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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2010 : 11:13:38 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| I can't feel too sorry for anyone who has suffered ill effects from using this. |
| So if a guy was handing out cyanide, telling people it was cyanide, but that it would cure their cancer, the person who eats the cyanide deserves sympathy? |
| Same for the bleach drinkers. I might feel differently if they didn't tell you they were selling you bleach. |
Dude, your parochial naiveté about human ignorance and stupidity makes you appear to be uncommonly cruel, self-centered, and totally uncaring for those who lack the education and intelligence that you obviously possess. You need to live a few more years and visit more of the world, noticing the human condition of most of your fellow US and world citizens; and develop at least a nominal concern for the welfare of others that do not, and can not, possess the intellectual discrimination that you do.
Your awareness of the nature of chlorine bleach, other poisons, and the harm that scams and snakeoils can do; is not shared by a great majority of the population of the earth.
This is too bad, but it is a fact. I think Kil has a strong message when he says that one of the roles of a Skeptic is to at least try to improve that situation; and not to be condemnatory of the ignorant, nor uncaring that ignorance and stupidity can harm and kill people.
Would you watch an animal eat a poison and be unconcerned that it died a painful death from ingesting it on the basis that it should have known better? Horses and dogs do this kind of thing all the time.
Humans obviously do too, for the same reason.
You have said many times that you can't believe I am as stupid as I appear to you to be because I disagree with one or more of your convictions.
I truly cannot believe that you are as callous as your above statements make you appear to be!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 09/15/2010 : 14:13:00 [Permalink]
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If you can read, use the internet, and are capable of ordering this product online... or have the capability of going to a store and recognizing the product by reading the label... then you have all the skill needed to recognize the danger. The instruction explicitly tell you that you will be drinking chlorine dioxide.
I have little sympathy for anyone who lacks the curiosity to take the 15 seconds required to look up the word.
I have also stated that the douchebags selling this crap, providing intentional misinformation, should be deprived of their freedom and held accountable for the deaths that have resulted.
And no, I wouldn't sit by and passively let anyone ingest poison, animal or person. I'm not sure how you can extrapolate my lack of sympathy for the marks to mean I am cruel enough to let them continue to be taken advantage of by people like Mr Humble.
Next you will start saying I think they deserved to die. I just refuse to shed my tears for them. You are, of course, free to bleed your liberal heart dry.
Also, not that it is pertinent, I have lived outside the US for 8 years of my life. I've also travelled and lived several places within. There isn't a state in the continental US I haven't at least visited. Same for European countries west of the iron curtain, and a few to the east of it. Add in at least two African countries on the Mediterranean, Canada, Mexico, a handful of central and south American countries (mostly involving SCUBA there), and you have a slightly better picture of my travel experience. I'll be visiting Alaska next year, and I hope to get in a return trip to Europe in the next few also. Asia and maybe Japan are on the list a bit further out.... so.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2010 : 18:16:49 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| If you can read, use the internet, and are capable of ordering this product online... or have the capability of going to a store and recognizing the product by reading the label... then you have all the skill needed to recognize the danger. The instruction explicitly tell you that you will be drinking chlorine dioxide. |
Many older and somewhat age-impaired people, and cognition-challenged (DUMB) folks don't read package labels, some buy products because the "douchebags" have told them to on television, A great many wouldn't know or care what "chlorine dioxide" is or what the words even imply. This is why I say you are naïve - you apparently have traveled extensively with either eyes or ears shut. A short visit to rural Mississippi or Alabama would illustrate to what I am referring.| I have little sympathy for anyone who lacks the curiosity to take the 15 seconds required to look up the word. |
You have made that abundantly clear.| And no, I wouldn't sit by and passively let anyone ingest poison, animal or person. |
I am truly happy to hear that your actions would not bear out your attitude. Egocentricity is unfortunate, but pitiless disinterest is reprehensible.
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| Edited by - bngbuck on 09/15/2010 23:03:42 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2010 : 19:49:14 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| This is why I say you are naïve - you apparently have traveled extensively with either eyes or ears shut. |
Or maybe I have been paying attention and the plight of people who have the capability to protect themselves or improve their situation, and choose to not do it, no longer moves me. Maybe I am more interested in spending my sympathy to help those who really can't help themselves.
I can understand people taking the word of a doctor or pharmacist on faith. These are people we expect to have specialized knowledge and who we trust to help us.
But people who take the word of a total stranger with no qualifications when it comes to the treatment of serious diseases, and who do not make an effort (less effort is required to turn your TV on and open a beer) to look up the ingredients of the "cure" they are being sold... I can't feel bad for them. Just as you probably wouldn't feel bad for a guy who plays Russian Roulette with an automatic, or who electrocutes themselves while drying their hair in a bathtub... Maybe I'm just a little more cynical and less tolerant of willful stupidity than you.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2010 : 06:55:21 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| Maybe I'm just a little more cynical and less tolerant of willful stupidity than you. |
We could argue at length about the "willful" part, but there is little doubt about the "less tolerant" part. The last harsh word is yours, my friend. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2010 : 12:13:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Dude.....
| Maybe I'm just a little more cynical and less tolerant of willful stupidity than you. |
We could argue at length about the "willful" part, but there is little doubt about the "less tolerant" part. The last harsh word is yours, my friend.
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Well, here's my last harsh word then. Humble, and anyone else who has sold MMS to a person (and the person subsequently died from using it or suffered permanent disability), should be in prison. They are intentionally deceitful and complicit in those injuries and deaths. We should not tolerate them or others like them. I have the same position for everyone in their line of "work", regardless of the amount of direct harm their product causes. From the people telling you calcium tablets will cure cancer, to the ones telling you magic rocks placed around your bed will cure diseased, to the people telling you to drink bleach. If they convince a person to skip medical care in favor of their bullshit, they should be in prison. Even if I can't bring myself to feel bad for the suckers the rope in, we shouldn't let them run around hurting people.
Harsh enough for you?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2010 : 14:36:38 [Permalink]
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Dude.......
Gourmet harsh! |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2010 : 16:03:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
If you can read, use the internet, and are capable of ordering this product online... or have the capability of going to a store and recognizing the product by reading the label... then you have all the skill needed to recognize the danger. The instruction explicitly tell you that you will be drinking chlorine dioxide. |
I doubt that the word chlorine would necessarily set off any alarm bells in most people. After all, the practice of chlorinating water is not that unusual.
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METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2010 : 06:58:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hawks
I doubt that the word chlorine would necessarily set off any alarm bells in most people. After all, the practice of chlorinating water is not that unusual.
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True... I imagine people can think that a little chlorinated water can't be that bad. People swallow gulps of it every now and then from the swimming pool, and that hasn't killed anyone yet.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2010 : 08:46:38 [Permalink]
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The thing is not everyone is equipped with the knowledge that anecdotal evidence doesn't count for much. Many bogus curatives like MMS depend on testimonials for sales. How could it be poison if those people in the testimonials were cured? There is a style that works for selling crap like MMS. Teaching people to recognize that style, whether they are scientifically literate or not, would go a long way to protecting people from falling for the pitch made for those products. A pitch that may only seems obvious to us.
Blaming the victims isn't very helpful. Educating them would be. The idea that people should (inherently) know better or that it's common sense flies in the face of what people actually do, or there wouldn't be so many of them trying out or believing so many whacky and sometimes dangerous things. It's no accident that a few sciencey sounding sentences and claims by (what appear to be) real people who benefited from crap like MMS is how these products are sold. That sales pitch is persuasive if you lack the skill to recognize the style. Even the word "chlorine" in a product often doesn't raise any alarms because the consumer is being told to take what appears to be small amounts of the stuff, and there is much precedent for using small doses of known toxins as curatives even in evidence based medicine. A couple of obvious examples of that is the use of chemo and radiation therapy to treat cancer. Toxic substances may have attributes that make them effective in treating some disease. Of course, they have probably been refined and are used in ways that's not particularly toxic to the patient. But my point is, those toxins, like snake bite venom, often appear in the news as surprising sources for new drugs. So the idea of using a toxic substance in medicine isn't even counter intuitive anymore. (Botox anyone?) It becomes a question of who is suggesting the use a known toxin and are they qualified to make claims about it? Knowing the difference requires some critical thinking skills. And sorry, but we aren't born with common sense, which is likely a myth, or the ability to think critically.
We need to seriously look at both sides of the equation. Yeah, we can easily identify the bad guys, but those who make their profession possible need to be looked at too, and are just as much of concern to skeptics as are the bad guys. No one falls for stuff like MMS with the idea that it might hurt them. They are usually trying to get better, or to stave off some possible infection. Sometimes their motive is desperation. None of them wants to be killed or made sicker by the cure.
So it just isn't good enough to only target the bad guys. We should be making a concerted effort to educate those who fall for their magical potions. We need to come up with better ways to reach them. It isn't good enough to pat ourselves on the back because we recognize bogus claims for what they are. That's not going to get the job done...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2010 : 12:12:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hawks
Originally posted by Dude
If you can read, use the internet, and are capable of ordering this product online... or have the capability of going to a store and recognizing the product by reading the label... then you have all the skill needed to recognize the danger. The instruction explicitly tell you that you will be drinking chlorine dioxide. |
I doubt that the word chlorine would necessarily set off any alarm bells in most people. After all, the practice of chlorinating water is not that unusual.
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Yeah, but it should spur them to seek more info.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2010 : 12:22:47 [Permalink]
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kil said:
And sorry, but we aren't born with common sense, which is likely a myth, or the ability to think critically.
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I can't answer that with anything other than an annecdote, but there has never been a time in my life that I remember (and I have some memories from when I was around 1.5-2 years old) where I didn't reject things that sounded off to me. I never bought the santa story, for example. And no one in my life was pushing skepticism or critical thinking. I'll agree that the skill can be learned, and once you have a formalization of the skill you can improve it with practice.
So it just isn't good enough to only target the bad guys. We should be making a concerted effort to educate those who fall for their magical potions. We need to come up with better ways to reach them. It isn't good enough to pat ourselves on the back because we recognize bogus claims for what they are. That's not going to get the job done...
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I agree. Despite you and Bill taking me to task for not feeling bad for those who fall for the scam, I don't have any desire to see people hurt. Also, if these scams gain a large enough following then it becomes more complicated. Once you have celebrities and a small number of people who should be actual experts selling the woo, it becomes harder to fight it.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2010 : 15:22:41 [Permalink]
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A 15 year-old blogger brought up the dangers of Miracle Mineral Solution on a Crohn's disease forum and ignited a small firestorm he termed "Bleachgate." It's a good read and the boy exhibits an intelligence far beyond his years. Anyone who's dealt with a chronic illness knows how desperate patients can become when modern medicine can't fully help them and how susceptible they are to quack "alternative" treatments. Although he was harassed, threatened, and ultimately banned for initially trying to warn others of the dangers of MMS, he's remained persistent and has notified several European regulatory agencies who are now acting to crack down on this lethally dangerous "health product."
h/t PZ: Is Drinking Bleach Good For You?
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2010 : 17:17:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
A 15 year-old blogger brought up the dangers of Miracle Mineral Solution on a Crohn's disease forum and ignited a small firestorm he termed "Bleachgate." It's a good read and the boy exhibits an intelligence far beyond his years. Anyone who's dealt with a chronic illness knows how desperate patients can become when modern medicine can't fully help them and how susceptible they are to quack "alternative" treatments. Although he was harassed, threatened, and ultimately banned for initially trying to warn others of the dangers of MMS, he's remained persistent and has notified several European regulatory agencies who are now acting to crack down on this lethally dangerous "health product."
h/t PZ: Is Drinking Bleach Good For You?
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That 15 year old blogger has fanned our facebook page. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Miracle Mineral Solution
