Though I wanted to type out a long, eloquent, and detailed message in regards to this, I'm choosing not to right now because I'm to tired to make it eloquent and detailed, though very long it probably would be.
I think in short I've become really quite jaded over the past 4-6 years, starting with the hope that science could be done for all, with everyone chipping in, and taking an equal share of the pie. I've come to realize that isn't the case. We don't live in a Utopian society where people do things for the betterment of all, or because its the right thing to do. It's sad, but it's true. For a while I thought maybe it'd be noble to take the righteous path and always do the right thing no matter what, even if no one notices, but then I realized, that's how you live your entire life suffering for others, and you die alone and your name is forgotten.
Maybe that will get you through the pearly gates, but it won't get you jack shit on Earth. I try to talk myself out of this recent change I've gone through, but I don't see it happening.
Philosophizing aside, certain people work harder and smarter than others, and as such, they should be rewarded. If I skip my weekends and weeknights to sit in a lab for no pay, paying for my own consumables, and come up with something, why would or should I ever consider giving up a % ownership of that to anyone else?
Believe me, as someone who has been entirely focused on antibiotic discovery for the past 4-5 years, I'd love for a super awesome crowd sourced experiment to work. In fact, that's what I was slowly piecing together pieces for for the past 3 years, and I even saw some others launch before me. That said, in thinking more about it and speaking to others, it became evidently clear that although one could leverage the environmental sampling diversity using multiple people, the actual REAL science would be EXTREMELY difficult to coordinate effectively.
Albert Schatz was an OG in my mind, and an amazing scientist. I've read multiple accounts from different parties concerning Streptomycin's discovery, and it sounds like Selman Waksman was an asshole. A dude like Schatz, slaving away in the basement using simple old school techniques, and discovering Streptomycin, is honestly hero material. He's a straight G. Look up Percy Julian if you want to see another badass chemist.
That said, although my heart says yes to having certain aspects of science be open and certain data figures shared, my mind says no when I know how hard, lonely, and soul sucking science can be at times when you're alone at midnight doing a reaction, and yet people who are "on the project" with you are out drinking or already in bed.
IP protection, it's current state aside, is there to protect blood sweat and tears, and until I am on a project with people that bleed, sweat, and cry as much as me, I don't think I'd want them to have any of the credit or $ that might come from it.
I've become quite cynical over the years, I guess I'm well on my way to becoming a grumpy synthetic chemist.
All that aside, the white-paper seems to sound very majestic, noble, and optimistic, but in what ways is it realistic?
On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz787@gmail.com> wrote:
I just scanned the PDF and really have no idea what the point of it
is. Can you summarize what the problem was, what your solution was,
and how that is supposed to be useful in implementation?
Why would a professor scanning molecule libraries want to use this
license? What protections does it afford them? How and/or why is it
better than copyright or patenting? How will it ensure they receive
recognition they already seek? Does it prevent non-commercial usage of
licensed items? What can even be licensed, sequences, data sets, the
act of producing a real thing with such information?
From what I can tell the problem nowadays is development is high-cost,
monetarily and regarding time for human commitment (work), and people
want to ensure that if their work and investment (monetary or
otherwise) eventually results in market success, that they will be
compensated (with money or some other liquid asset) and also that they
will be recognized for their effort. What does your (or the group you
are posting about) idea help in that regard?
--
On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 2:48 PM, Rüdiger Trojok
<ruediger.t@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Dear Biohackers, tinkerers, Citizens and Bio-Commoners,
>
> in June we had a little workshop on the festival Pixelache in Helsinki on
> the topic of the Commons (e.g. creative commons).
>
> There, a number of biohackers and citizens from Europe and Asia discussed
> ways to make the concept of the commons fruitful for the life science.
>
>
>
> Abstract
>
> With increasing knowledge and technical skill, the sphere in which
> intentional intervention in nature are possible will further be expanded.
> Alternative IP regimes such as open-access and open-source could in future
> help to leverage the cost for research and development in the life sciences,
> mobilize unused knowledge and become more adaptable to spark new inventions.
> Citizens proposed a 'Bio-Commons' license model to put biological innovation
> into service to society and at the same time limit the potential misuse of
> knowledge and material. Taking the antibiotic resistance problem as an
> example, this whitepaper aims to demonstrate the necessity and feasibility
> of a Bio-Commons approach. Overuse of the available antibiotics and
> subsequent evolutionary pressure has led to the development of
> multi-resistant bacteria. Bacteria are under selective pressure and evolve
> mechanisms to avoid the antimicrobial effects of the antibiotics. Once
> developed, the genes for the resistance rapidly spread, and even cross over
> between different species - a process called horizontal gene transfer. It is
> therefore necessary to continuously develop new antibiotics to keep up pace
> with resistant bacteria. The reason for an exacerbation of the antibiotics
> problem into an antibiotics crisis is a market failure due to a lack of
> financial incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to develop new drugs
> like antibiotics with a small profit margin. Citizens thought of three
> possible scenarios of how to detect antibiotic substances from samples
> collected in the field. In a citizen science project dubbed 'Biostrike',
> people around the globe could contribute to the solution to the antibiotics
> problem by raising awareness on the issue. Citizens and Scientists could
> participate in a global community around Biostrike, collaborating to find
> new antibiotics. Specialists from all fields of expertise could put together
> their knowledge to build the tool sets – that is wetware, hardware and
> software - to enable decentralized research on antibiotics. The Bio-Commons
> license could make licensing of innovation and discovery easier for
> researchers and thereby stabilize global collaborations that will help
> overcome market failure situations as they exist in antibiotics research. A
> widely accepted regulatory framework would be required to provide legal
> security and reliability as well as equal, transparent, and fair terms for
> all participants. Before creating a legal framework for the Bio-Commons, the
> social relations and assumptions underlying an idea of the Bio-Commons need
> to be addressed. Opening up the Bio-Commons discussion and introducing
> democratic decision making will make everybody a stakeholder. To
> successfully initiate a broader discussion about the underlying principles
> for the Bio-Commons, a mutually understandable bio-language is needed that
> adequately describes the biological reality in digital form. The development
> of this bio-language in turn opens the possibility for responsible research
> and innovation already at the earliest stages in the development of a new
> living system. Citizens also looked for technical solutions and defined a
> number of requirements for software to handle the data generated under a
> Bio-Commons license. It was thought that the blockchain technology could in
> future comprise the technical infrastructure for the Bio-Commons.
>
>
>
>
>
> Please read the whitepaper and contribute to the development of the idea on
> github!
>
> https://github.com/Bio-Commons/Bio-Commons
>
>
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Rüdiger
>
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