btilly

17 ms·

241.
by btilly 11mo ago
See https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4407437/ to verify that PAS was used. Any google search on PAS and manganese will show that it eliminates manganese from the body by chelating it, and is therefore used
242.
by btilly 11mo ago
I agree that we should not simply self-treat by supplements or starving ourselves. But you are dead wrong that interventions would need to be directly targeted at B. burgdorferi. The standard and effective treatment for TB back in the 1950s
243.
by btilly 11mo ago
That's stupidly wrong. I regularly find myself on a zero manganese diet for hours at a time, and I've yet to experience immediate death, screaming in agony. Furthermore we have lots of data on how well humans can tolerate extended
244.
by btilly 11mo ago
As noted in my sibling comment, the standard of care for eliminating manganese is para-Aminosalicylic acid (PAS). Plenty of other treatments can remove manganese. But they all are biologically active in other unwanted ways.
245.
by btilly 11mo ago
The idea is not trivially wrong. It's the same idea as chemotherapy. Sure, it is a poison for you. But it hits the cancer harder than you, and so can also be an effective treatment. That said, it is very unlikely that simply reducing m
246.
by btilly 11mo ago
I consider this optimistic. The usual response for people whose ideologies have lead to problems, is to double down on their ideologies. After which cognitive dissonance makes it easy to reject all evidence of their own mistakes. But your p
247.
by btilly 11mo ago
I named two conspiracy theories. The fact that people may object to is "that is a conspiracy theory that is not supported by the facts."
248.
by btilly 11mo ago
Yes. It is an ad hominem attack meant to make it easy to dismiss an ideologically inconvenient lived experience. Sadly, ad hominem attacks to reinforce group identity have become common across ideological groups.
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by btilly 11mo ago
The math is not only discussed in the forums. But yes, access to the forums is useful. You get to see not just how you solved the problem, but how others saw and tackled it. And often you'll learn something. That free account really is
250.
by btilly 11mo ago
Huh. Some of the books will be ones about doctors, like https://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Think-Jerome-Groopman-2007-03... , which you have to read to find how they talk about cognitive dissonance. Others will be about cognitiv
251.
by btilly 11mo ago
Actual concrete examples as judged by whom? Any concrete example can be dismissed as imaginary slights conjured up by people with a persecution complex. You just indicated your willingness to do so. Doing so creates a version of a No True S
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by btilly 11mo ago
The meaning of political terms are always shifting. The mainstream political beliefs within either political party circa the 1990s were in stark conflict with what they are today. The gulf between the 1960s and the 1990s is just as big. To
253.
by btilly 11mo ago
In very real ways, the median American is richer today than throughout history. But in some ways we are clearly worse off, and going downhill. The cost of housing is one of the most important of those. Unfortunately both sides blame each ot
254.
by btilly 11mo ago
Yes, the author points to what they think that the problem is, and what they think that the solution is. However the article connected me with the struggles of young men in my life. Which connects to what I see their problems as, and what t
255.
by btilly 11mo ago
Well that one is my son's lived experience, so I'm going to debate the factual accuracy. Better examples include "the 2020 election was stolen from Trump" and "Ron DeSantis manipulated COVID data in Florida". (
256.
by btilly 11mo ago
As DBT teaches, "Two things can be true at the same time." My son's lived experience doesn't invalidate yours. Just as it also doesn't invalidate my half-brother Tom's, who lives on a native reservation, nor my
257.
by btilly 11mo ago
Sure. There has long been a narrative that persistent gaps on standardized tests are due to racism. This narrative has been strengthened by the fact that actual racists have seized on these gaps to argue that various minorities really are s
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by btilly 11mo ago
The narrative starts with, "People who look like you are the problem, and your success is because you benefit from it." If the targeted person fails to completely agree with that narrative, they become labeled as the problem. This
259.
by btilly 11mo ago
I absolutely agree with the role of social media on our rising polarization. Many people have talked about and analyzed this. But the analysis that I find most insightful is also the first one that I read. https://www.amazon.com&
260.
by btilly 11mo ago
It is true that both sides are working to disenfranchise the other. Mostly through gerrymandering. Like how California just decided to screw democracy with Proposition 50, because Texas chose to screw democracy the other way. But the real r
261.
by btilly 11mo ago
This is a strawman argument, which is already answered in my comment. My impression is not based on something I read online or in the media. Nor is it based on my experiences back when I was growing up in the 1980s. My impression is based o
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by btilly 11mo ago
This message is never going to go over well among those that the young men are reacting against. The fact that they don't get listened to causes them to double down into extremism. Our current levels of extremism have put us in danger
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by btilly 11mo ago
The experience of young men is that they have grown up in a world where they've consistently been told that everything is their fault because they have male privilege. Doubly so if the men have white or Asian ancestry. Reactions to thi
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by btilly 11mo ago
There is a lot of research in psychology on this. ChatGPT will happily refer you to various books written over the decades on how the strong hierarchical structure of medicine makes it particularly prone to cognitive dissonance, with lots o
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by btilly 11mo ago
Yes everyone, but especially doctors. The more authority that you believe yourself to have, the stronger the cognitive dissonance against admitting to your mistakes. Doctors feel themselves to have a lot of authority.
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by btilly 11mo ago
The main reasoning challenge here is that doctors are slow to accept evidence that what they've always done is not what they should do. See the prolonged acceptance of bloodletting, resistance to handwashing, and on and on to the slow
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by btilly 11mo ago
One of the bizarre ironies of the world is that mobile phone based payment systems achieved widespread adoption in third world countries before the USA! (That's largely because the USA had less need, there were plenty of established al
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by btilly 11mo ago
Yes. The first city to really hit this wall was London in 1858. When the river level dropped, the sewage in the Thames remained, resulting in "the great stink". Construction of a proper sewage system began the following year in 18
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by btilly 11mo ago
When you are operating at that level, there is a lot of similarity between software compiled to machine code, and software compiled to a chip design. The differences are that the machine code comes with some extra overhead, and changing chi
270.
by btilly 11mo ago
I disagree. Often the techniques that you need for a harder problem, are discussed in a forum for an easier problem. Even more often the techniques that you need for a given problem are possible to work out from scratch. And the more you wo

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