The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective • Hacker News Board

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#71

Post by yosito » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 2:54 AM UTC

jgtrosh wrote: post #5

I wish there was an equivalent of CI and peer-reviewed pull-requested contribution to their system, to ease collaborative improvement to the methods. You'd really want many sets of eyes able to look at all aspects of the drugs to vastly reduce risk.

I saw one of Michael's talks. They do share the data about their hardware and processes openly (though I don't know where/how, since it's not the kind of info I understand). But one of the things he mentioned needing more open information about is the chemistry. There are databases of chemical reactions that can be used to train AIs to find new, easier and cheaper ways to synthesize medications, but those databases are controlled by large for-profit corporations who refuse to release the data. Presumably for "safety" reasons, but it's not hard to imagine that "safety" isn't the whole story.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#72

Post by mplewis » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 2:57 AM UTC

imbruglia wrote: post #40

34k5uoi5ui wrote: post #7

This is truly amazing work, and I hope they are able to achieve their goals. The future of humanity depends on it. If you want to help, they need someone to crack a rar file containing the Chematica data (which was acquired by Merck pharmaceuticals) https://twitter.com/MichaelSLaufer/status/102263726560276889...

I hate to be negative. But I have seen enough of these sort of initiative over the years to be skeptical. In reality it seldom makes sense to do it yourself. Few things in general needs to be built or invented. If they do chances are they aren't the ones to do it. It almost always makes more sense acquire the capability to do what you want somewhere else. But as soon as you do that all the edgy rhetoric and potential…

Providing access to otherwise-inaccessible drugs is a real problem. The fact that normal people can accomplish this through an anarchist collective is incredible and should be lauded.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#73

Post by mplewis » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:00 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #43

robbiep wrote: post #38

An interesting approach to the criminal lack of healthcare to vulnerable populations in the US (and potentially other places with third world health systems)

Is there actually a criminal lack of medical care? What is Medicaid? Tens of billions of dollars are going to help nobody?

They sure aren't helping everyone.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#74

Post by tfolbrecht » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:14 AM UTC

Love these guys, last press I saw on them was their OTS epipen, glad to hear they aren't defunct.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#75

Post by malkia » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:14 AM UTC

klipt wrote: post #17

darawk wrote: post #12

> Indeed, Laufer and his collaborators can’t stop pissing off powerful people because Four Thieves is living proof that effective medicines can be developed on a budget outside of institutional channels. Synthesized. Not developed. Synthesizing medicines is easy. Developing them is extremely difficult.

I can "render" a movie onto my harddrive from bittorrent in minutes. I don't know why Pixar has to spend so much time on their rendering! /s

If stealing movies helped people survived, given financial difficulties, then they'll do it. Survival beats "no-steal" laws.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#76

Post by Robotbeat » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:15 AM UTC

citrablue wrote: post #64

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand what harm was done here?

In that moment, representing the barriers to safe and effective medicine as something that one can throw from their pockets. In the long term, bring drugs to people without thorough testing and regulations. It's one thing for e.g. stage 4 cancer. It's another to let a Vioxx get through. Strict regulations around the development and testing of drugs exist because no human is capable of evaluating efficacy for themselv…

They also exist because it's INSANELY profitable to be able to hold someone hostage for their literal life. As long as the IP is tightly controlled and the ever-stricter regulations build your moat for you, you'll make insane money.

Look, I agree this isn't likely to be the scalable and safe solution that solves the cost crisis. But maybe we DO need someone to throw pills out for free just to show the absurdity of our current system. Because if it's something you need to live and the system is built to make something fundamentally cheap ultra-expensive, it's REALLY hard to see what this man could be doing wrong...

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#77

Post by Robotbeat » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:22 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #34

skadamou wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point but I think that there is a middle ground to be struck here. I don't think medical care and drug research can be ethically applied upon the basis of economic motivation alone. Through this lens Laufer makes some sense. You raise a strong and valid counterpoint however. There is currently a huge profit motive to develop new medical treatments (so long as they are indeed profitable). What will the effe…

Yep, totally agree. I think people get mad when they see that a cure for a disease exists that they can't have. They don't think about the institutions that created it in the first place. On the other hand, I think we could do a better job at providing medicines to people who genuinely cannot pay, or cannot obtain it for some odd reason (like the company stopped making it).

The institutions that created it are VERY often government-funded.

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#78

Post by sabujp » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:28 AM UTC

klipt wrote: post #17

darawk wrote: post #12

> Indeed, Laufer and his collaborators can’t stop pissing off powerful people because Four Thieves is living proof that effective medicines can be developed on a budget outside of institutional channels. Synthesized. Not developed. Synthesizing medicines is easy. Developing them is extremely difficult.

I can "render" a movie onto my harddrive from bittorrent in minutes. I don't know why Pixar has to spend so much time on their rendering! /s

this is the worst analogy ever

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#79

Post by thatcat » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:34 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #69

> At the pharmacy, a pair of single use Mylan epipens can cost over $600 and the company’s generic version costs $300 per pair, but an ongoing shortage means you probably can’t find them, even if you can afford them. This was true years ago but not anymore. CVS sells a generic epipen two-pack for $109 [1]. Still not cheap, but let’s not pretend that these cost $300 and are not even available. I wanted to like this ar…

The 109 price seems like the market responding to the 30 $ diy epipen hack released 2 years ago.

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/10/01/hackers-prov...

Re: The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective

#80

Post by citrablue » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 3:42 AM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #68

citrablue wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did go to jail for that, unless I'm confused. He brought attention to his tax evasion for other reasons... but is it difficult to acknowledge that the direct legal cause of his jail time was evasion?

The claim being made is that the authorities wanted him in jail one way or another, because he was a gangster. Tax evasion just happened to be the charge they could make stick.

The counter-argument is that some authorities have always wanted to jail some people, but haven't been able to. Capone was jailed because he was caught on tax evasion; the mechanisms to why they looked at his tax records become lost in the argument around causality, which I don't think is fruitful in this context.