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>we need more public funding. Otherwise, we have to offer researchers and drug manufacturers an incentive...

I'll take researchers for $1,000, Alex.

Not a knock to drug manufacturers who are simply acting as they should under the current profit-driven system, but I think we'd be far better off if more of this existential-level stuff (like health) were government functions, or at least government sponsored and not-for-profit.

So, let's support a federation of researchers who have direct incentive for discovery. Then, let's make those discoveries public domain.




If we applied that same logic to space exploration, Space X wouldn't exist.


So, let's instead apply it where I suggested we should.


That's not a valid counter argument. He's using an analogy to produce a practical counter-example where private funded research is producing better / cheaper solutions (presumably, I'm uninformed on the subject). I think a more valid counter-argument would be arguing SpaceX isn't better, or that the domains share no similarities.


>*a more valid counter-argument would be arguing that SpaceX isn't better or that the domains share no similarities

Not quite. Arguing that Space X is no better would be following a red herring and arguing that there are no similarities is too high a standard. A valid counterargument merely needs to show that they are sufficiently different in some important way.

And, my (admittedly pithy) counterargument ran exactly along those lines.

Meanwhile, the main difference between the domains had already been pointed out in my original comment, and I even provided an example of a relevant domain.

So, you've gotten it exactly backwards: the burden is on my respondent to demonstrate why SpaceX is a relevant analogy/counterargument.




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