mellowtigger: (flameproof)
mellowtigger ([personal profile] mellowtigger) wrote 2022-08-23 04:50 pm (UTC)

Close, I do think there's a potential pattern here. I am concerned that capitalism may think it has found the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine: the capability to profit BOTH from a response to a problem AND from creation of the problem itself. One data point is the bee situation, with profit to be made both from agriculture chemicals that still seem implicated in insect species destruction and "robobees" that can take over their pollinator function on farms. (See as another data point: water.) Similarly, it's already problematic that capitalism knows it's more profitable to treat a disease rather than cure it, but it would be worse if research can simultaneously create new problems that current technology (particularly the fantastic mRNA tech) can moderately address in treatment. The "tin foil hat" part of this idea is the unfortunate reality that any intentional release of pathogen is so legally problematic that it would always require plausible deniability. I suspect, instead, that maybe simple faith in human fallibility is enough to keep funding high risk labs that produce actionable disease treatment data.

The more people seeking to in/validate this plausible pattern of "perpetual profit", the better. It's far too dangerous to leave unidentified and unaddressed. Yes, I've become increasingly anti-capitalist as the years go by. There seems to be no low too low for profiteers to exploit, as long as it remains easy to externalize the costs. Neoliberalism has shaped this externalization problem for decades, and it must end. Our future looks better with more minds attending to this issue.

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