Given how stupid it was, you guys don't seriously think he believed it, did you?
I guess we're dealing with Poe's Law territory here.
I have reasonable suspicion that nfq actually believes the things he is saying. He has somehow twisted the concept of evolution into a malevolent deity figure. I actually find it interesting, because, as creationism becomes as passe as flat-earth theories, religion will have to do similar twists of logic.
That said, no one should remind nfq about the God Evolution created the human appendix, the useless ticking time bomb in all of us. Best interests my ass.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I can't go through Chemo after seeing what it did to my Aunt.
Extrapolation from one example is the way to go, especially in the subject of health and medicine.
It wasn't the Cancer that killed her. It was the Chemo that did it.
Yeah, without the chemo she would surely have lived another 20 years or so.
Sometimes chemotherapy doesn't work. That doesn't mean it's the chemotherapy doing the killing, or that it never works. Of course you will refuse to listen to the stories where it has worked (like the video I linked).
I guess apparently there's a book out there that tells of some type of food out there that Bill Clinton eats that cures like 97% of people with various types of cancers.
Like there are pills that can make your dick 50% larger.
The book costs $30, but if it actually works, it'll be $30 well spent.
And if it doesn't, you have successfully wasted both money and time. Not only that, you will believe in and try the next 'possible cure' that you come across too. They'll all be frauds and if by some miracle (that isn't linked to the treatment at all) the cancer gets cured, somebody has just earned a good candidate for their next documentary. If no miracle occurs, then you'd just have wasted a lot of money and time. My aunt has paid 300€ a few weeks ago for some magical numbers and countless pages of pseudo-scientific explanations for why they are so magical, which when she meditates over them for long enough will get rid off all of her problems. (before that she was really into quantum healing and prior to that she had a living on light phase) She's been looking for an esoteric remedy for her problems for years now, instead of actually dealing with the reality of her situation. How should she know the next thing she comes across doesn't work before she's seriously tried it? While there's no way to know for sure, logic dictates that if there was some magical cure to cancer or to her problems, then over time everybody would know about it. If hardly anybody knows about it (yet) (and it smells like fraud), then it's simply not reasonable to waste your time with it, even if there's a microscopically small chance that it actually might work. It's not unlike a gambling addiction. It's not smart to play roulette at any time, nor is it smart to buy that book for $30 at any time.
Although, when it comes to heavy chemo, I must say I'd probably rather die than go through it myself. I wouldn't be looking for a mystical cure though. That's just wishful thinking and being in denial. Still, hope can sometimes have very positive effects on your health. I wouldn't give up hope. But I wouldn't need to look for a cure for that, I'd just hope to be lucky.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Ok, so it seems people need a quick lesson in human physiology.
Cancer is an uncontrolled growth of cells.
Cancer treatments (of all kinds!) have to either slow down, stop, or reverse this uncontrolled growth of cells to be labeled "effective".
Excession of a tumor (a localized cluster of uncontrolled cell growth) is a surgical procedure to remove the cancer. It is not always effective at removing all of the cancerous cells, and not all tumors are in areas that are operable (i.e. either they are in a place that will likely cause death if removal is attempted, or they are systemic, like lymphoma, etc.)
Radiation therapy is the usage of radiation to try to kill these batches of cells. Chemotherapy is the usage of chemicals to try to kill these batches of cells. BOTH ARE NOT 100% SPECIFIC, meaning that some of your healthy cells are affected, as well as the cancerous cells.
So yes, chemo sucks to go through, as does radiation. Both of them can cause a substantial decrease in quality of life for the patient, and they are not 100% effective at killing the cancer. However, they have been shown to provide a mortality rate >0%, which if more than you can say if you have most cancers.
So, unless a physician can be certain that they have removed 100% of a cancerous mass, they will likely recommend chemo/radiation to prevent stray cancer cells from remaining in your body, and repeating the whole process over again. Because when you have repeat bouts of cancer, you're at an increased risk to, you know, die. Oh, and one last point. Usually this death is not some sweet, peaceful falling asleep and never waking up again type of death. It is usually accompanied by severe pain, multiple organ systems shutting down, and is typically drawn out over the course of months. Sooo...
Radiation and chemo: Usually a poor quality of life during treatment, but with an increased chance of returning to a normal quality of life after treamtent
vs.
No treatment: Usually a poor quality of life during the downward spiral, with an increased risk of death.
Feel free to make your own assumptions and have your own biases against the governing bodies of medicine, but when you clearly don't know the science behind the medicine, you only look like an idiot.
@nfq: You should be aware that human were never meant to look at artificial light, and that some small portion of the radiation coming from your computer monitor is likely causing cancer in you RIGHT NOW. So, for your own health, it would be best for you to find some way to communicate on the internet without having to use LCD, plasma, or CRT screens.
Ok, so it seems people need a quick lesson in human physiology.
Whoa, actual Doctor explaining Real Medicine? Clearly this will not stand in this thread.
Only one thing to do at this point...
BURN THE WITCH!
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
@nfq: You should be aware that human were never meant to look at artificial light, and that some small portion of the radiation coming from your computer monitor is likely causing cancer in you RIGHT NOW. So, for your own health, it would be best for you to find some way to communicate on the internet without having to use LCD, plasma, or CRT screens.
I just unplug my phone, stick my finger into the line socket, wiggle it to send bits, and feel the electrical shocks to read bits. Who needs photons?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
This thread just has all sorts of awesome. I'll even bring up a really good article relevant to the subjects posed here.
mmbossman wrote:
In other, much more sad news, the collective intelligence of this forum has apparently been decreasing quite quickly within the past two years. Apparently logic and reason easily fall to emotion and ignorance.
That's because intelligent people (like yourself) post less, while the others post as usual. It's that simple! Don't draw conclusions from nfq and Kitsune in particular, they have a very long and known history by this point. I suggest not bothering with them.
Warp wrote:
You seem to give nature some kind of sentience and will, like it's a benevolent being who tries to protect and benefit us, as long as we obey nature. Nature/evolution does not "mean" to do anything. Nature is. It doesn't have sentience or will.
Actually there is no particular scientific reason nature (well, the universe or some smaller part of it: a galaxy, a star or a single planet) can't have developed a form of sentience. If you were a sentient microbe living among other sentient microbes on an average human, you would never be able to tell that your host is also sentient. It just is. But since it wouldn't care about you (or even be aware of your existence), you wouldn't have any strong evidence confirming its sentience. Likewise, as a human you also wouldn't be able to confirm or deny sentience in a microbe living somewhere on you. It just is! Having a vast difference in subjective perception of time (which is very strongly connected to total lifespan and physical size) would make any attempts at communication moot, anyway.
At the present science cannot say what exactly can and cannot be a prerequisite for developing sentience. However, considering that celestial bodies are the oldest, the largest, and very often in no way less complex than a living organism (both chemically and physically), it wouldn't be too far-fetched to have them among the prime candidates for sentience.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
And a nearly infinite percent chance more to become infected with measles, mumps and rubella.
People are quick to forget just how miraculous vaccines actually are.
Ever know anyone crippled by polio? Or that died of smallpox? Writing off all vaccines because of some stupid bullshit spread by Jenny McCarthy based on dubious evidence is downright idiotic.
nfq wrote:
Usually anything that is unnatural is unhealthy to eat, which includes fluoridated water, because water isn't naturally fluoridated. If nature/evolution meant that we should drink fluoridated water, the water in nature would already be fluoridated, and our bodies would have been adapted to it.
http://cs-ds.org/history.asp#fluoride
It does occur naturally, in the exact spot I am typing this response.
The fact something is "natural" does not mean that it is good for you, or that we can "adapt" to it. Hemlock grows naturally all over the world, and it is fatal if you eat enough of it, and some drinking water is naturally high in lead and arsenic.
nfq wrote:
Food found in nature isn't washed by default either. Does that mean it's safer not to wash it?
Blood transfusions never occur in nature either, but if you really need one, it can extend your life expectancy from dying in the next 10 minutes to dying in the next 70 years.
"Natural" is not a synonym for "safe" or "healthy". Sometimes the best thing for your health is to rely on modern medical science, not some new age tripe that insists that we should try to live more like people from the Neolithic era who had a life expectancy of 20.
Just curious, anti-fluoride guys: how do you feel about iodized salt?
I don't know anything about this, so I can't say. Iodine is at least meant for human consumption, though, so unless someone points me to some articles regarding this issue, I'm less concerned about it than fluoride.
By the way, I don't discredit all vaccines, but that doesn't mean that vaccines can't be used for malicious purposes. I hear a lot of horror stories regarding flu vaccinations.
Actually there is no particular scientific reason nature (well, the universe or some smaller part of it: a galaxy, a star or a single planet) can't have developed a form of sentience.
Actually there is: Lack of evidence.
We can present all kinds of hypotheses, some more plausible and some less plausible, and everybody is of course entitled to present them, but as long as the hypothesis cannot be observed, measured, tested, studied, quantified, subjected to the world-wide peer-reviewing process and finally made into accepted physical laws and theories, there's no rational reason to believe those hypotheses are true. In fact, as long as there's nothing of that, it's more reasonable to assume it's not true (because assuming it's true leads nowhere and is only wasted effort with no benefit). From a pragmatic point of view is better to concentrate on actual proven measurable facts than on wild hypotheses with zero tangible evidence.
Actually there is no particular scientific reason nature can't have developed a form of sentience.
Actually there is: Lack of evidence.
I guess moozooh is merely saying it's unreasonable to rule out the possibility. Lack of evidence makes it unreasonable to believe in it to be true, but it doesn't mean it's reasonable to act as if you knew for sure that it can't be true.
Warp wrote:
In fact, as long as there's nothing of that, it's more reasonable to assume it's not true (because assuming it's true leads nowhere and is only wasted effort with no benefit).
You're subtly imposing a false dichotomy here (either you have to assume it's true, or you have to assume it isn't). It's most reasonable to just assume it's possible, but there's presently no way for us to find out if it's true or not.
You can't even say it's still more likely to be false. What do you know about the likelihood of such things? We know hardly anything at all about consciousness. Maybe a universe in which planets are conscious is more likely to exist than other types of universes? How would we know?
Of course it's still unreasonable to make blind assumptions, but that goes for both directions.
Indeed, that is exactly my point. We don't know or we can't know doesn't really translate to it isn't so. Blind assumptions hurt scientific development in many ways.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
You're subtly imposing a false dichotomy here (either you have to assume it's true, or you have to assume it isn't). It's most reasonable to just assume it's possible, but there's presently no way for us to find out if it's true or not.
You can't even say it's still more likely to be false. What do you know about the likelihood of such things? We know hardly anything at all about consciousness. Maybe a universe in which planets are conscious is more likely to exist than other types of universes? How would we know?
Of course it's still unreasonable to make blind assumptions, but that goes for both directions.
My point is that it's useless to make assumptions without any evidence. Just stick to known facts, that's the most practical way.
My point is that it's useless to make assumptions without any evidence. Just stick to known facts, that's the most practical way.
But that's precisely what you didn't do here. I've bolded out your assumptions without evidence, where you didn't just stick to know facts, in the quote below that moozooh has replied to:
Warp wrote:
You seem to give nature some kind of sentience and will, like it's a benevolent being who tries to protect and benefit us, as long as we obey nature. Nature/evolution does not "mean" to do anything. Nature is. It doesn't have sentience or will.
Just remember that there's a difference between keeping an open mind and believing any random old thing. :) I can accept the possibility of there being sentient planets out there without believing that there are any. Agnosticism, basically.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
There is a difference between (definitely) believing that there are no sentient planets and not (not necessarily) believing that there are sentient planets. The second just refers to the absence of a belief, while the first declares one.
A question for sonicpacker, if you are still in this topic. By your own reckoning there are a lot of intelligent people here. How do you feel about the fact that people seem to be very distrusting of the documentary you posted? Does it weaken your beliefs in its message, doesn't change your opinion, or even reinforce your beliefs?
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The reason stuff like this really gets to me, more than other stupid conspiracy theories about UFO sightings, Chemtrails, lunar landings, and other batshit insane stuff, is that this targets and abuses people in a disastrous situation that are desperate for finding a cure for their problems, and does so for profit. I am not mad with the people who are swayed by it (like the people here), though they are part of the problem, but in a way they are victims too.
mmbossman wrote:
However, they have been shown to provide a mortality rate >0%, which if more than you can say if you have most cancers.
Minor nitpick: shouldn't this be survival rate >0%, or mortality rate <100%?
The reason stuff like this really gets to me, more than other stupid conspiracy theories about UFO sightings, Chemtrails, lunar landings, and other batshit insane stuff, is that this targets and abuses people in a disastrous situation that are desperate for finding a cure for their problems, and does so for profit.
I know, it's a terrible thought. I'd love to believe our government and corporations are here to serve us and would never hurt us for their own gain. I'd love to believe that fluoride is good for you and that the spikes in autism and cancer have nothing to do with the aforementioned powers. I'd love to believe 9/11 was an outside job. I'd love to, but I can't. The world has evil people in it, and we can never underestimate what some of them are capable of.
