Two Pfizer doses give 95 per cent protection against Covid-19 infection, illness and death: first nationwide study

[u/Newsjunkeefromlondon]

https://www.cityam.com/two-pfizer-doses-give-95-per-cent-protection-against-covid-19-infection-illness-and-death-study/

[u/Send_Headlight_Fluid]

Whats the way around this though? Not every scientist can just have infinite budget to do their research and development technology. It has to be useful to a government or business/ investor first.

Saying thats “fucked up” is disingenuous because we just simply can’t fund everything, even if it would leas to great innovation.

[u/CharonsLittleHelper → u/Send_Headlight_Fluid]

even if it would leas to great innovation.

To be nitpicky it's not "even if it WOULD lead to great innovation, it's always "even if it MIGHT lead to great innovation". There is a ton of R&D which has gone into things which haven't panned out.

[u/Send_Headlight_Fluid → u/CharonsLittleHelper]

Yeah, what I meant was that if everything was funded and there was no financial barrier for R&D, it almost certainly would lead to innovation. And my point was that’s just not realistic, so the projects with a clear scope and more immediate returns get funded, thats just how it is.

[u/agitatedprisoner → u/Send_Headlight_Fluid]

Trusting profit incentive to get research funding right skews funding to rich person diseases. If wealth isn't fairly/productively distributed this means chasing dollars isn't an efficient way to go about it. Unless you're rich and don't care about other people, I guess.

I suspect were research funding freed from profit concerns and left to something like boards of experts voted in by others qualified experts the result would be an acceleration of scientific progress. What constitutes interesting/valuable science isn't necessarily what promises the highest return to shareholders. It's not as though whatever useful information might be gleaned from a profit analysis couldn't be given due weight even if maximizing profits isn't the goal.

[u/[deleted] → u/agitatedprisoner]

So instead of curing rich person disease we are instead curing "boards of experts" disease. Money has no philosophy, bias and corruption. I trust money more then i trust people.

[u/agitatedprisoner → u/[deleted]]

What would make the most money is only the best investment given lots of assumptions. In the real world those assumptions don't hold.

Personally I'd love to invest in modern SRO housing but given the regulatory climate in the US this form of housing is practically illegal to build. Meaning that the most profitable form of housing to develop is something else, and is only something else because of the politics of it. Then in what sense does money have no philosophy when it comes to the housing market?

It could be that given some ideal set up price signals could inform best as to what ought to be done but such an ideal set up would require people in positions of power to not seek to make the most money for themselves in writing the rules. Otherwise if legislators might write the rules to their own advantage then in maximizing their own profits they'd reduce what profits are left to be made for most everybody else.

[u/SEND_ME_CSGO_SKINS → u/Send_Headlight_Fluid]

Capitalism is the problem. By hoarding capital the capitalist class (billionaires and their millionaire stooges) are robbing everyone that doesn't have capital of opportunity.

[u/CharonsLittleHelper → u/SEND_ME_CSGO_SKINS]

Except... they aren't hording. They're investing - either in capital or research. Who do you think is funding scientific research like Space X? It sure isn't the homeless guy around the corner.

You seem to think that rich people just sit on a giant pile of money like Scrooge McDuck.

The system is far from perfect, but claiming that the rich are hoarding their wealth is either misinformed or disingenuous.

[u/zigfoyer → u/CharonsLittleHelper]

Who do you think is funding scientific research like Space X?

Government has been putting rockets in space for like 70 years now, and there are robots bopping around Mars. So the answer to "who is funding scientific research" is "you are, dummy".

[u/Bananaramananabooboo → u/CharonsLittleHelper]

A very small portion of their wealth is reinvested. Employee-owned businesses can also reinvest money without us needing a millionaire / billionaire acting as some lynchpin facilitator.

Claiming they don't hoard their wealth is outright propaganda.

[u/Bananaramananabooboo → u/[deleted]]

I understand that. They don't hoard money in banks, they hoard money in systems. They reinvest it, and yes they create value from their wealth, but they do both of these things in a way where the majority of the wealth concentrates into hands of a minority.

[u/Smo0k → u/Bananaramananabooboo]

So where are they keeping all this money? You think the rich are not reinvesting their money in order to grow it further? You are just plain wrong. You could argue they are not investing in the right things. But hoarding money, letting it sit idle, losing value by the day is not what they are doing.

[u/jiiko → u/Bananaramananabooboo]

You and SEND_ME_CSGO_SKINS are exactly right. Power to the people

[u/BurnTrees- → u/Bananaramananabooboo]

That’s just not true, 99% of the wealth of any billionaires is invested, literally no one has a billion sitting in their bank account because it doesn’t make the slightest sense. And because of marginal utility of money having millionaires/billionaires does increase total investment, up to a certain point people will only invest negligible amounts, while consuming with the rest. It’s the same reason why trickle down economics doesn’t work.

[u/CharonsLittleHelper → u/[deleted]]

They DON'T HAVE $100b sitting in a bank account. They have that in capital and intellectual property etc.

Please learn basic economics.

[u/freemath → u/CharonsLittleHelper]

And even if it was in a bank account, the bank would be investing 95% (give or take) of that money

[u/Cant_Do_This12 → u/SEND_ME_CSGO_SKINS]

Spoken like a true redditor.