wavepruner

What was the chant?

There's way more mail during the holidays than what would be generated by a national mail-in election.

So it is not unprecedented.

Incorrect. I cannot do these jobs. I would quickly lose my ability to walk and use my hands. And no one hires someone who randomly needs to take weeks off and can only work 5-10 hours a week when they can work at all.

Not sure why you think you know what my limitations are. Or where you get the idea that employers actually hire disabled people. Look at the unemployment rate for disabled people.

I'm an on-and-off Uber driver. It's a great gig to supplement my income. As someone who has many limitations from a disability, it's almost impossible to find a job that classifies me as an employee. I just don't get hired. And I need to take a break when I need to take a break. I can't have someone dictating my hours for me.

In my city, which fortunately is not in California, being classified as an Uber employee would destroy my 10-20 hour weeks at $20-$30/hour. The key is to work during busy times and for $30+/hour you generally have to be entertaining to get tips (which I have tons of fun doing). If you work during slow times, then it's $10/hour or less.

Busy times are too nuanced for a manager to determine when the best time to work is.

And I don't want to subsidize other drivers with my hard work because they don't want to do the market research to know when to drive.

Maybe Uber can keep all the incentives the same (like surge) and classify drivers as employees, but I doubt it.

Where did I say: "people in power abuse said power and never face consequences" or "Hilary Clinton operated a pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizza place"? It is very misleading to use quotes like I said anything along those lines.

People in power face consequences all the time. I never denied that. It just takes a long time for a reckoning to happen. Often decades, or lifetimes.

And I doubt QAnon conspiracy theory is as simple as "Hillary Clinton operated a pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizza place".

You are oversimplifying my point, turning it into a false dichotomy, and assuming the QAnon conspiracy theory is only the idea that Hillary Clinton operated a pedophile ring. My point was that depressed losers aren't the only people open to controversial theories about people in power.

I don't know many details about QAnon, and I don't care much to research it and come to an understanding myself. I have much more important things to spend my time on. But I do know from random posts I've encountered by QAnon people is that there is a wide range of beliefs regarding who is involved and to what extent. Actually, I haven't seen anyone accuse Hillary Clinton of involvement in a few years now.

There seems to be a growing consensus that child sex rings exist, corruption is involved, and something needs to be done about it. But it also gets blown out of proportion by less careful minded people. Isn't Jeffrey Epstein and "pedo island" considered to be part of QAnon? Isn't Epstein's involved with child sex trafficking generally accepted as true now?

I'm prone to consider "conspiracy theories" because something terrible happened to me that is adamantly denied by those in power.

The terrible thing that happened to me does not feel like "secret knowledge" or a "conspiracy theory" at all. It is very real and the consequences I deal with are relevant to every minute of every day of my life.

I don't feel depressed. My life is fulfilling and I find a tremendous amount of meaning in the work I do. I know many others who are prone to considering "conspiracy theories" who are the same.

One big issue that gets lost in the discussion is how many of these treatments are reasonably safe for perfectly healthy people, and it's the people with risk factors who need to be concerned. That's why informed consent and choice are so important.

Maybe Vioxx was fine for most, and the decrease in digestive symptoms made it the ideal medication for many. Maybe doctors could have withheld prescriptions for people at risk of heart attack. Maybe a big warning could have been placed on every bottle so patients could decide for themselves. But instead it blew up into a drama-fest because one side has to be 100% correct and the other crazy or fraudsters.

If this either/or dynamic was addressed we could come close to having our cake and eating it too.

But instead everyone is shoe horned into limited studies, and those less-than-healthy people on the fringes are demonized and ostracized as luddites destroying human civilization. Except every once in a while when big pharma gets the blame for pushing safety risks too far.

Posting this now before finishing the article to be an early poster. (see edit below for my comments after finishing the article)

The article refers to missteps and errors doctors have made concerning vaccinations. One misstep/error that is concerning to me is the use of thimerosal as a preservative/adjuvant.

Around 1999, the FDA began to pressure manufacturers to remove thimerosal from all childhood vaccines due to safety concerns. The following link is a great summary why that presents pro/con perspectives. Thimerosal is no longer used in childhood vaccines, and has been largely replaced by aluminum-based adjuvants. https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/thimer...

In 2004, FDA official William Egan stated that no clinical trial had been done to evaluate the safety of thimerosal, a preservative/adjuvant that was commonly used in vaccinations. Except for a poorly run 1930 study. See the following link for the testimony. It's from an anti-vax youtube channel, but the testimony is real and uncut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBRwOohhHuA

A few years ago, after about 15 years of studying biochemistry and personal experimentation (including obtaining an environmental engineering degree), I identified the root cause of my crippling illness that took away my ability to walk. Chronic mercury toxicity. Thimerosal contains mercury. Maybe I got the mercury somewhere else, but I have no other known exposures. Never ate much fish, and my symptoms started long before I ever ate any.

I have reversed the course of my illness using a medication that specifically binds to mercury and facilitates easier excretion from the body. I've been using this therapy for 3 years now with consistent improvement. If it was a placebo effect it would not produce consistent results for such a long period of time.

For those curious, the medication I'm using is emeramide. It is currently going through the FDA approval process for the treatment of mercury toxicity, and looks like it will be approved within 10 years.

Edit:

After finishing the article I'd like to address two points:

(1) I see that the author discussed the FDA's removal of thimerosal. They point out how experts "talked out of both sides of their mouths", claiming thimerosal was safe, but insisted it be removed as expeditiously as possible. Toxicity is very very complex science. During my 4 years as an environmental engineer I noticed a huge amount of politicking around toxicity issues because it's so hard to prove if some compound is safe or not. My interpretation of the expert's behavior regarding thimerosal is that they became so uncomfortable with the unproven safety profile of the compound that they pushed for it's removal, while simultaneously saying it was fine in order to cover their asses. It's career suicide to admit you supported the use of a compound all the while insisting it was safe, only to flip-flop and say it was dangerous all along. So the experts do the right thing, banning the compound, while covering their asses. I saw this phenomenon over and over while working in pollution remediation.

(2) The author spends considerable time discrediting Wakefield's MMR study. MMR never contained thimerosal, so discussion of that study with respect to thimerosal's safety is not applicable. Also, Wakefield's study was ONE study, and it's so strange how the pro-vax movement keeps talking about how terrible it was like it is still relevant. There have been hundreds if not thousands of other studies much more worthy of discussion. The healthcare industry has published numerous fraudulent studies from all sorts of perspectives. It's not a phenomenon only associated with people who question vaccine safety. See Merck's fraudulent study demonstrating Vioxx's safety. They just removed 3 participants so the numbers looked good.

Simple mathematical models are not appropriate for a situation as nuanced and multivariate as this one.

Case count will oscillate up and down as restriction levels and individual comfort levels oscillate. As we approach herd immunity, the oscillations will dampen while following a downtrend.

The cases/day downtrend is still very much intact, and while it could reverse, it is premature to be concerned.

Average new cases per day has dropped from about 1200/day in late June to less than 300/day now. There's a slight uptick over the past week.

https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr...

Downtrend in average deaths per day continues, currently at 6/day.

https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr...

Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_recovery_ventilation

IPO calendar for NYSE: https://www.nyse.com/ipo-center/filings

IPO calendar for NASDAQ: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/ipos

Market Watch's IPO calendar: https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/ipo-calendar

Anyone know if CBOE publishes an IPO calendar?

I've seen about 50 doctors. I have extensive first hand experience, and what you're saying is not common at all. This is in the USA, although I have many European friends with similar experiences. Universal health care doesn't cover anything but the most basic (read: ineffective) treatments.

Are you sick? Because millions of sick people disagree with you. You can't read about our experience in a book and tell us how things actually work. You have to live it.

And if you work in healthcare, well, you only see the sick people who have the time and financial resources to navigate your tyrannical bureaucracy. And you won't see any sick people with an illness you don't understand, because we learn to stop wasting our time and money with you quickly.

"Doctors do this all the time—they get patients into drug trials, order in drugs from the medical systems of other countries, acquire new-old stock batches of drugs no longer produced, etc."

Maybe a small small percentage of doctors. Finding them and affording them is not something most sick people can do.

It's not your place to decide whether Sean was "taken in" by charlatans. It's Sean's. And there is not one quote in the entire article from him. And that he didn't want to see his girlfriend while dying does not give me confidence that she is someone who really speaks for him.

This article and Hacker News thread is largely comprised of healthy people trying to control what sick people think, feel, and say. And on top of that, you're trying to censor their discussions using government-backed violence. That is the conclusion of this article and many of the comments in this thread. I am sick and I fight against these authoritarian policies every day to get the information and medicine I need. I live in excruciating pain every minute of every day and then I have to argue with a bunch of clueless healthy people about what I can and cannot do with my own body.

You are at the very least advocating for others to attack me. Using government backed violence to prevent me from accessing the information or medicine I want _is_ an attack.

If the medical industry is so correct, then why aren't they curing people?

Why is the work of biochemists ignored in the health care industry? (in many ways they understand the human body better than doctors do)

Why do I have 1000's of people I've connected with online who have successfully treated/cured their illness? Do you think we're just making this all up for attention? Because the attention we get is far from positive. We are excluded by civil society. We only survive by hiding what we really think. The purpose of this hacker news account is to build up karma and then burn it in order to say these things. I can't just say them without paying a cost.

I'm sorry you lost your friend. It sounds like that was a long battle and it has weighed on you ever since. I am glad you were there to support them. I know from personal experience how obnoxious it can be to be bombarded with this-and-that alternative therapy.

But this lack of progress is what I find so frustrating, along with the hostility towards anyone who is trying to change that. Many sick people are willing to take a risk to progress the science. The insistence on 100% safety and unpractical clinical trials that only allow for patent-able medicines is ultimately killing more people by stalling progress. We haven't really cured a major disease in over half a century. That needs to change.

If a sick person claims that some sort of alternative therapy cured them, then there is absolutely _something_ there. It cannot always be explained away by the placebo effect, as the placebo effect is temporary. You're not going to cure a chronic disease with the placebo effect. These are important data points that need to be discussed. And a sick person should be able to discuss it regardless of their credentials. Their first-hand experience is valuable and contains objective truth.

But I agree that to claim that since an alternative therapy cured one it must cure all is irresponsible. Often times we do not even know what the root cause of an illness is, and until you do, just because two people have the same symptoms does not mean they have the same disease. There's also the issue of co-morbid diseases. There is rarely a one-size-fits-all approach (and it's seriously unfortunate that modern medicine insists that one treatment must work for everyone, otherwise it's quackery).

Because the sick person clearly did not view these people as charlatans. It was their choice. Not yours.

You are taking one case where the patient chose to follow bad advice, and using it to suppress the voices of hundreds of thousands of sick people.

"The general public is not capable of determining what is good advice"

I strongly disagree. Making choices for other people is tyranny.

Edit:

If you're referring to the term "ableist" as in insult--it is not. It is a technical term that accurately describes the logical conclusion of many of the arguments being made in this thread.

"The general public is not capable of determining what is good advice" because "experts" is not an argument. It's a belief. If you want to have an intellectual argument you've got to form an argument that I can respond to.

I'm going to assume that you've never been in a situation where someone was offering you a course of treatment that had a chance of being 50% successful. Those are absolutely terrible odds. To act like it's the obvious choice is incredibly insulting to anyone who seeks alternatives. 50% is not "advanced". It's medieval.

Yes, there are quacks, but there is also cutting edge science that is not widely understood. You are blaming the people the victim chose to listen to, and therefore, you are blaming the victims choices, claiming that they were a "conspiracy theorist". You are blaming the victim.

To the numerous posts in this thread.

"If it becomes ableist to critique those who follow fake medical advice from the internet..."

This is ableist because it claims that sick people are incapable of determining what is good advice and what is bad advice.

edit: (I say all this as a sick person who was bed-bound for years. I was able to reverse the course of my illness after studying the work of biochemists that is considered "alternative")

The attitude in this thread is ableist.

Sick people are intelligent. Sick people are capable. Sick people can feel what is happening in their bodies. And they have a right to seek treatments they deem best.

Sick people often seek alternative therapies because doctors do not have any treatments to offer, or the treatments they do offer have devastating, profoundly life-altering side effects. Many of these sick people are going to die anyways. It is cruel to treat them like crazy conspiracy theorists because they choose to fight back in hopes of a cure.

When it gets to this point it makes sense to strike out on your own. Some have success. Others do not. But it's a battle that has to be fought unless you want to just give up and lose the life you had.

I really struggle to understand why healthy people are so hostile towards sick people who are just trying to survive. Yes, it's sad to watch sick people desperately seek for effective treatments. But just imagine how hard it is to be that sick person desperately searching for effective treatments while your peers treat you like you're crazy, and then simultaneously refuse to provide any reasonable alternatives.

If you don't need or even want a new house then what good does it do you or society to buy a new house? Consumption for the sake of consumption is not a good thing.

If you're buying houses solely as an investment then you get situations like Vancouver. How is that a good thing?

"This means that people with money have zero incentive to spend..."

Except for food, housing, healthcare, entertainment, and well, pretty much everything people spend money on. You can't be alive or enjoy that life without these things. People wouldn't refuse to spend their money and starve to death because then they wouldn't be around to use it.

"Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest, most straightforward, and the least innovative ones: voting in policymakers who craft empathetic public policy"

This gets extraordinarily complicated because many political groups refuse to empathize with anyone who doesn't have the same life experience as themselves.

Clothing, night-time, and shade all make their exposure far less than 24/7.

Also higher melanin skin blocks?/absorbs? radiation.

From the comment:

"For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they sure as hell aren't outright trying to hide exactly whats being sent like TikTok is. It's like comparing a cup of water to the ocean - they just don't compare."

You need more data to input besides just the price time-series. Successful human traders balance and synthesize a myriad of data sources to make decisions.

I depend on an in-depth understanding of human psychology as one of my data sources. You can't turn something like that into data and input to a model. It is something learned through life experience and study.

Standing outside in the sun all day everyday is absolutely deadly.

I wouldn't mind if they fixed the problem where my old profile picture keeps appearing in gmail and calendar. It's been changed for over a year now.

I've seen multiple videos now from the recent riots of people being beaten either to death, or near death.

I didn't see anything like that from the 2A protests.

Any good reading suggestions regarding the idea that global variables are harmful?