@ChaosEngine
there will always be snake oil salespeople out there but i do not think that is snipers motivation.

as i stated this is not a black and white paradigm and a healthy diet and early detection are paramount.i am not suggesting that stage 3 lung cancer can be treated by eating pot brownies and bean sprouts.

chemotherapy is a last resort.
it is a hail mary pass.
controlled poisoning is as barbaric as it is tragic.

i think what bothers me most about this subject is not the disagreement between people such as ourselves but rather the pathetic research into what causes cancer.

im not kidding.
go check the numbers on how much is spent on researching the causes on cancer versus the treatment of cancer.
the difference is abysmal and shameful.

the little research into the causes of cancer do tend to point to our diet.surprise surprise...the food we are eating is slowly poisoning us (as some research is suggesting).

check this talk out.super informative,if heavy on the vegan:
http://videosift.com/video/Uprooting-the-Leading-Causes-of-Death

*edit:i know this does not make me an expert but my family is in the medical field and my older sisters partner is an oncologist and HE avoids chemo whenever possible.so much of my opinion on this matter has been formed by my conversations with him.

Because it's snake oil, and people die from it. The reason I asked @Sniper007 what he would suggest as an alternative is because there are some interesting alternatives currently being researched, but diet has already been shown to be ineffective. It pretty much killed Steve Jobs, for a start.

Yes, absolutely, you should eat healthily as a general life rule (although raw vegan is nonsense). There's some good evidence to show that diet can lessen your chance of developing cancer, but as a treatment? Nope.

Cannabis, on the other hand, may potentially have some benefit but as of today, there's no evidence to support that (and Cancer Research UK have labelled internet claims of such "highly misleading"). It's further complicated by the fact that smoking cannabis is often combined with tobacco smoking.

Finally, yeah, chemo is awful, but right now it's still the best treatment.

Wind turbines to provide the comparable megawatts for millions of homes ARE a frivolous waste. The huge amounts needed for wasteful, programmed, energy-addicted peeps IS a huge logistical clusterfuck of resources there, notarobot.

Your example of one family with a turbine and a solar array is fine and all (the upfront cost for such a setup is a shitload of funds and the upkeep of his dual set-up is probably a complete bitch of a money-pit to maintain) but were talking efficiency for the masses here.. Your 'research' should be based upon something besides what seems more of an emotionally passionate ideal moreso than anything practical for the many.

Personally, I think this virgin-trail-run Bloom box bullshit is simply another snake-oil scam. Much more work need be done to ever make them practical. What really should done in the realm of a practical kind of "reality" (otherwise known as a construct...reality that is) is to revive anti-trust/monopoly laws to hobble the robber-baron's once again...

Go listen some Bucky Fuller perhaps and try to awaken from the pipe-dream of monkey-business-as-usual instead of towing some lazy cop-out nouveau-hippy green-party line??

"They don't all agree with it, which is why it's not science."

If anyone is looking for absolute certainty, they should turn to their priests, their gurus, their investment brokers, their politicians, their snake-oil salesmen.

The only absolute certainty science can provide is in proving a wrong. Everything else is probabilities and exclusions, all the way to the end.

The fact that the public expects a proof of absolute certainty of a positive is maddening to me. Any assumed equivalency between "not knowing for sure" with "not knowing anything" is frustrating to no end.

Scientists have to enter the public arena and proclaim certainty to match the public's vernacular. If they were to stick to probabilities the way they do within their own realms, they'd fail to communicate the essence of their findings. Just look at how warped the common understanding of "theory" has become.

----------------------------

"Consensus, I repeat, is not science."

Everything scientific that is being communicated publicy is a consensus. The fact that statements of less than absolute, unanimous consensus are met with suspicion and a diminishment of trust in the process itself is one of the reasons why science cannot be properly discussed on the public stage. They cannot present the fuzzy edges of their findings as that would require a qualification in the form of probabilities. A consensus, the greatest common denominator if you will, is the best that can be done. The IPCC's reports are a magnificent illustration of that very issue.

And why can't we talk about the fuzzy edges? About scenarios and their corresponding probabilities? Because people are suspicious, even scared of numbers. Math as a subject is made fun of, a lack of mathematical understanding has become something to be proud of. An intuitive understanding of probabilities is the exception, not the norm. As soon as a prediction doesn't come true, people tend to dismiss the underlying theory, without any regard to the previously attached probability.

That's the climate the scientists have to endure when trying to present their work to the public.

> "[Austerity] frees up resources for private investment" is a statement that
> does not match my perception of reality"

Well, far be it from me to try to introduce you to some basic epistemologies to which you may not be familiar: like rationalism, deduction, etc, in order to move you away from "authority" as the only path to knowledge you seem to use. Unfortunately, however, this "authority" method is inappropriate to the study of economics.

> "So, demand vs supply... we all know that discussion won't be resolved here,
> ever."

Keynes and Hayek were at it for a while. It's all in the two hip-hop videos.

> "It's utterly pointless."

Yes. There is nothing new not covered by Keynes vs. Hayek.

> "Shamelessness was my addition, my interpretation. "

Bad thymology (my interpretation).

> "He "weakens" society, economically, by suppressing aggregate demand.
> The more wealth you accumulate, the less of it, as a percentage, translates
> into demand."

I see. So, by this logic, any making of money is, in itself, a "weakening" of society. Unless I'm a socialist, like David Simon, then I cannot make money without also "weakening" society.

> "But since you apparently share the views of Hollenbeck, all of that was
> probably hogwash to you."

Yes, at best hogwash. Alas, I've no interest in going into this with you, especially since you've no have interest in actually looking at it. Had you any interest at all -- or studied the subject beyond deferring to the "authority" method of epistemology -- you could at least provide me with a concise explanation as to why you think the Austrian/Misean economic position falters. Rather than thinking for yourself, however, you dismiss it as "wrong," "right-wing," or "pointless" to debate or go into. "Here Be Monsters, period."

The Keynes/Hayek debates have the similar tones, with Keynes simply ignoring all of Hayek's points, evasions, and going off into something else. You clearly agree with the Keynesian approach/theory, which likely means you cannot really explain anything except through unfounded claims, that are "pointless" to argue, debate, or rationally defend.

As I have said before, one cannot have this sort of intellectual relationship with those either unwilling or unable to grasp basic economic principles, like for example those clearly explained by Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson." There's simply no common language through which to communicate. Confronted with these kinds of beliefs, one can either try to educate (but only those who ask for it, since attempting to educate those who do not want to be educated will likely fail, as any public school teacher can tell you) or one can pull out the snake oil and the cash register. The third option involves ignoring such ignorance altogether, and use what one knows for one's own financial and life benefit in ways that don't involve such people in the first place.

There are so many errors in the Keynesian 'demand' theory of economics (you can find much on that if you want to read up on it), but Keynesians tend to avoid any real debates. You're coming from the Keynesian fallacy of saving money as being bad for the economy (because spending it all/consumerism is supposedly what gets the economy going). And the even more absurd fallacy which presupposes (with no proof of it at all) that rich people keep most of their wealth stored somewhere outside of circulation. When in reality, rich people only save some and the richer they are the more they spend/invest. Of course, when the economy seem fragile, due to central banks meddling, bubbles, etc., investors get nervous and don't invest as much a they otherwise would. When they don't invest, it shrinks supply of things people would want to spend on. Demand does nothing, it doesn't exist, if there is nothing to supply that people want to buy.

In fact, I am starting to think that central bankers are not really Keynesian at all, in the sense that they don't really believe their own bullshit. They know better but also know how to exploit their positions as central bankers, making folks like @radx buy into it, the snake oil. For example, he may not care for gold, but bankers do. Whatever they say against it, folks will still buy it, both for themselves and the banks they run. And as @radx rightly says, he's a human. And apparently he can sell his 'charm' if push comes to shove.

http://videosift.com/video/TEDX-Rupert-Sheldrake-The-Science-Delusion

@Sniper007 Quite the road less-traveled pardner but worthy of the task you've set before yourself. Ruperts' a maverick, snake-oil tinctured with hard science, faith fueled by invisible cosmic forces and brass balls. He used to be a regular on the old Art Bell Flour Hour-

He apparently, has been asked by the TED talk's cabal short of a recant, to please, "never come back," which is here on the Videosift, what you are being presented with in the realms of "health"and.....ahem, "science" by the armchair enthusiasts who fancy themselves experts on all subjects above mundane. You are now in the company of the marginally successful Disrupticons of the site whose ulterior M.O. is that of "Ointment Fly."

I commend and salute you, noble sir!

Too many shots where they don't show his hands. Modern day peddler of the ever-popular snake-oil.

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Although I appreciate the concept, this host seems like a complete untrustworthy, snake-oil-salesman douche.

I want one of those bars of liposuction fat soap from Fight Club.
Hmmmm, snake oil-Someone should market some novelty soap touting human adipose as superior to other rendered fats-The revenue is all n the labeling:))

Rock the down vote then, all ye nay-sayers!!
alien_concept's comment....The snake-oil running out of his reptilian eye-sockets is working on MOST people as it was formulated to do. The mans' a charlatan as anyone who can tell from looking at someone's eye's can plainly see.

SEO the new snake oil. Hey dipshits! SEO doesn't work the way it used to, because Google doesn't want asshats like you gaming the system. Fuck off and die.

A decision made in a moment of weakness and desperation has little to no moral meaning whatsoever. It's a grasping at a straw, a grab at whatever idea happens to come to mind or gets put in front of us and latching on to it because we can see no other option. This is not a true choice. Using tactics like this doesn't mean you genuinely recruited someone for Christianity or any other religion, it simply means you happen to be the snake oil salesman most readily on hand when the desperately sick person happened to walk by. Anyone would do, you just got lucky. It means nothing from a moral standpoint whatsoever. In fact it's a moral negative if anything. All this says about your religion is that you are perfectly happy recruiting the weak and broken, not because you want the weak and broken, but because they are easier prey than the strong and upright. This is the EXACT same tactic used by cults everywhere. The only difference is that Christianity happens to have more people.

>> ^conan:

incredibly stupid tabloid science. i'm amazed that there're still people who can differentiate between cause and correlation. fat parents are having fat kids, is it genetics? no, it's because whatever the reason for your bad eating habits, you pass them down to your kids. what to you expect from your kids when you only eat junk? they'll eat it too. either because they mimic you or because you're the one who feeds them! congratulations, now you have perfect excuses: what once were "heavy bones" now are "hunger hormones" and genetics. this "documentation" didn't provide any hard facts, just hormones with names in quotation marks and similar snake oil stuff.
Step 1: stop doing sports, eat more junk and surprise! you'll become overweight. Step 2: catch up on exercising and change your diet and surprise again! your weight will drop. it's common sense. and this comes from someone who's still perfecting step 1... ;-)


I think you're misunderstanding the point of it. Everything you say is correct to a degree. I didn't hear them say that the sole cause of obesity is hormonal, not once. I'd be surprised if you watched it all the way through. The way you feed your children and the habits you give them is absolutely the root cause, at least I would say so. Then society/culture, marketing, advertising fast food. The cheapest foods are junk, that also plays a part.

But what they're saying here, is that the reason some people end up getting wildy overweight and not just a bit chunky is because there isn't the same hormone to tell them they're full. The amount some fat people eat would make a regular sized person sick, in just one meal.

I don't believe obesity is genetic either, I am one of those people who inherited my mothers shitty eating habits, was overweight as a child and now have to suffer the consequences of that. However my sister was fed the same way, offered the same things, but was always skinny because she ate like a bird (one years she would only eat bread rolls, haha). My children are two very different types, too. My daughter can eat more than the average adult, you know that old saying, hollow legs? But she puts weight on if I let her eat the wrong things or every time she feels hungry, so over the years I've had to very much restrict her. Now she tends to make the right choices so hopefully that will go through to adult life with her and I've not passed down the same bad habits, however she would eat every half hour if she listened to her belly. My son is just the opposite. If he's not hungry I could offer him his favourite anything and he'd turn it down. Lucky bugger!

Then there's the thing where my sister all of a sudden in her late teens became overweight. That didn't make much sense. But her eating habits had very much changed. The bit in this doc where they were testing identical twins where one was overweight and one wasn't was fascinating and tied things up much neater.


>> ^snoozedoctor:

Getting fat is like filling a bathtub with water. If you run the spigot faster than the drain, it fills up. Now THAT is heavy science. Burn more calories than you eat = weight loss.


You're talking about how to lose weight, a science we all understand This is talking about the reasons some of us gain. It's always pissed me off when bigger people rather than just admit they stuff their faces, try and pass it off as big bones (eh?) or genetics. I'm even rather cynical of people who say they love their weight and being big is beautiful and they want to be like that. I think rather they know how bloody difficult dieting is, not just the losing weight but keeping it off, also I think those people, and bless them for it, accept that they don't want to go through the endless bullshit of dieting and gaining and embrace it. Or they've got some chubby chasers paying them top dollar to watch them eat and balloon to 400 lbs. Food is very very addictive once you've learnt the pleasures of it, just like a drug. It's very hard for anyone who doesn't have a weight issue to understand it, especially since you've been listening to people make endless excuses for it over the years. I think that's what is putting the blinkers on you now when you watch anything with alternative reasons for obesity, you just see it as an excuse.

This is exciting, because what they're saying is if they can recreate these hormones they will be able to find a way of replacing them, which will make the whole dieting process much much easier.

incredibly stupid tabloid science. i'm amazed that there're still people who can differentiate between cause and correlation. fat parents are having fat kids, is it genetics? no, it's because whatever the reason for your bad eating habits, you pass them down to your kids. what to you expect from your kids when you only eat junk? they'll eat it too. either because they mimic you or because you're the one who feeds them! congratulations, now you have perfect excuses: what once were "heavy bones" now are "hunger hormones" and genetics. this "documentation" didn't provide any hard facts, just hormones with names in quotation marks and similar snake oil stuff.

Step 1: stop doing sports, eat more junk and surprise! you'll become overweight. Step 2: catch up on exercising and change your diet and surprise again! your weight will drop. it's common sense. and this comes from someone who's still perfecting step 1... ;-)