Hacker News Reader

Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

I am saying his cherry-picking of antibiotics specifically while he make dramatic claims is ignoring all of the over-the-counter mediation sold in the pharmacy. There are quite a lot of illnesses one can treat without ever talking to a doctor. I don't know what other people's ratios are, but my use of OTC medication and "tools" is maybe 10x more frequent than stuff that's gatekept by a doctor.

He is also ignoring the reasons that we have ended up with this system. Some of them are kind of dumb, but some of them are about valid problems. That's very different than what "right to repair" is fighting, which is mostly about exploitative companies trying to maximize revenue at the expense of their customers.

[Edit: misunderstood who replied; correcting pronouns]

View on HN

its kind of wild your trying to create sides in this fake debate and then somehow trying to side with repairing electronics over peoples health?

why though lol, do you hate sick people? or just have no empathy for people in general?

who cares about technicality and semantics and whois using whos catch phrase better... we should be discussing an issue far more important, like so much more important its funny to even compare. then being able to switch your iphone battery out.

I have no idea why you take any of that away from what I wrote. I am in favor of both repairing electronics and people's health. I'm just saying that the right-to-repair framing for medical stuff is not a great way to look at it.

What illnesses can you treat over the counter? I can’t think of a single intervention other than symptom mitigations, many of which aren’t particularly effective compared to generally safe prescription medications at even that. The only thing I can think of are bandaids and wound dressings.

Is this some sort of definition game? I'm using illness to mean "an unhealthy condition of body or mind", and treat as "to do something to improve the condition of an ill or injured person", both dictionary definitions. If you really can't think of anything that drug stores sell without prescription that qualifies, maybe try taking a stroll down the aisles sometime.

I’m saying it doesn’t map to “right to repair.” A mild anti inflammatory medicine to relieve mild headaches - ok great. But that’s not a repair of any sort. An antibiotic cures an actual illness - something that requires repair.

As I said pretty clearly I’m not saying this is right for the individual of the world, but a right to repair yourself would allow open access to medication at the lowest prices an open market can bear and medical knowledge offered a broadly accessible way for most conditions not absolutely requiring a specialist, like most surgeries or complex interventions. The amount residual is probably a lot larger than you would believe. In fact almost all medical services are routine and don’t require a specialist of any sort, not even a PA. Again, I’m framing the concept of right to repair your own body not taking a stance on whether it’s a good idea or not.

Id note in closing that in a discussion of the definition of right to repair, it’s an odd question to pose “is this a definition game?” Yes - that is the topic!

You are making up your own definition for "illness" here, so you can cherry-pick.

The whole notion of "repair" in relation to bodies doesn't make much sense. Bodies self-repair. All medicine is just aiding them in that.

And if you're not saying this is right for the individual or the world, I don't understand why either of us should waste further time on what appears to be just a game, the part of "definition game" you somehow managed to ignore even while quoting it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com