Tversky, Kahneman, Freud, the Unconscious, and T. Colin Campbell

What Kahneman and Tversky (The Undoing Project, Thinking Fast and Slow) have essentially done is to statistically prove the essence of Freud's work, which is that we are primarily creatures of instinct not reason. Freud basically was saying the renaissance message of self determination based on reasoning gives a partially (or mostly) wrong message. Instinctual (unconscious) processes are fooled by a great variety of things. But not always! They are essentially designed by the creator of biology (whoever/whatever that is) to keep us from being killed. And they continue to function on that level, so we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The unconscious runs the autonomic systems, it keep the heart beating. It causes us to leap out of the way of an oncoming bus...without ever having a conscious thought about it in that moment.

Instinctual responses are challenged greatly under post civilization conditions, but weren't so much in hunter gatherer conditions where they were wholly appropriate. It's how today we can know the cause of health and still be the sickest ever (The Pleasure Trap). It's how easily science can be corrupted with bias without the authors of that corruption even being consciously aware of it. It's why attitudes change so gradually. It's why truth is first ridiculed, then violently opposed, then finally accepted as self-evident.

Recognition that the unconscious is a real thing, that it actually does exist, means we cannot really even know in real time the exact forces driving our reactions, decisions, and behaviors. We can however be open to the idea that what we think we know may well be partly or wholly false. And then entertain a field of other probabilities. Knowing that we have an unconscious, and that it is responsible for much or most of what we think and do, can broaden our horizons and make us more effective.

The problem is we really have no reliable access to the unconscious. if we did there would be no unconscious, the fervent unconscious wish of us humans in general. We want omniscience! But the unconscious cannot be legislated out of existence. We keep thinking it can (and that itself is action based on unconscious impulses). The best we can do is to accept it, and remain open to revisions in our conscious ideas and world view.

The idea that Freud's work has been "overturned" is based on two things primarily: a misunderstanding or ignorance of what he was really getting at, or an unconscious wish to deny the significance of the fact we are "driven" mostly by instinct not reason.

BTW I'm reading Colin Campbell's latest (and likely last) book "The Future of Nutrition". It's a good read, still working on it, it may be his greatest work.

Tipping Point # 1,500,000 -- (This video has almost 1.5M views)

The world seems to be catching on. If there was only one thing I would want my dear family and friends to see it would be this. Incisive, clear, reasonably entertaining, hugely informative, Dr. Alan Goldhamer of the True North Health Center has added four decades of research to the body of peer reviewed evidence addressing the cause of health.

Nice term eh? "The cause of health". Way more relevant than "the cause of disease" don't you think?

Maybe? Well have a look at this and see if you agree. While you're at it bookmark it...there's a lot of information here.

https://youtu.be/yaWVflQolmM

Bleeping Anti-Vaccers!

 Some of my blog posts are spurred by email threads with friends. (Apologies to my friends:)

My friend said:

 "The real trick is to get the lower educated masses to get their shots.

I had lunch in a popular small town restaurant a week ago--wall to wall crowd, no masks."

To which I replied:

Ah, the pleasures of the small things, like dining out. Still, it's nice to find outdoor seating if possible.

I know some anti vaccers, they are all health nuts, health vegans and xtreme paleos. Another huge group of anti-vaccers is moms. And I have a friend, a nurse practitioner of some 5 decades experience, who avers almost 50% of health care practitioners did not want the vacc. I wouldn't say any of these folks are uneducated.

Do the uneducated follow the news less avidly? Can't say I know, but if not it would still be difficult to ignore this time. I wouldn't say I'm uneducated exactly, but I have always ignored the yearly vacc campaigns, this is the first vacc I've had in four plus decades.

Why are some of the health nuts against vacc? Because they are against putting anything in their bodies that isn't food. Health nuts don't consider fractured substances (junk food etc) food, they are toxins. All drugs are toxic. All vacc is toxic. Anything but quality whole foods is toxic. What defines quality? Doug Graham says it's 5 things: whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic, not in any particular order. When shopping look for the highest sum of these 5 qualities

The reason the US had the worst covid rates in the world isn't because we mismanaged the pandemic. It's because our population is the sickest in the developed world (and most of the rest of the world too). 

Managing a pandemic is mostly a myth propagated by China and big pharma in the west. There are common sense things that can and should be done, we know what they are, it's not complicated. But how do you stop a tidal wave in its tracks? The answer is you don't. You channel protective resources to the vulnerable populations. You don't lock down an entire population, that's just dumb.

There are many many many virologists and epidemiologists who are saying this lock down will prove to be the biggest public health policy error ever. There are already many signs of that, if these public health scientists are correct, there are more to come.

Most of how this pandemic was handled by governments would not have been possible without censorship. There has never been this level of censorship in the US. Not even close. Meanwhile, FOX, CNN, MSNBC and other major media outlets are all politicised to the point of absurdity. I don't know how people watch this stuff. Maybe they are addicted to the big pharma commercials? Hoping to find the new magic pill to cure what ails?

Meanwhile the ratio of pharmacology to health, individually and collectively, is negative. WAAY negative. There is zero proof in this puddin. Did you know the US is the only country in the world that allows direct to consumer pharmacology advertising?

As corrupt as the big banks were prior to the crash of 2008, it pales in comparison to the corruption of Big P. The public gets fuxxed over and over, and where's our government? In the pocket of Wall St, which BTW makes a killing (literally and figuratively) on (and with) Big P.

Hey let's all move to Sweden, 10 million people in the landmass of California (which has 40 million). Think we'll all fit?

Covid: Why most of what you know is wrong

 A brilliant ER doc Sebastian Rushworth from Sweden has written a book that explains in clear terms how we've been buried alive under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here's a link to the book

Covid: Why most of what you know is wrong

And here he's interviewed by a complex problem engineer from Ireland who's been tracking global data on the pandemic from the beginning.

https://youtu.be/mjskQpcy7Zg

The efficacy of Ivermectin - Hospitals ordered by the court to use it

This is quite interesting. The science on Ivermectin in treatment of advanced cases of Covid-19 are overwhelmingly positive, from all over the world. US MDs have been prescribing it for their patients as an off label drug, which is not uncommon, but hospitals are refusing to do so. This attorney has gone to court four times to obtain orders for the hospitals to comply, they all have eventually, and patients are cured.

The evidence on the efficacy of Ivermectin is piling up around the world. Why aren't hospitals obeying the attending physician's orders?

Is Herd Immunity Closer Than We Think?

 I came across an interesting article of the title of this post that I think is of interest regarding the pandemic. Here's the link:

Is Herd Immunity Closer Than We Think?

One thing from the article that caught my eye: "Even one shot conveys broad immunity — a recent CDC study showed that one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine was 80% effective in preventing infections two weeks after the first dose."

I also check the CDC website from time to time for the latest data regarding status of the pandemic. I was surprised and happy to see the CDC data shows the all cause mortality rate well below seasonal averages. The series of red plus marks are the pandemic, orange line is the seasonal average all cause mortality rate. Here's the current graphic as of the date of this post (click for larger):

It begs the question: why do we not see this reported in the media? OK sure bad news sells. But media reports good news occasionally, the end of wars for example. Why not the end of the worst pandemic of our lifetime?

Philosopher Matthew B. Crawford: Science has become corrupted

This is an excellent exposition on how science has been corrupted. This isn't new, we've first heard "god is dead, science is the new religion" for at least two decades, taking science from a questioning and discovery mode open to public debate, to a mode of moral authority that cannot be publicly questioned.

Previously it has been corrupted in the developed west mostly to produce outsized revenues, but has more recently taken another turn into a darker woods of social control.

https://youtu.be/2oro0ttU2_A

Conveniently, a perfect illustration of how science is distorted in such a way to produce fear showed up recently in the presentation of the second pandemic wave in India we've seen in the news. The case and mortality rate are reported in absolute numbers as opposed to "per million people", which of course is the relevant statistic. So how does the second wave look on a percent of population basis?

https://youtu.be/vg4aUqjH4N4