8 minutes ago, MB -Fr- said:

« A turning point came in 2015, when medical research professors John Ioannidis and Eleftherios Diamandis, and investigative reporter John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal, questioned the validity of Theranos' technology. The company faced a string of legal and commercial challenges from medical authorities, investors, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS), state attorneys general, former business partners, patients, and others »

you have a weird definition of the government doing nothing

When did I say they government did nothing./ I said it didnt prevent it. People act like having government regulations will prevent bad behavior. It doesnt. And I would posit in many ways government makes people more susceptible to bad actors because they assume if the government doesnt stop the business it much be on the up and up. I would much rather people assume the company is not on the up and up. Where as if there government wasnt there people would likely look closer before invasting.

3 minutes ago, Norr-Saba said:

I asked if you had read my post because you're one of the generally terrible human beings i mentioned in it, but you may not have realized that because you seem to be very unintelligent. whatever the case i can tell you are a true believer in your ideology, like a flat earther refusing to believe the overwhelming evidence that they are mistaken. So i'll just be saying good bye now and adding you to the ignore list.

Regardless of whether you agree with Daeglan, this is pure garbage. He liked a post of yours for the content you added that was one of the few that has been on topic lately. I liked it also, not for the personal attack, but for the actual contribution. Then, because Daeglan didn't notice (or ignored) your personal attack, you became more upset and double-downed. "Hey look at me I don't like you in case you didn't notice!!" Not only that, but the personal attack was elevated extremely. Not only that, you then blocked him so you wouldn't see his reply.

Pure garbage and one of the reasons I wish this thread would die.

I'll go take my like back now.

Just now, Darth Revenant said:

I do with mine. It's a shame you don't with yours, seems like you should advocate for a change where you feel like you can actually trust your government and feel like the people who are representing you actually do represent you. They're supposed to be part of the societal contract where you fulfill your obligations and in turn they fulfill their obligations towards you, their citizen.

Having seen how bad the government can get when it goes bad I would far far far prefer the smallest government possible. I also look at italy and see an example of exactly what I was talking about. They are literally letting people die because they can't handle the current situation.

1 minute ago, Sturn said:

Regardless of whether you agree with Daeglan, this is pure garbage. He liked a post of yours for the content you added that was one of the few that has been on topic lately. I liked it also, not for the personal attack, but for the actual contribution. Then, because Daeglan didn't notice (or ignored) your personal attack, you became more upset and double-downed. "Hey look at me I don't like you in case you didn't notice!!" Not only that, but the personal attack was elevated extremely. Not only that, you then blocked him so you wouldn't see his reply.

Pure garbage and one of the reasons I wish this thread would die.

I'll go take my like back now.

I wasn’t upset, I didn’t want him thinking that I validated his opinion.

I didn’t double down, I wanted to make sure he knew what I thought of him given his insistence on making all of us know what he thought of us and of people in general.

The idea that blocking someone you find distasteful to be wrong is just silly, I’ve only blocked 5 people on this site in all the time I’ve used it, sporadically though that is, and I intend to block whomever I need to in order to maintain the quality of my experience on this site.

you are free to retract your like, it is your business, but please don’t try to act as if I’m in the wrong simply because I made my disdain known in a thread full of disdain for others and for human life in general.

18 minutes ago, Norr-Saba said:

I wasn’t upset, I didn’t want him thinking that I validated his opinion.

I didn’t double down, I wanted to make sure he knew what I thought of him given his insistence on making all of us know what he thought of us and of people in general.

The idea that blocking someone you find distasteful to be wrong is just silly, I’ve only blocked 5 people on this site in all the time I’ve used it, sporadically though that is, and I intend to block whomever I need to in order to maintain the quality of my experience on this site.

you are free to retract your like, it is your business, but please don’t try to act as if I’m in the wrong simply because I made my disdain known in a thread full of disdain for others and for human life in general.

Making personal attacks, And calling someone stupid because you don't agree with their opinion is where you went wrong. And I have seen plenty of evidence my opinion is correct. Italy is letting people over 80 receive no care because their single payer system is completely unable to adapt to the increase in patients. And Yeah I ignored your personal attack to which you responded by making another personal attack. Perhaps a mirror might be good for you. You don't like my opinion. fine. You don't agree with me fine. Don't make personal attacks as that is what shows low intelligence.

14 minutes ago, Norr-Saba said:

you are free to retract your like, it is your business, but please don’t try to act as if I’m in the wrong simply because I made my disdain known in a thread full of disdain for others and for human life in general.

You are completely in the wrong for the extreme personal attacks (again, not commenting on why you think he is a bad person, but the way you told him so). Your defense above is simply "everyone else was doing it!". Also, telling someone they are a "terrible human being" and "very unintelligent", then blocking them is akin to punching someone you don't like then running off while claiming moral superiority.

23 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

The fact that AG Bayer and Union Carbide India Limited are still around sort of contradicts your statements. Or you know, BP and Exxonmobil still being around as well. Chiquita being good old United Fruit company also sort of contradicts your assertion that you need good business practices to survive and thrive. Some of those have survived over a century while doing stuff like you know, producing poison gas for the holocaust or causing a leak that immediately killed 3000 people. Ok that last one has only been around since '34.

United fruit who’s major shareholders included the US Secretary of State, and his brother the head of the CIA. They (United fruit) got the US marines to invade several Latin American countries to keep the locals from organizing labor.

I suggest everyone reads General Smedley Butler’s book War is a Racket.

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf

2 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Having seen how bad the government can get when it goes bad I would far far far prefer the smallest government possible. I also look at italy and see an example of exactly what I was talking about. They are literally letting people die because they can't handle the current situation.

You don't actually know anything about the Italian government, and whethr it is small or not, do you?

4 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

To get the most profit you need the cheapest manufacturing costs. Quality of the product is not that much of a factor in the equation comparatively. If cutting corners made you go out of business there wouldn't be any major company left.

Fastfood certainly wouldn't be even a concept.

No. To get the most profit you need to provide the best product you can for the lowest price. This is why samsung phones while expensive are super popular. They provide a LOT of value for the amount of money you spend.

The problem you guys have is you assume malice where there is none. Try not assuming business owners are evil. They arent.

29 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

You don't actually know anything about the Italian government, and whethr it is small or not, do you?

29 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

You don't actually know anything about the Italian government, and whethr it is small or not, do you?

Well they are a part of the EU so tthey have that on top of the local government. So yeah not small. Plus they have single payer so that alone will make your government bigger. Also size compared to populaion is relavant.

Also i have had friends sent all over town getting stamps from a bunch of differenr petty bureaucrats to get a purse returned. That is not exactly a small government thing. That is a big corrupt government thing.

8 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

No. To get the most profit you need to provide the best product you can for the lowest price. This is why samsung phones while expensive are super popular. They provide a LOT of value for the amount of money you spend.

The problem you guys have is you assume malice where there is none. Try not assuming business owners are evil. They arent.

I'm not assuming they're evil, they do what the system rewards. Cutting costs by downsizing is rewarded by the system. Firing your work force and requiring them to apply for their old jobs as consultants working hours at a lesser wage is rewarded by the system. Shafting insurance claimants to prevent having to make a big pay out is again rewarded by the system. Influencing legislation to escape taxation and destroying infrastructure as well as using lock-outs if raised taxes rear their heads is also rewarded by the system. There is no inborn malice in what they do. No more than there is malice in a baboon eating a baby gazelle alive. They simply do what's needed to maximize profits in the short term so that their shareholders will see a payout, that's all there is to it. Well that and sometimes incompetence on levels that should be criminal.

15 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

I'm not assuming they're evil, they do what the system rewards. Cutting costs by downsizing is rewarded by the system. Firing your work force and requiring them to apply for their old jobs as consultants working hours at a lesser wage is rewarded by the system. Shafting insurance claimants to prevent having to make a big pay out is again rewarded by the system. Influencing legislation to escape taxation and destroying infrastructure as well as using lock-outs if raised taxes rear their heads is also rewarded by the system. There is no inborn malice in what they do. No more than there is malice in a baboon eating a baby gazelle alive. They simply do what's needed to maximize profits in the short term so that their shareholders will see a payout, that's all there is to it. Well that and sometimes incompetence on levels that should be criminal.

I suggest you read an economics 101 book. Because that is not how economics works. Also bosses HATE firing people. They try really hard to avoid it. So your whole premise is supee flawed and comes accross as you think business owners are evil.

4 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I wonder if any of you espousing more government regulation have ever heard of the term Enlightened Self- Interest.

Oh, for the love of all that's sacred, don't push this further and mention the o-word.

1 hour ago, Darth Revenant said:

I'm not assuming they're evil, they do what the system rewards. Cutting costs by downsizing is rewarded by the system. Firing your work force and requiring them to apply for their old jobs as consultants working hours at a lesser wage is rewarded by the system. Shafting insurance claimants to prevent having to make a big pay out is again rewarded by the system. Influencing legislation to escape taxation and destroying infrastructure as well as using lock-outs if raised taxes rear their heads is also rewarded by the system. There is no inborn malice in what they do. No more than there is malice in a baboon eating a baby gazelle alive. They simply do what's needed to maximize profits in the short term so that their shareholders will see a payout, that's all there is to it. Well that and sometimes incompetence on levels that should be criminal.

Here is the thing you are not considering that bosses do consider. Every person they fire takes institutional knowledge that may not be recoverable. Business owners tend to not look at workers as numbers. Because they are not the inhuman monsters you make them out to be. Business owners tend to go into business because they want to help people. And not just them selves. Are their greedy business owners? sure. But I dont think they are as common as you think. Being a successful business person doesnt tend to work that well when are are super greedy.

7 hours ago, Sturn said:

You are completely in the wrong for the extreme personal attacks (again, not commenting on why you think he is a bad person, but the way you told him so). Your defense above is simply "everyone else was doing it!". Also, telling someone they are a "terrible human being" and "very unintelligent", then blocking them is akin to punching someone you don't like then running off while claiming moral superiority.

Edit: Sturn I find your position to be at odds with my own, from what you describe as an extreme attack, to your respectability policing, to the fact that your main hang up seems to be that I’ve blocked someone who was a hinderance to my enjoyment of a message board.

let’s not continue this interaction though, we both have different ideas of what is appropriate or respectable. We will not agree, and I’d prefer to not contribute to the distraction from the main topic any more.

8 hours ago, Daeglan said:

When did I say they government did nothing./ I said it didnt prevent it. People act like having government regulations will prevent bad behavior. It doesnt. And I would posit in many ways government makes people more susceptible to bad actors because they assume if the government doesnt stop the business it much be on the up and up. I would much rather people assume the company is not on the up and up. Where as if there government wasnt there people would likely look closer before invasting.

Right, because everyone is a medical expert that can decypher chemicals and their health consequences

if anything, the fact that governments can’t prevent all abuses is proof current regs aren’t severe enough

7 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Here is the thing you are not considering that bosses do consider. Every person they fire takes institutional knowledge that may not be recoverable. Business owners tend to not look at workers as numbers. Because they are not the inhuman monsters you make them out to be. Business owners tend to go into business because they want to help people. And not just them selves. Are their greedy business owners? sure. But I dont think they are as common as you think. Being a successful business person doesnt tend to work that well when are are super greedy.

Activision fired 800 people last year when they had made a 1.8 billion dollar profit the previous year. I'm sure Bobby Kotick felt terrible about it. The Anglo-Iranian Oil company surely felt they only wanted to help the Iranian people when they used the CIA to topple the democratically elected prime minister and re-instituted the Shah as a brutal dictator who imprisoned and tortured hundreds of thousands of people. Chiquita must have just wanted to help poor Colombian farmers, that's why they helped fund a terrorist organisation in Colombia. They plead guilty to that one by the way, in 2007. They didn't admit to smuggling weapons to said organisation or helping the organisation smuggle drugs into Europe, but I bet pleading guilty to the big one let them avoid some of the smaller ones.

There is a vast gulf between small business owners and the big ones. I don't think the owner of my local kebab shop is a monster, dude works hard and tries to make ends meet. I don't even think people like Kotick or Bezos are monsters. Hel, I don't even think the bigger faceless corporations are monsters. A monster requires intent and knowledge of the suffering caused. But I do know the things they get up to even when there are regulations in place to stop their worst excesses and I know the things corporations have gotten up to in the past before those regulations were in place. I prefer the world where a corporation can't get away with genocide against a population to get access to nutmeg and then use slave labour to replace the local population they wiped out.

12 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Making personal attacks, And calling someone stupid

Are two different things.

12 hours ago, Daeglan said:

I have seen plenty of evidence my opinion is correct.

Because if it doesn’t you just make it up or misrepresent it. Like you do here:

12 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Italy is letting people over 80 receive no care because their single payer system is completely unable to adapt to the increase in patients.

I fully understand why someone called you something that you felt was a personal attack, perhaps he should have called you willfully ignorant because that is how I see your behaviour on these boards.

8 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Here is the thing you are not considering that bosses do consider. Every person they fire takes institutional knowledge that may not be recoverable. Business owners tend to not look at workers as numbers. Because they are not the inhuman monsters you make them out to be. Business owners tend to go into business because they want to help people. And not just them selves. Are their greedy business owners? sure. But I dont think they are as common as you think. Being a successful business person doesnt tend to work that well when are are super greedy.

You should probably go to work in manufacturing in pharmaceuticals for a while. It's really eye opening. These companies don't have to be malicious, they just have to be lazy to hurt or kill some of their customers. It isn't pre-market regulations that the pharma companies don't like, no matter what their PR mouth pieces say. You want to really scare a pharma company, tell them the FDA inspectors are at the gate and watch how fast people start towing the line. Right now, the FDA only shows up when they have a reason or every other year if they don't have a reason. They also don't have the ability to effectively police the nutra-ceutical businesses. Look into one of those fly by night companies sometime. A good percentage of herbal tablets don't contain the herb advertised on the bottle. Those companies brag about what they can get away with doing. I'm not guessing here, I used to work for one and a manager told me that he could put grass clippings in the machine and as long as no one died the FDA couldn't do anything to the company.

If you still need convincing that the FDA is a worthwhile entity, just go to the website and read the 483's that are published there. These are the write ups of what they found companies doing when there is a regulatory framework in place and regular inspections. Then try to imagine what these companies would do without oversight.

I'm surprised this thread is still going!

Here's a good documentary though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film)

2 hours ago, marbled said:

You should probably go to work in manufacturing in pharmaceuticals for a while. It's really eye opening. These companies don't have to be malicious, they just have to be lazy to hurt or kill some of their customers. It isn't pre-market regulations that the pharma companies don't like, no matter what their PR mouth pieces say. You want to really scare a pharma company, tell them the FDA inspectors are at the gate and watch how fast people start towing the line. Right now, the FDA only shows up when they have a reason or every other year if they don't have a reason. They also don't have the ability to effectively police the nutra-ceutical businesses. Look into one of those fly by night companies sometime. A good percentage of herbal tablets don't contain the herb advertised on the bottle. Those companies brag about what they can get away with doing. I'm not guessing here, I used to work for one and a manager told me that he could put grass clippings in the machine and as long as no one died the FDA couldn't do anything to the company.

If you still need convincing that the FDA is a worthwhile entity, just go to the website and read the 483's that are published there. These are the write ups of what they found companies doing when there is a regulatory framework in place and regular inspections. Then try to imagine what these companies would do without oversight.

But how much of that is because the companies have literally weaponized the FDA against each other?

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

But how much of that is because the companies have literally weaponized the FDA against each other?

That point is honestly more telling of the things companies will try to get away with and government corruption. The corruption and the following lobbyists is the part that needs to be dealt with so that the FDA can work as intended.

18 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

That point is honestly more telling of the things companies will try to get away with and government corruption. The corruption and the following lobbyists is the part that needs to be dealt with so that the FDA can work as intended.

The problem is as long as the FDA has live or die control over drug companies there is going to be corruption. And they are going to weaponize the FDA against each other...

17 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

The problem is as long as the FDA has live or die control over drug companies there is going to be corruption. And they are going to weaponize the FDA against each other...

No, the problem is giving drug companies access to those tools through lobbyists and government corruption. The problem is based with the companies being able to use the corrupt system to flourish. It's based on the corruption in the system and the fact companies are rewarded for using the system. Reform the system so it works as intended, not dismantle it all and let the companies have free reign. Expect better of your government and make your voice heard through activism.

25 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

The problem is as long as the FDA has live or die control over drug companies there is going to be corruption.

You seem to misunderstand how cause and effect works. Well, only as long as it benefits your arguments of course.