How true is this or are we doing the same thing “generation killed industry/way of doing things” that the boomer media is so fond of?

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Fascist and populist are not mutually exclusive.

I’m not flailing, I’m pointing out you are trying to rewrite history.

On top of that the other commenter didn’t “destroy” my claim nor was it “bullshit”. They added context based on an assumption I didn’t make (i.e. vaccine = cure) which led me to do more research and add context that changed the level of enthusiasm I had.

What was bullshit was you deciding it was disingenuous AND you saying I had made changes you had requested. Neither of those statements are true.

“I believe your edit came either at the same time” - you do see the irony of asserting your belief like it’s fact in a thread where I added my belief to a fact and mangled it as a result? You do see it, right?

I find it kinda funny that I admitted where I was wrong but you are literally unable to.

Anyway, just clarifying: the OTHER poster got me to edit based on their HELPFUL comments. You didn’t do anything apart from state obvious facts about FDA approval and try to take credit for being so wise and insightful

Check again.

“My original comment was a glib link to a wikipedia page. I had not done the research and have edited my comment above”

To which you replied:

“Your last sentence here would change the sentiment of your original comment in a positive way. I encourage an edit.”

I was going to reply with “what, I should edit my comment again to say I have edited my comment” but decided it wasn’t as funny typed as in my head.

Sorry, mate, you are wrong. But over the most stupidly ridiculously small thing on the internet (and that’s saying something)

I just want us to be clear: your satisfaction/demands mean literally nothing to me so please don’t take credit for the other poster helping me do my research 🤷‍♂️

Nope, I had already. Hence why I said “I have edited my comment” and then you said "you should edit your comment.

Now who’s being disingenuous 😂

The implicature of cause and effect is reversed

I agree, I did not make that claim! And I do find it a bit weird that people are using that line of attack. But c’est la vie. I was wrong about what the treatment did, I was wrong about the level of verification it had, however we are singing from the same hymn sheet

For the sake of transparency, I edited before you suggested I did - hence my comment “I had not done the research and have edited my comment above.” 😉

like all of Europe

While Europe does not have an embargo, up until 2016 the EU and Cuba basically had 0 relationship. The EU created “The Common Position” in 1996 which was “to encourage a process of transition to a pluralist democracy” in Cuba which the Cuba government rejected as meddling in their internal affairs.

Then in the 2000s there was a bigger spat where Cuba even started rejecting EU aid.

But since 2017 they’ve actually really warmed relations so this is a super good point!

Thank you for kicking off these research dives with your comments.

Oh yeah, already edited.

100% ready for us markets

How would that be possible during an embargo?

If a treatment is developed in the EMA, there’s a level of cooperation that means drugs can come to market quickly if proven safe and even somewhat effective (Covid vaccine is an extreme example). This treatment would likely be US ready without the embargo in place.

it seems you knew that

My original comment was a glib link to a wikipedia page. I had not done the research and have edited my comment above.

Definitely wasn’t bad faith and I do stand by it.

Vaccine does not mean cure. We did not have a Covid cure either. And much like the covid vaccine isn’t 100% effective, neither is this. However, it is proving effective, especially in combination with other drugs and at certain stages of treatment.

Stage 4 clinical trials were concluded in Cuba in 2017. Stage 2 trials were concluded in the US in 2023. I believe, strongly, that the embargo has increased the amount of time the research has taken - cooperation is impossible during an embargo.

Even if they lift the embargo tomorrow the drug wouldn’t come on the market, however it is because of the embargo that the use in treatment has taken far, far longer than it would have otherwise.

Edit: I admit I knew less about the vaccine than I thought I did (edited my comment to reflect what I have learnt)

Fun fact! Cuba has a vaccine for lung cancer - yes, it works and has been independently verified. No, you can’t have it because embargo.

EDIT: vaccine here isn’t actually what I thought. In this case it is a treatment to be used for certain kinds of lung cancer, not a preventative measure as we are used to thinking of Vaccine. Thanks to the comment below for going through it and pushing me to do proper research.

While my initial take was a glib link to a wikipedia page and not thoroughly researched, I do sill believe that the embargo has directly caused this treatment to come to market in the west as the levels of cooperation are non-existent. It has been used for 7 years in Cuba but is only now entering Stage 3 trials in the US.

Cuba have also became the first country to have 0 mother-child transmissions of HIV.

But the US has decided that working with Cuba to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths each year (in the States alone) is less important than causing “economic dissatisfaction and hardship” to the Cuban people.

I think this is a common misconception based on survivorship bias and the high cost to entry. Taking your hypothesis as true: you have to have a product that can be sold to ten users as easily as 1000 users (this in and of itself is not a given). That’s where the cost is: the starting up of the business where you have no customers and won’t have any for several years.

It’s a matter of scale. For co-op where we are, you can get “investor loans” but they tend to have a fixed return. Capital wants to gamble more than they want a 5% APR for 10 years.

What we’re currently exploring is an angel loan from someone sympathetic that has historically lived higher up the corporate ladder and we’re applying for some government grants, but Credit Union may be a good idea!

That’s nice and all, but only works for people that already have money. Food isn’t free. Housing isn’t free. Heck, water isn’t free

EDIT: want to go through the maths to extrapolate this privilege.

Let’s say you need one small team to deliver a novel product, say 5 people. Let’s assume they all live in Europe and just need enough to survive - say, 20,000 euros a year. A lot of ground work has been done, so it’ll only take two years to go from concept to R&D to something to show a potential buyer.

So you have about 100,000 euro per year cost to just keep everyone fed, housed, and clothed not including any equipment, software, licensing etc costs. Assuming there are no costs but just keeping everyone fed and alive the co-op needs 200,000 euros in the bank or alternative funding to get the product in a sellable (note: not finished) state.

In project management in tech (my background) a good rule of thumb is staff cost = 1/3 of costs. However, let’s say we’re being super lean and can self-source the more expensive equipment and just have to think about licenses for core software so let’s make that number 1/2 of cost.

So for the two years of operation to get the product into a position where it can be taken to potential customers, the business would need approx 400,000 euros before a product hits a shelf.

And that’s why funding is a problem.

The rise of the worker co-op is definitely something to watch! I’m currently exploring a worker co-op for a tech start up. Biggest problem? Funding. No investors want to touch a co-op.

You’re conflating liberal parliamentary representative democracy with all types of democracy - I was very specific in my post as to which I had the problem with (and it is equally as specific in the UK’s new definition of “extremism”).

I have no problem with democracy and do think it’s the best system. I have a problem with the idea that electing our overlords from a curated list with little to no fundamental difference (i.e. liberal parliamentary democracy) to then dictate to groups tens or hundreds of millions of people strong is democracy.