Collapse of Civilization

[Peter McKillop]

Like.........what am I guys.........chopped liver?

Bob A

Bob, shouldn't this topic have its own thread? :)

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Peter:

Can't think of a more useless thread to verify to the world that we are all, here, adled!

Bob A

[Pargat Perrer]

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle...&impID=5666892

Peter, after the real painstaking research has been done at the Universities, big-pharma pays a paltry amount to 'buy it' and vey little additional investment is needed to convert it into a drug.
They then spend large amounts orchestrating, by hook or by crook, (i) the conduct of deliberately faulty studies to 'misguide' overuse of that drug, (ii) hype these faulty studies across medical centers and (iii) work behind the scenes in getting overuse guidelines created... Instead, these should ideally be in the domain of the Medical Universities, and one way to stop current practice which is harmful to patients (more side-effects) and to whoever pays for the drugs, is to have a system of adequate public rewards to the University intellectuals, and give open access (without restrictive patents) to drug manufacturing...

When a university lab creates through research a novel molecule that can be patented, no one knows for sure what that molecule will do inside the bodies of human beings given all the variations of DNA and immune systems and lifestyles (smoking, recreational drug use, etc) and cultural differences.

The research needed to find out takes let's say 5 to 10 years of trial studies. Somebody has to pay for that. The universities are not in that game, unless funded by corporations. So right now it takes corporations and venture capital to raise the extraordinarily huge funds to finance the drug game. It's all a hit-or-miss proposition. And that makes it very much like the normal venture capital method of starting any new business. Except new businesses usually fail within the first 1 to 3 years, so the losses on a bad bet are not so extreme.

The drug industry is like the "high roller" room in a casino. If you don't have deep pockets, you don't place any bets.

Now, Dilip's ideal world of Libertarianism in which almost everyone can give up "working for the man" and launch their own idea, with vast pools of capital for them and almost total lack of regulation, is bad enough applied to non-pharma business.... refer to my previous mention of the dot-com bust in 2000, that was Libertarianism reduced to tears (you had vast sums being handed to anyone with a web-based business idea, with no oversight -- the epitome of Dilip's Libertarianism other than the "web-based" part.)

It can't work because very few people really have workable business ideas. Far too many are chasing the next Pet Rock instead of doing something really worthwhile like efficient economically-viable renewable energy for example.

Dilip still can't answer your question, Peter McKillop. He links an article about cancer oncology that says absolutely nothing about where the money comes from and how investors get confidence of being paid back. Dilip simply has no inkling of how that can be done, because he refuses to think about the only alternative model (to the venture-capital high-roller model) that can do it.

That model is something Dilip can't stomach. Since extraordinarily huge sums of money are needed, and huge losses may occur, the money has to come from the only vast pool that exists: the unimaginable cash reserves of the Gates, the Buffetts, the Bezos, the Musks of the world. THEY have to pay for the things that will save the world and avoid collapse of civilization. I would also add the Saudi princes and the Russian mafia, but who can make them pay?

So like Bob G.'s billionaire tax, they get taxed to the max 100% over some specified amount (that can change year to year). The catch is that the money collected from them must go to things that will save humanity from extinction: renewable energy, drug research, food production, environmental protections. In other words, these industries get nationalized and financed by billionaire tax income. So under this model, yes, universities could be doing the drug research as Dilip says he favors, paid for by billionaire tax revenues rether than venture capital that must be raised with false hopes of (or falsified studies promising) returns.

There is still the possibility we could go extinct. We simply might not find the drugs we need to survive all the toxic chemicals the capitalists have infected the world with in pursuit of plastics and pesticides and paraphenalia ... i.e. a whole lot of crap that now pollutes our oceans.

Do I think this model will ever be imposed? No! Human greed is much too pervasive. Dilip and Sid and all the rest are just not going to let it happen, they would rather see humanity go extinct than save humanity by this means, the only means that can possibly work in the world of today.

[Dilip Panjwani]

Dilip and Sid and all the rest...

except the nonsense-puking nasty troll...

[Peter McKillop]

....

Thanks, Pargat, for an insightful and thought-provoking post. Going to need some time to digest all of the information in this one. :)

[Bob Armstrong]

I agree, Peter...........Pargat's post are often quite informative for me........

Bob A

[Pargat Perrer]

Originally posted by Peter McKillop

Thanks, Pargat, for an insightful and thought-provoking post. Going to need some time to digest all of the information in this one. :)

I agree, Peter...........Pargat's post are often quite informative for me........

Bob A

Yes, there is a lot to digest. This is why I fight against the absurdly simplistic postings about Libertarianism. It isn't personal against Dilip, it's logical against Libertarianism. We tried that with the dot-com era. We handed capital to almost anyone, in the belief they could create online businesses that would totally transform the economy. It went bust, as it logically must have done.

Just think about the Libertarian ideal of everyone on the planet having a unique business idea that could be an actual thriving business. Does that make sense? Well, what businesses can operate without workers? Businesses need workers, it's just common sense. So not everyone can run a business, some must be workers.

What is the ideal ratio of business owners to workers? Maybe we are already there, already in the goldilocks zone. In that case, Libertarianism would take us OUT of that zone and disrupt negatively the overall economy. I can't say if anyone knows the actual ideal ratio, or if it can even BE calculated. But I think we are very close to the ideal already.

And that doesn't even address the whole "Natural Law" aspect of Libertarianism that would turn the world into a police state. Until Dilip or someone gives us a precise definition of "fair competition" that allows an entity to harm others, we have to use our current system of laws and judiciary to determine when injustice is being done.

I am increasingly in favor of Bob Gillanders' billionaires tax model, with the added caveat that money raised from that tax (other taxes still in place) must be allocated to only such work that will save humanity from extinction. How do we decide that? Perhaps it is a redefinition of the Libertarian Natural Law. That law talks about fair competition when it should be talking about survival of humanity.

Any attempt to discover and produce drugs against terminal diseases or genetic conditions would be considered as vital to human survival. Any attempt to stop environmental degradation (cutting of Amazon rainforest, as one example) would be considered as vital to survival of humanity. Any attempt to increase food production without resorting to gmo or pesticides would be considered as vital to humanity. Any attempt to create renewable energy without pollution or other adverse effects would be considered as vital to human survival. And I would add one thing: colonization of Mars. Simply because we cannot assume that Earth will always be here, plus we must have the vision that we humans build the technology that allows us to expand even beyond the Solar System some day far in the future.

But even when I write "any attempt" to do these things, I realize that some attempts that could be contrived might not be in our best interests, and so there must be a body that determines without prejudice whether a specific research attempt should be funded by the billionaires' tax.

The biggest challenge to all this is to keep it all free of greed and corruption. I am open to ideas as to how to do that. Another thread, Bob A.? How To Eliminate Human Greed and Corruption. I think that is a key topic for even your DM ideas.

I already have some ideas I could post there.... :)

[Sid Belzberg]

"Does capitalist democracy still work?" Key member of the WEF's 'Board of Trustees' and deputy PM of Canada, Chrystia Freeland, openly declares war on the concept of democracy, in the name of tackling "climate change". "Our shrinking glaciers, and our warming oceans, are asking us wordlessly but emphatically, if democratic societies can rise to the existential challenge of climate change."

Democracy is FAR from perfect, and what we have now―globalist uniparties taking turns at implementing the exact same globalist Net Zero/Agenda 2030 policies, while pretending to be political opponents―can barely be called democracy in the first place, but the fact that these globalist puppets now feel brazen enough to openly call for an end even to the façade they claim is democracy, is concerning to say the least.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Pargat:

Thanks for the offer to start a new thread about your neat suggested new topic.......I have no idea what it might generate........good or bad or irrelevant......

But I will politely decline.

Since Henry Lam hived me, and others, onto Tatooine (I now think it was a good idea), I have become "over-exposed".......I do have trouble, like a bass, not rising to the bait though!

Participation is key to ChessTalk........it is its lifeblood......I'm always happy to see new CT'ers, and to see all CT'ers generating new topics, chess or non-chess.

Bob A

[Bob Armstrong]

Sid:

Democratic Capitalism clearly (Just look around) does NOT work, and hasn't for a long time..........consider the goal it has of necessarily widening the wealth/income gap!

Any kind of Socialism (Except old USSR-style Communism) would work better (Clearly NOT saying it would be perfect - we have human institutions.....always flawed).

Bob A

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Dilip & Sid:

Watch the future.......

In Argentina - a President-elect of the Libertarian Party!

Libertarian Capitalism will be much worse than Democratic Capitalism (Which we all know has fallen woefully short on equality and equality of opportunity over all the generations). And, if he is a "Natural Law" Libertarian, like Dilip, watch the chaos (And all the Canadian lawyers trying to get Argentinian Permanent Residence)!

Bob A

[Dilip Panjwani]

Hi Dilip & Sid:

Watch the future.......

In Argentina - a President-elect of the Libertarian Party!

Libertarian Capitalism will be much worse than Democratic Capitalism (Which we all know has fallen woefully short on equality and equality of opportunity over all the generations). And, if he is a "Natural Law" Libertarian, like Dilip, watch the chaos (And all the Canadian lawyers trying to get Argentinian Permanent Residence)!

Bob A

Bob A,
Doesn't look good on you as you are desperately hoping for the worst. Instead, go there to enjoy true freedom, even though you may not earn as a lawyer, if stupid contradictory laws are gotton rid off, and you may not find Marxist democrats suing an ex-president about to win a re-election, for telling his bankers that he thinks his property is worth many many millions, but they should do their due diligence anyway...

[Bob Armstrong]

Dilip:

I never hope the worse for anyone or anything.

I am just soundly advising about future reality based on my life experience. I, in a sense, wish him well, IF he CAN improve Argentina. I really doubt it.

But even if he can, it is my position that Democratic Marxism would do better..........but, as of yet, the world, it seems, does not agree.........

Rather I think it is we are the new kid on the block (Only one DM Party that I am aware of, in the world, in the province of Ontario, Canada, and it is not yet formally registered for the upcoming provincial election; the 44th Ontario general election is tentatively scheduled to be held on June 4, 2026. As of December 2016, Ontario elections are held on the first Thursday in June in the fourth calendar year following the previous general election,^[1] unless the Legislative Assembly of Ontario is dissolved earlier by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario due to a motion of no confidence. Such a dissolution is unlikely as the current government has a majority: Wikipedia).

DMO also needs now a political marketing strategy so it can be registered - need signed petition in support.

Bob A

[Sid Belzberg]

"The United Nations' Net Zero plan involves killing the environment to save it." Australian senator, Malcolm Roberts, exposes the utterly insane and unnecessary nature of Net Zero, in the Australian parliament. "CO2 makes up just 0.04% of the Earth's atmosphere. Human beings are responsible for just 3% of the annual production of CO2... Yet the Net Zero advocates tell us that if we take a fraction of our CO2 and pay an oil drilling company to dump it in the ocean by injecting it under the seabed, we can save the world... Obviously, it's a bloody lie. "Australia must ditch the United Nations/World Economic Forum Net Zero pipe dream, and all of its insane requirements."

[Sid Belzberg]

President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, announces the launch of the EU's central bank digital currency (CBDC)—the digital euro—which will enable unelected technocrats at the ECB to program how, when, where, on what and by whom it can be spent, including the imposition of social credit, carbon allowance and vaccine passport systems. And despite the lie that "cash is here to stay", you can be absolutely certain that megalomaniacal technocrats such as Lagarde have every intention of gradually phasing out cash altogether, so eventually people will be forced to use CBDCs whether they like it or not.

https://twitter.com/wideawake_media/...17210350047448