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Quote by Thomas Pogge

“Severe poverty is getting better by some measures, but it's also becoming ever more scandalous because it is now so easily avoidable.”

Quote by Thomas Pogge

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Thomas Pogge
Thomas Pogge

Thomas Pogge is a German-born American philosopher known for his contributions to ethics and political philosophy. His research focuses on issues of global justice, poverty, and inequality, particularly concerning human rights in developing countries. more

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“A few hundred years ago, perhaps 85 or even 90 percent of humanity lived below a standard of living that today only 40 or 45 percent fail to reach. But at that earlier time only part of this poverty could have been eradicated, and this at substantial cost not only to the pleasures of the affluent, but also to their well-being and to human culture. In our time, nearly all severe poverty could be eradicated at a cost to the affluent that is truly trivial.”

YearsHumansWellsHas BeensTodayHumanityCulturePleasurePovertyFailingCostStandardsPercentHundredYears AgoWell BeingOur TimeSevereCould Have BeenStandards Of LivingAffluent
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“You may know that in India now the Tata car is becoming all the rage; you can buy it for one lakh - $2000 dollars - it's very, very cheap. So India seems to be going the route that China went a few years ago and that developing countries all over the world seem to want to follow, namely, to rely on these personal vehicles, which is just an irrational way of organizing transport.”

KnowsWorldWayWantYearsMayCountrySeemsCarBecomingYears AgoIndiaDollarsChinaRageDevelopingRelyVehicleIrrationalRoutesTransportDeveloping CountriesTata
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“I think one big improvement would be if we somehow made it cheaper and easier for developing countries to learn from the sad experience of some of the developed countries, and also from some of the positive experiences we have of building good transportation systems, like high-speed rail.”

IfsThinkingMadeCountryBigsWould BeBuildingEasierSpeedImprovementMade ItDevelopingTransportationCheaperRailDeveloping CountriesHigh SpeedDeveloped CountryPositive ExperiencesHigh Speed Rail
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“We have this highly irrational system of incentivizing innovation for clean and green technologies, where we allow the innovator to have a temporary monopoly and then mark up the price of the product or sell licenses at high prices to those who want to use the kind of product that the innovator has invented. This system is collectively irrational because many people, to avoid the inflated prices of still-patented cleaner and greener technologies, opt for some older technology that is much more polluting.”

PeopleWantKindStillsUseTechnologyProductsMarkInnovationGreenSellsCleanTemporaryIrrationalLicenseMonopolyCleanersInnovatorsGreenerHigh PricesLicensesGreen Technology
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“It is irrational to charge high prices for socially valuable innovations as this guarantees that they will be underutilized. It is much better to sell them at cost and then to reward the innovator in some other way. This is not always possible, because in some cases the value of an innovation is in the eye of the beholder; it's very difficult to value how much a new Madonna song is worth, for example. But in the case of medicines, green technologies and seeds in agriculture, such an alternative reward mechanism is fairly straightforward.”

WayEyeValuesSongDifficultCasesTechnologyExampleCostInnovationGreenSellsMedicineRewardsValuableSeedsAlternativesGuaranteesMechanismAgricultureIrrationalStraightforwardInnovatorsGuarantees ThatBeholderHigh PricesEye Of The BeholderGreen Technology
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“In the domain of pharmaceuticals, we need a metric for health impact, and with this metric we can then assess the value of the introduction of a new product and pay its innovator accordingly, say on the basis of the product's measured health impact during its first ten years on the market. In exchange, innovators must of course renounce the usual rewards they are otherwise entitled to, namely the patent-protected markup on the price of their product.”

NeedsYearsFirstsValuesCoursesPayProductsTenBasesImpactRewardsUsualProtectedEntitledDomainIntroductionRenounceInnovatorsPatentsMetricsNew Products
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