From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.cardiology,talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: me too drugs marketing darlings and little else
Date: 9 Sep 2005 13:24:12 -0700
Message-ID: <1126297452.639986.248900@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>

MassiveBrainInjury@SleazyISP.edu wrote:
> Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >> > COMMENT:
>
> >> > I seem to remember trying this argument on Zee and getting the response
> >> > that me-too autos didn't count because drugs are a different
> >> > commodity-- one which saves lives.
>
> >Fresh Horses wrote:
>
> >> You seem to remember wrong boyo. You can expect things like this to
> >> happen now you're 50. You'll have other problems too.
>
> >COMMENT:
>
> >You've got me on this one. That argument was actually advanced by
> >somebody called MassiveBrainInjury@sleazyISP, who appeared in one
> >thread only to challenge some of my arguments, then disappeared off the
> >net forever. Sniff, I'll miss it.
>
> Just because someone doesn't reply to your postings doesn't mean that
> they've "disappeared off the net forever", nor should you take such
> lack of reply as agreement, throwing in the towel, or failure to have
> a battery of contra-arguments at the ready. In most cases the person
> you're debating with simply has other, better things to do with their
> time at that moment and/or can see this developing into a pointless
> and endless exchange of firmly held beliefs (whether justified or
> not).

COMMENT

This particular poster hasn't been seen on the nets before or since my
argument with them. And this particular poster reminded me so heavily
of you (and even drew a rare complement from you, once), that I
couldn't keep you straight. So for convencience sake, I'm just going to
assume that MassiveBrainInj IS Freshhorses. Until one of the other of
your comes up with something novel. Why not lump anonymous posters of
the same general view into convenient categories, and just treat them
all as one person. Give me a good reason why I shouldn't? So long as
you remain anonymous I'm arguing with point of view anyway, not a
person or personage. You don't deserve the minimal respect of being
treated as an individual, because you haven't earned it.


> I read sci.med daily but posting, especially on an involved topic such
> as this, requires just too much time.

Yeah, right.



> I can't resist <g>...
>
> >If "civlization" consists of robbing capitalists so that they decide no
> >longer to invest in your "needed industries," then many countries in
> >the last century have found that "high civilization" leads directly to
> >poverty. The entire Communist ("second") world, for example. And a lot
> >of the third world, too (Mexico's nationalized oil didn't help it much,
> >did it?). Few people, no matter how highly cultured, will stand for
> >simple confiscation of their hard work and money. They are strange that
> >way.
>
> Unfortunately it's rarely their "hard work" that provides them with
> their capital. Most often it's luck and the payout is winnings in a
> lottery only a tiny percentage of us are able (permitted) to buy a
> ticket. The difficulty is in determining the part that's attributable
> to hard work and that which is luck.


COMMENT:

Losers always blame their hard luck. Winners all know luck is a factor,
but not the main one.  If luck put Neil Armstrong on the moon, rather
than some other doofus, it's hard to tell from his biography.  I would
suggest reading some bios of sucessful people who accomplished
something important. You'll find they all caught a rare chance. But
were well-prepared to do it by a lifetime of preparation, when it came
(and often having missed many another chance along the way). I doubt
you'll find any exceptions to this rule, for chance favors the prepared
mind (and body).

And in any case, what's your point? It's always hard to determine what
part of ANY achievement is attributable to hard work and what to luck.
But this does not properly detract from the people on the platform at
the olympics. Pointing at them and saying "Lucky, lucky, lucky" is
just... unseemly.

As for people in the gutter, no doubt some of their lot is luck and
some of it is laziness and deserved punishment also. Can you apportion
it?  Usually not.  But my own experience is that it's *amazingly*
difficult to help people out of tough spots and deep holes. Minor
charity works [the Jews even have a concept for it: "tikkun olam" which
means repairing the world, but has the connotation of minor
repairs]---- but for some reason that once bothered me for years, major
charity almost always does not. Whenever I tried it, I got nowhere.
People went right back to where they were, as though pulled by rubber
bands.

Eventually, I finally got it. A large part of the time, it is actually
the case that character is fate, and THAT is why the big save rarely
works. I know that's not politically correct. But nevertheless, I think
it is true.

SBH