TIL that in 2007, Thailand legally issued a compulsory license to make cheap generic versions of Abbott's HIV drug Kaletra. Abbott retaliated by withdrawing 7 medicines from Thailand. Thailand held firm, and HIV treatment coverage expanded to hundreds of thousands more patients.
___________________________

Thailand used a mechanism under the WTO's TRIPS Agreement that allows governments to authorize generic production of patented drugs in exchange for a royalty (Thailand offered 0.5%, a rate informed by WHO/UNDP guidelines for compulsory licensing royalties). At the time, only about 1 in 5 of the 500,000 Thais living with HIV could afford treatment at Abbott's prices. Generic versions cost one-seventh to one-tenth of the patented price.

Abbott's response was to pull seven drugs from registration in Thailand entirely, including Aluvia (a heat-stable version of Kaletra specifically designed for tropical countries without reliable refrigeration). The seven drugs also included treatments for hypertension, kidney disease, arthritis, and blood clots. Activists filed complaints under Thai competition law arguing this was an abuse of market dominance. Abbott eventually agreed to register Aluvia only if Thailand dropped the compulsory license, which Thailand refused. The licenses held. Thai HIV treatment coverage expanded dramatically in the following years.

https://www.nature.com/news/2007/070326/full/news070326-2.html

Extra Sources:

• ⁠Stanford Graduate School of Business case study, "Compulsory Licensing, Thailand, and Abbott Laboratories": https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/case-studies/compulsory-licensing-thailand-abbott-laboratories
• ⁠Globalization and Health (peer-reviewed): "Government use licenses in Thailand: The power of evidence, civil movement and political leadership": https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1744-8603-7-32
• ⁠aidsmap, "Abbott to withhold new drugs from Thailand in retaliation for Kaletra compulsory license" (March 2007): https://www.aidsmap.com/news/mar-2007/abbott-withhold-new-drugs-thailand-retaliation-kaletra-compulsory-license
• ⁠Compulsory Licences: Law and Practice in Thailand (academic, PMC): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7122632/
• ⁠Make Medicines Affordable (International Treatment Preparedness Coalition), "The campaign for use of compulsory licensing in Thailand": https://makemedicinesaffordable.org/the-campaign-for-use-of-compulsory-licensing-in-thailand/

reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/EQSyVfUkTH

for a moment in 1900s, we formed a large middle class for first time in humanity, but thats now exponentially stripping away, the tiktok generation will be completely controlled, they wont know how to do anything

middle class was never a thing in the past and was only created recently through industrialisation

the middle class is likely to get hollowed out again, because civilisation is always cyclical

https://x.com/CL207/status/2047551794281066890?s=20

you wouldn't be put to the test if it isn't good for you

you will always come out stronger

was reading a thread on death penalty for drug traffickers and comments expanded to why it should/should not be extended to sexual crimes like rape

chanced upon this comment on how its proven to be counter-intuitive so i decided to read up a little more

reads:
Why the Death Penalty Won’t Stop Sexual Violence Against Women in South Asia—And Might Make It Worse

Why is the Death Penalty not the answer to Rape?

The case against capital punishment for child sex abuse

tldr;
• a step back for women's rights because it signals that a women's chastity is all they are which is wrong
• most rape perpetrators are someone close to the victims, making it harder for them to report the crime which might lead to execution of a closed one
• voicing out and causing the death of someone might also cause victims to hesitate speaking up in an already low reporting crime
• death penalty has not proven to be effective in deterrence in practicing states

Mere Exposure Effect

The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon where people develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. Also known as the familiarity principle, this cognitive bias suggests that repeated exposure to a neutral stimulus (a person, object, or song) increases our liking for it.

[cc]

aura is the new luxury

Walter Benjamin argued that 'even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: Its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. ' He referred this unique cultural context i.e. 'its presence in time and space' as its 'aura'.

https://youtube.com/shorts/3Iss1CksXD4?si=KKzhvM_4eberUe4S

love this!

colour hunting as a side quest

https://x.com/__nmsk13/status/2047650754765464014?s=20

(US Study)

A study published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) found that between 2000–2002 and 2016–2018, the proportion of 18–24-year-old individuals who reported having had no sexual activity in the past year increased among men (but not among women).1 In another recent study, similar results were reported: American men belonging to the youngest birth cohort who entered adulthood were more likely to be sexually inactive than their Millennial counterparts at the same ages just a few years prior.

The 5% is thus having half the (penile–vaginal) sex in the world.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bioe.13134

AI self-preferencing in algorithmic hiring

tldr; using AI to craft your resume leads to better shortlisting rates

The bias against human-written resumes is particularly substantial, with self-preference bias ranging from 67% to 82% across major commercial and open-source models. To assess labor market impact, we simulate realistic hiring pipelines across 24 occupations. These simulations show that candidates using the same LLM as the evaluator are 23% to 60% more likely to be shortlisted than equally qualified applicants submitting human-written resumes, with the largest disadvantages observed in business-related fields such as sales and accounting.

source:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00462

https://x.com/heynavtoor/status/2048088874686300431?s=20

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A facial aging clock trained on occupation-linked photos found that the gap between your biological face-age and your real age predicts all-cause mortality. The wider that gap, the higher your risk.

Women aged slower than men in every single occupation measured. No exceptions.

The ranking, from youngest-looking to oldest-looking relative to chronological age:

Athletes > service workers > sales > clerical > managers > professionals > scientists and educators.

source:
Face photo-based age acceleration predicts all-cause mortality and differs among occupations - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.16.649078v1

https://x.com/agingroy/status/2047745587143917991?s=20

[cc]

over the weekend, i had the pleasure of playing Blood On The Clocktower, a board game with some friends (and friends of)

some reflections that also reflect human psych from a fellow player:
• approaching with something to give makes people trust you more (providing value first)
• being present when information is being shared and how you share/shape the perception of it, snowballs into a greater force down the line (compounding)

speaking of trusting, it reminds me of the Benjamin Franklin Effect

Benjamin Franklin Effect

The Benjamin Franklin Effect is a psychological phenomenon in which a person likes someone more after doing them a favor. The effect can be explained with cognitive dissonance: individuals rationalize their helpful actions by assuming they must like the person, since their behavior would otherwise conflict with their typical behavior and self-perception. In this way, the effect shows how people adjust their attitudes to maintain consistency in their self-concept.

tldr; asking for a favour from someone makes them trust/like you more

[cc]

https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/benjamin-franklin-effect

remember the CEO airhead epidemic that was discussed^

the effects of these dramas and movies are real and already felt

https://x.com/HazelAppleyard/status/2048323256814313676?s=20