming someone with violence to hand over some of those fruits. I'm…

I'm OK with people keeping the fruits of their labour. Up to a point. When you get people using money to get more money, exponentially, until they've got so much they can't think of ways to spend it and start buying NFTs and building space rockets, it's gone way too far. So I'm good with keeping "fruits of labour" if that's what you need to live, subject to the constraints of tax policy.

My own political views are neither here nor there. I live in the UK, but I don't support Labour; I don't think Labour is socialist, and I do think they're authoritarian and militarist. I don't know how you can scale up anarchism from a collective to a nation; I do know when things are going in the wrong direction.

> I'm ok with socialism when it's done consensually.

You mean, when you can opt out, apparently.