3 ms·

sigh This guy is one of those lowkey nuts on the Internet — just lowkey, but, still a nut. Oh, sure, it's quite possible he's right that the world should pay i

sigh This guy is one of those lowkey nuts on the Internet — just lowkey, but, still a nut. Oh, sure, it's quite possible he's right that the world should pay it more attention as a public health matter, but bringing Jungian archetypes into the matter is a sign we've left science behind for woowoo feelings. The accompanying argument trying to justify this saying 'it affects the nervous system and evolved with it' is technically true — but without a meaningful mechanism of influence remains just an excuse to be sloppy with his reasoning. And to be clear, there is no mechanism. Our author writes: "Parasitism is an expert in stealth and distortion. To avoid discovery." A cell-sized organism that evolved over 10,000 years or whatever didn't do so with the specific goal of affecting how people reason about topics in twenty-first century medicine, which could threaten it with exposure. That's a pretty good SCP Foundation antimeme story, sir, but is quite implausible for a protozoan.

retreatguru 5y ago
But at least you can cure it with DMT ;P
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Hey, that means we can just sleep it off. Honestly, this article evokes the eerie sense that Toxoplasma is indeed a huge public health issue, but it is being spun in with wild conspiracy theories so nothing gets done about it.
rini17 5y ago
It's actually plausible from the view of natural selection. When you eradicate diseases which are fatal, or where it's easy to explain the mechanism of symptoms and block it... then parasitic "experts in stealth and distortion" can take over. In other words, modern medical science creates evolutionary pressure toward parasites/infections that have raft of unconnected mild symptoms with complicated underlying biology, which are impossible to replicate in vitro and make a career out of studying it. Or there are cultural taboos involved, for example Chlamydia might be similar silent killer but it's dismissed as trivial venereal disease and that isn't very respectful area of study. (compare https://www.cdc.gov/pneumonia/atypical/cpneumoniae/about/history.html https://www.cdc.gov/pneumonia/atypical/cpneumoniae/about/his... and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987705001544 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069... ) The overall result is, only crackpots consider such a possibility seriously :(

retreatguru 5y ago

But at least you can cure it with DMT ;P

eurasiantiger 5y ago
Hey, that means we can just sleep it off. Honestly, this article evokes the eerie sense that Toxoplasma is indeed a huge public health issue, but it is being spun in with wild conspiracy theories so nothing gets done about it.

rini17 5y ago

It's actually plausible from the view of natural selection. When you eradicate diseases which are fatal, or where it's easy to explain the mechanism of symptoms and block it... then parasitic "experts in stealth and distortion" can take over. In other words, modern medical science creates evolutionary pressure toward parasites/infections that have raft of unconnected mild symptoms with complicated underlying biology, which are impossible to replicate in vitro and make a career out of studying it. Or there are cultural taboos involved, for example Chlamydia might be similar silent killer but it's dismissed as trivial venereal disease and that isn't very respectful area of study. (compare https://www.cdc.gov/pneumonia/atypical/cpneumoniae/about/history.html https://www.cdc.gov/pneumonia/atypical/cpneumoniae/about/his... and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987705001544 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069... ) The overall result is, only crackpots consider such a possibility seriously :(