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Testing Drugs on India's Poor
theodp writes to tell us Wired is reporting that a lot of medical research firms are using India's poor as a hot test bed. From the article: "The sudden influx of drug companies to India resembles the gold rush frontier, according to Sean Philpott, managing editor of The American Journal of Bioethics. 'Not only are research costs low, but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials'"
So now we are outsourcing the jobs of lab animals to India?? And I shudder to think what the "No Indian testing" label will be in Europe (maybe a big hand patting a meditating guru on the head?)
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
How can giving poor people money for taking medication that may be a little risky be a bad thing? Especially if their participation could eventually lead to better medication that saves lives....
"Doctors are easier to recruit for trials because they don't have to go through the same ethics procedures as their Western colleagues," Ecks said. "And patients ask fewer questions about what is going on."
I can't tell if he's being serious, but if he truly does have no moral qualms about that last statement, then he frightens me.
So first they took away our call centers... Then they took away our IT jobs... Now they're taking our priviledge to test dangerous drugs on the poor and destitute?
Damn you trained and abled Indian workforce!
I guess India's poor cost less to test on the the US bunny rabbit, I for one can not believe companies would take away jobs from som many bunnies I can't even imagine how bunnies can take care of their large families.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
cheers, ben
Never miss a good chance to shut up -- Will Rogers
FTA: "But in March, everything changed when India submitted to pressure from the World Trade Organization to stop the practice and implement rules that prohibit local companies from creating generic versions of patented drugs."
WHy do they want to prevent that? What about in the U.S. where we have things like Walgreen's Wal-tussin to compete with Robitussin (same ingredients, cheaper cost for the consumer)? (same with Sudafed, etc.) Does this fall under the kind of thing WTO wants to stop?
The Miracle of Birth, Part 2: The Third World
Mom: Come on, now. Out you go. Now, uh, Dalip, Bhim, Harinder, Ajit, Indra, Mandeep, it is being past your bedtime.
Kids: Oh, mother!
Mom: Now, not to be arguing! Lakshmi, Sita, Gita, Surinder...
Dad: Wait! I have something to be telling whole family.
Mom: Oh, quick - please to be going and getting the others in, Pradeep.
Kids: What could it be being?
Dad: The call center is closed! There is to be no more work. We are now to live among the untouchable.
Kids: [whispering among themselves]
Dad: Come in my little loves, I am having no option but to be selling you all for scientific experiments.
(Dad goes on to blame the Anglican church for not standing up to the (bloody) Catholics (who are to be filling up the whole world with children they cannot afford to be bloody feeding) when it came to talking about contraception in the UN and WHO forums on overpopulation, and the whole family breaks out into song... You know the rest.)
There are Jews in the world, there are Buddhists,
Anglicans and Catholics, and then,
There are those that outsource to Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them...
Not only are research costs low, but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials.
Umm, so essentially their skill is they're sick and need drugs? Talk about a back handed compliment. Well, Rahim, you have just the skills we're looking for, Leprosy.
They are getting paid for it, a nice enough sum that it's worth their health and life. They aren't being forced or coerced into it.
Some would say the difference between life as a dahlit and life as a dahlit after being paid for it is most certainly a form of force and coercion.
Besides, these people don't have much use in society or a future, especially in India's caste society. This is an excellent opportunity for them to contribute something to better mankind and benefit the rest of us. We should be applauding and congratulating them for their sacrifice. We shouldn't try to take this away from them.
So you agree- givent he caste system they don't have any real choice at all.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm not sure what kind of FDA-equivalent the Indian government has, but there's definitely an advantage to conducting your human trials in places where people aren't breathing down your neck.
I'll bet that India and the rest of the "developing" world will be the next scientific powers given their highly educated and motivated workforce, and the fact that they're a little less backward when it comes to science. Example: South Korea is taking on a cloning project while we're still fighting over teaching evolution in school, abortion and stem cell research.
Sometimes it makes me wish we'd let the South win the civil war. They could live in backward redneck-land and the rest of the country could get on with evolving the species.
If you have seen the film "Constant Gardener", you can see the problems associated with this practice. The main problem is lack of accountability. So what if a couple people die from these drug tests. They are poor, no one is going to miss them. No one will fight for them.
How is this any different than the poor people here who get paid to test drugs? Just because it's happening in India now as well it's news? Yes India is another developed country just like ours with people who want to get paid to pop pills. As well as get paid to do all the same things we do. It's not like they're an alien race or something.
The Constant Gardener anyone?
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
I do recall that a lot of the medical advancements we are enjoying today are a result of the many barbaric experiments done by Nazi scientists on their prisoners back in WWII. So are the insights they gained from their immoral experiements bad enough that we shouldnt use it on moral grounds?
Just like in The Gold Rush, many Indians are forced to eat their own shoes to survive.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
And yet, if it were up to people like you, you would deny them even this opportunity and make their lives even worse.
It is people like you that would rather the poor stay poor rather then allow them any chance because of your own guilty conscience.
"Not only are research costs low, but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials," he said. In the rush to reap profits, Philpott cautions that drug companies may not be sensitive to how poverty can undermine the spirit of informed consent. "Individuals who participate in Indian clinical trials usually won't be educated. Offering $100 may be undue enticement; they may not even realize that they are being coerced," he said.
"Doctors are easier to recruit for trials because they don't have to go through the same ethics procedures as their Western colleagues," Ecks said. "And patients ask fewer questions about what is going on."
Hmm. There are obviously some ethical questions here, but I think that it is for the best. Cheaper trials means more research, and the tests are only conducted when it is almost certain to succeed. The US is much too stringent with medicine, because of lawsuits. People with shorter life expectancies don't care quite as much about the risks of testing drugs, and the sooner drugs are out there helping people, the better.
Cue comments about how this is the most evil thing ever, and that nothing is as valuable as a human life (which is why, instead of buying christmas presents, you will donate to third world countries' medicine.)
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Maybe we can put some of these poor into concentrated areas. Maybe camps. Maybe call them concentrated camps or maybe concentration camps where you can perform drug tests, and also other helpful experiments.
In fact, this is one of the biggest problems in our current medical knowledgebase. Many important drug and poison studies have been conducted in India due to its unique mix of being technologically advanced enough to manage a study, structured enough to organize them, and having a large body of people willing to join them.
The big downside is that India is not an ethnically diverse country. Thus, the results are not necessarily transferrable.
Back in the '50s and '60s, the PCB studies were performed in India. PCBs were found to be highly toxic. It wasn't until the '70s and '80s that followup studies identified the fact that PCBs are vastly (as in 100x type vastly) more toxic to people of Indian and Japanese descent than to people of Caucasion and African descent. If the studies had been done in South America, America, Canada, or Europe, we'd probably still be using PCBs all over the place.
It is critical for the further advancement of medicine that we move beyond our current statistical approach to medicine and studies and start defining which genetic and environmental factors are indications or contraindications for specific medicines. Many medicines kill some people and save others. Rather than tossing them aside, we must start learning to identify when they will kill and when they will save. That requires tests across diverse populations. India doesn't qualify.
In other news: No more animals are used for testing, all animal rights activist rejoice!
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
http://www.novartisclinicaltrials.com/etrials/home .do?pl_id=bmretk000019
n eapigFULL.html
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/guineapig/gui
Why go to India's poor ? The poor in the US can go to these links and do all types of experiments, for a variety of disorders.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
This isin't about saving a few bucks (yes I know its more then a few bucks) on medical testing its about not respecting human life in an equal manner.
"Third World lives are worth much less than the European lives. That is what colonialism was all about," said Srirupa Prasad, a visiting assistant professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
hits the nail on the head. unfortunatly.
Reality is a big nasty dragon. Fortunately I don't believe in dragons.
Sadly, abusing the underprivileged and poor for medical reasons occurs more frequently than one would think. For example, in addidtion to drug testing, during surgical residencies, most of the interns learn new procedures on the homeless or poor that in the hospital. Residents have to learn techniques somehow, and they are inevitably going to deliever sub-par results the first few times of doing something. Thus, the practice of using the underprivileged as "test-dummies" is unstated but widley accepted. Ideas for solutions to this moral dilemma?
check out my music biatches. www.seanduffymusic.com
...of the rich exploiting the poor, I don't know what is.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
I know her as well, and it's been a real boon for her. Turns out her second head can control it almost entirely so her grades are unnatural. And don't let her challenge you to a game of twister.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
You know, there's a reason why doctors go through ethics procedures:
so can we expect YOU to be first in the queue to be a guinea pig then???
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
For years people right here in the US have been selling body fluids and enrolling in drug trials to make extra cash.
But there's a moral issue when it is done in some other country?
Can we quite patronizing the people? They're poor not retarded.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
You are the most callous person I have seen among the ./ crowd.
Sure, let the street girls turn the tricks. They are getting paid for it. Otherwise they might end up on welfare and we will have to share the burden of assisting them through taxes.
God Help us if some new strain of drug-resistent virus (or some lab-made superbug) gets loose in such an environment.
No, I'm serious god help us, and god help the poor people who will be a) the first exposed b) the worst cared for and c) the first to die if the disease is mortal.
This sounds like a recipe for disaster. I, personally, would avoid drugs that had not been tested on people genetically similar to myself. People are not identical in their ability to absorb, metabolize, respond to, or excrete medications. A drug that works well in one population can easily fail to help (or have fatal side effects) in people in a different population.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
So, are you willing to bite the bullet and take one for humanity? If not, you shouldn't expect anyone else too. This is another example of countries in Europe and North America benefitting from someone else's suffering.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
That's where the issue is. In US and Canada, there is drug testing, but the people doing it aren't seen as lab rats; they're seen as human beings. In India, I wouldn't bet a dime that they give a flyin' fuck about the patients.
If it were up to me to begin with, there would be no rich, no poor, no trade, no money, and no caste system. I find artificial divisions among human beings to be slightly absurd.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I have been to India on several occasions and find it irresponsible of not only companies but also other countries to sell banned drugs, pesticides and a wrath of other 'goodies' in India. I saw first hand pesticides that are banned in North America being used openly, old drugs, and of course questionable mixtures of leaded gasoline, kerosene, and others thereby creating a lot of pollution.
Given that India is considered to be a developing nation, it is irresponsible of the 'west' to dump their banned substances there and in other countries. This creates new caste system of sorts - Westerners get good, safe chemicals, while the rest goes 'elsewhere' - thereby needlessly affecting millions of people.
Unfortunately, this issue is not headline news and does not get the attention it deserves.
Such practices are not new. Here is another example: "New York's HIV experiment" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/4 038375.stm
many years ago, I had dinner with a fellow who had just been hired as a director of regulatory affairs by a now long gone pharma company. He mentioned that one of his first tasks had been to burn the files to dangerous to have around, and when asked for an examples, said, well, we have a Korean MD who had been taking suitcases of experimental compounds to Korea, and going up into the mountains, where people don't have any money, and injecting volunteers with large amounts of these untested chemicals (for u younguns, Korea used to be quite poor).
Now, apparently, it is legal....Thank you right wing, GOP CATO the vast right wing conspiracy including mellon,koch CATO and others
No, its pretty much spot on. Everything disgusting and offensive in this topic is pretty much confined to the drug company's actions.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Maybe we can put some of these poor into concentrated areas. Maybe camps. Maybe call them concentrated camps or maybe concentration camps where you can perform drug tests, and also other helpful experiments.
Last I checked, those people in camps weren't paid. Secondly, they didn't volunteer. Lastly, most of them weren't poor until their personal property wasn't forcefully removed from their persons.
Look, these people are poor but they'd rather be poor than be those people that went to those camps.
Oh and I bet you are unaware of the underground medical trade in southeast asia. People have been known to sell off kidneys and spare eyes to make ends meat. They are going to be volunteering for money on a lot of medical things whether you like it or not.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Their descendants have now lived long enough to see (parts of it) repeated.
Y'know, I've never been ashamed of my American citizenship until now. This is wrong on the face of it - no need for protracted debate to see that this is another example of the strong using the weak for their (our) own ends.
I was almost able to ignore our (USA's) past arrogance, our willingness to utilize political and military pressure to inappropriately enforce our will on others; but this is seriously over the top. Human experimentation? Paging Doctor Mengele.
In closing, somebody please tell me that these are multinational corporations, not USA-based?
(the silence was thunderous in its intensity)
Don't lecture us, we Indians invented Karma.
Slashdot just profits off of our idea, and hides behing their "patents are evil" sudo-ideology.
This is a very interesting statement. One part of patent theory is that commercial organizations won't invest in developing new products unless they have a guarantee that someone else can't just copy their product and sell it. It will be interesting to see if abiding by drug patents promotes drug manufacturing and research to move to India, or if it means that they can't afford the patent costs and nobody can afford drugs there anymore.
Shhhhhhhh!!! Be vewwwwwwwwyyy quiet! You talk about the caste system in India and they get all upset! Because according to them, "...there are reservations and scholarships for backward classes in schools and also government jobs." It may be an excellent opportunity, but one which they might have to pay for with their lives.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I fully understand the importance of the FDA. It is extremely important to the safety of the American public and its doctors to have a reliable and unbiased source of information regarding drugs.
One could argue that the market could regulate these drugs. If a drug company release a drug that did serious damage to 20% of the people taking it, this information would spread quickly and soon most people would stop taking that drug. But I would argue it is far better to have to undergo the rigorous testing the FDA puts most of the drugs through before they're made public so the dangers are known before it's available to most people.
On the other hand, I think there is a lot to be said for making the FDA an "informational" body only. In other words, it would do the same testing it does now, and all drugs would have to be submitted before release just as they are now, but regardless of the outcome of that testing the drug companies could make that drug publicly available. Before taking a drug, or before a doctor prescribes a drug, this database would be consulted to see the dangers and see how effective it is. The patients and doctors could then make their own decision as to whether or not this drug is good or bad.
If I'm dying of cancer I should be able to try anything I damn well please... in fact, if I've got a bad cold I should be able to try anything I damn well please. If I'm stupid and try the pharmacological equivalent of rat poison, then so be it... but the government shouldn't be able to limit my options.
There is a place like that. It's called "Hippie Fantasyland."
I thought humans where classified as Animals (or is that just how you classify certain people)?
So when they say it was not tested on Animals do you assume humans are included in that category?
My Sig indicates the end of the comment I posted.
Again, I must reiterate with:
http://www.peta.org/feat/arafat/
Lack of diversity during certain phases is a good thing. It improves the signal to noise ratio in the statistics. It's why they use identical white mice. It's a bad move, when you extrapolate. Which is what someone did in your example. Luckily they erred on the safe side. Still, a good study should move from the narrow to the broad.
In general, humans are pretty genetically uniform. But some crucial differences do pop up. Heck, think of testing something as benign as dairy products. Most of the world can't drink milk.
Fun bit o' trivia: a significant number of chemicals that cause cancer in rats, don't in mice. And visa versa. Makes you wonder how reliable those tests are extrapolated to humans!
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I'm opposed to the idea of coercing a poor and uneducated population into doing our dirty work. That's an entirely different idea than voluntarily sacrificing part of your time for others. If you're willing to sign up for it, then we can probably find some opportunities for medical studies for you in the near future.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
At least not until they try a new fancy drug.. Then they might be rich but sure their brain will vaporize!
Sure, coercion is obvious at the end of a gun. However, to someone with a 1st grade education, "your family is going to die of starvation, I'll give you two months' wages if you swallow this pill. It might kill you, but your family will live," well, that's coercion. When the cost of a human life is a hundred bucks, which is less than one hour time of a researcher in the U.S., stupendously unethical decisions will be made. Give 'em all HIV and pump 'em full of Yak piss. Hey, it might work. For $100, why not give it a shot?
This is not the arena in which to test anarcho-capitalist libertarianism.
People have been known to sell off kidneys and spare eyes to make ends meat.
Best. Misspelling. Ever.
Some people associated with PeTA do have their hearts in the right place, have a bit of common sense, and have no idea that the ASPCA exists and has so for over a hundred years.
Most of PeTA, including their founder, ARE nutjobs hippies and hate humans.
That will depend on how the drug companies are performing these trails. Check out the Constant Gardener for some real scary shit.
My other OS is the MCP!
Some people are going to bite the bullet for humanity, why not India's poor?
No one is supposed to 'bite the bullet' for others, less so for 'humanity'. As long as 'humanity' is still divided among groups of people who don't want to help each other, what you are saying is 'great, indians do the dirty work of getting poisoned for us. Thank you indians'!They are getting paid for it, a nice enough sum that it's worth their health and life.
Are you really thinking that a sum of money is worth any health and/or life? Told you..that's scary.They aren't being forced or coerced into it.
No they are not. Unless they have no choice but taking the cash and risk dying of some drug poisoning, or risk a life-long handicap, rather than risk dying of hunger or other diseases due to environmental pollution (Bophal or the arsenic-polluted wheels, thanks to the big corporations selling their so-called medication and pesticides) without a controlling instance.Besides, these people don't have much use in society or a future,
Here, you are saying that some people are useless? Well I can tell you, with such a thinking, YOU ARE USELESS. At least for me.This is an excellent opportunity for them to contribute something to better mankind and benefit the rest of us.
So, you are saying that since many indians live in a cast society, and they are poor, they are of better "use" for mankind if they try drugs for "us".Is that me, or the parent poster is REALLY out of it? This is just as bad as any fascist kind of thinking.
We should be applauding and congratulating them for their sacrifice. We shouldn't try to take this away from them.
Following the ida, I hereby welcome our new indian overpoors who sacrifice their puny life for the benefit of "us", the real world.Some people will be angry with this, but if not them, then who's going to do this?
Y...o...u? If you'd read what you wrote more than half-a time, you'd find yourself outraged at what you're saying. Unless you really think it, which in case is scary at best..I find the practice of 'preying on india's poor' abhorrent.
When I was in college, I did a project discussing the very unethical research conducted by Nazi Scientists in Concentration camps and the biological and chemical warfare projects the japanese undertook.
However, for all the suffering inflicted by the nazi doctors, the west, after winning the war, took the research and used to pioneer procedures such as the heart transplant. (Please do not construe this as an apology for the holocaust or condoning the holocaust. I'm just saying that unethical medical research led to breakthroughs.)
Now, not to seem to alarmist, but the point I wanted to make is:
China's record of disregard for human rights.
Apathy toward prisoner's rights in general (most people don't really care to think about the quality of life of all the people they're feeding and housing via their tax dollars.)
The need for medical test subjects for emerging fields (BioTech, New Vaccines, etc).
If its not happening now, I think it will.
And I'm not the first to suggest it. In Larry Niven's 'Known Space' Universe, condemned criminals (life in prison or death sentence) had their organs harvested so that healthy people could extend their life span (before the scientists in the 'Known Space' universe discovered 'Booster Spice').
Soon, immortality will just be a few affordable transplants away!
I guess a random human life naturally would have less value than an animal of another species, so the suicide bomber would naturally see reason in the argument.
Otherwise they might end up on welfare and we will have to share the burden of assisting them through taxes.
Y'see, in India, they have no such thing as "welfare." They have the choice between starvation and lab rat. Neither is a dignified option, although I would at least give them the dignity of the choice.
DATABASE WOW WOW
The ethical lows many multinational corporations will stoop to should not be surprising. These same companies that love to excercise "Free Trade" are the one who were bitching and moaning because poor old people in the united States were re-importing drugs that were sent overseas. These are the same companies that have worked to get the codex (google codex drugs to find out more). The companies are working to have the supplement companies put out of business so that they can force people who need medicine to consume their crap (the side effects are just about as bad as the disease the drug is supposed to cure). The companies see the Indians as well as us as mere merchandise or cash cows. The same goes for the politician, courts, and yes, also the President. The people of the Police States of America will be forced to pay for a prescription drug benefit that only saves about 1 out of every 14 people any real money. The people of the P.S.A. as well as (The many countries of) Europe and many other places think they are free but aren't. People will not be free until they put away their difference and stand together against the government-cartel alliances. The corporations and nearly all of the governments have learned to stand together in order to squeeze more wealth out of the masses. It is time for the masses to do the same and take back what rightfully belong to the masses. This is where people of all nationalities and religions need to come together.
Best. Misspelling. Ever.
Also good mis-information. Most of human organ traffic comes from south america.Last I checked, those people in camps weren't paid. Secondly, they didn't volunteer. Lastly, most of them weren't poor until their personal property wasn't forcefully removed from their persons.
There are, as you point out, differences. However, it matters little wheather you take wealth from people directly or simply rig the game so life will leave them poor. In some ways, the latter is worse because it is much less honest about the goal and allows the beneficiaries to sleep well at night with the ugliness a safe arm's length worth of indirection away.
So long as ANY society rigs the game in such a way, the poor aren't really what you would call paid since it's a foregone conclusion that the money will find it's way back to those who paid them in the first place.
How much better is it morally to threaten people by starving their family to death one by one rather than by shooting them one by one?
I realize that the issues of poverty are complex, but I also realize that in many ways they are KEPT complex to soothe the conscience of the richest 10%
How about testing out some sterilization drugs?
The human race is artificial intelligence created using object orientated programming.
What he said... unless you're not of the "human race", you shouldn't worry too much about the genetics. What you *should* worry about it is all the OTHER stuff, like diet/local pollutants, etc.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Sometimes it makes me wish we'd let the South win the civil war. They could live in backward redneck-land and the rest of the country could get on with evolving the species.
Outstanding! One is rarely treated to such a display of irony: a sweeping, uninformed, all-inclusive condemnation of a huge swath of the country, contending that they, what... are losers because they make sweeping, uninformed judgements about things?
I don't suppose you've met any of the loony hardcore Catholics from New England? Or perhaps some Mormons from the upper-Rockies area? Or maybe some urban Baptists from, say, Philadelphia? Or perhaps some addled-brained Wiccan Nitwits from Seattle? Or maybe some Orthodox Jews from downtown NY,NY? There are people with retro-silly sensibilities all over this country, and always have been. New England is still infested with Puritans. No amount of MTV or porn spam seems to cure it.
On the other hand, I've met some of the most literate, gracious, science-informed, fundy-allergic, down-to-earth people in the world south of the Mason-Dixon Line. On balance, they're often considerably more rational and forward-thinking than some of the culture-rot-population I've met lurking in a lot of the northern cities. I'm just as tired of urbane, metrosexual pseudo-intellectuals who think that hydrogen is a new energy source being hidden by the government as you are of the hillbilly that thinks he's been abducted by aliens because he drank too much cough syrup.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
We benefit from the suffering of others every day. Sweatshop labor is still going strong; so are cheaper relaxed safety standards available to "third-world countries". (I mean non-Western countries we exploit.) How do you think Walmart can get such low prices from their foreign suppliers? We save a dollar on an umbrella that some guy lost a finger to make because the machine lacked a safety part that would have slowed production down. These countries also have relaxed pollution standards as well, so you can dump all the chemicals you want into the streams. Look at the Killer Coke campaign. Where the public outrage there? In any case, the medical subjects in this case are being paid more than they would have made, and they have received medical care they would not have received otherwise. It's not like the doctors are just injecting random chemicals into them, after all.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
On one had, you're paying a relatively small number of people who too poor to say no to do things that *might* damage their health but *will* improve medical technology for all of humanity. They are also subject to humane treatment
On the other hand, you're rounding up and murdering millions of people with the intent of wiping out an entire race. You're also subjecting them to horrible torture and humiliation.
Yeah, that's a spot on comparison.
(emphasis mine)
Part of me really hopes that was an unintentional typo...and part of me hopes it wasn't...god that's awesomely evil.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
It is people like you that would rather the poor stay poor rather then allow them any chance because of your own guilty conscience.
I've heard a similar argument applied to the slave trade...
These people are not becoming human lab rats for disposible income. They are becoming lab rats to afford the basics in life. There is a difference between giving opportunity and economic slavery.
Economics aside these people should be warned and made understanding of the dangers. Which according to the article they are not.
I have funny experience with Indian medicines.
When I was in India like 10 years ago I bought eye drops against conjunctivitis called Itone or something. They worked so well that I bought like 20 bottles for my friends with similar problems. I was a little perplexed why some bottles were marked with red letters "Physician sample". I returned to Europe and after 3 years I saw a poster in a local pharmacy which advertised a new, revolutionary drug that was just released, the same Itone I had been using for several years.
My wife developed some stomach problems in India. She visited a doctor who gave her some medicine that took away all problems in one day. In Europe the same stomach problem returned but the doctors were horrified when she told what kind of medicine she was taking in India. They prescribed some other treatment but that was not very effective and it took 2 months to completely cure her illness. I guess the European doctors were not so experienced in tropical diseases.
I know of another person who was treated by some Indian fakir who gave him ash from yagyas (sacrificial fire). Supposedly harmless thing that was simply blessed by his mantras and yantras. Nevertheless it was very effective and made the person very peaceful. Before this person was suffering from the bipolar disorder but he didn't want to take drugs because they made him dull. But simple ash worked so good for him. Long story short, after several years it turned out that the fakir was mixing very powerful psychotropic drug with ash and giving to him. Well, in the West it would be considered cheating but in India who cares if it did well to the patient. And if someone dies in the process that is not a big problem, there are already so many people in India that one person more or less doesn't make any difference.
Good luck enforcing that without becoming a fascist.
You need to study your history. One of the uses of concentration camps was to provide human guinea pigs for medical experimentation. Especially experimentation to make people look more Aryan. This is what the OP was going for.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Testing Drugs on India's Rich:
1) There are a lot fewer of them.
2) They'd sue our asses off.
What about natural divisions between human beings?
And how do you tell the difference?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
well it's not up to you and the solution to the problem isn't to just blow it off and say if i was in charge it wouldn't be like this. you have to make due with what you've got and actually step up instead of looking down on their lives and hoping that these drug companies will give them some way to change their lives without kiling them. What is being done is wrong, and you're just blinding yourself from it and when someone tries to show that you're wrong you decide to ignore the reasons.
Uh- I think you've got me confused with someone else- yes what is happening is wrong, but what is happening is a direct consequence of depending on international trade, money, and ridiculous hierarchial structures to begin with.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Seriously, nothing you are saying makes any sense. What suicide bomber, is supposed to see the reason in what argument? And who said anything about the value of human life at all, much less in comparison with other animals lives?
Everything disgusting and offensive in this topic is pretty much confined to the drug company's actions.
Not even that, actually. From TFA, the drug company's hypothetical actions. Seriously. Go back and re-read that Wired piece. These actions aren't even alleged.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
All that means is that you don't recognize how politically useful such divisions have been throughout history.
Politically useful suggests that it's actually useful to have politics to begin with- something that I'm not sure of at all. I see no need to have more than 5 acres per family and local trade barriers to prevent destruction of the local labor force.
What I understand is that the caste system wasn't really that prevalent until the British encouraged it as sort of a divide-and-conquer.
Also a worthless exercise. Why bother controling land that you can't directly use yourself?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Well, what with the oppressive regulation and massive lawsuits here in the U.S. I believe there's only one pharma company that still claims to be U.S. based (Merck) and I think they're moving operations to England. I know that something like 90% of all medicines are now produced outside the U.S., so I think your worries that these companies are U.S. are likely to be unfounded. The raging nanny state legislation in the U.S. has made it almost impossible to do any medical research here.
How about this division then- stupid vs. smart or lazy vs. hard-working. Do you think these are artificial as well?
Some people work harder than others and should reasonably expect to be compensated to a greater degree. No matter how you do it the compensation is going to create a division. This is not absurd- it is the primary motivation towards good performance.
I think in a perfect society everyone would work as hard as they were able and everyone would receive equally. In reality there are a lot of lazy and greedy people who would quickly spoil such a perfect society.
Who are you trying to fool?
Those tricks are not taxable income, therefore they are eligible for welfare. Why not have both!
Good luck enforcing that without becoming a fascist.
.25 acres I own. I just wish the other fascists would stop trying to affect my life.
It's a matter of keeping local control local- I don't expect to enforce it outside of the
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Some would say the difference between life as a dahlit and life as a dahlit after being paid for it is most certainly a form of force and coercion.
So then, I'm curious.
Would those same 'some' say that we should therefore preclude offering them the choice at all?
What about natural divisions between human beings?
The only one I see is the organ known as skin. There are no other useful natural divisions.
And how do you tell the difference?
Why should we care about difference? Differences are not useful.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Indeed, no one should be surprised: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Stu dy
You know something like this will happen again.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
Would those same 'some' say that we should therefore preclude offering them the choice at all?
Either that- or those same some would insist upon all 32 Universal Declaration of Human Rights rules for every human being on the planet- at which point the caste system becomes entirely obsolete, as do the words "rich" and "poor" (or rather, those get redefined as "people who have their article 24-27 rights" and "people who are in a civil war trying to obtain article 24-27 rights"). No government or economic system that fails to provide article 24-27 rights should be allowed to exist; likewise nobody would be forced to take such work because work that insures human dignity would be widely available.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
...one of the uses was medical experimentation yes. I'm all to familiar with that, these are some of the experiments:
Cutting people in half alive to see how long each half lives.
Cutting off various body parts from living people without anesthetic to see how it effects them.
Cutting open women and sewing live adult cats and cat fetus into their wombs.
That's some of the tamest stuff, there is also a lot more gruesome.
It as all done in the name of "medical research". Done on peopel who were taken prisoner for the sole purpose of murdering them. They were not given any choice or any compension. They were also not too poor to say no.
Besides, these people don't have much use in society or a future, especially in India's caste society. This is an excellent opportunity for them to contribute something to better mankind and benefit the rest of us.
Some people will be angry with this, but if not them, then who's going to do this?
Hmmm..let's see. Hope you lose your house, your job, all your money. Then I'll pay you pennies to be a human guinea pig. And by your understanding, you'll be happy to take the job and consider that as your contribution to the society?
Poor (no matter where they are from/what color their skin is) who become human guinea pig, are forced into this because of the financial disparity. They don't see this as their "use to the society". And worse still, it hurts me if the rest think of it as their "use to the society". I rather feel ashamed of our incapabity to help them in the first place.
And another thing, by your philosophy, "worth of life/health" == bank balance.
Hey, Bill Gates wants to buy your kidneys. A billion dollars should be more than your life's worth. Your family for one should be happy to sell you.
Don't you see that your philosophy justifies buying/selling of human organs, prostitution etc in one go.
Actually, you missed another opportunity. So many people in south asia lost their home/belongings during the tsunami. You should have paid them their life's worth and used them for experiments.
New medication has to get tested on humans and companies pay for that. Any rich person can sign up but usually the poor do b/c they need the money. That's how life is. The rich get better health care, better food, etc. In some cases the rich to want to be the lab rats; for some cancer drug candidates there have been scandals that rich people paid to get into the trials.
I actually think that India's poor is better for them, because otherwise those people would not have access to any medication at all. Better an experimental drug that has undergone extensive testing on animals than nothing. Plus test subjects get medical monitoring and test they would otherwise not afford.
Seriously, what are you smoking? I don't see anything in the text of that page that says "Hey, we'd love it if you could blow up some more people, just make sure you strap up one of your compatriates next time. Donkeys are better than people." The point of the letter was that animals are getting stuck in the crossfire and nobody seems to notice. Whether it will make one bit of difference or not that they wrote the letter aside, what is wrong with that focus? Your reasoning is like that of people who say 'oh, don't give computers to Africans because they need food and water before anything else.' Ignoring the fact, for a moment, that many (most) Africans are not in the fly-ridden state Sally Struthers shows you, what is wrong with addressing a problem that may not be the main problem, e.g. animals are also being harmed by long-standing this conflict? Is it just the wording you object to? Maybe the colors on their page? The name 'Ingrid' gives you a chill?
trade and money are artificial divisions?
Yes- I should think that would be obvious. They are human inventions, after all.
How about this division then- stupid vs. smart or lazy vs. hard-working. Do you think these are artificial as well?
Yes, and that's equally obvious to anybody who actually bothers to think.
Some people work harder than others and should reasonably expect to be compensated to a greater degree.
Yeah, I used to believe that too, then I realized that human beings don't actually vary in ability that much- and after a certain point, it's just criminal behavior.
No matter how you do it the compensation is going to create a division.
Correct- so the obvious answer is NO COMPENSATION.
This is not absurd- it is the primary motivation towards good performance.
The primary motivation towards good performance is learning, not compensation. Compensation and requiring money to live is just a way to force people to do something they don't want to do. And you'll never get good performance forcing people to do something they don't want to do.
I think in a perfect society everyone would work as hard as they were able and everyone would receive equally. In reality there are a lot of lazy and greedy people who would quickly spoil such a perfect society.
Well, if being lazy and greedy is natural as you insist, there's a perfectly reasonable solution to THAT problem- eliminate the genes that cause laziness and greed. But if they are not, as I say, then it's rather easy to eliminate the cause- the free market and free trade.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
And yet, if it were up to people like you, you would deny them even this opportunity and make their lives even worse.
If it were up to people like "Marxist Hacker", the government would give these people a job in a chair factory making 5 chairs (no more, no less) a day, and they would get the same one bedroom apartment and potato soup that everyone else got. Then he would say that they were the ones who were truly "free" because they were not burdened with the competition for material things.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
It's interesting to see that when you want to post such obviously fascist drivel (just compare what you've expressed here with the justifications the Nazis gave for all their abhorent experiments on concentration camp victims), you haven't the balls to post with your id.
Hi, how are you? I'm really fine eh. I've been a test animal for medications more than a couple of time already (of course, none were as experimental as it gets in India) and i gotta tell you, it's great :)
Were i do it, you get thre in the evening, they feed you abundantly three times a day, use steril and safe tools and environnement to get accurate data and you get to take one pill of whatever is on the menu. Couple days later and a couple drops of blood later you are free from the haven of clinical environment and given the BIG FAT money.
Really, it's what paid my university (and still does)
As for human rights and all, I'll only say it all depends on how you are informed, treated and paid :P
Bah.
What's callous about that? Why is living off the fruits of other's labor more diginified than voluntarily sleeping with strangers for money? At least hookers add some value to the world and profit from their own labor.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
How much better is it morally to threaten people by starving their family to death one by one rather than by shooting them one by one?
If you found yourself on an island with no food through no fault of your own or anyone else, who is responsible?
Who are you going to blame? No one is forcing you to starve. You just happen to end up in a bad situation that is just bad for you.
Likewise in India... There is no forced capaign of forced starvation. This isn't like Cambodia back in the late 70's or the Ukrainian genocide in the 1930's under Stalin. No one is physically removing food from them (maybe indirectly through capitalism, but like I said this isn't a national campaign to exterminate a group of people).
A point I would like to make, under the same thinking you could say Communist China forced those Tibetan monks to set themselves on fire... That is not the case. They used their free will to make a choice and stand up for what they believed in.
You must realize that these people have free will even though they were born in some of the worst possible conditions a human could face. They just choose not to exercise it whether it means revolting against the powers that be or even putting an end to their own existance or just finding simple ways in their daily life to feed their families better.
The problem is that people don't believe that they have a choice in the matter because of economic, racial, or caste restrictions. The cop out and say... "well fuck... I'm on a stranded island with no food so I'll just put up with it"
It is a bad situation which I have sympathy with this, but you also have to remember to deny these people means of earning income is just as bad.
We can't fix the system with politics. Maybe we can solve it with technological progress... Heck weve reduced world poverty from 400 million in the 1990's to 200 some million by 2004 (according to Ray Kurzweil) but you have to realize that life isn't pretty and we should focus on solving the the direct issue itself instead of blaming things we have no control over.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Ethics matter; ethics help assure good science.
There's definitely an advantage to conducting your human trials in places where people aren't breathing down your neck.
Ever frakkin' wonder why the FDA dares to breath down peoples necks? Do you think that people should be informed of the risks of the test; the potential for long term harm. Do you want pharmaceutical companies to document the positive and the adverse reactions of medical testing?
Thank God we've found poor, uneducated people living in a country with a rampant caste system - where the poor are of even less spiritual value than the elite! Testing can proceed apace. And don't worry, the ends do justify the means.
Gee, the South Koreans can have cloning by having one of their lab assistants donate her eggs - amongst numerous other problems with that particular series of experiments.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
... but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials
And a nearly-unlimited pool of willing experimental anim^H^H^H^H human test subjects. Personally, I'd hate to be a member of that "skilled work force" administering untested drugs to the Indian population. I expect there will be a fair number of severely compromised and/or dead subjects. Say, maybe a requirement for an H1B visa should be to join one of these research programs: if you survive, you get to come to America and work.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Please explain how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is anything like international law. Then please explain what the declaration has to do with your statement, "there would be no rich, no poor, no trade, no money, and no caste system." There's nothing in the declaration about eliminating the rich*, or social strata in general. Yes, elevating the poor, but not eliminating wealth.
*Of course not, those who wrote it would find that very uncomfortable.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Personally I cannot blame American companies for doing something like this - after all, they are running a business. It is really the Indian Government's reponsibility to ensure high standards and proper accountability for drug testing. But then, a small "donation" of a few thousand dollars is often enough to buy the silence of most govt. officials.
Denial is not a river in Egypt
Now, I haven't seen the film yet, but I did read the book when it came out a few years back...
The problem with this is that EVERY clinical trial is overseen by a panel of eminent doctors in that therapeutic field, who every unexpected incident from an increase in headaches up to death, to determine whether it is related to the drug. This information must be included in the pack send to the regulators (FDA, EMEA for Europe).
Also, the regulators have the right to inspect any site involved with a clinical trial, anywhere in the world, sometimes at only a few days notice. In cases where doctors have been faking or hiding data, they have been found and, in some cases, struck off.
It is very easy to write stories about clinical trials being done badly. In the past, some were... more often due to sloppy practice by individual doctors than corporate hidden agendas. There is now a much stronger legal basis to regulate how trials can be conducted, and a much higher degree of professionalism on the part of the doctors, scientists and support staff doing this work.
The area of some controversy in clinical research in recent years has been the reporting of trials; there is now a set of guidelines on this aspect as well, and companies are starting to sign up to it.
I know many people who work on drug trials, and they are VERY dedicated to patient care and professional and ethical practice. It annoys me when these people are portrayed as crooks in the mass media.
Andrew Smith
Editor, Clinical Research focus (www.crfocus.org)
The Institute of Clinical Research (www.instituteofclinicalresearch.org) - Dedicated to raising standards, sharing knowledge, and developing professionals
So, are you willing to bite the bullet and take one for humanity? If not, you shouldn't expect anyone else too.
I don't "expect" anyone to do anything they don't choose to do. I'm sure they aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but because what they are getting is of greater value to them than what they are giving up.
This is another example of countries in Europe and North America benefitting from someone else's suffering.
Bullshit. This is an example of Europe and North Americans compensating someone else for their (potential) suffering. If these people are rational actors, then they wouldn't be volunteering if it didn't leave them better off. Don't impose your values on someone else.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
I love indian :P
Not everyone in the US has article 24-27 rights, so when are you starting the "civil war"? Or are you just planning to leave?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Why is that? The world is filled with people who are human only in terms of their biology, but hardly live in any way we typically associate with humanity. Most of them would die anyway if it wasn't for the generosity and ingenuity of European peoples. Certainly, the level of suffering that exists in India didn't exist before the introduction of European technologies and civilizing elements.
We are not some happy brotherhood of equal men. The egalitarian fiction is nothing more than that, a fiction.
If a few must be sacrificed for the continuance of human civilization, so be it. When it comes to India, they certainly have the surplus population to spare.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
These better be drugs with minimal health risks... The last thing we need is India's poverty hating US drug companies for doping some of there people knowing it may cause deaths, and in turn hating the US because of it. I have no gripes against hating drug companies since thousands of Americans alone probably die a year due to price gouging and not being able to afford medication that isn't available in generic form yet.... Yeah, it's part of the economy, and drives research...... But I'm sure there are probably a lot of drugs that are sold for way more then they cost to make, thus benifiting the creator for having exclusive rights to selling the drug, and lining their pockets even more w/ high prices.... If I'm wrong about them, someone feel free to correct me (and doing good in another way like donations doesn't make them good, since they aren't the last resort for life in that case).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Please explain how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is anything like international law.
The United Nations is the closest thing we have to an international law making body- and they passed this statement of human rights in 1948.
Then please explain what the declaration has to do with your statement, "there would be no rich, no poor, no trade, no money, and no caste system." There's nothing in the declaration about eliminating the rich*, or social strata in general. Yes, elevating the poor, but not eliminating wealth.
It would cost so much to elevate the poor to that point, that money would be largely worthless, thus eliminating the difference between the rich and the poor.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Not everyone in the US has article 24-27 rights, so when are you starting the "civil war"? Or are you just planning to leave?
I believe that the civil war will not be started by one man- but by many. And if you think I'm going to tell YOU in an unencrypted online communication what my personal plans are for my participation in it, then you've obviously never heard about echelon.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Are you really thinking that a sum of money is worth any health and/or life? Told you..that's scary.
Apparantly these voluteers think there is a sum of money worth their lives. Either they are right, or they are stupid. Which is it?
Here, you are saying that some people are useless? Well I can tell you, with such a thinking, YOU ARE USELESS. At least for me.
The old guy on the corner on my way home is useless. He might have had a use once, but now he just stands there all day, drinking and pissing himself. How is that useful? OTOH, if he donates his body to science, so med students can disect him to learn about anatomy, that would be a useful contribution to society.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
The United Nations is the closest thing we have to an international law making body
No, they really aren't. There's plenty of actual international law out there which has nothing to do with the UN. Plus, the UN doesn't make law. The UN is probably the furthest thing we have from an international law making body.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
No, they really aren't. There's plenty of actual international law out there which has nothing to do with the UN. Plus, the UN doesn't make law. The UN is probably the furthest thing we have from an international law making body.
Are you saying there's another lawmaking body for international law out there? If so, our independance from them should probably be first priority if we ever hope to make our own destinies.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You acknowledge that your scheme would require forcible redistribution of wealth, but that would violate, at a minimum, articles 12 and 17 of the Universal Declaration.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
I do not see any reference to that here. Coercion doesn't require anything but that threat of harm is used to persuade. That's it.
/koerss/
u k
coerce
verb persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats.
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/coerce?view=
Then go to India to a Dahlit ghetto and tell these people how they don't deserve their potato soup and chair factory job because they haven't worked for it.
You acknowledge that your scheme would require forcible redistribution of wealth
Not at all- I only acknowledge that it would require actually paying for what you get. The only reason rich people exist to begin with is because they've found a way to steal from either labor or consumers.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Actually, there is a social caste system that keeps the Dahlits as an underclass. If universal racism keeps them unemployed and unprotected by the police, I would consider that to be every bit as effective as Stalin's campaign in terms of starving people.
If there is no single business owner who will give you a job, what does it matter whether the government is involved in starving you or not? Either way, society is starving you and you have no escape.
This is by far the most idiotic post I've had the opportunity to read on Slashdot.
Yeah, I used to believe that too, then I realized that human beings don't actually vary in ability that much
Which completely explains why some people get a 4.0 in college and others fail after a semester or two due to excessive partying.
Correct- so the obvious answer is NO COMPENSATION.
Yes, because people just love to do things without getting compensated for it. I take it you don't know anyone who sits on his ass all day.
The primary motivation towards good performance is learning, not compensation.
Really? Just to let you know, most work out there isn't easy, sit-on-your-ass-and-get-paid-six-figures office work. It's more like busting your ass all day doing something hard and boring. You think a farmer does his job for the learning that it brings?
Well, if being lazy and greedy is natural as you insist
By nature, humans are lazy, selfish, greedy, and unwise. If it were another way around, we wouldn't need any economic system.
But if they are not, as I say, then it's rather easy to eliminate the cause- the free market and free trade.
Please explain how the free market system causes laziness.
Ah- as long as the ends justify the means eh?
Except for this statement I agree with much of your response to my post- no need to be antagonistic.
I am afraid that I misrepresented my own opinions in my previous post. I think that, unfortunate as it may be, laziness and greed are natural tendencies that should be opposed in oneself and they, not free trade, are the cause of misery and inequality. I could easily imagine a system with no money but don't think it would be inherently better than what we have now.
I think I probably disagree with you about the necessary steps to acheive the utopian society that you describe. It is my opinion that the perfect state of equality comes about when there is respect and kindness between people. The equality would be successful only if those who have more, motivated by compassion, gave to those that have less. This would require people to develop integrity within themselves.
History would seem to demonstrate that when those who have less get frustrated and simply take violently what they feel they deserve- all you get is a reversal of who is on top and who is on the bottom. Nothing is accomplished.
My personal strategy for changing the world is to try to be more honest, give more of what I have, and not be annoyed during rush-hour traffic at the guy that cuts me off, etc. Changing myself isn't as dramatic as a proletariat revolution but I think in the long term its more effective.
Which completely explains why some people get a 4.0 in college and others fail after a semester or two due to excessive partying.
This does not prove a "natural" difference in ability- as both studying and partying are learned behavior, not innate.
Yes, because people just love to do things without getting compensated for it.
Actually, it's amazing the number of things people do without getting compensated for them; that's the whole point of the hierarchy of needs.
I take it you don't know anyone who sits on his ass all day.
Not without creating *something*, no. The impulse to create is far too strong.
Really? Just to let you know, most work out there isn't easy, sit-on-your-ass-and-get-paid-six-figures office work. It's more like busting your ass all day doing something hard and boring. You think a farmer does his job for the learning that it brings?
Yes, in fact I do- the pay certainly is no reason to be a farmer. Who would choose to be a farmer for the pay?
By nature, humans are lazy, selfish, greedy, and unwise. If it were another way around, we wouldn't need any economic system.
We don't need an economic system- we got along just fine without one for the first million years or so on this planet. The purpose of an economic system is to control a hierarchy- so that the king can collect his taxes, originally.
Please explain how the free market system causes laziness.
By providing goods for people to buy, it frees them up from having to create those goods themselves.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
We meet again!
How are the differences in skin between two humans "usesful"?
And shouldn't you be saying "differences are not useful... in my opinion"?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
If you found yourself on an island with no food through no fault of your own or anyone else, who is responsible?
As was pointed out already, these people are in poverty because of the caste system, not some unfortunate boating accident. A perminant underclass is no accident.
However, I'll feel free to abuse your analogy. Did you know that if a ship finds me on that island, they are obligated by law to arrange for my rescue? If I am in the process of sinking (not to the island yet) they must bring me aboard.
Ironically, the poor might be better off on that island you speak of than they are now. At least they would be free to take advantage of whatever might be around them without worrying about who owns what and will the police arrest them for theft or trespassing.
I tried that for a number of years- all it ever got me was in debt up to my eyeballs when the rich decided to throw me out like yesterday's garbage and not allow me to work for two years.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Some people work harder than others and should reasonably expect to be compensated to a greater degree.
Let's look at a CEO of a large company who is doing an extremely poor job (let's say the GM guy). He makes about 500 times the salary of an average employee. If he is fired or quits, he will get a huge golden parachute (something like $5 million). Are you saying he works 500x harder than an average GM employee? How would that even be possible?
I think in a perfect society everyone would work as hard as they were able and everyone would receive equally.
Since most people never work as hard as they are able to, this system would be inherently unfair. In any fair system, people are compensated by job performance and job difficulty. A good system should additionally guarantee that everyone will receive the very basic human necessities (housing, food, healthcare), if they are unable to work.
The US should not accept trial results from trials conducted overseas. That's prudent for other reasons as well. It's not a complete solution, but it would help.
outright racist as worst. A person (usually non U.S) has to spend just a few days on the site to realize this. Usually most of us ignore and sometimes even enjoy such discussions and take the site for what it is and don't normally have the time or inclination to argue against this bias. The low quality and intelligence of the posters is a final deterrent.
As I have some time at hand today, I would like to point out to the very small minority of rational readers here that while slashdot considers it acceptable to play a scaremonger with articles ranging from tongue-in-cheek criticism to being of an outright inflamatory nature, it conviniently decides to reject a front page article from the most prominent Indian English daily The Times of India which concerns slashdot itself and shows an unpleasant side of outsourcing.
This is interesting as even the most biased party would atleast pretend to be non-prejudiced by publishing the front-page opinion of the most important newspaper of the country which is at the very center of this whole debate, while agreeing to publish irrelevant information from trivial sources.
The submitted article was this (reproduced below): Indian techie alleges racial abuse
Indian techie alleges racial abuse
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA [ Sunday, December 11, 2005 12:53:48 pmTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
To hear the full blast of invective against outsourcing, offshoring and other aspects of job migration from the United States, stop by at Slashdot.org . An online forum for nerds and nerdy natterings, it teems with angry young men writing under nom de guerres such as AnonymousCoward and TempestData, sgt_doom and pubjames. Many of them are obviously American, but you can see the odd Indian signature locked in verbal combat with a flaming Yankee. On the day Bill Gates announced that Microsoft would be hiring another 3,000 people in India and investing some $1.7 billion (a lot of it towards opening outlets to sell MS products and making more money), nerdy narcissists were out in strength. "Why worry about H1B visas when you can just buy India?" sneered someone writing under the pseudonym Heck. "So, what's the Indian equivalent to H1B?" asked someone called Hmmm. "More companies going to India? Well, I guess I am going down to McDonald's to pick up some applications -- anybody want me to pick them one up as well?" King Vance lamented. "From experience of remote call centres, you'll get more sense out of what a dog says," related SatanicPuppy. "I find they speak English quite well," retorted someone. "In fact, they often speak English better than the ebonified English you get at times from some of the support folks based in NYC." "Microsoft Curry XP coming soon! And it's damn hot!" mocked someone else. "Khidkiyaan2006," bragged another, evidently Indian. It was corrosive sometimes, nasty occasionally, but mostly it was good collegiate fun. Some of the more poisonous posts sullied the many intelligent observations made on both sides of the debate, but it was a welcome letting off of steam in a largely anonymous online forum. Heck, online flamebait is better than real-life threats and violence, as Neelima Tirumalasetti will say. A Texas-based Indian techie who came to the US in 1998, Neelima wishes her tormentors had lit into her on Slashdot.org. Instead, some days after her company Caremark Inc began outsourcing work to India in early 2004, her team members began harassing her -- mocking her accent, excluding her from conversations, and essaying jokes and insults based on her race, ethnicity and national origin, according to an affidavit she filed in a Texas court. A co-worker ambushed her in the ladies room, she says, and called her a "brown-skinned b****" and a "dirty Indian". When she reported the harassment to the management, it first did not take cognisance of her complaint. She was divested from major responsibilities in a project.
I think that, unfortunate as it may be, laziness and greed are natural tendencies that should be opposed in oneself and they, not free trade, are the cause of misery and inequality.
Many people perscribe laziness to the fact that someone is doing poorly, but this is not always the condition that they are under. By far above and beyond laziness is their original starting position. Even a lazy person (me) can go to college, and get a 3.0 GPA, and get hired by a big company (Microsoft) getting more money than either of his parents earned at the height of their earning power.
Why did I manage to do that? Because my play time was actually worth more than my productive time. I enjoyed playing with computers, and programming, and I'm good at it. As a result, I did better.
Nothing besides luck, and initial opportunity. Without my parents being as well off as they moderately were, they would never have been able to afford a computer as early as I got my hands on one, and I would have likely found something else to concentrate on (or remained doing math, just because I found it fun) and pure chance that doing computers became hot, and paid well.
If I had gone into strict mathematics, I would likely have ended up doing something that paid a lot less... but again, due to the opportunity afforded me by my parents economic position, I was able to attend college, recover from failures, and keep moving up the ladder, rather than being forced to stop climbing, and just go forward.
I have a friend who's likely way more intelligent than I, and significantly less lazy, but his mother was a single parent teacher, with little child support, and he got the genetic shit card. (High fuctioning autism, dyslexia, a growth disorder that left him much shorter than everyone else, but since he'll never stop growing, he's caught up a lot.)
This friend had all the preconditions that people think should produce a better situation for himself, but due to luck (shitty in his case) he's ending up worse than his parents, and due to parental opportunity, he's significantly behind lazy me.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
How are the differences in skin between two humans "usesful"?
Only if you accept the idea of individualism, in that the skin provides a barrier that prevents actual merging of cells directly. Beyond that- is there anything else that can be said about it?
And shouldn't you be saying "differences are not useful... in my opinion"?
See my journal entry, about three back- anything in a text-based medium should never be taken as fact, only as opinion. That too should be obvious.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I do think that an effort to violently overthrow the current system (as Karl Marx predicted) is misguided and ultimately would fail to improve conditions.
My original post was a knee-jerk response to Marxist theories I disagree with and I regret not thinking through better in advance.
Yes, in fact I do- the pay certainly is no reason to be a farmer. Who would choose to be a farmer for the pay?
I prefer to think about the implication that farmers are poor because they're lazy...
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
That too- in fact work seems to pay in inverse porportion to level of physical effort put in.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
sudo-ideology? Haha, someone's been using the command line a lot lately!
Seriously, I agree that the GP (and all the other "oh-noes-India-is-taking-our-jobses!@1" ranters, too, as it happens) is a moron, but the term you're looking for is 'pseudo', and the leading p is not entirely silent (at least, not in the dialect of English I speak).
Cheers...
no really, they are. My wife works for Peta. Peta is more "anti-human" than "pro-animal". Peta will be very happy to hear this, I can assure you. Atleast I know the ones who work at the headquarters are all wackjobs. They'd rather euthanize animals than let them be used in any way, shape or form by people. That agenda hopes to someday includes pets.... Peta doesn't consider "humans" a worthy animal.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
> This is another example of countries in Europe and North America benefitting from someone else's suffering.
Let's get a grip here: It's not like drug trials on humans are there to calibrate the LD-50 dose; most of the people involved in a trial shouldn't expect anything worse than minor side effects. Then again, people apparently die from Aspirin, so there is some risk - but the risk is small enough for plenty of people in developed nations to take it as well. The difference is, they generally don't get paid.
Also, certainly in the later stages of drug development, you get drugs that may help your condidition, so you could benefit from the new wonder drug. But either way, by the time drugs get tested on people, whether in India or Indiana, they are fairly safe.
no taxation without representation!
> We are not some happy brotherhood of equal men.
e x.htm -
;)
No, we're neither equal nor happy (in general), but we have equal rights.
> The egalitarian fiction is nothing more than that, a fiction.
No, it's an ideal to strive for. I don't think I've ever seen it put better anywhere than here - http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/ind
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
Of course you can argue about the Creator bit; that's fine. We're not equal - but we have the same rights. Whether you're lucky or unlucky in your choice of parents.
> When it comes to India, they certainly have the surplus population to spare.
The world has population to spare. Given your admirable public spirited attitude, you have been volunteered for elimination.
> We are not some happy brotherhood of equal men. The egalitarian fiction is nothing more than that, a fiction.
You just flunked the compassion test. Would you like to collect your official "I'm subhuman, shoot me!" badge or should I post it?
> Why is that? The world is filled with people who are human only in terms of their biology, but hardly live in any way we typically associate with humanity.
Blindly judging by your attitude and where you're posting: You are the exception, not what you would call 3rd world people. You forget how much the west has progressed in the last 150 years - your great-great-grandfather would feel more at home in a subsistence village than in your suburban home. Get some perspective - you are where you are because you are lucky; not because of your merit. People twice as smart as you starve to death every day. *
> Most of them would die anyway if it wasn't for the generosity and ingenuity of European peoples. Certainly, the level of suffering that exists in India didn't exist before the introduction of European technologies and civilizing elements.
So on the one hand the white race (sorry, European Peoples, that sounds much less racist) generously feeds India, on the other you're saying that our technology and "civilizing elements" cause all the suffering? I agree that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", but within two adjacent sentences it _is_ considered good form to agree with oneself
On top of that, one would have to be spectacularly ignorant to believe that India was not civilized before Britain took it over. I'm sure it was just a slip of the keyboard in your case.
* Yes, I'm pretty sure I can back that up with statistics, but given that it's tedious and elementary I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader,
no taxation without representation!
The reason is, it is not ethics that is driving all this, but rather it is fear. Fear of the law, fear of "ethics committees" in the field of practice, fear of negative publicity, fear of funding vanishing, ...etc
...
So, it is not really ethics per se
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Where is the Indian government in all of this?
Oh, I forget, this is the gov't rather get nuclear weapon than give its people running water!
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
>No they are not. Unless they have no choice but taking the cash and risk dying of some drug poisoning, or risk a life-long handicap, rather than risk dying of hunger or other diseases due to environmental pollution (Bophal or the arsenic-polluted wheels, thanks to the big corporations selling their so-called medication and pesticides) without a controlling insta
... How would arsenic in a wheel kill people, apart from running them over? As for wells, the deep underground water in certain parts of Bangladesh naturally contains high levels of arsenic; apparently this is quite unusual and didn't show up in the potability tests when charities started digging deep wells to provide people with safe drinking water.
Arsenic polluted W E L L S, NOT W H E E L S ! I keep on telling people that spelling is important, and they don't listen
This is a tragedy, but you really can't blame evil corporations for it. People tried to do a good thing, and there were unanticipated consequences. It's dreadful, but sometimes these things happen - you could also do a cost benefit analysis and see whether more people would have died from otherwise unsafe water without the wells.
Bhopal is a different story.
no taxation without representation!
Poster #2So you agree- givent he caste system they don't have any real choice at all.
Not only that, but the original makes it real clear that he considers their real purpose in life being to make his life better. No offense to the others here, but if that guy means what he says, he belongs in prison for life. He's psychopathic, and a danger to the rest of society. Essentially, he is saying that his neighbor's entire existance is be subject to his benefit; and if his actions match his will, then he will inevitably harm his neighbors.
Of course, there are many such people running at large in our society, and indeed most of the people in power are such. The founder of planned parenthood was such a person; so was Orwell. The same was true of most of the horror civilizations in the past, from Vlad the Impaler, to Stalin, to the Nazis, and so on. The difference is that the horror civilazations empowered their psychopaths, as we are doing now.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
> Politically useful suggests that it's actually useful to have politics to begin with- something that I'm not sure of at all. I see no need to have more than 5 acres per family and local trade barriers to prevent destruction of the local labor force. /. Nice knowing you, you pustule of late-capitalist society. Obviously a society based on 5 acres per family is perfect, but it might have a smidgen of trouble creating chips and the internet. Oh, and antibiotics, surgery, universities. But heck, we are all natural farmers, just like we were in the good old bronze age when most of our kids died before reaching 4. Let's get back to nature!
Well, that makes a lot sense, so goodby
Oh! What happens when you have more than two kids? Do you divide the farm up into 2.5 acres, or do you go out and conquer more land? Or do you take up a trade with more productivity/acre? Nah, that wouldn't be socialist enough.
> local trade barriers to prevent destruction of the local labor force.
Trade barriers are always the solution to any problem. Ask European sugar farmers.
> Also a worthless exercise. Why bother controling land that you can't directly use yourself?
Because you get income on it. Why bother pretending to be stupid when you know the answer?
no taxation without representation!
> Uh- I think you've got me confused with someone else- yes what is happening is wrong, but what is happening is a direct consequence of depending on international trade, money, and ridiculous hierarchial structures to begin with.
Monsieur Marixst Hacker 42:
1. 42 is a good choice of #
2. Hacker is nice
3. Marxist is less nice; Karl was a decent historian; a bad futurist; and a swine in his personal life. So wre lots of people, but there's no need to sanctify him.
4, I _think_ I know where you're at - I was there a couple of years ago - but let's break it down:
4.1. you claim money is bad: money is good because, face it, swapping pigs for pizza gets tedious
4.2. International trade is bad: If I can get X on ebay from London for $Y, and get it from HK for 0.80*Y, why should I subsidise the inefficient producer in London? There are some good arguments - e.g. why should I eat lamd from New Zealand when there's perfectly good Lamb in Wales? - but Locality is a second or third order environmental effect.
no taxation without representation!
My grandfather, who is no longer with us, was a cardiologist. He told me about witnessing researchers in India testing therapies for heart attacks on street people brought into the hospital in cardiac arrest. He said they used REALLY BIG NEEDLES to inject vitamin E into the heart. As my grandfather said, "Of course they died!". This was likely in the 1960's or 1970's. Nothing new here, folks.
"This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it." -- HAL
> Apparantly these volunteers think there is a sum of money worth their lives. Either they are right, or they are stupid. Which is it?
They think a certain amount of money, plus benefit to society, is worth the risk they expose themselves to. Just like test subjecs in other countries do; the weighting depends on your circumstances. The chances of dying in a medical safety trial are slim.
>The old guy on the corner on my way home is useless.
nobody is useless. Not utilized, perhaps, but that's different.
1. He's someone's son. No matter how screwed up their life, children should outlive their parents
2. he's probably someone's sibling.
3. he's someone's friend
Finding someone who doesn't fit those three categories will be difficult. Human life has an intrinsic value
no taxation without representation!
I'm sorry, but if people that are anti-animal testing are also against this, then they really should think about what they want. Let's face it, drugs need to be tested. If they weren't, instead of 10 lab rats dying, thousands of humans could die, and whilst I will take a neutral stance here (despite my own opinions), 10 rats dying is bette than thousands of humans.
Ok, so let's put animals aside. What else do you test on? Plants? Nope. You're left with humans. Oh, what do you know, what are they testing on? Humans! There you go.
If anyone dares suggest that it's not right because they're Indian and poor, I think I will personally have to traceroute you and kill your extended family. Just because they live in a LEDC (Less Economically Developed Country) doesn't mean that they are being exploited.
It's like children working in China in factories under "Slave Conditions". Well, if they weren't working at all, they wouldn't be getting any money, and their family would kick them out, so surely it's better that they're paid the minimal amounts they are and can have a job?
I agree with you... do some people just think that because there poor there are not human? What kind of thought is that! Kind of selfish if you ask me... Second of all, India's poor probably have no idea what they are getting into! Thirdly, great you paying them for experimenting on them like animals. It takes someone who is really "out of it" to post something like that.
Everyone is already concerned about the people. There's tons of organizations out there trying to help people. Just because some other people choose to try to help animals instead doesn't mean they don't think people matter. If you want to bitch about people caring about animals that's up to you, but quit trying to pretend caring about animals equals not caring about people.
Excellent.
And, while we're at it, I'd like a pony.
likewise nobody would be forced to take such work because work that insures human dignity would be widely available.
So who exactly mucks out the stables in your world?
Oh, that's right, the bourgeoisie. If they don't want a bullet. 'Human dignity,' my ass.
I'm thinking the outsourcing may be more of a coarse drug test to weed out the more harmful drugs and thier effects before investing in US testing (and potential lawsuits) for FDA approval.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Why should these companies be ethical towards a group of people "below their caste", to a group of people who are incapable of defending themselves... (Indian society is not sue-happy like that of the US).
And if being "ethical" causes they companies more hardship, financial cost, or headache, then what is their motovation??? Remember, we are discussing a country where the local Coca-Cola & Pepsi plants use polluted water in their soft-drinks... (e.g. really bad pesticides and/or bacteria like typhoid)
He volunteered to test medical treatments for $5,000. I sure as hell wouldn't do it. It was enough to film his first movie "El Mariachi".
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
You gonna pay for my ticket? I mean, I deserve it don't I?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
1. Throw out your little red book.
2. Pick up a dictionary, and look up "steal".
3. When you get to college, make sure to take an economics class.
Why haven't you moved to China yet? They are living your "dream" right now. Why aren't you getting in on it?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
1. He's someone's son. No matter how screwed up their life, children should outlive their parents
He's pretty darn old. I'm fairly certain he's already outlived his parents.
2. he's probably someone's sibling.
That's possible, although I don't know how that makes one intrisicly useful. If his siblings had a use for him, he probably wouldn't be living in the parking garage and pan handling 8 hours/day. I guess if you needed to prevent a section of sidewalk from blowing away, he'd be your man.
3. he's someone's friend
Highly unlikely, he smells really bad.
I'm sure it makes you feel better about the world to believe that everyone is useful in their own way, but it just isn't true. It's one of those bullshit feel good things they tell you, like everyone's feelings are equally valid.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
In terms of trusting medical studies, I'd rank it like this:
1. Japan
2. Germany
3. India
4. U.S. (Normally I'd rank us at #1, but with the current administration, we've outsourced the chicken farming to the foxes).
In terms of skill and serious attention to detail, the Japanese have proven themselves time and again. They've proven as good at detailed study and refinement as the Americans have proven at inventing crazy ways to do things with less physical labor. Lazyness, clearly, being the mother of invention. Now, that leaves the French. Insert your own joke here, I'm on overload.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
If by "claims to be U.S. based" you mean "has their world headquarters in the U.S.", I believe you're wrong - there are also Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Pfizer, for example.
(Your other claims seem a bit bogus as well. Am I just responding to a troll here?)
... just dont become homeless!
I remember the good 'ol days when laid-off outsourced american programmers would get the guinneypig jobs. Now those are gone too :-)
Table-ized A.I.
I am an Indian and I disagree with most things you said - please do not make this an "India" vs "USA" contest. Also, please do not say that Indians value human life more than Americans. In my experience, I have seen the opposite to be true. I agree that USA has been far more aggressive and has indulged in many more wars than India and this despite the fact that USA has been surrounded on all sides by friendly nations unlike India which is surrounded on all sides by nations with varying levels of hostility towards India.
This is perhaps because Americans are far more aggressive as a people while Indians tend to be either passive or indifferent.
Neither of these are positive attributes. This is reflected even at a micro scale if you look at smaller communities of Indians. The average Indian is very indifferent to everything around him and is intent only on getting his selfish needs met. We can see this indifferent attitude in the way Indians treat the poor, the disabled, women's issues, crime against children, child labour, civic resposibilities, the wide scale corruption etc.
If someone has an accident on the road in India and requires immediate medical attention to save their lives, it is likely that most Indians will not do anything and just walk on by because we don't want the inconvenience of having to spend an hour or so answering questions from the cops if they need any clarifications. I have witnessed this callousness first-hand and when I helped the injured person, I was actually told by others not to bother.
Also, I am sick and tired of this stupid victim complex many Indians have where they feel that we deserve everything because we had the British who ruled us for a couple of centuries. One of the reasons we were ruled by so few Britishers is because of the corrupt and callous nature of the Indian ruling class which basically sold out Indians to the British. Unfortunately this self-serving, disgusting attitudes have still not gone away.
So before we start throwing stones at anyone, lets first look at our glass house.
I wonder if you asked a chimp/gorilla in sign language if they'd like to help people by undergoing painful tests, whether any of them would volunteer for the greater good?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Since you seem to have all the altruistic motives, may I suggest that you do this yourself? and surely you are altruistic enough not to want to profit in anyway from this and so you will perhaps want to volunteer your services free for humanity.
Who are you to decide if these people are "useful" or not? The Indian society (I am an Indian) has perpetrated such injustices against these poor for so long, and I can assuredly tell you this - it was not because these people did not "contribute" positively to the society. They were just plain exploited. These people are just as useful as you and I, the difference is that idiots like you would like to believe that you had something to do with the fact that you were born to wealthy parents in a rich nation. In your stupidity, you probably also assume that you are in someway contributing towards the improvement of this world, while the people in the developing world and the poor all over the world are taking away from the world.
What makes this whole thing stand out for me is the complete callousness of not just your post, but also that of the people quoted in the article. This is exploitation of the worst kind - pure and simple. I am shocked also at the appalling attitude of the Indian government.
Times of India is worse than tabloid quality newspaper, and they decide to publish such crap on their front page is no suprise.
Don't pay any credence to this story, there are always some jingoists on both sides of the border.
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Printed Circuit Boards?
There's even apparently a cure for AIDS somewhere in africa (as my actually rather great science teacher from eighth grade told me), and it's supposed to be safeguarded by companies who are dictating the price slowly but surely.
Big companies like to get their greasy hands on it "before" anyone else knows about it, then claim it as their own. In the end of the day, this Indian testing thing is wrong, I think they should breed special purpose lab rats (not humans) that they can test things on... if they want a human, why don't they make a complex IT based thing that reflects a digitized human body? I think in this day and age, that would be an unltimately difficult, but worthy of attention and money project.
#!/bin/bash
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Each culture has its negatives and the positives. One of the positives of India is that fact that we endure a lot of suffering without complaining and not just that.. we are able to do that with reasonable cheer. This is seen very clearly when we look at the poor in India; they maintain a sense of happiness though they suffer so much. If you are referring to this, yes - then I am in complete agreement with you.
But your reference point was with respect to the value of human life from the point of view of conflict/war. I know that you are referring to US as a collective and not personally for each Indian - but you also did make an assertion that Indians value human life more than the Americans. Speaking from that reference point, I have to maintain that not valuing human life enough is one of the negative aspects of being Indian. I stated an example of road accidents; your claim that this is an isolated case is baffling because that clearly is not the case. There are thousands who die in India each year because we the people are completely callous to their plight as they lie critically injured on the road. I am sure you have heard many instance of this happenning.
Talking about the other issue about the British - I agree that the British rule did impoverish India but please do not live under the illussion that the common man lived in luxury before the British arrived. That aside, in 2 years from now, we would have been free of the British for 60 years. We cannot still continue to use the British rule of India as an excuse for India's backwardness and the corruption that exists. Also, what does that have to do with the Americans?
I think I'll email PETA complaining that they should reconsider using animal fur as bedding for other animals. I'm not sure I would want to use a human skin as my bedding...
-tom
Iam sure no one would refute that sad fact. It 'applies' not only for drug testing,but for everything today.
Why does yahoo do this
Now I understand we as Indians are happy to live our lives peacefully sometimes in deart poverty, sometimes in happiness. We never went and invaded countries on the name of exploration.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Indians are people too.
May the Maths Be with you!
It is called slavery, pure and simple.
no troubles about human testing, but there has to be a limit on what actually can be tested, and have to be clear on the side effects. I don't think they would go up to the levels of Nazi/Japanese WW2 testing, but still some regulation has to be in place.
Manojar - pronounced like Manager
You point out some of the problems. On the other hand some of the 'generic drugs' (i.e. Indian company manufactured) produced in India and sold in India are perfectly fine, and much cheaper than 'western brand name' drugs. This means that some people who otherwise would be able to afford *no medication* can have medicine. If you're earning one dollar a day and that pays for your food and clothes etc and what's left is for medicines, you can't afford the prices charged by 'western brands'. A case in point is the price of AIDS retroviral drugs sold in Africa: lawyers from western countries jumping in to prohibit local companies manufacturing and selling their own versions at more affordable prices to save the lives of their own citizens.
It's interesting - sounds like you're saying Indian drugs made for India are ok, but export ones are the problem. Do you have references? Sounds like this is something that needs to be regulated, and that some countries don't check drugs coming into their health systems?
Now, the question is, who has the more money to spend on communicating the risks to the public? Is it a government agency with a limited budget earmarked for research and testing, or is it a multinational parmaceuitcal corporation which figures it can recoup 80% of the developmnt costs for this turkey before word of mouth spreads and they have to rebrand it as ratpoison?
I don't disagree with your overall aim, I think the potential for willful and systematic abuse is too high under the scheme you propose.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
The moral issue is that the poor in another country are less protected from dangerous drugs.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Your sense of what newspapers are tabloids and what are not are quite intriguing. So if TOI is worse than a tabloid, exactly which Indian newspaper do you classify as a 'national' newspaper or the 'largest English newspaper in India'?
There is no patch for stupidity
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3. Somewhat agreed. Might be why I hate the manifesto, but liked Capital. I'm currently now a distributist. But this was due to you answering the grandparent instead of the parent- I was trying to figure out why you thought being against people being poor was trying to keep them poor, or worse, trying to exploit them.
4.1- I see money as bad because it removes the humanity from the trade; and enables trading with people you don't know. This damages comunity; the extreme example is what we're doing right now, communication between people who can't see each other's faces, and in fact, will likely NEVER see each other's face. There's no way to judge a fair price for a good or service unless you *know* the person who you're dealing with, unless you understand their unique need. The ultimate failure of communism was that they tried to do it for entire nations; the ultimate failure of capitalism is the same. Yes it's tedious continuing to trade only with your neighbors; but deciding to trade elsewhere is extremely destructive.
4.2-In the end, it comes down for me to pure numbers. Trade locally, and you end up generating 8x the value of the trade for your direct neighbors, who repay you by *not* stealing from you (it's always better to have neighbors as rich as you are). Trade outside of the community, and that value goes down, until the worst case scenario of a retailer that keeps the majority of the retail profit elsewhere and uses foreign manufacturers, like Wal*Mart in the United States. 92% of the money spent at Wal*mart will never return to the community it came from; the majority goes to Bentonville, Alabama into the coffers of the Walton family, the rest goes to China. Only a mere 8% will stay as wages in the local community.
So if I have to use money, I have the choice between creating 8 cents of every dollar spent in local trade, or 8 dollars for every dollar spent in local trade. To me that's a no brainer- comparative advantage simply doesn't matter. You can either help your neighbors, or spread your money so thin that it help nobody. Trade outside of your local community is such an astoundingly bad idea that it's amazing any modern country bothers with it.
It's now been 29 years since free trade was profitable for the United States, since we exported more than we imported. That's 29 years of debt, now hitting a trillion dollars a year. How much deeper will we dig this hole before we get the hell out of it?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
So who exactly mucks out the stables in your world?
Those who like actually having and taking care of horses? Do your own damned work if you want a horse.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Why haven't you moved to China yet? They are living your "dream" right now. Why aren't you getting in on it?
China is maoist, not marxist- the difference is large. A marxist society is democratic- mob rule- with votes quite often on the direction to go. If there's a shortage in a marxist society, the next vote will rectify it. A maoist society fakes marxism, but concentrates all the decision making ability in a centralized power, ideally a single man but more often a committee. If there's a shortage in a maoist society, you either live with it or you get run over by a tank trying to protest.
Do you understand the difference between my dream (distributism) and the chinese dream (unified centralism) yet?
Oh, and by the way- college is 10 years in the past and I got A's in my macro and micro economics courses. Within a company, it's a zero sum game between consumers, cost of labor, and profit. Profit has to come from somewhere- it either comes from overcharging the customers or underpaying the labor.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Maybe the old man in the corner has much more to teach you than you think. Have you ever tried talking to him rather than thinking he is so lame he can't even sell his liver anymore?
Arsenic polluted W E L L S, NOT W H E E L S ! I keep on telling people that spelling is important, and they don't listen ...
Oh come on. Can the language nazi leave people who are not english or american natives alone and post something more thoughtful?vis pachem para bellum
vis pachem para pachem
would be the correct sentence.Translation for your own particular usage:
there is always someone smarter than you who can pop out latin sentences, maybe it's the guy at the corner who stinks and whom you think has no friends. Go ask him!
I've noticed that the majority of my posts which get modded up are very shortly modded down as "troll" or "flamebait". This is new in my experience (and I've been /.'ing for a while). Is somebody systematically watching my post, or am I just so close to the center that being modded both up and down is inevitable? Or did the President of Iran do the modding?
Profit has to come from somewhere- it either comes from overcharging the customers or underpaying the labor.
That's a syllogism that assumes that there's something inherently wrong with profit. Hence overcharging and underpaying. Companies can be profitable even when no one is overcharged, and no one is underpaid. Unless you start from the assumption that fair prices and wages are described by a lack of profit. The labor theory of value should be your conclusion, not a premise.
You should know from your economics classes how markets set prices, and that "overcharging" is not a useful term in a free market. If prices are too high, demand will go down. If prices are too low, demand will go up. The same applies to wages. In a closed economy, it is a zero sum game, but individual companies are certainly not closed economic systems. In today's economy, most countries aren't either.
It doesn't matter that you want to call your ideal marxist society democratic. You will still be using force (government or mob, it makes no practical difference) to redistribute status. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, right? What if someone wan't more than they need? Can they leave freely? If you abide by the UN's principals, their participation must be voluntary. But there's never been any such a thing in the history of the world as a successful country (let alone world) sized marxist society where the population could come and go at will.
That's why it's called fantasyland.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
He may be the smartest guy in town, but that has little to do with his usefulness. A gold nugget in the bottom of Mariana's Trench, may be of great value, but it is of little use. Likewise, I (and most people) have no use for a urine soaked alcoholic old man, smart as he may be.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
That's a syllogism that assumes that there's something inherently wrong with profit. Hence overcharging and underpaying.
There are lots of things inherently wrong with profit- too many to count.
Companies can be profitable even when no one is overcharged, and no one is underpaid.
Not really possible- and you explain why in the next sentence.
Unless you start from the assumption that fair prices and wages are described by a lack of profit.
Bingo! That's exactly the assumption I'm starting with- the very one used by guilds in the 13th century. A fair price is the cost of materials + the cost of labor, and the fair cost of labor is defined as a living wage for the area. This leaves NO room for profit.
The labor theory of value should be your conclusion, not a premise.
Or at least, so claim the people who think they're more valuable than other people. The real question is: Is economics something that naturally occurs when people trade, or is it an invention that allows people to be free? What is the purpose of your economic theory? If you are centered on the people, then the labor theory of value is indeed your premise, or as St. Paul wrote 1900 years ago, "The Laborer is worthy of his hire". If you are centered on efficiency, then labor becomes a conclusion because people are nothing more than resources to be used or abused.
You should know from your economics classes how markets set prices, and that "overcharging" is not a useful term in a free market.
I know it- but I reject it as a useful idea, because it does not advance the dignity of the human worker. Supply and demand pricing schemes are nothing more than a con game set up by merchants to grab power from the ruling class.
If prices are too high, demand will go down. If prices are too low, demand will go up.
Which is not correct at all for anything other than luxuries- demand for food and fuel is relatively constant in porportion to population for instance, and most people don't have a choice to simply not buy when prices increase. Instead they go into debt, which is something any economic system should seek to avoid.
The same applies to wages.
And this is not true at all, because if wages get too high, businesses can simply move elsewhere, or bring people in from elsewhere, to depress wages again, without any apparent problem. Here too, applying supply and demand mechanics changes the laborer from somebody to be respected and owed a living, to somebody to be used and thrown out when no longer profitable. Are you begining to see why I see profit as an evil, in all cases?
In a closed economy, it is a zero sum game, but individual companies are certainly not closed economic systems. In today's economy, most countries aren't either.
Which is part of the reason why profit is evil; foreign influence in local economic systems destroys communities- we may gain in profit, but we lose the human connections that used to make the United States a good place to live.
It doesn't matter that you want to call your ideal marxist society democratic. You will still be using force (government or mob, it makes no practical difference) to redistribute status
Which is different from how status is redistributed currently exactly how? Con men and criminals currently are rewarded far in excess of their actual contributions, and are allowed to amass huge fortunes.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, right?
According to Acts Chapter 4, yes. But that can't be done in large numbers- it fails when you destroy local influence. And it also can't be done unless we know each person's need in our own communities.
What if someone wants more than they need?
Then they build it themselves; or go without. Want is a useless boundary condition, since want is effectively unmanageable.
Can the
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The quality of online editions of most Indian paper is horrible. I don't read the print edition, so I cannot comment on that. TOI might be the largest English newspaper, but definitely not a national newspaper.
Look at the headlines and the front page of TOI for any day during the last one year. Unless someone is using adblock, the page is full of ads, and the google ads which you see on a page are good indicator of what kind of material does it have. Compare it with any other tabloid newspapers.
Then the front page has sleazy pictures from indiatimes. The stories are titled in a way so as not to look professional but to titillate you, and the content is most of the time biased, and quite often badly written. Besides they give more importance and prominence to controversial stories than really important news. People die in mishaps or accident, and I get to know about them in BBC or NYT before I see them in TOI, a recent point in case is the stampede in Chennai, that speaks volume.
Unfortunately, there is no Indian English online newspaper which can be called national and is worth reading (Hindu is pretty good, but not national).
Creativity uninhibited www.kreeti.com
Computer simulations are currently not advanced enough to give you anything close to definitive answers on whether or not a drug will work in vivo.
Please stop posting troll-like comments.