Extremely myopic take. "Real" things can be just as pleasurable as not-"real" things, and not-"real" things can be just as painful. I don't even know by what criteria you're making these distinctions, but it has the smell of an embittered person.
TWENTY thousand a month? Surely this is wrong. Even $2k is ridiculous, but that's just criminal. Honestly, at a certain point, you might consider learning organic chemistry just to synthesize it yourself. It's fairly easy using unwatched precursors.
This is how it is in the US for uncommon disorders, but the amount paid out of pocket is often vastly less. People are typically not writing huge checks for these drugs. It's still daunting though. The pharma company charges a lot to recoup the cost of developing and marketing the drug, which is typically paid by Medicaid. The economics wouldn't make it worthwhile develop the drug if it were too cheap.
I don't know the parent story at all, but generally drug companies are allowed to charge $$$$ for certain drugs that are affective for rare conditions, on the basis that it won't be patients who pay for them. Rather payment will ultimately come from government, possibly via an insurer. The idea being that the drugs get made and brought to market when otherwise they would not, because nobody can afford a $20K drug.
What distorting effects of public funding? What about the distortionary effects of the market? I'll offer the suggestion that what you read is brainrotting private market propaganda designed to erode the public institutions that make America happier, healthier, and wealthier.
In economics discussions regarding public funding policy, the concern of "crowding out" commercial firms or nonprofits is a real concern. It's definitely an observed, measured, and reported phenomenon.
There is no private market entity with an incentive to provide research to the public, so in this sense there is no crowding out. Providing research to the public enables the discovery of new products which would otherwise have not been created. Public research is a public good that makes our nation happier, healthier, and wealthier.
Let's ignore FOSS contributions for a moment, which very much contradict your claim that private companies don't contribute research to the public.
Outside software technology: there is a series of papers from Grossman (going back to the 80s!) that analyzes basic versus applied research in a macroeconomic framework. Basic research _can_ be a public good, applied research can be crowded out. Combined with microeconomic research that monopolies can be dynamically efficient (investing in applied and basic R&D, like Bell Labs) and you get several examples and theories that contradict your statement that "there is no private market entity with an incentive to provide research to the public."
Another real world example in hardware that contradicts this claim is the evolution of building control systems. Before the advent of IOT, so, circa 1980s - 2010s, you saw increasing sharing and harmonization of competing electronics standards because it turned out to be more efficient to be modular, not have to re-hire subcontractors at exorbitant rates to maintain or replace components that go haywire, etc.
Including FOSS software is so wild in this conversation that it's ridiculous. You mean creating a product as a loss leader to get people into an ecosystem, farm social capital, create a sales funnel, or get free labor from the community to provide QA? The creation and release of software is NOWHERE NEAR the same category as "doing actual real scientific research" that it just smells of incredibly bad faith argumentation.
Economic analysis? Another intelligence product that requires essentially no staff, no actual R&D, no equipment besides computers? Brother, you have to be kidding me.
The hardware thing is just companies evolving to a shared standard.
Do you have even a little bit of a clue how hard it is to do good pharmacological research? Toxicological? Biological? Chemical? Physical? You have mentioned intelligence products with 0 investment cost and 0 risk of failure.
This is perhaps one of the most fart-sniffing tech-centric perspectives I have ever been exposed to. Go read some actual research by actual scientists and come back when you can tell me why, for instance, Eli Lilley would ever make their data or internal R&D public.
Jonas Salk did it. He is an extremely rare exception, and his incentive was public health. Notice that his incentive was markedly not financial.
Market entities with a financial incentive, whose entire business model and success is predicated on their unique R&D results, have 0 incentive to release research to the public.
I apologize that my points in my prior comment were so easy to misunderstand. Your response here shows a dramatic superficiality in understanding each of these areas I brought up, when not missed entirely. My hope is you can move past your rhetorical stumbling blocks in the conversation -- if that proves impossible, I'm happy to leave things as this being my last comment in our shared thread.
(1) FOSS is not only the next hyped front-end framework or modern data stack funnel. I encourage you to do more research for what European universities and organizations are doing. Not everyone follows the American or Chinese extractive approaches to software.
Further, while many corporations do indeed farm social capital and perform other appreciably maladative and cynic-inducing behaviors, the universe and the space of organizations is large. There are a great many examples of governments adopting public research and development released by private entities -- in FOSS and in other contexts.
Additionally, the fact that FOSS-product-focused companies tend to launch _after_ FOSS becomes successful to support the FOSS offering with associated services is quite a bit different from what is perhaps a FAANG-induced cynicism. To reiterate - the universe and the space of organizations is large.
(2) You interpreted that I did pointed to economic analysis as public vs. private R&D. This is a misinterpretation on your part and I encourage a re-read. I pointed to findings and studies to help you understand where the organizational and market frameworks for analysis stand.
(3) I am a researcher and regularly publish my findings, under the banner of the university I support, under non-profits I support, and under the company I run. I appreciate your experience has made you cynical. Lets break down this section.
> This is perhaps one of the most fart-sniffing tech-centric perspectives I have ever been exposed to.
This was not received as a good-faith statement, and further discussion on it will only engender argument. I suggest we move beyond trivial digs.
> Eli Lilley would ever make their data or internal R&D public.
Not to shill for them, but your point on Eli Lilly is incorrect. Eli Lilly has worked towards more transparent release of information -- they voluntarily launched an online clinical trial registry starting in 2002 (for Phase II–IV trials initiated on/after October 15, 2002) and extended full trial registration (including Phase I) from October 1, 2010.[0] Since 2014, Lilly has published clinical study results (Phase 2/3) regardless of outcome, adhering to PhRMA/EFPIA transparency principles. Patient-level data on marketed-approved indications is available to qualified researchers via a controlled-access third-party portal.[1] Beginning in 2021, Lilly has also produced plain‑language summaries of Phase 2–4 results in English, and more recently extended plain‑language summaries to Phase 1 trials in the EU in compliance with new regulations.[1]
Especially the third point is relevant -- good government regulation leads to better sharing and transparency. Smart companies take regulation as an innovation opportunity.
> Jonas Salk did it. He is an extremely rare exception, and his incentive was public health. Notice that his incentive was markedly not financial.
Aye, and I wish that all medical and life-enhancing research could be accomplished as relatively cheaply or as magnanimously as Jonas Salk.
> Market entities with a financial incentive, whose entire business model and success is predicated on their unique R&D results, have 0 incentive to release research to the public.
Please refer to (2) for studies and theory for why this is untrue.
The number of market entities who only are built on unique R&D tend to fail due to poor delivery of product, so their incentive to release their R&D to the world is more or less moot. I do acknowledge existence of market entities who are built solely on operationalizing R&D -- I challenge the implicit claim that all market entities fall into this category.
You could argue that Bell Labs was essentially government funded, as the monopoly/concession of the entire US telephony infrastructure is what made it possible, and research at universities was not funded anywhere near current levels.
They were also forced in the 1950s to license all their innovations freely, as compensation for holding a monopoly. Which only strengthens the parent’s point that private institutions have little incentive to work for public benefit.
That whole discussion is based on the assumption that commercial firms or nonprofits are better in some way than publicly funded research. That is the stupid neoliberal dogma that private and market economy always are better than things that are run by our elected officials. That dogma has to die.
Price as a market signal precedes neoliberalism by several decades to several millennia, depending on which economic historian you speak with. Is your argument that basic research which has no immediately attributable applications is better handled by publicly funded research? I mostly agree to that. Applied research is definitely handled better by commercial firms and nonprofits when handling is defined by what people are willing to value (pay for).
If we're talking about applied technology in the public goods space, then it can be a toss up. Sustainability research, for example, can be quite blurry as to whether the market is pricing it in or not as applied or basic research -- really depends on how a government handles externalities and regulatory capture!
I'll 100% agree to government entities as well as some well-chartered public entities being absolutely awesome at setting up incentive structures for desired outcomes. There is actually a whole field of research dedicated to the topic of incentive structuring called mechanism design -- think of it as the converse to Game Theory and strategic behavioral analysis -- that policy design and analysis learn from.
I'll also note that governments aren't structured to efficiently provide benefits or just-in-time delivery in most situations. Though the discussion has made me more curious about how operationally efficient the DOD is for civilian goods distribution, given it supports a massive population.
I'm pointing out that there is an implied assumption that private always is better than public, and that assumption in many cases is just plain wrong. Not in all cases, market economy works great for many things, but there are also many cases it plainly sucks. When you warn that private initiatives might be crowded out, it is implicit that those are more desirable than public initiatives.
This kind of discussion is a bit off topic here, but I think it is important to remind people that the idea that private always is better than public is ideological dogma, not science. But your latest comment makes me believe you agree with that.
I disagree. I think Neoliberalism has done a remarkable job bringing the majority of the world out of subsistence. I also think it is a target for hijack by neofeudalists as neoliberalism is realpolitick without self-reference.
Nah, he transparently accepted money from waymo to peddle propaganda. Once somebody takes propaganda money, there's no trusting them anymore. From then on out, everything they do is in service to propaganda paymasters. Even just doing regular, good quality work can only be viewed through the lens of acquiring social capital to liquidate into financial capital later.
See: Brian Keating licking Eric Weinstein's jock strap in public and then offering mild criticism on Piers Morgan.
You are essentially saying any creator that has ever done sponsored content becomes a creator non-grata. I somewhat disagree with that. Sponsored content is a perverse incentive but it's also important to understand that creators can pick and choose for what they make sponsored content. So if you have an ethical creator can create sponsored content of a product they agree is actually that good. Well now the question is "How can you tell". And I don't think you generally can. Some people are really good at lying. In the end it's really about do you trust this creator or not. Which is what's it's about regardless if they took a sponsorship or not.
> Well now the question is "How can you tell". And I don't think you generally can.
You can, actually, with a simple rule of thumb: if it's being advertised on YouTube, it's statistically low quality or a scam. The sheer number of brands that sponsor videos just to be exposed later for doing something shady is just too high.
That's the point. You can't tell. Applying a low resolution filter like you are proposing will filter out a ton of worthwhile products. Here is just a small list of products you can no longer buy if you subscribe to your philosophy: apple, dell, HP, framework, tuxedo and basically almost all laptop manufacturers. The same goes for smartphones. No GPUs at all for you. The filter is so crude it fails spectacularly at what it should be doing.
Perhaps a more fitting variant would be that the trustworthiness decreases with increasing number of sponsored channels and ad frequency. Although I have never seen any video directly sponsored by Apple, Dell or HP for example, same for GPUs and many smartphone brands. They provide free units for review at most, and those at least go to channels with fitting content and the trustworthiness can be judged more easily. Whereas some new brand you never heard of aggressively sponsoring videos of every major channel for months basically guarantees there's something wrong with the company, product or both.
I thought it goes without saying that I don't mean ads shown directly by YouTube, if you don't already block those in 2025 I don't know what to say.
Sponsored content is fine. Sponsored content with improper public disclosure, or with irresponsible claims that do not reflect reality, is not fine. Super simple standard: if they lie or substantively misrepresent for a sponsor, they can no longer be trusted.
> transparently accepted money from waymo to peddle propaganda
If transparent enough (and not from an abhorrent source), I'd be ok with his product. He's even allowed to make the occasional mistake as long as he properly owns up to it.
Theres been a lot of valuable learning from him and it would be a pity to dismiss it all over a single fumble.
Lying or misrepresenting a product for a paycheck is not a fumble. It's a propagandist making a bag. Once they have put effort into creating a polished piece of propaganda, which they then release, it can not be considered a fumble any longer. It is something that they endorse. If they rescind it within some critical window that meaningfully impacts their bottom-line, maybe then I can believe them. Otherwise? No, I see no reason to offer them the benefit of the doubt. There are many people doing actually good work. Veritasium is not unique in their content or quality. We should not reward propagandists.
I agree that Waymo video was probably a poor decision. He does say that the video is sponsored but it just comes off a bit odd. It's not uncommon that youtubers are paid either in money or access - Destin for example gets access to military sites and technology on his channel with it being a semi-explicit tool for recruiting.
Forget China. The greatest threat to American freedom and global power is robber baron billionaires. We live in a full-on kleptocracy. It's about time we add some new amendments to the constitution to relevel the balance of powers.
It's both sardonic and genuine. If he's genuine, then I genuinely wish him the best luck. However, it is very hard for me to believe that any billionaire would ever do something generally disfavorable to the current billionaire class. It's even harder for me to believe that, if one of them was to do so, that it would not be for their own further gain, just to the detriment of their peer cohort. I'm a bit jaded from having been lied to too many times.
Again, however, if he is genuine: I genuinely wish him the best luck taking on his matched opponents.
I have to admit that for as corrupt as Illinois is, Pritzker has managed to support a few things which his billionaire buddies weren't too fond of. It's not all good, but it's better than I expected. He's called for higher taxes on the rich, stronger labor protections, higher minimum wages and better support for the poors.
The problem is that they have bought all three systems of government so they can do whatever they want. They own all the media as well. Even something like PBS that is supposed to be more independent is highly dependent on "philanthropy" from these same billionaires and they've fallen victim to what I'm going to moniker as Sinclair's Law ("It is difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends upon not understanding it" -Upton Sinclair)
There are plenty of countries that don't like capitalism. If you don't like it you can move to one of those. You can even go somewhere like the UK if you don't want to give up the US's anglo/protestant culture.
We have a lot of problems in the US but electing our own shyster based on lies to get a democratic president isn't going to fix the problem.
We'll need a truth and reconciliation group after or if Trump gets out of power. We need significant reforms, like getting rid of the electoral college and making supreme court justices have term limits but also not be able to take bribes. Also the president should not have immunity - the unitary executive theory is incredibly dangerous and destructive.
I have been reading the yoga sutras recently and it strikes me how applicable it is. The weird stuff about attaining magical powers is... cool, but samyama and the nature of the reflective consciousness have a lot of explanatory power imo.
Samkhya gives you the Worldview/Model and Patanjala Ashtanga Yoga gives you a practical framework/discipline to implement it. Here is a older comment of mine which you might find useful - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41538322
It's a revolutionary technology for the trustless, public exchange of data. It's overhyped as a financial instrument. Anybody who desires a completely public, completely trustless infrastructure for money or property is stupid.
So is the idea that widespread lead exposure led to the decline of the Roman empire largely pop science? Are you saying that's not accurate, or that the source of the lead exposure is miscounted?
Wouldn't there necessarily be more lead pipes at the peak and post-peak? Assuming that pipe-building was some non-linear function of dominance, which seems a fair assumption, we would start with 0% pipes at 0% rome and asymptotically close to 100% pipes at the asymptotic 100% peak rome. Is this a bad assumption, or is it basically just pedantry?
It would be more about lead pipes per capita, possibly as rome itself grew wealthier from conquests they added more and more piping, but it would be hard to relate this to any specific moment in time.
Presumably the wealthy elites had their pipes installed first anyways.
there are many ways to account for the fall of the roman empire, and everyone chooses their favorite (usually depending on where their interest bends). for example, it could be explained by the increased usage of mercenaries in the roman army. i like this theory because the fall was brought by losses to renegade forces. it could also be explained by bad leadership.
"Decadence" likely had nothing to do with the Roman Empire's fall. That theory is based essentially on propaganda, designed to absolve them of blame.
The lead pipes had too much calcification, and not much lead would have leached out. But the Romans did use lead acetate as a sweetener, so they were adding lead directly to many (most?) of their meals.
Payment processors will refuse to service payments for fictional harm, but will happily help people support a fascist[1]. If we're going to censor things, we should at least censor the actual, out-and-out, self-admitted fascists. Icky games with fictionalized harm do not seem to result in real harm, yet we have a very recent history showing the harm of real-life fascism. What a strange standard!
Payment processors will refuse to service payments for fictional harm, but will happily help people support a fascist[1]. If we're going to censor things, we should at least censor the actual, out-and-out, self-admitted fascists. Icky games with fictionalized harm do not seem to result in real harm, yet we have a very recent history showing the harm of real-life fascism. What a strange standard!
