The Natural Healing Alliance...

[SGOS]

The primary "engineering" of the American medical system, is social and financial engineering.  Of course they can sometimes produce useful medicines and procedures ... for a price.  A price ... is inevitable (no, not communism ... Joe) ... the primary disconnect in America isn't the price ... it is the blind faith that medicines and procedures don't have unfortunately consequences, that have to be judiciously considered ... and that everyone is entitled to expensive medical care.  I certainly wouldn't deny anyone an aspirin (if they aren't allergic to it) ... but the idea of a bottomless sugar daddy, paid for by exporting inflation to Third World countries ... is that ethical?

I guess we can export inflation.  I heard we export environmental degradation, but that was by a timber industry representative who was trying to heap a guilt trip on environmentalists that were trying to slow down deforestation (in the US) causing us to import wood products from Canada, and thereby passing deforestation onto Canadians, but my eyes soon glazed over, because while the economics and the trades were probably true, it's motive was to make a case for fucking up our own environment rather than the rain forests of South America, or the taiga of the Canadian wilderness.  The argument was completely missing the whole point of deforestation, either locally or globally by looking at the problem through a tiny hole.  But I digress.

Medicine is expensive, but more so than it needs to be.  Remember the Obamacare death squads that would keep costs down by NOT allowing people to have access to the system?  Well, it was probably true, actually is true, but instead of the death squads being administered by the government, it's being done (as it always has) by insurance corporations, which have every incentive to be even more heavy handed.  But I'm still digressing.

Medical science has the same problems as science.  It sometimes gets it wrong and it's continually being refined or corrected, but that hardly makes a case for switching our health care over to shamans and medicine show snake oil salesmen.

The reason this post may not be all that coherent and easy to follow is because I'm responding to a post who's point I didn't understand either.  Annoying isn't it?

[Baruch]

I agree, and would add so much of the media's reaction to our cultures belief in individuality, is that the individual is something to be blamed rather than empowered.

In a collective, the majority or minority is scapegoated.  But in Individualism Utopia ... only the individual is left to be blamed.  I do think the elite are namby-pamby ... empowering the masses, is actually a good idea.  We are less likely to get out of control and run amok ... if we don't internally or externally oppress ourselves too much.  Like the Black Swan ballerina movie ... she was not a healthy camper ... to herself.  The alternative of a E German sadistic ballet teacher ... would be equally bad.

Who's afraid of the big bad humans, big bad humans, big bad humans ... who's afraid of the big bad humans ... all the live long day?

[Baruch]

I guess we can export inflation.  I heard we export environmental degradation, but that was by a timber industry representative who was trying to heap a guilt trip on environmentalists that were trying to slow down deforestation (in the US) causing us to import wood products from Canada, and thereby passing deforestation onto Canadians, but my eyes soon glazed over, because while the economics and the trades were probably true, it's motive was to make a case for fucking up our own environment rather than the rain forests of South America, or the taiga of the Canadian wilderness.  The argument was completely missing the whole point of deforestation, either locally or globally by looking at the problem through a tiny hole.  But I digress.

Medicine is expensive, but more so than it needs to be.  Remember the Obamacare death squads that would keep costs down by NOT allowing people to have access to the system?  Well, it was probably true, actually is true, but instead of the death squads being administered by the government, it's being done (as it always has) by insurance corporations, which have every incentive to be even more heavy handed.  But I'm still digressing.

Medical science has the same problems as science.  It sometimes gets it wrong and it's continually being refined or corrected, but that hardly makes a case for switching our health care over to shamans and medicine show snake oil salesmen.

The reason this post may not be all that coherent and easy to follow is because I'm responding to a post who's point I didn't understand either.  Annoying isn't it?

Not incoherent at all.  I understood you perfectly.  Your eye is open, and it burns!  Welcome to Mordor ;-(

[jonb]

You can walk around the coast of north Africa on the meditrainian, and there are the ruins of the old Roman grain ports still there.
The thing is though these are usually about a mile inland not actually on the coast which is where one would expect to find a port. Was there some great earth movement? No, Like in America in the thirties to make more profit the Romans cut down the trees to make larger fields. And the good earth simply flew into the sea, and there was no bread for the Romans.


It is the nature of Empires to exploit, it is how they are built and how they fall.

Bad management puts in a perfect system that will solve all their problems, by men with all the answers.
Good management sees that problems change so creates an imperfect adaptable system.

[Baruch]

The Roman latifundia (slave operated corporate farms) replaced the small-holder farms of citizens of the Republic.  Now the land is 1 foot lower in elevation compared to what it was before, because of loss of good topsoil.  And much of this caused the silting up of harbors like Ostia.

While the ancient Senators can be excused from not knowing more soil conservation ... their culture already had "hubris" defined, and they knew they were guilty of it.  That and poor generalship by those same Senators, using small-holders as Carthaginian fodder, produced a lot of widows and orphans whose land could be bought up.  People who tried to resist this, like the Gracchi, were simply murdered.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Woo medicine is big business. One of the top sellers of this hokum is the NFL.
Tom Brady wholly endorses the hokum as do plenty of other players.
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Interesting read: Tom Brady’s Personal Guru Is a Glorified Snake-Oil Salesman

[SGOS]

One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes is when Kramer talks George into going a holistic healer.

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[peacewithoutgod]

BTW.

Has anyone else noticed that the main population of people practicing ancient eastern "medicine" is compiled of middle aged white women?

Sort of the way that the majority of New Age consumption in general (including really bad-taste music) is by older, lower-educated females? "Wicca" isn't really for men, and the only modern "warlocks" are so in their D&D games, knowing it's a game (although some brainiacs tend to forget that).

The practices in question present a problem of certain practices, such as Sam Harris's meditation ideas which have been wooed up to make them profitable, but aren't necessarily harmful and may with sensible application be very useful. Touch can be therapeutic, but it isn't medicine. The mindful treatment of one's own body can be effective for relaxation and mental development, but only the individual can practice this on himself, the addition of stupid drugs and apparatus are good for nothing other than damage, and my insurance premiums should never subsidize it. Acupuncture is obviously dangerous, and it never should have been anything other than criminalized in the US, but unfortunately my insurance probably still pays for it!