i get the impression from some of the posts made here that almost everyone is an uncompassionate prick. so i ask this question, just to gauge the response. you might think it is unrelated to the forum title, but i think it has alot to do with it.

is it more important to be right or fair?

just to give you an idea of what i mean by it, there is a bit in my other thread about pharmaceutical companies protecting their profits at the expense of so many lives in african through aids (as well as other things). the 'right' thing to do is to say fuck em, and the 'fair' thing to do is to make lots of batches and sell them at-cost. this has been resolved in the WTO meeting at the moment, but its only meant as an example.

I am somewhere between the two, probably more right than fair.

In the case above, i'd tell them to fuck off, but this would only be due to the fact that they choose to look after themselves, yet they still want handouts. Although i don't like the thought of all those people dying when we could stop it, i don't see why we should subsatize it.

But its a bit more complicated than that, because then you have the shares in the comapany which may be owned by the public.

But i think that everyone will be at a different point dependant on the situation.

Interesting point.

To use your example of AIDS in Africa, the surface answer is the obvious one...cheap drugs. However, those drugs ONLY treat the symptom, not the cause. All of us know the cause, all of us that is, in the Western world. Behaviors must change before we can stop the disease; a point we agree upon. Until behaviors and/or attitudes about behaviors change, then we are stuck with the endless cycle of who bears the cost. The cost would be zero if the behaviors changed.

Nox

I have no problem with people in Africa getting drugs. If other people want to raise money and donate it to help the purchase of these drugs, that is ok. If the drug companies want to either lower the price or donate the drugs, that is ok.

What is not ok is the government entering a busineess, or just going down to the patent office, and stealing whatever they want. The government has no right to control the production or price decisions of a business.

If the "sanctity" of patents were stripped away, so would the incentive to invent. Why? Nobody is going to go through all the hard work of developing a new drug, just to have the government declare: "People in the world need this medication. Therefore we are taking the technology from you and allowing pirates to mass produce the drugs and knocked down prices."

This is simmilar in idea to the government going up to a cotton farmer and saying: "People in the world are hungry, you are selfishly using your land to maximize your profit. Grow wheat or else." You are advocating the socialization of industry, which is directly related to poor production, poor quality, ineficiancy, and waste.

In your example, the right thing is the fair thing. Just because someone is wealthy does not make it ok to steal from them just because it helps someone else. This is modern day Robin Hood crap. Society has no claim on anyone elses wealth, ideas, or products.