4 ms·

The whole diamond market absolutely is a scam, you'd think it would violate some anti-trust laws of some sort but apparently no, everything is "legal"... go fig

The whole diamond market absolutely is a scam, you'd think it would violate some anti-trust laws of some sort but apparently no, everything is "legal"... go figure.

jojobas 3y ago
There are plenty of perfectly legal scams. You can buy "quantum radiation remover stickers" on eBay, have been there for years. Apple stores get overnight queues of people on release dates. Homeopathy is paid for by the German public health system.
- kamray23 3y ago
  You can buy lots of "quantum radiation remover" and "negative ion quantum shield" products which purport to create negative ions and shield you from radiation on all platforms. Most of them do actually generate ions if you measure air around them with a legitimate calibrated ionometer. But of course, that takes energy. Where is a rock or a sticker going to obtain the energy to constantly ionize the air around it? Radioactivity, of course. Most of them are radioactive. And not the fun kind of radiation, not like, microwaves. No, it's the full range of inherent radioactivity the world of unstable nuclides can provide! And people plaster these on their clothing and wear them as amulets all day. I don't know how people get away with this.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    Pretty sure most of them have nothing to do with radionuclides, not even in smoke detector quantities. It's just a silly sticker that can't work by definition, yet is somehow legal enough for eBay not to remove them en masse.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    I'm still not 100% sure about whether catalyst is a scam or not
- hnbad 3y ago
  > Homeopathy is paid for by the German public health system. It's worth noting that "anthroposophic medicine" (not just homeopathy) while paid for by the German public health care system is explicitly treated differently than actual medicine. There's a lot of "alternative medicine" treatments that are covered by German public health insurance but they're explicitly considered "treatments" not "cures". This entails a different standard of evidence: anthroposophic "medicine" only needs to demonstrate an absence of harm whereas actual medicine needs to empirically demonstrate a balance of positive effects and negative side-effects. Anthroposophic "medicine" sometimes cites studies involving self-reported effects but the health claims are strictly controlled, you can't e.g. claim your sugar pills cure cancer just because there's a bogus self-report study indicating cancer patients felt better with it. I'm not defending the coverage of "alternative medicine" by health insurance. Customers should be able to easily understand whether the product the pharmacy is selling them is an actual medical drug or just an expensive filler or a "natural remedy" with no demonstrated health effects - and ideally the latter shouldn't be sold in pharmacies (or at all) to begin with and certainly not with (implied) health claims. But thanks to German consumer protection laws there is a line for what claims you can get away with and which ones will get you sued. It's not as tight as I'd like it, but it's there and it has an effect, unlike homeopathy. In other words: while "quantum radiation removal" is hard to even evaluate as a claim as it's entirely made up woo, selling "quantum radiation remover stickers to prevent cancer and AIDS" (or selling stickers that are unsafe and will cause cancer if used as intended) crosses an important line turning the latter illegal in Germany.

The whole diamond market absolutely is a scam, you'd think it would violate some anti-trust laws of some sort but apparently no, everything is "legal"... go figure.

jojobas 3y ago

There are plenty of perfectly legal scams. You can buy "quantum radiation remover stickers" on eBay, have been there for years. Apple stores get overnight queues of people on release dates. Homeopathy is paid for by the German public health system.

kamray23 3y ago
You can buy lots of "quantum radiation remover" and "negative ion quantum shield" products which purport to create negative ions and shield you from radiation on all platforms. Most of them do actually generate ions if you measure air around them with a legitimate calibrated ionometer. But of course, that takes energy. Where is a rock or a sticker going to obtain the energy to constantly ionize the air around it? Radioactivity, of course. Most of them are radioactive. And not the fun kind of radiation, not like, microwaves. No, it's the full range of inherent radioactivity the world of unstable nuclides can provide! And people plaster these on their clothing and wear them as amulets all day. I don't know how people get away with this.
- jojobas 3y ago
  Pretty sure most of them have nothing to do with radionuclides, not even in smoke detector quantities. It's just a silly sticker that can't work by definition, yet is somehow legal enough for eBay not to remove them en masse.
- fomine3 3y ago
  I'm still not 100% sure about whether catalyst is a scam or not
hnbad 3y ago
> Homeopathy is paid for by the German public health system. It's worth noting that "anthroposophic medicine" (not just homeopathy) while paid for by the German public health care system is explicitly treated differently than actual medicine. There's a lot of "alternative medicine" treatments that are covered by German public health insurance but they're explicitly considered "treatments" not "cures". This entails a different standard of evidence: anthroposophic "medicine" only needs to demonstrate an absence of harm whereas actual medicine needs to empirically demonstrate a balance of positive effects and negative side-effects. Anthroposophic "medicine" sometimes cites studies involving self-reported effects but the health claims are strictly controlled, you can't e.g. claim your sugar pills cure cancer just because there's a bogus self-report study indicating cancer patients felt better with it. I'm not defending the coverage of "alternative medicine" by health insurance. Customers should be able to easily understand whether the product the pharmacy is selling them is an actual medical drug or just an expensive filler or a "natural remedy" with no demonstrated health effects - and ideally the latter shouldn't be sold in pharmacies (or at all) to begin with and certainly not with (implied) health claims. But thanks to German consumer protection laws there is a line for what claims you can get away with and which ones will get you sued. It's not as tight as I'd like it, but it's there and it has an effect, unlike homeopathy. In other words: while "quantum radiation removal" is hard to even evaluate as a claim as it's entirely made up woo, selling "quantum radiation remover stickers to prevent cancer and AIDS" (or selling stickers that are unsafe and will cause cancer if used as intended) crosses an important line turning the latter illegal in Germany.