What??? Read the post again: it was studiously neutral on the topic.
I'm describing a political reality: software should be carved out of their space. They have a ton of clout in DC, and if you insist on killing drug patents, too, then nothing will ever be done. Guaranteed.
Bullshit. Your post starts with the assumptions that: 1) good patents exist, and 2) medical patents are good.
Neither of those assumptions are "neutral".
You're so articulate.
"Drug and medical patents have at least some moral claim to virtue " is not an assumption that "medical patents are good." No it doesn't. Unless subtlety is lost on you.
It was studiously neutral. But, the world is bigger than the USA and US patents leak into the world, which is a problem: other economies do it differently.
Drug patents are bad. The pragmatic good in the short term is that they got us the covid vaccine, and will get us malaria, and better flu shots and probably personalised cancer treatments. All of that should be nationalised, and made available worldwide for public good.
Fuck the shareholders.
(not you. you're just calling it as you see it. I'll say it again: you aren't wrong)
Software patents are both bad, and stupid.
> Drug patents are bad. The pragmatic good in the short term is that they got us the covid vaccine, and will get us malaria, and better flu shots and probably personalised cancer treatments. All of that should be nationalised, and made available worldwide for public good.
> Fuck the shareholders.
I wonder if you have any experience at all in a non-trivial business where heavy investment is a necessary precursor to getting something to market. For example, a hypothetical where you have to invest a million dollars cash and a year of work by a team of ten well-paid professionals (which is expensive) to get a product to market.
I say this because anyone who has this experience would not say the things you are saying. Not because you altruistic sentiment is wrong. It isn't. At all. Your perspective is rooted in public good for the greatest number of people. Again, nothing wrong with that at all.
The issue is one related to business reality. If the prevailing mode of operation is for society to just take what you develop through heavy investment of cash and time and give it to everyone, the problem quickly becomes evident:
Nobody is going to take the risk or make the investment.
"Fuck the patents, they just make the drugs" is a commendable position that can only be held by those who do not have to make the investment necessary to create and support those drugs or products. From that perspective, it is easy to steal anything. Yes, it is stealing when you take someone's work-product and do not compensate them at all.
To use an imperfect example to illustrate the idea, it's like a situation where you spend five years saving money and slowly using it to build a house, only to have a bunch of people move-in and take it once built...and they don't pay you anything for it. In parts of the world this kind of thing actually happens, I know someone who had this problem in South America.
It's fine to want better things for everyone. However, these ideas have to be rooted in reality. If everyone steals nobody is going to have any interest or motivation to take risks and build better things.
They are separate discussions.
> Until we get a good old fashioned FDR style socialist government
Until then, we can excise our field from that cesspit. That's something could be done without a revolution.
