[8bitbeep]

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made.

Right. We all know the best chips in the world are made by local artisan silicon-etchers. None of that TSMC pasteurized crap. You simply can't beat a 1nm brush and a steady hand. We all know this industrial revolution thing was a mistake.

[toast0]

Sounds like my artisinal Certificate Authority, all signatures are hand multiplied by human computers!

[scarecrowbob]

To be fair, for the last few years of my career as a developer and ops worker I had a boss who was convinced that Let's Encrypt certs were inferior for "reasons".

It's pretty trivial to generate a long list of technologies which are deemed "better" only because they are built by a large commercial enterprise.

[ryao]

Do you use lava lamps to generate your random numbers?

[namuol]

I don't think this analogy resonates particularly well with the drug manufacturing process.

I would think in general the bulk of the expense of a drug comes from its R&D, not manufacture. The cost of manufacture probably varies wildly (with the most expensive being bespoke treatments), but as the talk shows, there have been many examples where a (relatively) simple-to-manufacture drug is kept from those who need it due to prices that do not reflect the cost of manufacture.

Will most drugs be easy to make at home? Probably not, but enough probably can be that I wouldn't dismiss the idea because of some rhetorical overreach.

[8bitbeep]

True, it’s just that the original quote is hard swallow. Try melting sand and polishing your own lenses and compare that to a US$ 5 glass.

[bsder]

> Will most drugs be easy to make at home? Probably not, but enough probably can be that I wouldn't dismiss the idea because of some rhetorical overreach.

Ever watch a non-chef bake a cake? If you have, that experience should give you great concern about people playing with drug recipes.

In addition, most drugs do not have a "nice" synthesis that doesn't leave a whole bunch of glop in the afterproducts. Distilling alcohol is about as easy as it gets and yet people wind up poisoned from homemade hooch all the time.

[miki123211]

> I would think in general the bulk of the expense of a drug comes from its R&D

Not just its R&D, but also the R&D of the 10 other drugs which looked promising, had a lot of money invested in them, but didn't end up working out in the end.

You could very easily pass a law invalidating all drug patents, and making generics for any drug easily available. This would make all drug prices go down drastically. It would definitely work, there's no question about it. The anti-capitalists are very much right about this.

What they're missing, though, is that this law would completely remove the incentive to make any new drugs. The progress of medicine would instantly slow down to a halt. All existing drugs would be very close to free, but all currently-uncured illnesses would forever stay uncured.

[ryao]

The linked page is the one that said:

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made.

This is wrong and he debunked it.

[portaouflop]

Sure if you apply enough mental gymnastics you can invalidate any claim.

Good faith reading of his argument would be that a custom, artisan crafted hammer is better than a factory made one. I can’t say if that is true or not but using chips as an example- probably the most complex man made thing- is bad faith argumentation

[NeutralCrane]

Given that the application here is molecular chemistry aimed at targeting human biology, one of the few problems equally complex as computer chips, I would say their analogy is far more appropriate than a hammer.

[timon999]

If someone claims that X is "always"(!) the case, then giving just one example where X is not the case counts as a refutation. The statement that the GP quoted is just obviously false and there is nothing "bad faith" about pointing that out.

[mistermann]

Live by the sword die by the sword.