4 ms·

Josiah Zayner, America's Most Censored Person

28 points by bhartzer 5y ago

yxwvut 5y ago
Is there anything more insufferable than the smugness of appeals to rationality? This style of declaring your protagonist 'rational' and 'brilliant' and peppering in emotional-sounding negative reactions from mainstream science (or pop-science) is painful to read. This guy might've done legitimate self-experimentation, but the writing is entirely unpersuasive. Why are the establishment voices against him (without immediately devolving into whining about 'cancel culture'/'censorship' bullshit)? Why are we to believe his claims? What separates this guy from all the people shilling nonsense COVID cures (who you could easily swap into an identical article)?
- oceanplexian 5y ago
  In a world where quack medical treatments are advertised on TV and hundreds of quack products like testosterone boosters and nonsense supplements being sold and advertised by YouTube, Google, etc, someone can't have a YouTube channel on Biohacking? The 'establishment' you are defending has been rotten from the inside out, and has become so toxic that it endorses medicine and products that cause harm and censors and bans those who might actually be doing something productive.
- plandis 5y ago
  Why are journalists, payment processors, and video content hosting services the establishment voices? Those are the platforms that are critiquing and banning him — not actual health experts. Just because a company bans someone from their platform doesn’t mean that person is wrong. Here is this guys store: https://www.the-odin.com/ https://www.the-odin.com/ it’s not clear to me what’s so dangerous about this that these companies would deplatform him based solely on the content of the store. And if it’s not based solely on the content then what are they deplatforming him based on exactly?
  - cromwellian 5y ago
    Aren't there FDA regulations surrounding products with medical claims? I'm no expert, but if you try to sell actual medicine or medical devices (as opposed to supplements which have this weird stupid loophole because Orrin Hatch loved selling vitamins before he was a Senator), the FDA will regulate the ad. (on Hatch and supplement deregulation, yes, the FDA can regulate Food, and they can regulate Drugs, but they can't regulate "supplements" go figure: https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-hatch-20180105-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-hatch...)
    - plandis 5y ago
      Which products are they selling and making medical claims about? It looks more like they are selling interesting science experiments rather than medicine.
- cromwellian 5y ago
  Matt Taibbi (and also Glenn Greenwald), and a few others, have a central theme which now is a kind of contrarianism and faux populist stance against the 'establishment', that has all the properties of a giant grift. Go searching for someone who has a crazy outsider vibe, been rejected by establishment media or science, and then claim there's censorship or a conspiracy to suppress their brilliant research. Hey, do you think horse dewormer or fish tank cleaner cures the greatest health crisis of the 21st century, but that evil pharmaceutical companies are suppressing it? Congratulations, you can might be a victimized genius who needs to be portrayed as a noble hero fighting the good fight. Or maybe you're pissed off at your company because they won't let you publish an anti-affirmative action magnus opus proving the inferiority of female engineers, hey you're a victim who has been censored for truth telling. There's almost a talk show "circuit" for this now. Taibbi, Rogan, Rubin, Tucker, etc if you've been ignored, or flagged for bullshit claims that fly in the face of consensus evidence, especially by the mainstream media, well then, one of these guys would love to have you. It almost from time to time, seems that they don't care about the actual subject so much as the zeal and delight at being able to attack mainstream media or 'elites' -- or like I said, contrarianism as a market segment.
  - gus_massa 5y ago
    > Hey, do you think horse dewormer [...] cures the greatest health crisis of the 21st century, Are you talking about ivermectin? It's not only a horse deworming, it's also a human deworming (and IIRC it's good for any vertebrate). Moreover, it's a very good human deworming, and it's used in a lot of countries. Anyway, there is no good evidence of ivermectin as a cure or treatment of covid-19.
    - cromwellian 5y ago
      I know, but it's a funny insult. Hydroxychloroquine also isn't just for fish tanks, it helps people with Lupus, but it's funny to call it fish tank cleaner, since there were cases of people self-medicating with the cleaner (and dying)
      - 5y ago

28 points by bhartzer 5y ago

Is there anything more insufferable than the smugness of appeals to rationality? This style of declaring your protagonist 'rational' and 'brilliant' and peppering in emotional-sounding negative reactions from mainstream science (or pop-science) is painful to read. This guy might've done legitimate self-experimentation, but the writing is entirely unpersuasive. Why are the establishment voices against him (without immediately devolving into whining about 'cancel culture'/'censorship' bullshit)? Why are we to believe his claims? What separates this guy from all the people shilling nonsense COVID cures (who you could easily swap into an identical article)?

oceanplexian 5y ago
In a world where quack medical treatments are advertised on TV and hundreds of quack products like testosterone boosters and nonsense supplements being sold and advertised by YouTube, Google, etc, someone can't have a YouTube channel on Biohacking? The 'establishment' you are defending has been rotten from the inside out, and has become so toxic that it endorses medicine and products that cause harm and censors and bans those who might actually be doing something productive.
plandis 5y ago
Why are journalists, payment processors, and video content hosting services the establishment voices? Those are the platforms that are critiquing and banning him — not actual health experts. Just because a company bans someone from their platform doesn’t mean that person is wrong. Here is this guys store: https://www.the-odin.com/ https://www.the-odin.com/ it’s not clear to me what’s so dangerous about this that these companies would deplatform him based solely on the content of the store. And if it’s not based solely on the content then what are they deplatforming him based on exactly?
- cromwellian 5y ago
  Aren't there FDA regulations surrounding products with medical claims? I'm no expert, but if you try to sell actual medicine or medical devices (as opposed to supplements which have this weird stupid loophole because Orrin Hatch loved selling vitamins before he was a Senator), the FDA will regulate the ad. (on Hatch and supplement deregulation, yes, the FDA can regulate Food, and they can regulate Drugs, but they can't regulate "supplements" go figure: https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-hatch-20180105-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-hatch...)
  - plandis 5y ago
    Which products are they selling and making medical claims about? It looks more like they are selling interesting science experiments rather than medicine.
cromwellian 5y ago
Matt Taibbi (and also Glenn Greenwald), and a few others, have a central theme which now is a kind of contrarianism and faux populist stance against the 'establishment', that has all the properties of a giant grift. Go searching for someone who has a crazy outsider vibe, been rejected by establishment media or science, and then claim there's censorship or a conspiracy to suppress their brilliant research. Hey, do you think horse dewormer or fish tank cleaner cures the greatest health crisis of the 21st century, but that evil pharmaceutical companies are suppressing it? Congratulations, you can might be a victimized genius who needs to be portrayed as a noble hero fighting the good fight. Or maybe you're pissed off at your company because they won't let you publish an anti-affirmative action magnus opus proving the inferiority of female engineers, hey you're a victim who has been censored for truth telling. There's almost a talk show "circuit" for this now. Taibbi, Rogan, Rubin, Tucker, etc if you've been ignored, or flagged for bullshit claims that fly in the face of consensus evidence, especially by the mainstream media, well then, one of these guys would love to have you. It almost from time to time, seems that they don't care about the actual subject so much as the zeal and delight at being able to attack mainstream media or 'elites' -- or like I said, contrarianism as a market segment.
- gus_massa 5y ago
  > Hey, do you think horse dewormer [...] cures the greatest health crisis of the 21st century, Are you talking about ivermectin? It's not only a horse deworming, it's also a human deworming (and IIRC it's good for any vertebrate). Moreover, it's a very good human deworming, and it's used in a lot of countries. Anyway, there is no good evidence of ivermectin as a cure or treatment of covid-19.
  - cromwellian 5y ago
    I know, but it's a funny insult. Hydroxychloroquine also isn't just for fish tanks, it helps people with Lupus, but it's funny to call it fish tank cleaner, since there were cases of people self-medicating with the cleaner (and dying)
    - 5y ago