COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Nicholas Laureys]

What is keeping medical research from being funded by independent sources? Meaning all of medical research. I understand regulation on medical drugs and so on (although it doesn't really matter anymore after 2020), but the research itself, why does it HAVE TO be funded by government? Are scientists making that much money from the government anyway?
Maybe this is too complicated for my little brain to understand, I'm just always trying to think of an alternative to centralized entities and monopolies, but I guess they exist for a reason.

My gut instinct, Franco, says it could be as simple as our pathetic safety-seeking tendency as humans, which leads us to seek w2 (stable, corporate employee) income vs. going it alone as an entrepreneur (Then again, the humans who left the tribe in the past typically, proportionally, did not fare well, so maybe that tendency is less pathetic than I claim). There are lots of benes, perks, "recognition," and, above all else, stable income that probably explain why [medical researchers] don't ditch centralized, stable income in favor of independent funding sources.

/Side Rant/
This tribal social instinct is also probably why "Nothing Ever Happens," even when our government is caught red-handed (borrowing that phrase from some of the posters on Denniger's site, who recognize, even amongst all the revolution fantasy porn that gets trumpeted over there, that the status quo is probably here to stay, at least for our lifetimes).
/All done/

For a bit of hope, and a bigger-picture understanding of how the "dummies" may in fact be trailblazers, in contrast to the educated, intelligent, enlightened conformists, see Robert Kiyosaki's hilariously titled "Why A Students Work for C Students (and B Students work for the Government)." Or just think for a moment about what the book's title portends.
If I may ask, what were your high school and college GPA's, Rip? Before you answer, I'll concede that Kiyosaki's idea probably applies only to the social sciences.

[Subby]

What is keeping medical research from being funded by independent sources? Meaning all of medical research. I understand regulation on medical drugs and so on (although it doesn't really matter anymore after 2020), but the research itself, why does it HAVE TO be funded by government? Are scientists making that much money from the government anyway?
Maybe this is too complicated for my little brain to understand, I'm just always trying to think of an alternative to centralized entities and monopolies, but I guess they exist for a reason.

I dare say it wont be recognised as "research" because it's not "independent" or some other excuse.

[Mark Rippetoe]

If I may ask, what were your high school and college GPA's, Rip? Before you answer, I'll concede that Kiyosaki's idea probably applies only to the social sciences.

High school was easy, but my college GPA was in the high 2s.

[Grobleaugg]

Research does not have to be government funded as people are suggesting. I think around 75% of clinical trials are privately funded. But think about this for a second when asking for research to be crowd sourced through some form of GoFundMe campaign. Outside of when someone is on the verge of a exciting breakthrough, how are you going to get people interested enough to donate? In other words, you likely wont have any funding at the beginning stages of research (also known as the boring parts) that are needed for major breakthroughs to occur. This research would no longer be open sourced and shared amongst the scientific community which would only work to slow down the research as a whole because there wont be any funding for the research and the progress that people make will be hidden as the profit will need to be maximized for the investors who would be taking their cut. Look at this from the perspective of bringing a new drug to market. Keep in mind that <10% of new drugs pass clinical trials. Now you would be asking the pharmaceutical companies to fund the foundational research that is normally funded by the government. Good luck when the cost of your prescription medications increases by >1000% because you no longer want to fund the basic research the pharmaceutical companies typically piggy back off of.

However, I would argue that our current system is also publicly crowdsourced through taxes. Your taxes go to the government. The government employs people who understands concepts of basic science and research and has the scientists write up grant proposals who would then be in charge of determining the merit of the proposals and hand out the funding. This supplies a steady stream of funding to for research projects whose ideas are shared to the rest of the scientific community. Some private companies will advance this knowledge by making products (such as medications) that you will benefit from. The cost of doing this is already expensive enough (not to mention that >90% of drug trials fail, but these failures will also need to be funded) which is reflected in the cost of new medications. But without this type of system those new medications will either not be made because they wont be profitable or their cost will become astronomical. So good luck with that.

[Gilead]

I remember seeing that video of Trump and I remember when it was strangely taken down.
This is from Musk's feed by BTW.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/...YmQLv1CtQ&s=08

[francesco.decaro]

I don’t know the details about medical research specifically but government funded research has some large advantages and some real downside.

The advantage for a company to seek government funding includes profit and bonuses, high salaries (much higher than civil servants), invoices are always paid from the infinite well, funding is frequently renewed on autopilot, spending the dollars (or overspending) is worth more than results.

The downside of accepting government funding is you risk and/or share your future intellectual property. They also can dictate teaming agreements and assorted requirements. Your imagination is the limit.

It’s a classic soul selling proposition.

So not really an advantage at all, but the soul selling business is always thriving unfortunately

[Grobleaugg]

I remember seeing that video of Trump and I remember when it was strangely taken down.
This is from Musk's feed by BTW.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/...YmQLv1CtQ&s=08

Musk is an idiot. This “censored“ video that “won't be shown on CNN“ was literally played during the January 6th hearing that aired on CNN.

07/21/22 Select Committee Hearing - YouTube

The transcript of this video was also included on the final report of the select committee.

By this time, the National Guard and other additional law enforcement had begun to arrive in force and started to turn the tide of the violence. Many of those attackers in the Capitol saw or received word of President Trump’s 4:17 p.m. message, and they understood this message as an instruction to leave:537

Stephen Ayres testified in front of the Select Committee that: “Well, we were there. As soon as that come out, everybody started talking about it, and it seemed like it started to disperse, you know, some of the crowd. Obviously, you know, once we got back to the hotel room, we seen that it was still going on, but it definitely dispersed a lot of the crowd.

Jacob Chansley, also known as the QAnon-Shaman answered President Trump’s directive: “I’m here delivering the President’s message. Donald Trump has asked everybody to go home.” Another responded to Chansley: “That’s our order.”

Other unknown individuals also listened to President Trump’s message while outside the Capitol, and responded: “He says, go home. He says, go home.” And “Yeah. Here. He said to go home.”

FINAL REPORT of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

This occurred after he broke into the Capitol as part of a violent mob. There is video of him when he actually entered the Capitol showing people breaking the windows.

Judge releases new video of 'QAnon Shaman' Jacob Chansley during Capitol riot - Exhibit 2 - YouTube

No, he didn't through a broken window and it is unclear how that door was opened. I will even give him credit that it looks like he redirected a man from grabbing candy or whatever was over to the side. But he did enter with this violent mob, used a megaphone to rile them up (this occurred prior to the Musk video), and disrupted a congressional hearing. All charges that have been captured on video and he plead guilty to.

CHANSLEY, Jacob Anthony (aka Jacob Angeli) | USAO-DC | Department of Justice

This was far from the tourist visit Tucker Carlson (a man who has flat out admitted to lying on air and whose personal texts in court are contradictory to what he says on air (i.e. he lies to you for ratings) is convincing people it was.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Musk is an idiot.

That's certainly obvious.

[Gilead]

Musk is an idiot. This “censored“ video that “won't be shown on CNN“ was literally played during the January 6th hearing that aired on CNN.

The video I was referring to, was Trumps call for everyone to pack up and leave etc.... The video that Chansley was quoting. For some reason Twitter at the time took that video of Trump down. I am sure had people have seen Trump himself say that, many would not have entered.

[francesco.decaro]

Research does not have to be government funded as people are suggesting. I think around 75% of clinical trials are privately funded. But think about this for a second when asking for research to be crowd sourced through some form of GoFundMe campaign. Outside of when someone is on the verge of a exciting breakthrough, how are you going to get people interested enough to donate? In other words, you likely wont have any funding at the beginning stages of research (also known as the boring parts) that are needed for major breakthroughs to occur. This research would no longer be open sourced and shared amongst the scientific community which would only work to slow down the research as a whole because there wont be any funding for the research and the progress that people make will be hidden as the profit will need to be maximized for the investors who would be taking their cut. Look at this from the perspective of bringing a new drug to market. Keep in mind that <10% of new drugs pass clinical trials. Now you would be asking the pharmaceutical companies to fund the foundational research that is normally funded by the government. Good luck when the cost of your prescription medications increases by >1000% because you no longer want to fund the basic research the pharmaceutical companies typically piggy back off of.

However, I would argue that our current system is also publicly crowdsourced through taxes. Your taxes go to the government. The government employs people who understands concepts of basic science and research and has the scientists write up grant proposals who would then be in charge of determining the merit of the proposals and hand out the funding. This supplies a steady stream of funding to for research projects whose ideas are shared to the rest of the scientific community. Some private companies will advance this knowledge by making products (such as medications) that you will benefit from. The cost of doing this is already expensive enough (not to mention that >90% of drug trials fail, but these failures will also need to be funded) which is reflected in the cost of new medications. But without this type of system those new medications will either not be made because they wont be profitable or their cost will become astronomical. So good luck with that.

Here's my problem with this.
Pharma companies and the government are the same thing at this point. The government doesn't employ people that understand science (or at least people that behave according to it). The "scientific community" is not really a thing in my opinion. 10% is not a result that tells me that this system is better than any other system. People get interested in literally anything, especially when it's about their own ass, and a private company without protection from the government would be very careful about putting anyone's interest before that of their consumers. And the idea that drug prices would skyrocket without government intervention is absurd, since a free market would fix that pretty quick.
How much does "government funded" insulin cost again? And how much does a tv cost compared to 15 years ago, including taxes of course, which we shall pay forever?