Comment by johnwyles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnwyles | Hacker News Reader

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did you read the article completely? there are 9 critics that worked with them, 6 ceased doing so. the company formed and closed it's non-profit venture and they are using typical pharma tactics, creating patents around it. spin is one thing but those facts do tell a story on it's own.

> These experts are further troubled by the company’s business structure: Having first registered as a charity, Goldsmith and Malievskaia set up a for-profit corporation working towards the same ends just one year later, and closed their non-profit less than two years after that. And all 9 of these critics charge that Compass Pathways has relied on conventional pharmaceutical-industry tactics that could help them dominate the field, including blocking potential rivals’ ability to purchase drugs, filing an application for a manufacturing patent, and requiring contracts that give Compass power over academics’ research and are restrictive even by pharmaceutical-industry standards.

Yes, I did.

To me, there's an undercurrent here that some of the psychedelic experts have specific, subjective viewpoints (à la Richard Stallman). That these people have concerns is interesting, but the case that they're material or even right wasn't proven.

Again, no surprise that they shuttered the nonprofit: it's a corporate structure that precludes you from raising traditional VC, among other limitations. And since they are now a competitive pharmaceutical company, is it any surprise that they're using... competitive pharmaceutical tactics? And, again, is that material? Or is it just tsk-tsk'ing "the way things ought to be"?

These things do tell a very interesting story about pharma practices, research, start-up risks, a subculture going mainstream, etc. I think that story can be told more clearly.

I think you're purposefully ignoring the other issues that the writer has illustrated quite well in the article.

I was going to spend time citing points but you should be well aware of them by this point and I'd rather get back to work.

unfortunately, that's precisely how mainstream culture works: it allows any of your objections to be recast in terms of "sanctioned" procedures.

That's why we need to protect our culture from the "dominion" ideology where abject utilization (some would say exploitation) is a _protected_ activity or process. but we currently allow stepping on ppl or traditional entheogen culture because it's part of a "business process." "the law allows it." "it will help ppl so i deserve money for it."

ironically, i would like to see how these perspectives change after a generation of psilocybin "consumers."

They contracted a bunch of academic "psychedelic experts", and later on didn't tell them about changes to their business organization. Without more information, I don't know if that's bad or not. Should they have? Were they required to? From the article it sounds like in at least one case the researcher already hadn't been working together for several months when the change happened.

They definitely burned some bridges, but worse things happen all the time. The text you quoted even calls it "conventional pharmaceutical-industry tactics". Sounds like sour grapes to me.

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