Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

CURLY: [stops Moe and Larry] Hey! What’s this stuff [Brighto] for anyway?

LARRY: Why, it’s a cleaner, ya chump!

CURLY: I know, it’s auto polish.

MOE: You boys really wanna know what it’s for?

LARRY AND CURLY: Yeah.

MOE: It’s for sale, now get busy selling it.

The Three Stooges: Dizzy Doctors 1937

Yesterday I saw this tweet from Scott Adams that struck a nerve:

You know what's mandatory in a pandemic?

Answer: Knowing what kind of financial ties our decision-makers have to big pharma.

That demand needs to be met before we even discuss what the government is asking US to do.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) December 8, 2021

Now I don’t have as big a problem with Big Pharma as a lot of others do. The development of drugs, any drugs is a complicated business and it’s the development of drugs by these guys over my lifetime that has made a good life possible for millions.

Now we are reaching a point where the incentives of government is to push profits for big pharma in order to keep control are so great that even for those who are honest and responsible in their cooperate board trusting them to say: “No I don’t think we need this product that we are going to make more dough off of then ever before” would be like trusting a 16 year old boy in charge of a harem completely unsupervised when every woman there thinks he’s cute.

But more importantly for all of them there is another principle here that is in play that I wrote about once before. It’s what happens in the environmental movement and the race movement and various political movements at the point of victory for activists:

Do you bask in the glory of your victory?  Do you celebrate that all your hard work has been successful?  Do you breathe a sigh of relief that your children and grandchildren are not going to die a horrible death in a parched poisoned earth?

Hell NO!

You’ve achieved status, you’ve achieved power, you’re living comfortably.  You’re invited to the right parties, feted over by stars who think your cause is SO important and pols on the local, state and federal level care what you say and act accordingly.

So you find a different crisis, it doesn’t matter if water is clean, it isn’t clean enough, it doesn’t matter if the polar bears have recovered, they haven’t recovered enough, sure 16 year olds can declare themselves whatever sex they want, but what about 7 year olds?  Yeah we’re out of Afghanistan but what about Europe?  Yeah we stopped the pipelines, but the trucks are dangerous too?  Do we really trust those figures that say the world isn’t going to end?  We need a 50 year study of our own to be sure.

Sure Florida has demonstrated that the pandemic is in fact over and we’re just dealing with another endemic disease that will affect a small group of people who are most vulnerable, but if we declare victory over COVID we can’t impose our will upon the people and if I’m big pharma am I going to turn down all those mandated sales without fear of lawsuits?

Now in fairness any corporation is about maximizing profits for the shareholders but in a post Christian society the restraints of morality are not there to temper those decisions. As for the activists and pols:

In short the emergency never ends, the solution is never good enough and the need for your dollars is NEVER more critical.

Because that’s when you quietly admit to yourself  that you’re not in the problem solving business, or the crisis prevention business,  you’re in the fundraising business, and the cause you support isn’t the rain forest, the whales, stopping big oil or the rights of man, it’s you.

These pols and activists are all just panhandlers with a nicer street corner and the ability to compel to some degree by force.

I’ll give the last word to Niven and Pournelle from their classic book Inferno:

Benito took out papers.  The man snatched at them, but Benito backed away.  He read: “Dear Jon, I could understand your opposition to us last year.  There was some doubt abut the precess, and you expressed fears all of us felt.  But now you know better.  I have no witnesses but you told me you understood Dr. Pittman’s demonstration.  In God’s name, Jon, why do you continue?  I ask you as your sister, as a fellow scientist, as a human being Why?…

…As we walked away, Jon screamed after us, “I’d have been nothing if I gave up the movement.  Nothing!  Don’t you understand?  I had to stay on as president!”