Reactions to AC

[Richard Tanner]

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Of course, but what I was talking about was skewing incentives. Making X patentable and Y not will skew funds towards X even if Y is more efficient/effective as a solution.

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I agree, with your primise, and it needs some tweaking.

Here's a fun story about a situation where the government did a good thing with a drug. Specifically, insulin, a product marketed as Humulin by Eli Lilly and Co. is not a huge money maker, in fact it's largely break even (as pharm profits go). Still, there are alot of diabetics out there and they all need Insulin to live. Sadly there is only one company with the facilities to produce enough insulin to "feed" the people (really about 85% of the total, but still). You guessed it, Eli Lilly and Co. The reason is that the machinery (both mechanical and biological) requred to produce the worlds supply of insulin is so expensive that it's not likely, or profitable, for anyone else to create. Of course Eli Lilly, in true free market fashion, said "hey why don't we stop making this and delegate it to smaller companies and use these resources for other drugs" and lo and behold, no other companies could handle the load. The US government steped in and said "Uhhh sorry but if you don't keep making this, millions of people will die, tough [censored], now get back to work" and Lilly (to this day) is still making that large percentage of Insulin and keeping those people alive.

The issue here is that in AC, it's likely one of two things would happen. Lilly would stop making it ([censored] 'em it's not making a profit) and they would die because barrier to entry exist to keep people from taking over. Or, Lilly would jack the price up super high (no market price here, Lilly has the monopoly baby) and a bunch of people die.

In short (or long) this is why I'm a Libertarian. I dislike the government and its interfearence, but some things are so large as to require it.

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One of the reasons is that the FDA controls what gets accepted and what doesn't. Long trial periods coupled with specific and rigid guidelines increase costs to get drugs approved. Generic market efficiency should lower the costs of getting drugs to market quite a bit.

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Honestly, the generic market is basically Kinko's. They do very little research and mostly just produce things that have lost their patent. There are some exceptions but you as a consumer should never depend on Generic labs for research. Prices won't go down (due, again, to barriers to entry in an industry this big/expensive)

You are correct however, about the long trial periods. Although, I don't know about you, but I'm a big fan of my drugs not causing serious side effects to me. And, if there is a risk associated with said drugs, they are required to test for it, and warn me explicitly about it ("Taking X may cause: Nausea, headache, etc" we've all heard it).
Some things can get cut out of the trial process, others kinda need to be there.

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You don't have to find people to do it for free, just get the people who are doing it to have their incentives push for the same results as your incentives. Personally I believe that under a market economy the group of entrepreneurs whose interests most closely mimic my interest in my health is the life/health insurance industry. Having cheap, available and effective treatments on hand providing their customers with great quality of life would have an enormous advantage in the industry.

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Again, there are alot of barriers to entry, but it's not impossible. The situation you describe may happen. Some guys might get together and say "Hey I'm willing to put down some money to help cure the X we all have" and that's cool except it would take a large amount of money, and at the end of this, drugs are usually easy to reverse engeneer, which means all that money they spent just went up in smoke assuming they can't get a patent.


Believe it or not, I like alot about AC, but to me, AC is a house of cards. In statist philosophy, some things may be wrong, but there's a give and take. In AC, there's no government at all, which means that if there's anythng that could give rise to warlords/depotism/etc. then it's a dangerous road to hoe.

Cody

[ShakeZula06]

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No; violence is inherent in AC as well - contracts will include enforcement provisos and private security,

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I figured you'd understand I meant initiation of force. I'm certainly not against violence in self defense. Actually I'm sure you did know that, but would rather obscure the issue.
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No. I advocate democracy and a mixed economy.

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I'd characterize myself as more or less a consequentialist libertarian

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These two things are mutually exclusive.
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We have public education for free too. Obviously private schools can't possibly compete, except: they can and do compete, and their results generally outstrip their publically funded competition.

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Yes, and as you pointed out earlier private roads do exist as well. And I love that you bring up education, and the fact that private education does better. You also realize that while private education does better, more people go to public schools then private. Why do you think that is?
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So whoever starts off with the most money buys the roads, and then charges however much they want for 'em until alternatives are constructed - which probably won't be overnight, given the time concrete takes to set and the millions of miles of road out there, not to mention the problems with obtaining right-of-ways to build new roads - thereby regaining their money with interest. Sounds like a great system. Especially if you're already rich.

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Pathological argumentation 101

[ShakeZula06]

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I can't vote while writing my check to the IRS, either. The polls aren't open on April 15th.

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Technically correct, but of course if you want to, you can write your check to the IRS on voting day. Nothing says you can't pay your estimated taxes early (in most cases you won't have your final numbers for the year until the first week of January or so), or file for an extension and pay 'em late, albeit at a higher ("penalty") rate. You can even fill the check out right there in the voting booth if you want.

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Wrong. You can't file before the end of the year. And extensions expire before voting day.

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And if a 2nd grader can't choose which school to attend, it's only because the state is severely distorting the market for grammar schools.

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No, it's because society recognizes that 7-year-olds can't make intelligent decisions about where to obtain their educations.

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False anthropomorphization fallacy.

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I'm struggling with this. I didn't bring up 2nd graders, you did. You said 2nd graders can't choose where they go to school (and said it as though this were a bad thing). Are you arguing that 7-year-olds should be allowed to choose where they go to school or aren't you?

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Are you arguing that parents can't send their kids to a different school? Quit squirming.

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Reread your quote. I'll bold it.

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Replace "2nd grader" with "2nd grader's parents" and just answer the question instead of obscuring the issue.

[tolbiny]

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Both matter. Patents only incent the one.

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Patents offer incentives for one AT THE COST OF THE OTHERS. This is what you have never, ever, not once, brought up in any of your posts on patents. It is the core of economics, a cost benefit analysis, simply saying patents = more inventions therefor more progress, is asinine.

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That's okay: the patent lasts a finite length of time,

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Just because its not the worst system of patents imaginable, doesn't make it good.

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whereupon the other is incented most powerfully.

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No, the end of a patent term returns to normal market incentives of voluntary interactions.

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particularly because we do empirically see constant innovation

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We empirically saw inventions prior to IP protection. Just because you don't seem to value the plow, crop rotation, fire, metallurgy, the wheel, the axle, the saddle, the pressure cooker, ect ect, as useful discoveries doesn't mean their not.

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nothing stops holders of different patents from forming a company for the purpose of combining their efforts into something better than either could do alone).

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It still limits the cooperative efforts to those who have the patents, giving them a monopoly and stifling innovation.

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IP protection doesn't stifle this. At worst it delays it slightly

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Wow. Delays don't count as stifling? &-20 year patents count as "slightly" when a persons productive life is generally less than 60 years? You talk about progress and don't even have a clue what the nature of progress is. The delay in innovation caused by patents delays step 2 where someone looks at that innovation and integrates it into their business. Technology and progress is about feedback, and our life spans are both finite and relatively short.

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There are no incentives, none, that will encourage a person or business to be first into a market when the cost to enter is $10 billion for the first guy and $20,000 for the second. It's hard to build brand loyalty when the per-unit cost to produce your goods is 500,000x more than it costs your competitor to clone them.

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Oh no. But so what? Everything can't be invented at the same time, companies have to make economic decisions between investments, like I already said patents skew these making certain investments more attractive, not because of consumer preferences, but because of government mandates. Some things that are currently getting invented or invested in now won't without patents? Of course, but you assertions that innovation and invention will stop in areas where it existed prior to patent protection is BS.

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What huge lead? People can copy your idea almost overnight and produce saleable copies almost for free

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This is only true of a few things (music and books) and can be addressed thorough contract law. Your assertions that you finding a book (which is clearly someone else's property) gives you the right to use it any way you please wouldn't stand up in front of an arbitrator.

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Was more music - per capita, for an apples-to-apples comparison - created in the 18th century or in the 20th? 'Nuff said?

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Nuff said? You didn't say anything. The technology making free time more abundant, and for making music education cheaaper and for producing music cheaper all make enormous differences? Nuff siad? Vauge hand waving and implications aside- your assertion that music would grind to a halt )or near halt) without IP is a joke since music production has existed and evolved without it. Your whole "more is better" crap makes you look like a fool when discussion economics.

[ShakeZula06]

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No problem at all! Tell him to start here:
link He should be able to figure out what to look at next. If you find anything not to your liking, try any of the methods I suggested above for bringing about change, or you could make your exit, per the "throwing off the chains" link, also above.

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cool .. since the constitution is the contract. I should have no problem holding these [censored] in breach. I cant wait to get the refund plus damages for paying them to represent me for all these years.

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Collecting damages from the government wouldn't make much sense, since you'd (in effect) be paying yourself. You're of course welcome to take 'em to court though for whatever breaches you believe they've committed.

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Yeah, those government run courts, I here they're not favorable at all to the government, just ask the indians.

[tolbiny]

Richard,
I am not familiar with the insulin example, but I can point to a few holes in your description.


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Specifically, insulin, a product marketed as Humulin by Eli Lilly and Co. is not a huge money maker, in fact it's largely break even

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If insulin was so necessary AND hard to produce in large quantities why couldn't Lilly charge enough to make it worth its while?

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(as pharm profits go)

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Ahhh, i think i see. Was insulin non patentable? My barely educated guess would be yes since its an animal product. I bet this would be a great example of patents skewing incentives being bad for consumers.

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The issue here is that in AC, it's likely one of two things would happen.

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I think the issue here is that if something is so damn valuable to tons of people AND a company decided it wasn't going to produce enough of it that there probably is something [censored] with the free market in a major way.

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You are correct however, about the long trial periods. Although, I don't know about you, but I'm a big fan of my drugs not causing serious side effects to me. And, if there is a risk associated with said drugs, they are required to test for it, and warn me explicitly about it ("Taking X may cause: Nausea, headache, etc" we've all heard it).
Some things can get cut out of the trial process, others kinda need to be there.

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From a personal perspective i agree, i would never take drugs that hadn't gone through a trial period time. On the other hand it not my business to tell others what their preference for the number of trials should be, nor would i ever want a single entity and their ideas in this area dominating mine.

[PhatTBoll]

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"Divide and conquer" is one of the oldest and best-known military maxims because it's very effective.

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Divide and conquer is military maxim for fighting against other armies. It only works against united armies with a central head because the plans are usually interconnected. If your plan has you relying on Your ally to support you and protect you flank and they get cut off before they arrive then you are SOL. The terrain you have picked is now no good, you have to spread your troops thin to protect that area, you don't have much time to do it in, ect ect. Divide and conquer only works when you enemy is integrated because integration is a weakness.
There are many examples of this in action, one of the main advantages of the Blitzkrieg was that the commanders of individual battalions were given directives and left up to their own discretion how to achieve them. Vietnam is another, probably the best ever. The US had air superiority, naval superiority, thanks to the helicopter we could land large numbers of troops behind enemy lines where we decided, napalm, agent orange. We dropped more bombs on vietnam that in all of WW2, we killed 500,000 troops, 2-4 million civilians and we lost the war. Why? because there was no objective, there was no capital hat we could take which would make the enemy lay down its arms. Each and every square mile of South vietnam had to be protected, and every square mile of the north would have to be taken to win the war. Iraq also has turned out this way. Once Baghdad was taken the Iraqi army was done for, however those not in the army, and those recently disbanded from it continued to fight. There isn't one person that you can kill to end it, there isn't one city that you can capture to end it, you have to go city by city, block by block and clear it out. And then you have to hold it, you can't leave or they just re infiltrate.

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You make good points, but it's not like the North Vietnamese and VC were in it alone. They had a lot of help, from very organized benefactors.

As for the blitzkrieg, there is a big difference between a high command establishing directives that the generals have to follow, and having all generals come up with their own objectives.

[tolbiny]

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Honestly, the generic market is basically Kinko's.

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HeHe. I didn't mean the market for generic drug makers, i meant the general idea that the market will find more efficient means for getting products to market.

[ShakeZula06]

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Many cases of extensive, traffic congesting road construction work have been documented as needless, mere political favors rewarding generous donors, at incredibly steep, unjustifiable costs to the taxpayers. Nothing is done about this. wasteful road companies habitually hiring needless construction as gifts to pavers would go out of business



[/ QUOTE ] "Nothing is done about this" -> Sources?


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Do you get out much? Road construction now a days is the definition of pork spending. The government has literally built bridges to nowhere. You think that has a chance in hell of happening in a free market for roads?
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Citizens of any given state cherish their Department of Transportation and DMV's like they cherish the black death. companies that patrons cherish like the black death go out of business, fast

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For instance, I would guess that most people don't like surgeons who perform amputations (not that this is necessarily a modern surgical specialty per se, but bear with me for the sake of example)... but on the off chance I ever develop a serious case of gangrene, I'm quite sure I don't want the profession eliminated.

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Huh? Most people don't like Surgeons? Whre the hell are you pulling this from?
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Construction of a major road is often preceded by the violent hijacking and destruction of innocent people's homes in the name of "social efficiency." Would never happen with privately operated roads

[/ QUOTE ] Like you, I have problems with eminent domain powers. (I see them as solvable, however, without eliminating the power; if you're interested, ask, and I'll explain how.) That said, at times the process truly is for the good of society,

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yeah, maybe when government is run by benign angels emminent domain would cause more harm then good. In the meantime it's run by humans that have their own incentives. It's farcical to believe giving power hungry individuals the power the use emminent domain will use it for the good of society, and not simply for the good of their wallets.
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Many of the people paying through the nose for roads don't even use said roads, never have and never will. Would never happen with privately operated roads


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False. You don't need to drive on a road to receive benefits from it. How did the grocer who sells you groceries get them? How does the pizza guy you called deliver your order? When your grandpa has a heart attack during Thanksgiving dinner, how do the paramedics get to your house to try and revive him? Etc, etc, etc.

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You're obscuring another issue. The point is that some people don't get as much as what they put in out of public roads. Private roads using the market would be much better at having the right people pay (and the bill would likely fall upon business owners).

[PhatTBoll]

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The fallacy in your post is that you assume invaders are always just after stuff. See Nazi Germany, et al.

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So Nazi Germany wasn't seeking lebensraum?

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Sorry to shatter your worldview.

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Could you elaborate on what exactly they were after? Your "fallacy" is confusing.

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Oh, you were serious. Well, we could start with the whole "exterminating Jews" thing. I don't think Hitler cared whether they were rich or poor.

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So when Hitler was reuniting Germany and gathering up the Rhineland and Sudetenland, conquering Poland, France, and parts in North Africa, attacking Russia and Britain, and generally forming the Third Reich, it was never about being after the land or empire? It was only about exterminating the Jews? That's an interesting theory. Have you tried pitching it to some historians? Because it certainly runs counter to all the history I've ever read.

Maybe you just don't know what the hell you're talking about and your example for this "fallacy" is wrong...

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Good lord. Please show me where in my post I said all Hitler cared about was killing Jews. Of course he wanted to dominate as much land and as many people as possible. Domination of territory and the populace was taken as a given from the beginning of this conversation, which everyone other than you seems to have understood. My point is that invading armies will often exterminate citizens of conquered nations on a basis other than how much money they have. Read the post I first responded to.

Or go ahead and knock down some more straw men.