Lovely practical comment, seems almost universally applicable, thank you :). Especially this bit:
>If one day you need it, you can get metric tons of it in minutes.
44 karma · joined March 24, 2018
>If one day you need it, you can get metric tons of it in minutes.
No, I mentioned things in this thread. And of course, so have many other people.
To copy and paste the simplest excerpt, and ignore a few minor additional bits:
>that they cite massive amounts of scientific papers, that they've been cited by the NYTimes and other media news outlets, the fact the post got hundreds of upvotes is its own evidence, the fact they don't sell supplements or make money from advertising, etc."
Examine, to the best of my knowledge, has:
The most social proof
Cites the most scientific papers
Has been cited by a number of neutral and relatively authoritative media outlets
Has the best incentive structure (just making money from selling guides)
Every competitor links to fewer scientific papers for the user to do their own digging, and appears to be less neutral in what they cite.
Every other competitor is ad-funded and assaults the user with ads. Examine does not.
Many other competitors also sell their own supplements. Examine does not.
Most of the competitors are backed by powerful corporations with a history of bad behavior in multiple domains (pharma companies, etc). Examine doesn't have this issue.
I'm also amazed that you have so far discounted the personal experiences of other people, involving a great deal of research and personal experimentation. That is normally considered valuable in most domains, especially something as personal as health.
I also consider it to be valuable that the company (via its employee AhmedF at least) is willing to participate in discussions. There is some degree of visibility and accountability there. I am not aware of any other informational websites which do this.
And previously before he left Examine, the redditor silverhydra was very active and accountable (and transparent, as far as I could see), on numerous subreddits, participating in ways which often had nothing to do with his business.
Anyway :). Hopefully this discussion ends up serving you in the long run, one way or another.
And if you're done, then have a wonderful time in this magical chemical world, however that works for you ~~.
I've listed quite a bit of things I would consider to be strong evidence in favor of Examine being a high-quality supplements site deserving of getting high ranks in Google supplement search results. So have numerous other commenters in this comments section. The Examine employee, AhmedF, has as well.
So I'm curious- what would qualify as "evidence" for you? And why do none of the other points mentioned qualify as "evidence"?
I'm pretty baffled at this point as to what it would take. You ask for evidence, I think remarkably strong evidence has been provided by me and numerous others, and then you just seem to ignore it?
BTW, I think our discussion got mentioned on the Nootropics subreddit comments thread about this topic. (Examine's blog post is one of the top 10 posts of all time on that subreddit. People with a big interest in supplements consider this to be a BIG deal).
Our discussion was referenced here- https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/cpg1ha/over_the...
"God those comments represent the worst of hacker news. There is a giant argument about whether examine.com is the best website on supplements. With anyone who's ever looked at a supplement site arguing it's examine.com and people who've never looked at a supplement site in their life arguing that surely a better one must exist."
The skeptic is really more in the position of the prosecution. The fans are really more in the position of the defense.
The skeptic is basically saying the fans have committed a crime against truth. They are saying that the fans have something to DEFEND. (Hence, the fans are the defendants.)
And the skeptics claim is much easier to prove. It is far easier for the prosecution to prove that a crime has been committed (if it has been committed), than it is for the defense to prove that a crime wasn't committed (assuming no crime was committed).
The skeptics in this position SHOULD have the easier case to prove, which is why the burden should be on them.
Like I've repeated endlessly, and I even furnished the main competitors, if there are websites that are clearly better than Examine, that should be pretty easy to show.
Literally no human on the planet is capable of proving that Examine is better than every single competitor, though. There are thousands of other supplement websites.
You can't support the position that skeptics are allowed to show up everywhere, and voice skepticism of literally everything, and then suddenly that means that people who appreciate things must then be forced to prove things which in some cases are nearly impossible to prove. That is utterly ridiculous.
Skeptics should at least participate a little bit, if they actually give a shit.
But both sides are making assertions. The appreciators of Examine and other resources, are not the only people making assertions.
And the assertion that Examine isn't the best- the skeptics position- should be far easier to prove.
For some reason, that one guy will go to great lengths to make the general case for skepticism, when the specific case for skepticism- that there are sufficient websites objectively better than Examine such that Examine shouldn't be ranked near the top- should in theory be much easier to establish.
But he avoids that at every turn.
"In criminal cases, the burden is on the prosecution to establish their case beyond all reasonable doubt. The defence does not have to prove innocence; it merely has to establish there is insufficient evidence for a guilty verdict."
Lol. As though the defense never provides evidence boosting their client. But thanks for telling me what anybody could ever tell you who has served on a jury, or had a class in basic civics.
Look, skeptics need to furnish evidence, too. The people who appreciate Examine have provided a ton of evidence. It is LAZY LAZY LAZY that every skeptic wants to avoid digging deep.
I've already DONE immense research on supplements and the websites providing information about them. So have many others.
None of the skeptics in this thread are people who claim to be familiar with this domain. They just want to act like they are superior know-it-alls because they can lazily tout the general merits of skepticism.
Just like the defense will eagerly provide any evidence of innocence that they can muster, it is in the interests of skeptics to furnish evidence that the skeptical position is warranted. But few skeptics in this thread seem to want to do that.
If they think there is something better, they should let the rest of us know. Or they should build it themselves.
I've "haunted" this place since the first day it existed (though with other nicknames), and will doubtless haunt it for years to come. I just normally lurk, not comment.
This was just a topic important enough to bring me out of the woodwork.
"posters here can't downvote direct responses to their posts."
I did not know this, thank you for explaining. Apparently someone is following our discussion and almost instantly downvoting me each time (I guess...)
I never experienced that before, so I thought it was you. My apologies, apparently you are not rude like I thought.
Hell, I'm not even as passionate as the typical sports fan.
And this is true, despite my not having to pay any money for information which has helped my sleep, concentration, athletic performance, social comfortability, empathy for others, etc.
Most people would pay tens of thousands of dollars for the benefits I've received. And I got those benefits with some free info, and a few hundred dollars worth of supplements.
So don't feel so shocked if someone has a positive opinion about the company which provided a lot of the "free information" part of that equation.
Anyway, thank you for the interesting discussion. One thing I've learned from supplement experimentation is that biochemistry heavily dictates the kinds of feelings and thoughts people are capable of. It's entirely possible we will be unable to persuade each other of much of anything, if our biochemistry doesn't make it salient to do so :).
Have a great day, wherever you are!!
Stop being so petty.
I have provided evidence. (I've even included the unique evidence of personal experience. Hundreds of hours of research & experimentation- research on multiple websites- from someone with no vested financial interest, should count for something.)
I am also asserting that skeptics should also provide evidence. It's like in a courtroom- both the prosecution and the defense should provide evidence.
And again, the task for the skeptic is far easier- they only have to find a single superior resource, among thousands of possible contenders.
And if you want to be an effective skeptic, you should probably try to add some compelling evidence to your skepticism. It's in your interest to add evidence, if you are really such a big believer in your skepticism.
(I don't hate skepticism btw- normally I am a skeptic, that's why my nickname is "data_required"- I just dislike the lazy reflexive style of skepticism on display in this thread.)
And if I knew of other evidence to add besides what was in the comments section so far (having read all of the comments), I would add it.
The only other thing I can think of is that I know that the user "silverhydra" posts a lot on reddit, and is heavily involved with Examine. So I guess you can see a track record of how an employee of theirs behaves in an online forum.
"I'm simply doubting the tales of rainbow unicorn farts and victimization by Google that people like you are pushing here."
Why do you feel the need to exaggerate? How do you go from reading a claim of "great resource for information!" to "rainbow unicorn farts"?
Nobody has even asserted that Examine is the only site people should use, or that it is absolutely authoritative.
HN is filled with skeptics (compared to the general population), and Examine is clearly popular among skeptics. Maybe that should count for something?
It's not like anybody has claimed they used the site to figure out how to cure their own cancer. You know what I mean?
Also, nobody from Examine asserted that Google is trying to deliberately harm the company. (Nor am I asserting it.)
The blog post was a rather polite complaint, with evidence attached, that they had mystifyingly lost the prominence in search results which they once had.
And numerous people have documented that other search engines (Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.) have much more respect for Examine. It's a Google-specific complaint, and appears to be due to a generic update to their algorithm.
Resources like Examine are amazing for lots of people. And the fact that they are free and credible, is incredible.
So I hate it when people like you are incredibly lazy, only doing cursory looks at things, and then pretend that those of us who have done hundreds of hours of research are the lazy ones.
Not only that, but people like you are probably scaring off lots of people who need help, from one of the few credible resources in the online space.
To me, you are not only lazy, your lazy skepticism is the sort of thing which will hurt lots of people. (Maybe you don't do so much damage by yourself, but people like you absolutely do damage sometimes. Sometimes your skepticism helps people. But sometimes your lazy skepticism hurts people, too.)
Me and other satisfied readers of a free website, claiming Examine is a great resource, and usually the best single resource.
And many of us have provided evidence- that they cite massive amounts of scientific papers, that they've been cited by the NYTimes and other media news outlets, the fact the post got hundreds of upvotes is its own evidence, the fact they don't sell supplements or make money from advertising, etc.
You (or other skeptics), saying it's not a great resource (while ignoring all evidence already provided).
And you are also providing zero evidence, despite the supporters of Examine providing a ton of evidence for why it is a high-quality and credible site.
By being skeptical, you are claiming something, right?
The claim you are making is much easier to back up. You literally just have to find ONE source which is usually better. We already did a lot of work, why can't you do some work?
And yet, you refuse to do that. You're being much more lazy than me. I've already tried things partly due to Examine's research, and I was satisfied with the results. And I paid nothing for those great benefits.
And then I shared my experience, for free, because I appreciate the help I was given.
All you have to do is find a single objectively superior source than Examine. (Or 10, if you want to actually address the original post).
I am not asking you to do "my work", which I have already done, I am asking you to do work to back up YOUR assertion.
Hell, I even provided you with some likely candidates to start your research, if you actually care to not be lazy.
Has any medical journal ever cited any supplements website? What would there be to cite??
[Citation needed.]
This is an interesting question, actually- what problems is the research cited by Examine claiming to improve, which you have evidence cannot possibly be improved by the use of supplements?
As far as I can tell, too, your critique of Examine is really a critique of scientific papers in general. If the scientific studies have a flawed premise, you are right that that flawed premise would carry over to Examine, since they cite lots of scientific papers.
Which is sort of like critiquing Examine for not having God-like omniscience as to what is universally true and not true. This is not a fair critique.
And I also think that a lot of criticisms of Examine and other websites basically want to absolve the users of all personal responsibility.
I am extremely informed about health and supplements, and I have a ton of trust of Examine based on past experiences, and I also would never take its summaries as the gospel truth.
I always check a lot of other websites, sometimes skim the scientific papers themselves, and then use a personal experimental protocol if I think an experiment is warranted.
You must assign users some responsibility. (Although even if we hold users responsible, Google should not be giving higher search rankings to such comparatively crap websites.)
I do happen to think that Examine is the best (usually). But even if you disagreed, probably if you did a thorough bit of research comparing them to alternatives in this important search space, you would agree that they are better than most of what is ranking ahead of them.
If Examine wasn't great, it should be quite easy for you to find literally just one source that was consistently and objectively better.
The task of the skeptic is quite a lot easier. For the the fan, it's a lot harder- a fan like me would have to literally track down EVERY single alternative and show it was not as good as the thing we admire.
All you have to do, as a skeptic, is find a single better source. Much easier to do.
But I'm willing to do some of your work for you.
Here is a list of the websites which usually rank above Examine:
WebMD (which openly partners with pharmaceutical companies)
Healthline (originally launched in 1999, it owns Drugs.com, Livestrong, Greatist, MedicalNewsToday)
VerywellHealth (partners with the Cleveland Clinic, started as an About.com company)
Hospital websites (such as UMMC, the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering, NYU, etc.)
Governmental institutions (NIH/Pubmed, CDC, ODS, FDA, etc.)
Other medical news sites (which are almost always owned by WebMD or Healthline)
Is any single one of those more credible and neutral than Examine, typically? Are their sources as comprehensive, and do they summarize things as cleanly and neutrally?
Does any one of them even have better moral incentives? Examine only makes money from selling informational guides, apparently. That sounds the best to me.
And once you've done this research, will you still believe that Examine's pages rarely deserve to be in the top 10 results on relevant search queries?
It's easy to compare something to abstract perfection, and find it wanting. But if you compare things to actual real alternatives, it's often easier to get a more realistic perspective. (General life principle, in my experience.)
These are the important questions, right?
I do think there is some minor room for improvement with Examine.com, but what else out there is better? I think people who have spent a lot of time researching supplements consider Examine to be one of the best, if not the best, general website on this topic.
For individual pages, some will be better, some worse. But on average, Examine is quite excellent.
So, this is why many of us consider it tragic if Google makes it almost impossible for the public to find its pages on various supplements. If there were lots of other websites that were more credible, that would be one thing, but for the niches Examine specializes in, there's not much competition. Google is clearly failing here.
- "Card browser" lets you view the cards in various sorting orders. Alphabetical, time of creation, last reviewed, next reviewed, etc. This is already better for going through cards than the Memo app on my phone.
- You can tag cards and sort by tags. (I think doing this also creates a memorization deck for each tag, too. I just don't use this feature...)
- I like to put "elements" into Anki which I think could potentially become a part of a creative idea. Being reminded of those things makes it easier to think up new ways to combine things, different ways to do things, etc.
- Like Michael Nielsen (who works for Y Combinator), I believe in putting everything into just a single deck. So I see a lot of random seemingly unrelated cards one after the other. I feel like this helps my brain to make unusual connections and relationships. (Nielsen's writings about Anki and spaced memory repetition- https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/8xi9r4/augmenting_lon... https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/95776322945477427... )
- Cards can be starred or suspended.
- Visually, the design and flow of the Anki app is fantastic, in my opinion. I genuinely enjoy using it. Tons of user controlled settings, and nice Anki forums.
- Use of shared decks can be fun (publicly available decks).
Really though, the most important thing is getting the reminders, and having control over when I see Anki cards next. By keeping everything "alive" and stronger in my brain, it just makes it easier to remember things, think of things, see different possibilities, etc.
And you can put literally anything in there. I put in literally everything I think is worth reminding myself about. Attitudes, knowledge, quotes, tasks, task elements, ideas, notes about the people in my life, things that are fun, memories from my life, exercise ideas, foods, supplements, etc. etc.etc.
You can easily take notes and then there's a built in reminder system which is most efficient for keeping things in your brain's long-term memory.
I notice the reminder system also ends up making me much more creative, since I can more easily combine things together to make new ideas. That is a huge bonus.
It would even be quite interesting if potentially the best approach to a healthy & wealthy society would be to be very libertarian for a while, and then very high tax after that...
It's a bit much to expect growth to peak during the era 20-40 years after laissez faire ended, and think that it was because of the previous laissez faire policies.
>Supply chains, investor sentiment, etc all take time to change so a tax hike might not make its effect on GDP immediately evident.
These things did not use to be so sophisticated a century ago.
Without a doubt at least, high taxes and health and wealth clearly coexist in many countries. In fact, outside of some tiny countries and also some countries with oil wealth, it's the only form in which wealthy countries exist in this world.
And at the state level in America, this pattern is even clearer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income
Except for Alaska (small population, vast natural resources), every state in the top 12 by income is liberal-leaning in its voting patterns.
Likewise, except for New Mexico, every state in the bottom 16 by income is conservative-leaning in its voting patterns.
I think the fact that steadily increasing tax rates over the decades before 1974 also coincided with high economic growth is a good point against libertarianism.
And the fact that tax rates have been quite high since the early 70s, and yet Sweden's share of the global economy has been basically constant, is also interesting. Libertarianism would suggest that should not happen, and yet it works just fine.
I think avoiding being clobbered by World Wars 1 & 2 was the most important thing :). Probably "neutrality" or "non-aggression" is a better word than "pacifist".
Good points about Sweden having a liberal economy other than high tax rates. I agree that has worked well for Sweden.
1. Sweden's economic growth relative to the rest of the world continued quite strongly for 40 years after the Social Democrats took power in 1932 and built a large welfare state.
2. In fact, the period with the strongest economic growth rate in absolute terms was 1950-1975, the period when laissez-faire was most clearly abandoned.
3. The libertarianism article doesn't once mention the absolutely crucial fact that Sweden did not participate in the two world wars. In fact, Sweden has been pacifist since the early 1800s. It really helps a lot when your country is not twice ravaged by major wars, and Sweden also makes a habit of investing more in its people.
4. The fact that Sweden and several other countries can sustain a rich economy with healthy and happy people, at the same time as it has high taxes, is itself a death knell for the claim that libertarianism is always and forever the best ideology. If something drastically different from libertarianism is most strongly associated with wealth & health, then libertarianism clearly isn't necessary.
The libertarianism article is not without merit (some kinds of trade liberalizaton and other liberal reforms were obviously a great idea in retrospect), but like most articles written by proponents of an ideology, it fails to acknowledge other important pieces of the puzzle.