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There's a huge difference between "you can give yourself an extra two percent by gnawing on a tree" and "if you follow orders we can wipe out almost every singl

by saulrh 8y ago

There's a huge difference between "you can give yourself an extra two percent by gnawing on a tree" and "if you follow orders we can wipe out almost every single-celled organism in your entire body within twenty-four hours". It's a few decades later and we are dealing with the rise of super bugs instead of living in the predicted disease-free utopia. You're cherry-picking, so I'll do a bit of that myself too: We eradicated smallpox. Tangled bedsheets kill more people than polio. Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives. Malaria will die with Anopheles gambiae. People once knew that flight was impossible. Not just hard, but impossible, prevented by the laws of physics and not meant for mankind. I flew home from my holiday vacation yesterday. It cost me as much as a good pair of shoes. Less than two days' pay at minimum wage. "We can never know enough to be safe" is simply and obviously false. Crab-bucket thinking at its finest. We can improve the human condition. We can know enough. Even better, we're getting to the point where we know enough to also recognize that we do or don't know enough. If you really believe that single bad actors will inevitably ruin everything good and we cannot ever make anything better, well, good luck to you. I submit that, with that point of view, you're better off quitting now so you don't have to experience the doomed future you propose.

DoreenMichele 8y ago
We can never know enough to be safe" is simply and obviously false. Crab-bucket thinking at its finest. Way to go to wildly twist my words out of shape. I submit that, with that point of view, you're better off quitting now so you don't have to experience the doomed future you propose. I'm quite open about my struggles with being suicidal. But let's give the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't actually know that. As kindly as possible, actively encouraging an internet stranger to off themselves because you don't agree with what you imagine they said has got to be one of the absolute ugliest tactics I've ever seen in an internet argument. So I'm done here. That's not something I consider to be remotely within the realm of a good faith argument. Note to self: Suggest to my would-be co-founder that such a thing should be a bannable offense on his forum. Cuz: Ew!
- saulrh 8y ago
  Now I'm curious. What did you intend to write? Your post gives equal credence to herbal pseudoscience and modern medicine and, in context, questions whether antibiotics were worth it. Yes, I should probably find a way to condemn luddite fatalism and anti-intellectualism without pointing out that they are species-wide suicide, exactly as irrational as the personal version and exactly as unacceptable to push for. Maybe I should have simply downvoted you, flagged your post, and hoped nobody saw it. I'll even apologize; I am sorry. That said, honestly, "disagree" is entirely too weak a word for my perspective on the beliefs your comment helps people believe. I'm going to contest moloch-worship and naturopathy and luddism even when they're unintentional. When they show up on Facebook and Reddit they end with twentysomething mommies deciding not to vaccinate their babies and assaulting Waymo safety personnel. And, well, my real audience are those potential antivaxxers and bucketed crabs, so logos is actively counterproductive and I'm stuck with ethos and pathos, neither of which are anything like good faith. :/
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    I was diagnosed in my mid thirties with atypical cystic fibrosis. By the time I was diagnosed, I was at death's door. My specialist informed me that people like me don't get well, that symptom management is the name of the game. I informed him that it might be true that I would spend the rest of my life fighting off the next infection, but this one had to go as it was killing me. He physically took a step back as if I had slapped him. He also began scheduling me fewer appointments as I got healthier while expressing zero curiosity as to how I was accomplishing that. I've spent time around antivaxxers. Many of them have legitimate reasons for pursuing alternative medicine. Those reasons are rooted in being failed by conventional medicine. Some of those folks gave me useful information after doctors dismissively wrote me off for dead. There's a lot of information out there on the importance of gut microbes and even how body chemistry fosters biofilm which promotes antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is potentially reversible. I had an infection that the doctors never ID'd that was not responding to antibiotics. I went through multiple rounds of antibiotics, some of which had side effects like "kills some percentage of people." I saw zero improvement. I came up with my own hypothesis as to what was going on, ran it past a friend who happened to be a doctor and he said it wasn't crazy talk. Within two weeks, my condition stabilized and I began gradually improving after talking doctors into giving me certain antibiotics and pursuing specific therapies. Antibiotic resistance tends to be fostered in developing countries that lack adequate water and sewer infrastructure. There is also research out there on failure to thrive and stunting that I've looked at. Stunting has a component of "probably infection related." Some kids don't respond to simply giving them more food. You also need to add probiotics and address the hygiene issues. The gut is home to about 70 to 80 percent of the immune cells in our body. So digestion, nutrition, diet, fasting, etc all can have significant impact on immune health and how the body handles infection. It's possible to use spices, like cinnamon and oregano, to help fight infection. There's a lot more to it and it's a complicated topic. Also, lots of folks believe I'm insane and telling tall tales, because a former homemaker can't possibly understand anything about health that doctors and scientists can't figure out, no. So, have a nice day. This is probably a pointless discussion for various reasons.

by saulrh 8y ago

DoreenMichele 8y ago

We can never know enough to be safe" is simply and obviously false. Crab-bucket thinking at its finest. Way to go to wildly twist my words out of shape. I submit that, with that point of view, you're better off quitting now so you don't have to experience the doomed future you propose. I'm quite open about my struggles with being suicidal. But let's give the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't actually know that. As kindly as possible, actively encouraging an internet stranger to off themselves because you don't agree with what you imagine they said has got to be one of the absolute ugliest tactics I've ever seen in an internet argument. So I'm done here. That's not something I consider to be remotely within the realm of a good faith argument. Note to self: Suggest to my would-be co-founder that such a thing should be a bannable offense on his forum. Cuz: Ew!

saulrh 8y ago
Now I'm curious. What did you intend to write? Your post gives equal credence to herbal pseudoscience and modern medicine and, in context, questions whether antibiotics were worth it. Yes, I should probably find a way to condemn luddite fatalism and anti-intellectualism without pointing out that they are species-wide suicide, exactly as irrational as the personal version and exactly as unacceptable to push for. Maybe I should have simply downvoted you, flagged your post, and hoped nobody saw it. I'll even apologize; I am sorry. That said, honestly, "disagree" is entirely too weak a word for my perspective on the beliefs your comment helps people believe. I'm going to contest moloch-worship and naturopathy and luddism even when they're unintentional. When they show up on Facebook and Reddit they end with twentysomething mommies deciding not to vaccinate their babies and assaulting Waymo safety personnel. And, well, my real audience are those potential antivaxxers and bucketed crabs, so logos is actively counterproductive and I'm stuck with ethos and pathos, neither of which are anything like good faith. :/
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  I was diagnosed in my mid thirties with atypical cystic fibrosis. By the time I was diagnosed, I was at death's door. My specialist informed me that people like me don't get well, that symptom management is the name of the game. I informed him that it might be true that I would spend the rest of my life fighting off the next infection, but this one had to go as it was killing me. He physically took a step back as if I had slapped him. He also began scheduling me fewer appointments as I got healthier while expressing zero curiosity as to how I was accomplishing that. I've spent time around antivaxxers. Many of them have legitimate reasons for pursuing alternative medicine. Those reasons are rooted in being failed by conventional medicine. Some of those folks gave me useful information after doctors dismissively wrote me off for dead. There's a lot of information out there on the importance of gut microbes and even how body chemistry fosters biofilm which promotes antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is potentially reversible. I had an infection that the doctors never ID'd that was not responding to antibiotics. I went through multiple rounds of antibiotics, some of which had side effects like "kills some percentage of people." I saw zero improvement. I came up with my own hypothesis as to what was going on, ran it past a friend who happened to be a doctor and he said it wasn't crazy talk. Within two weeks, my condition stabilized and I began gradually improving after talking doctors into giving me certain antibiotics and pursuing specific therapies. Antibiotic resistance tends to be fostered in developing countries that lack adequate water and sewer infrastructure. There is also research out there on failure to thrive and stunting that I've looked at. Stunting has a component of "probably infection related." Some kids don't respond to simply giving them more food. You also need to add probiotics and address the hygiene issues. The gut is home to about 70 to 80 percent of the immune cells in our body. So digestion, nutrition, diet, fasting, etc all can have significant impact on immune health and how the body handles infection. It's possible to use spices, like cinnamon and oregano, to help fight infection. There's a lot more to it and it's a complicated topic. Also, lots of folks believe I'm insane and telling tall tales, because a former homemaker can't possibly understand anything about health that doctors and scientists can't figure out, no. So, have a nice day. This is probably a pointless discussion for various reasons.