U.S. Says Russian Hackers Are Trying To Steal Coronavirus Vaccine Research

There are two separate issues here....

1) How to set up an economic system that incentivizes the best scientists and organization to do the work needed to find a vaccine.

2) How to set up an economic system that incentivizes sharing of information.

The problem is that the simplest way to accomplish #2 screws up the economic incentives needed for #1. If people can steal your work, it makes it harder for you to get paid for your successes.

Put yourself in the shoes of a research scientists. How would you want to be
compensated?

In any case, we are the most capitalistic nation on the planet...and we are handling the pandemic just great under this system, so why bother to even think about alternatives.

you are convinced that allowing the search for a cure to take longer because of profit motives is moral, reasonable, and ethical...so there is no "other" for you to seriously consider.

Of course, the problem with tax-funded research and development is that it replaces the profit motive with a politically-correct motive.

If the goal is to make a big profit, you are going to be incentivised choose the scientists and research projects that are most likely to be successful. In this case, the people who are making the decisions have a financial stake in getting it right. It is not a perfect system... but it has clearly been successful.

If the tax-payer money is coming in, the people who are making the decisions can be motivated by all kinds of things. They may choose what fits their politics, or the people they like or any number of things. They no longer have a financial stake in the decisions they make.

Government bureaucracy works for some types of problems. The British healthcare system is a perfect example of system that relies on doctors pretty much all doing the same thing within a regulated system.

Scientific research isn't that... we want the best people with competing ideas taking risks until someone reaches the goal post.

Frank Apisa wrote:

In any case, we are the most capitalistic nation on the planet...and we are handling the pandemic just great under this system, so why bother to even think about alternatives.

Frank, it's getting darn hard to separate your sarcasm from your opinion.

Quote:

you are convinced that allowing the search for a cure to take longer because of profit motives is moral, reasonable, and ethical...so there is no "other" for you to seriously consider.

That is not what I said at all. In fact, I am saying the opposite. The cure will be much faster because of profit motives. The more we value a cure, the more money we will be willing to pay for a cure and the more people will work on a cure. I think that allowing the search for a cure to take longer because of some ideological worship of a doctrine of poverty is immoral.

I am not a big fan of poverty. I have taken a vow of wealth.

Just to make it clear...


1. I agree with you that having people share their work may be helpful.

2. The way to do this is to economically incentivize people to share data. That way you can have people share their work without taking away the incentive to do the work in the first place.

If you tell people that they have to do their work without any expectation of financial compensation... they will tell you to **** off, and they will go do something that will allow them to earn money. Most people reading this would do the same.

Is anyone here working on a vaccine?

To change the discussion a little (and hopefully elevate it)-- I want to discuss the Open Software model. I am a software engineer... in my industry there is a big movement to share information (and software). This movement was called "Free Software" is now a big part of even professional software development. It was started by Richard Stallman who is one of the rare people who actually changed the world (you are benefitting from Richard Stallman when you use Able2know).


However, companies still need to make money, so we have a mix. Some software is shared. Some software is keep secret.

Free Software works because it allows corporations like Google, and Apple and Amazon to share ideas while making obscene amounts of money. These corporations exist to make profits. If they can do that while working together and sharing technology... the world benefits. I work for a corporation and I get paid well. I am legally prohibited from sharing much of my work as part of my contract (and believe me it is very well spelled out). I am allowed to share other parts of my work and actually encouraged to "give back" to the free software community.

I imagine we could do something equivalent with Vaccine Research (I don't know; medical research isn't my field). But profits are a fact of life.

If we want great results, we need to make them economically profitable. That is just reality. It is certainly possible that they can figure out a way to share information. But it has to be economically profitable.

I know you don't think vaccine research should involve money.... but indulge me for a moment and let's say that it does. Let's assume for the sake of argument that developing a vaccine for covid (and ending all the "suffering" and "deaths") does require money... and a lot of money.

Do you still think we should do it?

maxdancona wrote:

I know you don't think vaccine research should involve money.... but indulge me for a moment and let's say that it does. Let's assume for the sake of argument that developing a vaccine for covid (and ending all the "suffering" and "deaths") does require money... and a lot of money.

Do you still think we should do it?

Do I think we should do WHAT?