First I must admit right off the bat, I am a heretic. A so-called pseudo-scientist or even 'Conspiracy Theorist' who is capable of engaging in rational discussion without permission from the highest authorities of scientific bodies.
This is one of the things I have always liked with STEEM, and now HIVE, most people around here have wide and varied beliefs, and we are capable of discussing them openly.
Today in my #farm-and-garden niche in the ManCave Discord, @sayee shared an 'herbal remedy' for Covid. You can see the recipe below and response from @simplifylife on this post. @simplifylife brings up some really important points about what we believe. While this recipe probably 'does a body good', the use of both 'proven' and 'cure' in the recipe is disputable.
So here is the recipe. A whole lemon, scoops of cloves and tumeric powder, and an inch and a half of ginger. For those of you perhaps unfamiliar with herbal remedies, this concoction has a non-zero chance of raising the dead, and each of the ingredients are powerful with known effects. Let's take a look:
Ok, so after perusing the internet, we can find that these ingredients are well known and have been used for thousands of years to treat cold and flu infections, liver and kidney, and blood diseases. Tumeric is even known to help prevent depression, which may be the biggest unintended consequence of all the Scare Mongering we have seen in recent months.
So whats the problem?
Well we thought it quite worrisome that the response was about danger:
Surely this recipe is the least risky of any of the treatments we have seen so far? In fact, I would rather take this treatment 10 times than get put into an artificial coma in order to use a forced breathing ventilator.
Also Compare: Scientists rethink rush to Ventilate.
Yes there are risks in believing false medical information, just that
Almost all of the most dangerous Falsities are coming out of the mouths of professed 'Scientific Experts'.
Tumeric and Lemon Juice? There is nearly no risk in believing this will cure you. In fact, you will probably be much healthier after taking it whether or not it does indeed cure you.
Language Problem
The reasons certain problematic words are used lies in the ancient medical tradition of using the body to heal itself. That's right, much of medicine is just a ritual designed for convincing people that they will be fine so their body heals itself. This proven effect is called Placebo.
Placebo studies and ritual theory -
So that when you take a powerful mix of herbs to clean your respiratory system, blood, liver and kidney, and you think you will be cured - your body and mind and spirit will operate as if you are being cured, and they will participate in that curing.
The human body is not some automotive mechanism that can be taken apart piece by piece. The Germ Theory of Disease is dubious at best, when it becomes clear that so-called 'good' bacteria are important for health, more than 100 years of assumptions about the immuno-defense system and its functions will prove to be fallacious!
This does not mean that the Scientific Method has no place. We must be more rigourously scientific than ever, as long as that means experimenting, measuring, observing, reproducing and sharing. If it comes down to believing some Leader of the Church of Scientism, perhaps currently the NIH or the WHO, it starts to smell suspiciously anti-scientific.
Some of the most egregious use of statistics are now being revealed. The 'Scientism Authority' is falling apart at the seams, including in their carbon modelling of last year's terrorism: Global Warming.
Now each of these points can be debated, some are more interesting than others, and a few I am vehemently in disagreement with. But these points are infinitely more interesting and useful to our discussion of how to improve human societies and their relationship with the natural systems that contain them, than any amount of political will of the governing elites to write themselves more money to implement such 'changes' as they decide necessary.
What else is dangerous?
LIFE IS DANGEROUS!!!
Analyzing risks is something that the internet tells me humans are not good at.
But I am not convinced the Technocrats with their Models are any better judge of risk. In this latest 'PLANNEDemic', it is estimated that the damaged caused by the 'prevention' will outweigh what was being prevented....possibly by an order of magnitude. I will need to come back with another article to really dig into these 'costs'.
And the fact that these preventative measures are a cost to young, poor and marginalized peoples, while being designed to save rich old people, is not lost on those of us tired of hearing that we should stay in our prison of poverty for the good of others.
Thankfully, @simplifylife was a gracious debator. He reminded me that the doctors, often the 'face' of medicine, are really just doing their best with the information that we have, and are no less disgusted by some of the poor outcomes of our system's design.
I am happy to engage in the first step - free and open discussion with mutual respect. And I would encourage you to do the same.