[FRIAM] Strawman/Steelman

[Marcus Daniels]

As long as there are outsiders, all collectives are competitive.  Even universal collectives like governments are competitive.  A problem in the U.S. is that the commons is taken for granted and its benefits aren’t recognized by everyone.   Public-funded research gives long term benefits, not short term financial returns.   The kind of person that is worried about insurance for nursing home costs ought to be as worried about NIH investments.  “Will there be a treatment for my cancer that I can afford?”    It’s true that some collectives have powers that others do not, but when Walmart and CVS stand up with Trump in the Rose Garden to combat the pandemic, what I see is a universal collective that is quite dependent on the smaller competitive collectives.   So the proposal is to deconstruct the universal collective into a set of optional services.  Toll roads, the whole thing.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2021 10:15 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Strawman/Steelman

But companies and mutual funds are collective investments.  Hedge funds are collectives.  They don't think of themselves that way, but even Elon Musk is a huge collective if you take into account everyone who holds some kind of stake in Tesla, Spacex, Boring, and so on.

Or are you invoking the collective than which none can be more collective?

Although the argument is made endlessly in terms of individuals versus collectives, isn't it really a battle by existing collectives to prevent the formation and growth of competitive collectives?  The assertion that certain forms of "natural" collectives should be more privileged under the law and protected from competition from "unnatural" collectives?

-- rec --


On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 12:43 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com<mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
Eric writes:

< The mechanics by which wealth skews place a spectrum of bets within or out of reach, and then the value judgments of the specific bets particular actors take, are both things to be understood.  I find arguments frustrating in which one tries to get a clear picture of the mechanics, and suddenly the conversation gets overwrought about valuations, as if the two were the same topic.  >

One could imagine making the discretionary spending by the NIH opt-in on taxes.   Since many pharmaceutical patents build on research funded by the NIH, the government could insist on a better rate on drugs than those that did not opt-in to that taxation.   Patents could be blocked without a convincing examination of supporting research.    “Oh I see you opted-out on NIH research on your 1040, your chimeric antigen receptor treatment bill will be $500k.  Here is a CareCredit application.”  (Sadly that’s the situation for most people, now.)

If a large fraction of people don’t to even want to acknowledge the need for collective investments, it should be no surprise when the rest take matters in to their own hands, or use it as leverage to profit.

Marcus
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