Again - I’m not arguing necessarily that any of them started out that way, in fact - I’m willing to bet that very few (looking at you, Mormons) actually were. Most religion (in my humble opinion) just stems from folks trying to make sense of an unfathomable universe using what tools are available to them at the time. But once you have the religion, and you have holy men/women who have the ability to excersize some form of power over their flock, you’ll inevitably find corrupt people flocking to those positions, as they do in every position of power. Then over time they’ll carve out more power for themselves and more authority, find ways of extracting influence and power from their positions until soon you’ve got “holy men” living in palaces with the authority of kings.

It’s just human nature for positions of power to eventually become corrupted to some degree, and positions of religious authority offer an unparalleled lever in which to move the masses, which only serves to make it more attractive to would-be tyrants

So do secular charities.

The barter system before currency was invented wouldn’t fit that definition, and strictly speaking Marx wanted Communism to do away with currency so if that ever happened anywhere, that would also be outside of that definition.

That being said, yeah the modern definition of “capitalism” is over-broad and mostly useless as a concept.

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Monsanto has entered the chat.

DNA shouldn’t be patentable. I guarantee you that the scenario that Micheal Crichton laid out in Next will end up happening at some point unless we reign this shit in.

That was my initial reaction at first as well. However as far as I can tell, natural products are not patentable, unless the product in question has been modified, manipulated etc, to produce something that is deemed to have been significantly changed.

So, in the US, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that human DNA, being a naturally occurring product, cannot be patented. However, it also ruled that complementary DNA, essentially DNA that has been extracted and then modified in a lab, can be patented.

That’s not what I’m saying.

I agree a natural substance can be medicine.

His statement - not mine - is that it couldn’t be patented.

Therefore the profit is limited.

Therefore there are fewer studies than a comparable pharmaceutical.

Therefore when (not if) he is sued, he will be less able to defend himself.

Therefore he won’t prescribe it.

I used to believe the “they aren’t all hacks thing” until I met more chiropractors. While I would like to believe that there’s a subset of them out there who treat it more like a science of doing adjustments and what not, I don’t think that’s actually the case. My mom works for a chiropractor and has gone to several of their conventions over the years, and from what it sounds like they are all nutjobs who believe aligning your spine will cure you of all disease.

I would really love to see the numbers of how many chiropractors are antivaxxers. I bet it’s in the high 90%.

Yeah but so can regular doctors.

A friend went in for a colonoscopy and died from a series of complications. First they nicked the inside of her colon, and it started bleeding. Then there was a whole series of stupid responses, based on the meds she was taking and had disclosed. They just made one mistake after another, until she died.

None of us knew she was walking into that hospital for the last time, because we were all relying on the doctors to be masters of their craft.

To find religious behavior in the medical field doesn’t take long. Another friend has described being unable to process patients because the blood pressure equipment is broken. They’re down to one machine, and the manual squeeze bulbs have all failed, so there’s a massive backlog in their clinic.

Now, they know clinical outcomes are suffering as a result of the lack of throughput, but they have to take blood pressure on every patient before they do anything else. So they’re beholden to this policy, and can’t practice medicine in a rational manner. But they’re embedded in a system that won’t let them use their eyes and brains to operate on what’s in front of them.

So even without belief in the supernatural, doctors are serving a “false god” which is the bureaucracy, and because they can’t serve two gods that means actual medical practice itself takes a second seat.

Oh I know, and I don’t trust any that ask me what other non-skeletal ailments I have (I had one tell me my acid reflux could be cured by chiro). But I have a few skeletal problems I go to them for about 3 times a year, and it helps.

MDs give you incorrect information too. I had a GP for 5 years who, when I talked about my cataplexy - a well-documented condition that is directly related to my (at that time, undiagnosed) narcolepsy - he told me to go on birth control, then he changed my antidepressant meds, and then when those things didn’t help me, he said “try exercising more and lose some weight”. If he would had looked up the symptoms I was describing (like I eventually did), he would have probably recommend I see a sleep doctor, but instead, I lived with narcolepsy under his care for 5 years, almost getting fired for falling asleep at my job.

I know it’s not the same, as your brother had a life-threatening condition, but all this to say that MDs aren’t all outstanding professionals either.

The problem is I’ve been to numerous doctors, working with a pain management specialist now, done physical therapy with a few different places for months, do physical therapy every morning, do yoga, exercise every day, and still no relief. So, like, sometimes it gets so bad I go to the chiropractor because at least they can give me some relief.

This is why you skip the chiropractor and go to the rolfer instead. They’ll free up the fascial tension and release the forces pulling your system out of whack.

osteopath

Thanks, I’ll check it out (though I’m in the US). Also, I researched my chiropractor very thoroughly to ensure that he’s not likely to kill or disable me.

edit: turns out my insurance covers osteopathic manipulative medicine, and there’s 1 practitioner in my area (25 miles, probably more in the 50 mile range since I’m close to a big city). I will be making an appointment with her. Thanks kind stranger!

Where’s the proof that massage therapy is more evidence-based than chiropractic? Honest question, a cursory search seems to show that it’s not. Also, interesting that my chiropractic and physical therapy visits are covered by my insurance, but massage therapy is not. Wish I could afford it.

The information being passed isn’t just nerve signals.

Basically, imagine a human body as being like a whip. If you take parts of the whip and make them stiff, then you can’t crack the whip. The whip in its pliable form is capable of conducting a wave down its length. The whip with a stiff section can’t conduct that wave.

In the whip, this wave is its “chi”. A stiff section of the whip blocks its chi from flowing. It has a chi blockage. If the whip’s chi channels are open, then it can be cracked.

The more of your body you can recruit into each movement, the more efficient that movement is. I believe that different parts of the body “communicate” (more precisely they respond to one another’s actions) via tension and pressure. When a section of your body is stiff, that tension and pressure is less readable across that barrier. Your neck muscles will have a harder time predicting and responding to – and ultimately optimizing – the actions of your quadriceps, for example, if your trunk doesn’t convey the mechanical “signals” well enough for your neck muscles to tell what’s going on at the other end of the body.

To understand what I mean about responding, think of the way your body wobbles when you stand on one leg. That’s tons of muscles in your body responding to information about your balance point. Your gut muscles might clench for a fraction of a second in response to your knee detecting that your leg has become less stable. Just an example. This action is coordinated, classically, by peripheral ganglia of the nervous system. But I believe it also relies on mechanical signals – waves of pressure and tension, because mechanical signals conduct faster than nerve signals. (nerve conduction is about 50 m/s, speed of sound in the human body is about 1500 m/s)

Think of a flock of birds. Those birds each carry about a swarming algorithm: they make real-time decisions based on the positions and velocities of the other birds. The result is a flock that moves like an intelligent amoeba in the sky. Now imagine if you created some visual barrier in the middle of the flock. Now the birds on one side of that barrier can’t effectively swarm with the birds on the other side. The flock has been split into two flocks. That visual information is the flock’s “chi”, and the blockage makes the flock less integrated.

Various body parts – muscles, organs, nerve ganglia, senses – are a swarm, and a chi blockage is something that splits that swarm into two or more smaller swarms.

not surprised at all, I’ve found it’s just better to learn the cancellation policy of your items. Most hotels are full refund if they know >48 hours, and if less usually you’ll at least get points/credit back which for me I’ll absolutely use next time. Not worth the premium and the hassle to get cash back if I only find out less than 48 hours ahead of time

I just read a news article this week about a young Australian man on vacation in Indonesia who got in an accident. His family now face costs of around $350,000 because his insurance didn’t cover riding motorized scooters.

I think travel insurance is generally wise to have, and to be aware of what you are covered for. This is an example both of the potential costs and how if you don’t read your policy carefully they will fuck you over.

When you say travel insurance, are you thinking of overseas medical expenses?

I cut my foot on some rocks in the US and that insurance claim paid for all the previous travel insurance I’d taken out previously.

you’ll almost certainly spend more on premiums for travel insurance than you’ll ever claim (this is true of all insurance)

Yes I agree but it’s about how you value risk. Losing $100 on travel insurance is better than losing $1,000,000 on hospital bills. The risk is different obviously but I’m not worried about $100 for peace of mind. I have even gone to war zones were my insurance was invalid but I had it in safer places because it’s all about risk.

Even in the two situations you refer to, we’re “only” talking about costs of a few thousand, and both of those are highly unlikely events

That’s just where your wrong and there is no point continuing this discussion. You don’t think people have to pay a fortune for medical cover when you have no insurance? Sure some countries might cover that and their might be mutual care agreements. But not having insurance in a place that won’t pay your hospital bills. That’s madness. Your argument works if you artificially make up costs sure.

I have personally know loads of people to get in accidents when travelling, I have myself. I have only heard one person being hospitalised and getting sent home but it happens and it isn’t cheap.