Is Cloning Ethical?

[SharonMM]

I work for a corporation that is rated as one of the most ethical companies in the world. There is a direct correlation between ethical business practices and success in the US.

Oh... Well explain this then.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/123000000000000

Seems as though Chinas unethical practices are serving them pretty well.

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[dokebilee]

Practically everything that you own are in someway a cloned product. That keyboard you're typing on? Cloned. That Cellphone you have? Cloned. That jean you're wearing? Cloned. And the list goes on.

Now when I say cloned, I'm referring to the design aspect of the product and not really considering the quality of it.

In almost every product that you see, they all have an original manufacturer that originates from some point in time. And do you see people complaining about how Logitech keyboards are a clone of the first original keyboard? NO. Do you see people complaining about how HTC or Samsung phones are clones of the first original touch screen phone? NO.

Case and point, Clones are ethical and it is completely natural. It's all about what works and what doesn't work. Clones help drive multiple manufacturers to be innovative in-order to stay in the competition and to weed out the lazy ones. And lastly, clones help get the word out as they are cheaper.

 

[Racehorse]

He fired 25K people in one year and got a $40M bonus.

....and probably bragged about it.

(Extra points if it was right before Christmas.)

 

[Racehorse]

I actually don't think corporations should pay taxes

Well that shouldn't be a concern......most of the big ones don't.

The corporation I work for is a little different. We are rated one of the most ethical corporations by The Ethisphere Institute. We don't even donate to political campaigns, yet have more government and military contracts than we can handle.
Apple is not on the list.

Sounds like a Halliburton "clone".

 

[stevegmu]

Oh... Well explain this then.

Why China's Economy Will Grow to $123 Trillion by 2040 - By Robert Fogel | Foreign Policy

Seems as though Chinas unethical practices are serving them pretty well.

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Can't read the article, as it wants me to sign on.
What Chinese companies are based in the US? You may want to re-read my quote.

 

[stevegmu]

Well that shouldn't be a concern......most of the big ones don't.



Sounds like a Halliburton "clone".

They and their holding companies are some of our customers...

 

[Butters78]

They done did cloned that sheep in the 90s git r done lamb chops.

 

[Racehorse]

If Pfizer came up with a cure for AIDS tomorrow, should it be confiscated and distributed to everyone in need? I say no.

Bet you wouldn't say that if your son or daughter had a rare form of cancer that required $$ beyond your capacity to provide, and your insurance company dumped you (as they will do once you reach your max.)

Yes, we should let hundreds of thousands of people who cannot afford the prices of life-saving drugs---- simply die. Since we all know that money makes you more "worthy" of living, right?

Financial incentives for innovation are an inadequate comparison to the moral issue at hand.

Many pharmaceutical firms make use of research from state-funded university labs, by the way.

What we need to do is stop incenticizing spending on "horrific health problems" such as hair loss and penile disfunction. Maybe that way, there would be some $$ left over to keep poor people from dying.

 

[SharonMM]

Can't read the article, as it wants me to sign on.
What Chinese companies are based in the US? You may want to re-read my quote.

I see. So you're saying that only AMERICAN companies can/will benefit from ethical business practices...

I'll sum up the article for you. China's economy is the fastest growing in the world.. projected to surpass the US by year 2016.

They do not subscribe to western ideas such as intellectual property, copyrights, patents.. its a free for all. And its working for them. Very well.

Kinda boggles my mind that the US doesn't follow suit. Seems to align with the "capitalism or starve" ideology we built this wonderful nation upon.

 

[Racehorse]

They do not subscribe to western ideas such as intellectual property, copyrights, patents.. its a free for all. And its working for them. Very well.

Kinda boggles my mind that the US doesn't follow suit. Seems to align with the "capitalism or starve" ideology we built this wonderful nation upon.

You can't compare the chinese model to the us model.

I keep hearing people say bring manufacturing back, but I have yet to meet even one American parent who thinks *their* child should sit, row after row, on benches all day, "assembling" products.

These people in China do that...they have a cup of tea in the morning and a rice cake, and then they work 14 hours for low pay.

Let me know when we're ready to "vamp" up the manufacturing sector here .

Besides, given the amount of "off-shoring" US corporations engage in, I think you would be very hard-pressed to say it is only China that ignores intellectual property, copyrights, patents, etc. when we are the ones sending so much work over to the east asia and other places.

 

[Maggiemw]

Besides, given the amount of "off-shoring" US corporations engage in, I think you would be very hard-pressed to say it is only China that ignores intellectual property, copyrights, patents, etc. when we are the ones sending so much work over to the east asia and other places.

Yup, one of the great incentives to First World companies to send their manufacturing to the developing world is that these same First World companies get to reap the profits from the lack of labour protection, social protection, worker compensation and rights and copying protections in their chosen out-sourcing country. Shareholders and management are happy with the increased profits...until somebody blows the whistle on child labour used in making their products, for example...

Isn't laissez-faire capitalism a beautiful thing? [sarcasm intended, duh]

 

[Orobas]

 

[dw'struth]

Regardless of whether or not ethical behavior can mean different things geographically, I think we can all agree that there are certain things that are wrong regardless of the situation. I actually remember a college philosophy professor trying to teach us that moral relativity crap. Speaking of "geographic ethical relativity" is one step closer to individual ethical relativity... See where I'm going with this?

I do....and that is simply the way it is.....

 

[hazarada]

My personal view is that intellectual property should be separate from industrialism and be imposed on a federal level as a flat absolute and/or fractional tax leaving manufacturers free to compete over who can "Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible." - Henry Ford.

Currently we're just stumbling over archaic copyright laws and ethics which is such a mess that i dont think there even is a right answer.

 

[Signal30]

If you are talking about Chinese cloning other Chinese who have cloned Chinese, the only ones who have ethical issues are everyone but the people making them.

 

[xan13x]

Bet you wouldn't say that if your son or daughter had a rare form of cancer that required $$ beyond your capacity to provide, and your insurance company dumped you (as they will do once you reach your max.)

Yes, we should let hundreds of thousands of people who cannot afford the prices of life-saving drugs---- simply die. Since we all know that money makes you more "worthy" of living, right?

Financial incentives for innovation are an inadequate comparison to the moral issue at hand.

Many pharmaceutical firms make use of research from state-funded university labs, by the way.

What we need to do is stop incenticizing spending on "horrific health problems" such as hair loss and penile disfunction. Maybe that way, there would be some $$ left over to keep poor people from dying.

This is like "liberal/collective first trick in the book". You immediately appeal to a micro emotional situation instead of the macro issue. While this is WAY off topic, I don't believe health care is a right, it is a privilege.

Believe it or not, 100% of people who live, die. Some live for 100 years, rich or poor, some live for 1, rich or poor.

Same thing with Chinese clones. I say it's bad for the creators of originals, and immediately people fire back with "but poor timmy can't afford an ithaka... What kind of monster would deprive timmy of an ithaka!?"

I honestly don't care a tenth as much about timmy's ithaka as I do about the long term health of the industry. Many, not all, cheap knockoff vaping products are poorly made with inconsistent manufacture. The long term impact of that could very well be "cottage" businesses being priced out of the market, and everyone having to buy shoddy product. Eventually people just quit because the clone factories aren't innovating, and 2/3 of everything falls apart in a week. I MUCH prefer timmy going to sleep without his ithaka to the whole of vaping sliding into an unreliable, disposable, cash cow for massive producers who have no interest in innovating.

 

[Truncheon]

This is the classic "cure" argument. If Pfizer came up with a cure for AIDS tomorrow, should it be confiscated and distributed to everyone in need? I say no. The reason we have the system we have is that people are motivated by many things, and selfless love of humanity is rarely the first one. If you take Pfizer's drug "to benefit the entire human race" what do you think will happen to their research to cure cancer? It will cease.

this man might disagree with you...

the 'system we have' is corrupted to benefit and enrich the stock portfolios of shareholders and bank accounts of big pharma executives. it's the individual scientists that have a dedication to research and eliminate diseases that infect humanity, which is a noble cause. pfizer, the company itself, doesn't give two sh!ts about 'benefit(ting) the entire human race'. they are concerned with profit, and profit only.

please spare me the specious argument that people are only motivated by selfish reasons, such as money. most are absolutely not. sure, doctors like the money they make, but do you believe for one second that all, or even most people become doctors because they just want to make oodles of cash? teachers - oh yeah, they make major bucks. they obviously become teachers just so they can be filthy rich and take summers off. research scientists? i'm sure some make good money - but the ones i've met in the past are hardly rolling in wealth. the majority of these people educated themselves to do these things because they want to help others. this is why people do what they do - they are more concerned with helping others - to help others with their medical issues, to teach others to learn, to discover new things that benefit the rest of the planet - not to get personally rich.

but this is on the individual level. at the corporate level, there is certainly a kind of corporate sociopathology, that has a disregard for what is best for humanity, and a focus on what's best for the corporation and its stockholders. which translates into how much money they can generate and keep for themselves. and certainly there are many individuals who care more about making profits for themselves and have no concern whatsoever in doing what is actually ethical.

so yes, if pfizer did find a cure for AIDS tomorrow (or cancer or whatever the illness du jour is), it should most certainly be stripped from them to benefit humankind.

and that's exactly why they DON'T come up with that cure. it's not fiscally responsible to their shareholders and board members to create a cure that they know is ethically responsible to share freely with the world. this is what hinders any type of progress - they are far more concerned about their profits and bottom line than they are actually trying to benefit humanity. and anyway, it's not profittable to eliminate the cash cows like AIDS or cancer. it's far more profittable to create treatment drugs for the symptoms than it is to eliminate the cause of the symptoms.

keep in mind, this 'system' you speak of, the system of BP, is part of the axis that is attempting to do away with vaping if they had their way. BT works the same way. by justifying this system by implying people's primary motivation to do what they do is greed, you're helping to perpetuate this corrupt system. and that's not going to help with ending their attempts at vilifying vaping, or trying to eliminate it altogether.

 

[Maggiemw]

This is like "liberal/collective first trick in the book". You immediately appeal to a micro emotional situation instead of the macro issue. While this is WAY off topic, I don't believe health care is a right, it is a privilege.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Ah, so yeah, health care is a right, a human right. Generic drugs help to make this theoretical right a reality, despite the opposition of some purely-profit-minded BP firms.

 

[FLExJuice]

You can't compare the chinese model to the us model.

I keep hearing people say bring manufacturing back, but I have yet to meet even one American parent who thinks *their* child should sit, row after row, on benches all day, "assembling" products.

These people in China do that...they have a cup of tea in the morning and a rice cake, and then they work 14 hours for low pay.

Let me know when we're ready to "vamp" up the manufacturing sector here .

Besides, given the amount of "off-shoring" US corporations engage in, I think you would be very hard-pressed to say it is only China that ignores intellectual property, copyrights, patents, etc. when we are the ones sending so much work over to the east asia and other places.

I know...we want to bring back manufacturing but who wants to especially with all the politics like Union practices and the "Armageddon" Healthcare act. Food for thought.

 

[xan13x]

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:



Ah, so yeah, health care is a right, a human right. Generic drugs help to make this theoretical right a reality, despite the opposition of some purely-profit-minded BP firms.

Interesting, I didn't realize I had signed such a document. In that case, I suppose you're right, I didn't realize I didn't know what I believed.