Crystals - placebo effect can be a thing, and if they provide a sense of relief that’s a good thing. As long as they still take their actual medicne and don’t think putting a herring in a sock will cure cancer.
Cables - While there’s obviously a cut-off point. As an IT guy I have fixed a not-insignificant number of issues with sound/display/network quality/dropouts by replacing crap/damaged cables with slightly more expensive ones. Just don’t expect them to turn. a 360p stream into 4k
Yeah, but people are continually scammed out of their life savings for snake oil that promises to do the impossible. If your making 100k and spend $30 a month on some bottle of homeopathic nonsense and placebo yourself out of a headache, that’s fine I guess.
But the person who sold that to you is also getting hundreds of dollars a month from people making barely more than that by selling tic tacs or whatever at a several thousand percent markup, promising false hope to the vulnerable at the mere cost of everything they own.
Bit of a sore spot for me I guess, just because of who I know. What you say is technically true - a bit of extra placebo might be fine, but so many fall really hard for them, and the “innocent” use helps by middle+ class people who can afford it helps legitimize it, making it easier to prey on those who can’t.
On the crystal bit: honestly, alternative medicine stuff, as bogus as it may or may not be, can be fine and even sometimes helpful if it doesn’t replace any of the actual medicine. Not only are placebos pretty dandy, some alternative medicine things actually help with treatment adhesion sometimes, because it can make the patient feel empowered in their health outcomes more than the usual spiel of “keep hydrated”/“eat well”/“sleep well”/“exercise” and in turn, can help people actually do these things, because they feel that they can actually impact their health with things they do.
Now, does this good outweigh the risk of them dropping the actual treatment over the alternative medicine stuff? I don’t know, I’m not a researcher in this area, but I feel like not everything we do had to make sense you know? If something feels good and there’s no harm in doing it, go ahead and knock yourself out, we are after all, sentient meat, and that comes with quirks.
It creates an environment for scammers and charlatans to thrive. They grow and become more powerful and exploit more people. And the behavior becomes more common and more accepted as “that’s just how it is” or “their own fault, lol idiots…”
It’s just not worth it. A patient can tell themselves a white lie if they want, but it should be illegal for ANYONE, doctor or not to sell unproven medicine, and we need to crack down on the “not intended to treat or cure any illness” loophole.
Devil’s advocate:
Crystals - placebo effect can be a thing, and if they provide a sense of relief that’s a good thing. As long as they still take their actual medicne and don’t think putting a herring in a sock will cure cancer.
Cables - While there’s obviously a cut-off point. As an IT guy I have fixed a not-insignificant number of issues with sound/display/network quality/dropouts by replacing crap/damaged cables with slightly more expensive ones. Just don’t expect them to turn. a 360p stream into 4k
Yeah, but people are continually scammed out of their life savings for snake oil that promises to do the impossible. If your making 100k and spend $30 a month on some bottle of homeopathic nonsense and placebo yourself out of a headache, that’s fine I guess.
But the person who sold that to you is also getting hundreds of dollars a month from people making barely more than that by selling tic tacs or whatever at a several thousand percent markup, promising false hope to the vulnerable at the mere cost of everything they own.
Bit of a sore spot for me I guess, just because of who I know. What you say is technically true - a bit of extra placebo might be fine, but so many fall really hard for them, and the “innocent” use helps by middle+ class people who can afford it helps legitimize it, making it easier to prey on those who can’t.
On the crystal bit: honestly, alternative medicine stuff, as bogus as it may or may not be, can be fine and even sometimes helpful if it doesn’t replace any of the actual medicine. Not only are placebos pretty dandy, some alternative medicine things actually help with treatment adhesion sometimes, because it can make the patient feel empowered in their health outcomes more than the usual spiel of “keep hydrated”/“eat well”/“sleep well”/“exercise” and in turn, can help people actually do these things, because they feel that they can actually impact their health with things they do.
Now, does this good outweigh the risk of them dropping the actual treatment over the alternative medicine stuff? I don’t know, I’m not a researcher in this area, but I feel like not everything we do had to make sense you know? If something feels good and there’s no harm in doing it, go ahead and knock yourself out, we are after all, sentient meat, and that comes with quirks.
I would agree except:
It creates an environment for scammers and charlatans to thrive. They grow and become more powerful and exploit more people. And the behavior becomes more common and more accepted as “that’s just how it is” or “their own fault, lol idiots…”
It’s just not worth it. A patient can tell themselves a white lie if they want, but it should be illegal for ANYONE, doctor or not to sell unproven medicine, and we need to crack down on the “not intended to treat or cure any illness” loophole.