Comment by zohch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zohch | Hacker News Reader

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Okay, sure, but this would be quite the feat of medical engineering to hack the immune system to the point where it no longer operates as normal, as the normal function of the immune system is what determines the immune response to a vaccine and the resulting immunity.

I mean they could make one that turns you green and then mark up the one that does not also, that has not been the case, and generally vaccines produced by private companies without government involvement have significantly outperformed every vaccine made with government involvement, and every government action in US and most of the west in relation to these covid vaccines has been to favor pharmaceutical companies that make them over it's own citizenry, so basically it seems that the pharmaceutical companies that made these vaccines are much more deserving of public trust than many governments.

I mean if the pharmacutical companies abducted your children in the middle of the night and ransomed them back to you that would also create a steady revenue stream, not sure why it would be something to consider.

Obtaining a steady revenue stream is something that makes perfect sense in any business. And it's literally documented that curing a disease is a questionable business proposition for the companies that could rather sell the treatment instead. [0]

On the other hand turning people green or any other such random proposition makes no sense. This is a weak analogy fallacy, dismissing a strong argument that has been observed in practice again and again by attacking an "analogous" but worthless pseudo-argument like "of course they're not turning people green". And I don't even want to get into the whole "if the pharmacutical companies abducted your children in the middle of the night and ransomed them back to you" nonsense. It's not making the point you think it's making, it just makes it look like you don't understand the discussion.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/curing-disease-n...

> This is a weak analogy fallacy, dismissing a strong argument

If you have to back your argument up by some analyist saying companies woudl make more money if they did something other than they were doing, then that does not make your argument strong.

> that has been observed in practice again and again by attacking an "analogous" but worthless pseudo-argument like "of course they're not turning people green".

And yet instead of citing an actual case of this, you cite an analyst that says companies would make more money by not curing diseases. Companies would also make more money if they kidnapped people's children and ransomed them back than if they did not do that, ignoring pesky things like legality and all that of course, but who knows, I'm sure politicans that would allow them to do this would be a dime a dozen anyway.

You take some effort to reject my arguments with far weaker ones (ridiculous even) yet you don't propose anything realistic. All evidence is pointing at the same conclusion. From a business perspective in some case treating a problem generates more revenue than curing it so going that route is a sound business decision.

- the green people "argument" - yes, they could turn people green. But what sells is turning people white, something many black celebrities actually do (skin whitening, look it up).

- the even more ridiculous "kidnap your kids" idea - they could but the kidnapping model triggers a response that grows exponentially towards life threatening for the kidnappers, making it particularly risky, expensive, and difficult to implement. Not a good business proposition, hence it only happens in some countries where victims have few protections, and the response from authorities can be "mitigated" cheaply.

- it's "just a report" - but one with uncontested premise and conclusion, and even confirmed in practice. Pharma companies routinely jack up prices by orders of magnitude even for drugs that are cheaper to make than ever, because they are needed in ongoing treatment (basic things like insulin, 70 years old anti-parasitic drugs, or epi-pens).

Planned obsolescence cartels have been doing the same thing a century ago [0], after not seeing much value in kidnapping kids or turning people green (presumably with green light bulbs).

You made for some really low quality conversation. I wouldn't regret I spent my time on this if I knew it got you past the "green people" and "child abduction" level of argumentation. Alas.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

>Okay, sure, but this would be quite the feat of medical engineering to hack the immune system to the point where it no longer operates as normal

Is it? We had immunosuppressors for decades, we know about about AIDS and gene therapy. Doesn't sound like such an extreme feat to me.

Immunosuppressive drugs are incredibly crude and broad brush.

I am pretty sure that it would be illegal to give people a vaccine designed to induce gene therapy that suppresses your immune system in order to ensure people need to get it more than once. And still, I actually trust the pharmaceutical companies to not do this more than I trust governments to not give them permission to do it, as they have been much better actors in the pandemic than almost every government.

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