Author Archives: Robert Marsanyi
It’s not race, money, education: it’s the concept of the public good
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/opinion/vaccine-hesitancy-covid.html
It’s class, the lower groups having been increasingly left over the past few decades to fend for themselves. And specifically the idea that government increasingly shifts health care onto individual choice. So as a result you don’t get vaccinated for the common good, you get it so you don’t get sick. And this doesn’t work.
Good idea
Episode 16: From Owing to Owning https://medium.com/sidewalk-talk/episode-16-from-owing-to-owning-58d7874c803b?source=rss—-355679162549—4
Hmm. No more externalities …
Whiners and snitches
People who won’t take vaccine shots to help fix the pandemic are whiners.
People who turn in pregnant women for $10,000 are snitches.
Texas
Debt and Graeber
Why won’t they release the vaccine patents?
My friend Dave Winer (haven’t actually met, but I feel like we have a conversation going) asks for a simple explanation for why the pharmas won’t release the IP for the Coronavirus vaccines to the public domain, to alleviate the shortage in supply,
It’s clear that this is needed. But my understanding of why it’s not in the companies’ interest is: the tech behind the new mRNA vaccines is potentially much more general, to be applied to all sorts of disease. It’s taken years to develop, and the COVID vaccine is just the first instance of its being (fabulously) successfully applied to a real world problem.
Companies are concerned that, by teaching anyone to make it, they’re effectively foregoing any ability to make a return from future applications of the same tech.
Health, south wind, books, old trees, a boat, a friend
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In Support of Richard Stallman – Introduction
False accusations were made against Richard Stallman in September 2019. They started a cascade of difamatory reactions that spread like wildfire, fueled by misquotes and misrepresentation of events in mainstream headlines, blogs, and social media that ultimately led to Stallman’s resignation from his positions at Mit and the FSF
— Read on stallmansupport.org/
I signed the support letter. It’s a bit involved, making you fork and merge a text file with your name and website in it. I find Stallman provocative, thoughtful and worth listening to.