News:

MysticWicks endorsement: ""Oooh, I'm a Discordian! I can do whatever I want! Which means I can just SAY I'm a pagan but I never bother doing rituals or studying any kind of sacred texts or developing a relationship with deity, etc! I can go around and not be Christian, but I won't quite be anything else either because I just can't commit and I can't be ARSED to commit!"

Main Menu

Skeptics and dismissiveness.

Started by Kai, August 23, 2009, 02:28:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Cain

It would be fun.

And of course it would have an agenda.  Truth is an agenda, no?  I guess its upmost in my mind, because I've been reading Ian Kershaw's Nemesis (brilliant biography of Hitler, btw) and it documents his reaction to Munich as bitterly enraged and humiliated.  He wanted to use Munich to start a war, before Britain and France could re-arm and due to the intervention of Mussolini it failed.  He knew if he attacked them without pretext, then the world would likely unite against his aggressive moves, but if he was to burn them to the ground and then occupy them as a defensive manouvere, then by the time the Americans and Soviets realised what had happened, it would be too late.  He could then unleash the powers of a mostly united and fascist Europe against the Soviet Union, and America would likely stand by and let it happen.  As things turned out, Chamberlain knew he needed another year to get enough fighters and radar cover to defend Britain adequately, and Stalin realised that he was being played by interests in the West and so cut a deal with Hitler in order to unleash him westwards instead of eastwards, buying Stalin enough time to rebuild the Red Army and create a buffer zone of satellite states between the USSR and Germany.

The reason this is important is because the Neocons and their allies like to paint Munich as terrible capitulation and proof of the folly of negotiation with tyrants, ever.  That Munich was a victory for Hitler and led to a further taste for expansionism that culminated in the invasion of Poland, not to mention the subtext of the Holocaust.  That we successfully negotiated with the Soviets for fifty years after the start of WWII somehow doesn't prove the opposite, to the Neocons.

Because they are hacks.  Hacks with degrees in political philosophy.  And big publishers.  And think tanks.  And government appointed positions.  But still hacks.

P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Kai on August 23, 2009, 02:28:00 PM

Just? /Just/ the placebo effect you say? That's like saying that the reason photosynthesis continues to function on this planet is /just/ because of photons from the sun. There's something interesting here, in psychosomatic and somatopsychic connections, something so profoundly useful and meaningful that it is, well, STUPID to dismiss.


Couldn't agree more. IMO the placebo effect is the only true miracle that's ever been satisfactorily proven to me.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Pope Pixie Pickle

#47
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 24, 2009, 03:03:42 PM
Cram: "Check it out, those cars have nearly identical license plates, isn't that cool?"
Skeptic: "It's just random chance."
Cram: "FUCK YOU MY CAT DIED OF RANDOM CHANCE!! MY LAPTOP FELL DOWN THE STAIRS BECAUSE OF RANDOM CHANCE!!!! YOU KNOW THAT TIME I ALMOST GOT KICKED OUT OF MY APPARTMENT??!! FUCKING RANDOM CHANCE!! AND FUCK YOU FUCKING FUCK I DIDNT WIN THE LOTTERY BECAUSE OF FUCKING RANDOM CHANCE SO FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING CHANCE IF YOU SAY ITS FUCKING JUST FUCKING RANDOM FUCKING CHANCE YOU FUCK THESE FUCKING CARS WITH THEIR FUCKING LICENSE PLATES BEING THE FUCKING SAME, YOU SAY THATS FUCKING RANDOM CHANCE?? RANDOM CHANCE RUINED MY FUCKING LIFE YOU FUCKING PIECE OF FUCK"
Skeptic: "..."
Cram: "Check it out, those cars have nearly identical license plates, isn't that cool?"
Skeptic: "Awesome."
:lulz: :lulz:

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on August 26, 2009, 12:45:00 PM
Quote from: Kai on August 23, 2009, 02:28:00 PM

Just? /Just/ the placebo effect you say? That's like saying that the reason photosynthesis continues to function on this planet is /just/ because of photons from the sun. There's something interesting here, in psychosomatic and somatopsychic connections, something so profoundly useful and meaningful that it is, well, STUPID to dismiss.


Couldn't agree more. IMO the placebo effect is the only true miracle that's ever been satisfactorily proven to me.

if the bullshit WORKS, even if it is a placebo then suspension of disbelief (temporarily) cannot be a bad thing.

[edit cos I borked format up]

Brotep

Quote from: Thurnez Isa on August 24, 2009, 06:19:56 PM
Quote from: Kai on August 24, 2009, 06:07:47 PM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on August 24, 2009, 05:52:46 PM
Quote from: Anton on August 24, 2009, 08:09:54 AM

And it is not a person's place to mock and crush someone else's worldview. 


When it comes to things such as new agers and shit, people's feelings never pop into my mind.
It's just not there

Mind you, I put "new agers" in quotes because I wasn't quite sure what to call them. Better term would probably be psychonauts, and I don't mean with the drug connotation either. People exploring consciousness in ways that knutzian skeptics would balk at. The truth is that there seem to be more psychonauts among the new age crowd than any other subculture.

Take it from someone who dated a new ager/neopagan for 8 years and helped her build a few communities, and even a tarot card reading business once, new age is all about feeling good. That's it. Nothing more.

Exactly.  To consider yourself a new ager is to hold feeling "warm 'n fuzzy" higher than all else.  No price is too high to feel good and right and holy and empowered no matter what.  You cannot be a good psychonaut if that is your sole motivation.  Or, you can, just not a very good one.

Not everything is light and happy and fluffy and fat-free organic free-range extra vitamin C probiotic.

On the other hand, someone ITT pointed out that balls-out skepticism is inorganic.  I would agree with this.
Which is why I say that I want to be as free of delusion as I can.  All we have is inductive reasoning--we're hard-wired for it, and it powers our cognition.  The same thing that makes science possible, also makes magical thinking possible.

Elder Iptuous

Quote from: Pixie O'Fubar on August 26, 2009, 02:36:00 PM
if the bullshit WORKS, even if it is a placebo then suspension of disbelief (temporarily) cannot be a bad thing.

As i understand it, suspension of disbelief (in a sense) is not even necessary.  in some NPR piece i heard a while ago about the placebo effect, a doctor was saying that he did a study and found that patients who were explicitly told they were receiving a placebo (but that it would still work) benefited the same amount (statistically) that they would have if told it was an active compound....
now i have to look it up....

Pope Pixie Pickle

Quote from: Iptuous on August 26, 2009, 03:09:05 PM
Quote from: Pixie O'Fubar on August 26, 2009, 02:36:00 PM
if the bullshit WORKS, even if it is a placebo then suspension of disbelief (temporarily) cannot be a bad thing.

As i understand it, suspension of disbelief (in a sense) is not even necessary.  in some NPR piece i heard a while ago about the placebo effect, a doctor was saying that he did a study and found that patients who were explicitly told they were receiving a placebo (but that it would still work) benefited the same amount (statistically) that they would have if told it was an active compound....
now i have to look it up....
that would be cool Ippy.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Iptuous on August 26, 2009, 03:09:05 PM
Quote from: Pixie O'Fubar on August 26, 2009, 02:36:00 PM
if the bullshit WORKS, even if it is a placebo then suspension of disbelief (temporarily) cannot be a bad thing.

As i understand it, suspension of disbelief (in a sense) is not even necessary.  in some NPR piece i heard a while ago about the placebo effect, a doctor was saying that he did a study and found that patients who were explicitly told they were receiving a placebo (but that it would still work) benefited the same amount (statistically) that they would have if told it was an active compound....
now i have to look it up....

I heard the same report. The placebo effect, the report theorized may have more to do with DOING SOMETHING (even taking a sugar pill twice a day) than thinking that you're taking medication... the act of doing, according to the report may be what's improving the condition. I found this kinda interesting... it reminded me of my early forays into rituals... at first it seemed stupid, but I kept doing it every day and after about two weeks it felt like things were happening. Pete Carroll calls it the "Fake it Till You Make It" rule in magic. Of course, the report could be bullocks.
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Elder Iptuous

Quote from: Pixie O'Fubar on August 26, 2009, 03:35:43 PM
that would be cool Ippy.

Found this NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000109mag-talbot7.html

among the examples:
QuoteAnd there is one small study, the only one of its kind, that suggests that a placebo prescribed openly could win over some patients. At an outpatient psychiatric clinic in 1965, two researchers from John Hopkins University gave 15 adult "neurotics" an inert pill identified as such. With straight faces, the doctors told them that "many people with your kind of condition have also been helped by what are sometimes called sugar pills, and we feel that a so-called sugar pill may help you, too. Do you know what a sugar pill is? A sugar pill is a pill with no medicine in it at all. I think this pill will help you as it has helped so many others. Are you willing to try this pill?" Fourteen of the patients were convinced by this vaguely smarmy-sounding pitch (the 15th dropped out after her husband made fun of the idea), and after a week all reported ameliorated symptoms. Some thought the pill definitely was a placebo and some thought it must actually be an active drug, but either way, they had faith that the doctor was trying to help them, and they improved. At the least, then, Brown's idea deserves to be tested out with a bigger, more reliable study.

it mentions others where, although not specifically called a 'placebo', it is presented as a 'pill with no drugs in it, and we don't know why it works, but it does' and has substantial positive effects....

just a note, while looking for reference to this, i read a few articles on placebos, and was suprised to find that, even the articles that were talking up the effects of placebos, and how we need to use them more, used language that was dismissive or derisive.  i guess out of reflex? or perhaps to sound more reputable to the reader? (i.e. "see, i'm a skeptic, too, but....")

Bu🤠ns

This morning, I JUST read Chapter 15 in Quantum Psychology entitled: Psychosomatic Synergy where Wilson discusses spontaneous remission, self-fulfilling prophecies, orgone accumulators and drops 'metaprogramming' for the first time in this book.

While I haven't verified his sources most of it placebo effect does seem plausible.

Iason Ouabache

#54
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on August 26, 2009, 09:22:51 AM
Quote from: Cain on August 24, 2009, 03:58:55 PM

Also, as an aside, my problem with skeptics is they don't go far enough.  Cool, you've educated people on why so and so isn't real.  Why haven't you applied your skeptical skills to something outside the realms of parapsychological and religious crankery?  I swear to god, I'd love it if skeptics took a swipe at....say, game theory.  Or the persistent myth of appeasement in Munich, 1938.  Restricting their skepticism to a few choice topics is sad.  They should take it to its logical conclusion, and undermine faith in everything.
Forgot to mention that this is a brilliant idea. If you did a Skeptical History blog I would help pimp the fuck out of it. The only problem I could see with something like that would be the constant accusations of being revisionist and "having an agenda". I'd still love to see someone try to pull it off.
I swear that mere minutes after I wrote this that I got an e-mail from eSkeptic about an interview with David Cullen about his Columbine book. It's a miracle!!!   :lol:

Quote from: Cain on August 26, 2009, 10:01:11 AM
It would be fun.

And of course it would have an agenda.  Truth is an agenda, no?  I guess its upmost in my mind, because I've been reading Ian Kershaw's Nemesis (brilliant biography of Hitler, btw) and it documents his reaction to Munich as bitterly enraged and humiliated.  He wanted to use Munich to start a war, before Britain and France could re-arm and due to the intervention of Mussolini it failed.  He knew if he attacked them without pretext, then the world would likely unite against his aggressive moves, but if he was to burn them to the ground and then occupy them as a defensive manouvere, then by the time the Americans and Soviets realised what had happened, it would be too late.  He could then unleash the powers of a mostly united and fascist Europe against the Soviet Union, and America would likely stand by and let it happen.  As things turned out, Chamberlain knew he needed another year to get enough fighters and radar cover to defend Britain adequately, and Stalin realised that he was being played by interests in the West and so cut a deal with Hitler in order to unleash him westwards instead of eastwards, buying Stalin enough time to rebuild the Red Army and create a buffer zone of satellite states between the USSR and Germany.
You could spend a lifetime debunking all of the myths surrounding Hitler and everything WWII related. Everyone loves to spread disinfo about it for their own purposes. *cough*doughy pantload*cough*

QuoteThe reason this is important is because the Neocons and their allies like to paint Munich as terrible capitulation and proof of the folly of negotiation with tyrants, ever.  That Munich was a victory for Hitler and led to a further taste for expansionism that culminated in the invasion of Poland, not to mention the subtext of the Holocaust.  That we successfully negotiated with the Soviets for fifty years after the start of WWII somehow doesn't prove the opposite, to the Neocons.

Because they are hacks.  Hacks with degrees in political philosophy.  And big publishers.  And think tanks.  And government appointed positions.  But still hacks.
Don't you know that diplomacy is always always doubleplusungood?
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
    \
┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘

Kai

Quote from: Burns on August 26, 2009, 04:53:55 PM
This morning, I JUST read Chapter 15 in Quantum Psychology entitled: Psychosomatic Synergy where Wilson discusses spontaneous remission, self-fulfilling prophecies, orgone accumulators and drops 'metaprogramming' for the first time in this book.

While I haven't verified his sources most of it placebo effect does seem plausible.

I need to read that book, IN SPITE OF having the word QUANTUM(!) in the title.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Thurnez Isa

im taking a bunch of quantum physic classes... my only preparation for them is i printed out a few pictures of LMNO which I plan to frame and bring to every class.
Through me the way to the city of woe, Through me the way to everlasting pain, Through me the way among the lost.
Justice moved my maker on high.
Divine power made me, Wisdom supreme, and Primal love.
Before me nothing was but things eternal, and eternal I endure.
Abandon all hope, you who enter here.

Dante

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Kai on August 26, 2009, 06:24:10 PM
Quote from: Burns on August 26, 2009, 04:53:55 PM
This morning, I JUST read Chapter 15 in Quantum Psychology entitled: Psychosomatic Synergy where Wilson discusses spontaneous remission, self-fulfilling prophecies, orgone accumulators and drops 'metaprogramming' for the first time in this book.

While I haven't verified his sources most of it placebo effect does seem plausible.

I need to read that book, IN SPITE OF having the word QUANTUM(!) in the title.

Heh, its used more as a metaphor rather than ZOMG YOU MAKE TEH REALITY BY OBZERVN!
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Pope Pixie Pickle

Quote from: Ratatosk on August 26, 2009, 07:02:06 PM
Quote from: Kai on August 26, 2009, 06:24:10 PM
Quote from: Burns on August 26, 2009, 04:53:55 PM
This morning, I JUST read Chapter 15 in Quantum Psychology entitled: Psychosomatic Synergy where Wilson discusses spontaneous remission, self-fulfilling prophecies, orgone accumulators and drops 'metaprogramming' for the first time in this book.

While I haven't verified his sources most of it placebo effect does seem plausible.

I need to read that book, IN SPITE OF having the word QUANTUM(!) in the title.

Heh, its used more as a metaphor rather than ZOMG YOU MAKE TEH REALITY BY OBZERVN!
:lulz: :lulz:



Brotep

Quote from: Iptuous on August 26, 2009, 03:09:05 PM
Quote from: Pixie O'Fubar on August 26, 2009, 02:36:00 PM
if the bullshit WORKS, even if it is a placebo then suspension of disbelief (temporarily) cannot be a bad thing.

As i understand it, suspension of disbelief (in a sense) is not even necessary.  in some NPR piece i heard a while ago about the placebo effect, a doctor was saying that he did a study and found that patients who were explicitly told they were receiving a placebo (but that it would still work) benefited the same amount (statistically) that they would have if told it was an active compound....
now i have to look it up....

What if they didn't really know what the placebo effect means?  Then it would still be the regular belief-based placebo effect.  Eh?  Eh?