Making money or advancing science?
14 December 2005, 10:08 AM
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Making money or advancing science?
Ok,
where does the line between making money and advancing science cross or get blurred?
Some examples, if Duracell invented a battery that lasted 20 years, needed no recharging and could be made cheaply, would it ever make it to market or would it be 'locked' away because they can make much more money from the throw aways?
Also I have always wondered about the pharmacuticals. 'If' there was a cheap tablet that would actually cure a common cold as supposed to the symptoms would they release it? I am presuming that the industry makes hundreds of millions off the back of lemsip, strepsils etc. and they could never make that if it was curable.
Now these two are fairly trivial examples but do you think it does/would go on and where do the morals overtake the bottom line profit and the share holders bonus?
No point to this just bored and waiting for some people in a different time zone to finish some work (isn't outsourcing great
)
Andy
where does the line between making money and advancing science cross or get blurred?
Some examples, if Duracell invented a battery that lasted 20 years, needed no recharging and could be made cheaply, would it ever make it to market or would it be 'locked' away because they can make much more money from the throw aways?
Also I have always wondered about the pharmacuticals. 'If' there was a cheap tablet that would actually cure a common cold as supposed to the symptoms would they release it? I am presuming that the industry makes hundreds of millions off the back of lemsip, strepsils etc. and they could never make that if it was curable.
Now these two are fairly trivial examples but do you think it does/would go on and where do the morals overtake the bottom line profit and the share holders bonus?
No point to this just bored and waiting for some people in a different time zone to finish some work (isn't outsourcing great
)Andy
14 December 2005, 10:32 AM
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If duracell could invent it then someone else could invent it. In that case, if Duracell kept the lid on it and someone else invented it Duracell would go down the tubes. What would happen in reality is that if the possibility of a 20 year battery was known the number of applications for 20year batteries would increase dramatically. - similar process to computing power. I remember a theory circulating that when Intel introduced the pentuim processor there would be a worldwide requirement for possibly 500 of them and the requirement for new processors would dry up. - Same thing with 100 Meg hard drives 
14 December 2005, 11:31 AM
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Making money usually wins! There have always been rumours, probably urban myths, but maybe not. The light bulb that lasts for years, the cheap paint that could go on steel and prevent it ever rusting (bought out by steel industry so they say)..........
14 December 2005, 12:17 PM
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Originally Posted by David Lock
Making money usually wins! There have always been rumours, probably urban myths, but maybe not. The light bulb that lasts for years, the cheap paint that could go on steel and prevent it ever rusting (bought out by steel industry so they say)..........
I typed out a nice long response and the fooking BBS went south again
Basically cash will win, but trying to keep secrets will result in loss of cash as others will exploit.
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14 December 2005, 12:18 PM
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Originally Posted by SJ_Skyline
14 December 2005, 12:55 PM
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Originally Posted by David Lock
Making money usually wins! There have always been rumours, probably urban myths, but maybe not. The light bulb that lasts for years, the cheap paint that could go on steel and prevent it ever rusting (bought out by steel industry so they say)..........
The light bulb that lasts for years exists, it's called the halogen bulb and has been fitted in cars for years. The trouble is, like most things of this kind, it only lasts for years under ideal conditions, the real world rarely contains these conditions, so they still fail, just more expensively
14 December 2005, 12:57 PM
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Originally Posted by CrisPDuk
The light bulb that lasts for years exists, it's called the halogen bulb and has been fitted in cars for years. The trouble is, like most things of this kind, it only lasts for years under ideal conditions, the real world rarely contains these conditions, so they still fail, just more expensively
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