whoops! that list of prizes has been floating around since before the Teespring version got taken down, and we forgot to update it when pasting it for the new jam. Thanks for catching!
Re: Oh wow, I am in both first and second funny places!
I dunno, perhaps I was too hard on you David - in all honesty I forgot in the process of putting this together that it came from you, whose comments I usually think are very good. Perhaps I was defensive, because I think Cathy's post was excellent and it got a lot of awful comments trying to refute the premise. But no two ways about it: yours was a strange comment, and it was hard to tell what you were getting at.
Yeah it's frustrating - in a lot of cases, some googling can still turn up the articles, as they haven't even been eliminated it's just that the site's URL structure has changed. We're very committed to keeping old links alive.
This is a key possibility in the game, in fact - throughout the game, the factions face various specific decisions and their members vote on them. One that The Hustle faces is whether to join a new industry coalition being created by an ex-MegaCorp executive - and they are tempted with the offer of access to valuable equipment and other assets.
In the three games we ran, two of The Hustle teams rejected the offer, and one accepted it.
Does it seem fair to you that rich countries representing a small fraction of the world's population have also acquired and administered the majority of the world's vaccines, while several countries have still not received a single dose and many more will not see meaningful vaccination levels until 2022 or even 2023?
Please, speak to that issue before you start shedding tears about what's fair to multibillion dollar pharma giants.
The governments of the world could have taken they risks, dumped money into research then given the blueprints to the vaccine for everyone to use. But instead they forced all the risks onto a private company then swoop in to try to gain all the rewards without paying for it.
You describe it as if this was a sudden decision. The system of globally-enforced private pharma patents has been steadily developing for a couple decades, largely pushed by the pharma companies themselves. COVID is laying bare the mess we've gotten ourselves into - and no, getting out of it won't be easy, but now is the time to start.
And you are also ignoring the fact that governments have poured lots of money into research. Then they sell the results to a private pharma company for a pittance, and that company goes on to make millions. That's been going on since long before COVID. And of course there is the case of the Oxford vaccine - the development of which was around 97% publicly funded - which was supposed to be released openly until Bill Gates and others stepped in and pressured them into partnering exclusively with AstraZeneca.
I'm not saying the man's a genius. But if you look at his term so far - both before and during the pandemic - he has proven quite capable at accomplishing many aspects of his party's traditional agenda, e.g. on environmental conservation, development rules, rental property rules, and more. He and his government only seem to become "incompetent" when it comes to public health and pandemic relief measures that might place some burden on big businesses and big landowners while benefiting the Ontario public at large.
Canada had to hedge its bets and pre-order many doses from many suppliers.
Yep - it's a good example of why vaccine distribution based on individually negotiated bilateral deals between countries and private companies with patent monopolies is a terrible, inequitable way of dealing with a global pandemic.
Will the pharma companies spend the money to try to rush vaccine developments for future pandemics if they are just going to have to hand over their patents (profit) once the research is done?
So you're saying pharma companies will hold everyone on the globe hostage, and are willing to stop pursuing life-saving medicines and let millions die if they aren't promised monopoly profits?
Okay... Sounds like an excellent argument for ending the privatization of medical research and pharmaceuticals entirely, and making it a matter of public concern, especially since a great deal of the primary research is publicly funded to begin with. Obviously the situation you describe is extremely dangerous (and evil) and cannot be allowed to continue.
There’s a global shortage of some vaccine materials
Let's tackle that in a cooperative global fashion with the sole goal of equitably saving as many lives as possible and ending the pandemic, globally, as quickly as possible. Let's remove patent monopolies for private pharma companies from the equation entirely.
Vaccine supply issues aren’t caused by patents
That's what patent-holders claim, yes. Experts who don't have a vested interest in defending patents tend to disagree.
I'm not interested in leaving control of quality and safety up to private pharma giants negotiating confidential contracts - that's something that should be under democratic control. Nor do I believe the multibillion dollar companies that stand to profit massively from these patents when they say "we need them to protect your safety, that's all, we swear!" (while simultaneously talking to their investors about how much they plan to cash in over the years to come)
And the "undermining trust" argument doesn't mean much to the countries that are suffering from huge vaccine shortages and won't see meaningful vaccination levels for years.
Thanks, just saw this as the post was going out. Have added an update at the top, and going to dig a bit more into his latest comments (they are still super unclear)
On the post: Gaming Like It's 1926: Join The Fourth Annual Public Domain Game Jam
Re: Copymouse is 404!
whoops! that list of prizes has been floating around since before the Teespring version got taken down, and we forgot to update it when pasting it for the new jam. Thanks for catching!
On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: December 12th - 18th
Re:
thanks, broken link in the html, fixed!
On the post: Non-Fungible T-Shirts, And Other New Gear From Techdirt
Re: Face Mask
Face masks of the right click design are available! https://techdirt.threadless.com/designs/right-click/accessories/face-mask/premium
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re:
Whoops, my bad! Sorry about that
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Oh wow, I am in both first and second funny places!
I dunno, perhaps I was too hard on you David - in all honesty I forgot in the process of putting this together that it came from you, whose comments I usually think are very good. Perhaps I was defensive, because I think Cathy's post was excellent and it got a lot of awful comments trying to refute the premise. But no two ways about it: yours was a strange comment, and it was hard to tell what you were getting at.
On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: August 8th - 14th
Re:
Yeah it's frustrating - in a lot of cases, some googling can still turn up the articles, as they haven't even been eliminated it's just that the site's URL structure has changed. We're very committed to keeping old links alive.
On the post: Money City: Our New Game To Explore The Future Of Money Is Now Available To Everyone
Re:
This is a key possibility in the game, in fact - throughout the game, the factions face various specific decisions and their members vote on them. One that The Hustle faces is whether to join a new industry coalition being created by an ex-MegaCorp executive - and they are tempted with the offer of access to valuable equipment and other assets.
In the three games we ran, two of The Hustle teams rejected the offer, and one accepted it.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: How did this bad dudes comment do?
It was in the top 10
On the post: This Week In Techdirt History: May 23rd - 29th
Re:
fixed, thanks!
On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 283: Debating Section 230, With WIRED's Gilad Edelman
Re:
Here's the direct mp3 link: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1051081630-techdirt-debating-section-230-with-wireds-gilad-edelm an.mp3
Always available in the XML feed: https://www.techdirt.com/podcast.xml
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re: Re: Re: Hindsight 20/20
It just doesn’t seem fair to me
Does it seem fair to you that rich countries representing a small fraction of the world's population have also acquired and administered the majority of the world's vaccines, while several countries have still not received a single dose and many more will not see meaningful vaccination levels until 2022 or even 2023?
Please, speak to that issue before you start shedding tears about what's fair to multibillion dollar pharma giants.
The governments of the world could have taken they risks, dumped money into research then given the blueprints to the vaccine for everyone to use. But instead they forced all the risks onto a private company then swoop in to try to gain all the rewards without paying for it.
You describe it as if this was a sudden decision. The system of globally-enforced private pharma patents has been steadily developing for a couple decades, largely pushed by the pharma companies themselves. COVID is laying bare the mess we've gotten ourselves into - and no, getting out of it won't be easy, but now is the time to start.
And you are also ignoring the fact that governments have poured lots of money into research. Then they sell the results to a private pharma company for a pittance, and that company goes on to make millions. That's been going on since long before COVID. And of course there is the case of the Oxford vaccine - the development of which was around 97% publicly funded - which was supposed to be released openly until Bill Gates and others stepped in and pressured them into partnering exclusively with AstraZeneca.
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm not saying the man's a genius. But if you look at his term so far - both before and during the pandemic - he has proven quite capable at accomplishing many aspects of his party's traditional agenda, e.g. on environmental conservation, development rules, rental property rules, and more. He and his government only seem to become "incompetent" when it comes to public health and pandemic relief measures that might place some burden on big businesses and big landowners while benefiting the Ontario public at large.
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re: Re: 'Mine, mine!'
Canada had to hedge its bets and pre-order many doses from many suppliers.
Yep - it's a good example of why vaccine distribution based on individually negotiated bilateral deals between countries and private companies with patent monopolies is a terrible, inequitable way of dealing with a global pandemic.
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re: Hindsight 20/20
Will the pharma companies spend the money to try to rush vaccine developments for future pandemics if they are just going to have to hand over their patents (profit) once the research is done?
So you're saying pharma companies will hold everyone on the globe hostage, and are willing to stop pursuing life-saving medicines and let millions die if they aren't promised monopoly profits?
Okay... Sounds like an excellent argument for ending the privatization of medical research and pharmaceuticals entirely, and making it a matter of public concern, especially since a great deal of the primary research is publicly funded to begin with. Obviously the situation you describe is extremely dangerous (and evil) and cannot be allowed to continue.
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm all for strict regulations of pharmaceutical patents but ending them is short-sighted.
We are talking about waiving them using the mechanism built into the TRIPS agreement for exactly that purpose under exactly these circumstances.
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re: Re: Re:
I think you're giving him too much moral credit.
His sole interest is protecting his own political future: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/protect-the-king-why-ontario-premier-doug-ford-has-taken-the-back-seat-1. 5425619
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re: Re: Re:
There’s a global shortage of some vaccine materials
Let's tackle that in a cooperative global fashion with the sole goal of equitably saving as many lives as possible and ending the pandemic, globally, as quickly as possible. Let's remove patent monopolies for private pharma companies from the equation entirely.
Vaccine supply issues aren’t caused by patents
That's what patent-holders claim, yes. Experts who don't have a vested interest in defending patents tend to disagree.
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re:
I'm not interested in leaving control of quality and safety up to private pharma giants negotiating confidential contracts - that's something that should be under democratic control. Nor do I believe the multibillion dollar companies that stand to profit massively from these patents when they say "we need them to protect your safety, that's all, we swear!" (while simultaneously talking to their investors about how much they plan to cash in over the years to come)
And the "undermining trust" argument doesn't mean much to the countries that are suffering from huge vaccine shortages and won't see meaningful vaccination levels for years.
On the post: Canada Still Won't Commit To Supporting A Pandemic Patent Waiver
Re:
lol yeah sure, trying to help his business donors and trying to show his face in public as little as possible
On the post: Minister Behind Canada's Social Media Bill Now Says It Will Regulate User Generated Content
Re:
Thanks, just saw this as the post was going out. Have added an update at the top, and going to dig a bit more into his latest comments (they are still super unclear)
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