A World Of Lies (Is One Result)

Steve Jobs' Baby Mama, Chrisann Brennan, the folks at the SF Opera, and the SFGate, all want us to think Steve Jobs' "greatest personal mistake" was denying his daughter - not being yet another of the Bay Area's NewAge fanatics, who *accidently* killed himself using alternative medicines.

This, even though - after sitting at Jobs' death bed - his biographer said, “He [treated his treatable cancer] with diet. He goes to spiritualists. He goes to various ways of doing it macrobiotically and he doesn’t get an operation. I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don’t want something to exist, you can have magical thinking. We talked about this a lot.”

And grown men - working in high tech - going to spiritualists, was Carl Sagan's nightmare.

 

Society Promotes Everything Negative About The NewAge Experience (So These Intelligent Guys Are Only Seen Long After Your Life Has Already Been Destroyed)

I couldn't find this guy, anywhere, for the entire 20 years I was married to a NewAge loon. He was never on Oprah, or PBS, or any of the so-called "news" programs. Nobody reads him, worships him, or has ever mentioned his name. None of my friends know of him (as they know all the con artists). And he only shows up decades after I'm divorced - and, so, is of no help to me what-so-ever.

Just like everyone else.

 

Hindsight Is 20/20 (And It Will Be Even More-So When We're Studying 2020)

 

I've cued-up this video from 2015, so you can see and hear Neal de Grasse Tyson A) appearing on this antivaxxer's show like Bill Maher's not totally anti-science B) wishing we had "a businessperson" (like Donald Trump) running things C) getting a applause from Maher's morons - for being a scientist (just because Tyson and Maher are faced with a climate skeptic) and D) treating a climate "consensus" like the Gold Standard of Science after this:

I'm Starting To Feel My Power - Just As Predicted - So All The Psychics Must Die

It's a bit unnerving how people like, and - at the very least - accept madness, in certain contexts, but not others. For instance, a YUUUUUGE problem seen with President Trump, for many people on the Left, is how he mixes fantasy and reality. But, when they enter the NewAge context, not only has it always been status quo on the Left to mix fantasy and reality, but it's protected and expected:

A factchecker goes to psychic school: can you predict what happens next? For six months I attempted to temper my skepticism and tap into my ‘goddess roots’, where fantasy and reality are interchangeable

So, which do you think came first, in America: the Left making fantasy and reality interchangeable - or Trump? And, doesn't that mean lying was already baked-in there, too? And isn't the Left helping the con artists openly conduct their crimes - on almost every street corner across the country - as the Left hated about Trump? 

Oh boy. I think, at this point, if anyone can see the future, I can - and it's not pretty.

Those Editorial Meetings When I Was Glad There Was No Seat Available For Me

"Events are turning me into a radical skeptic. I no longer believe what I read,...The fact is that almost the entirety of what one reads in the paper or on the web is speculation. The writer isn't telling you what happened, he is offering an interpretation of what happened, or offering a projection of the future...the interpretations of current events, and prophesies of future ones, are merely the products of groupthink or dogma or emotions or wish-casting,...There was a time when newspapers printed astrology columns. They no longer need to. The pseudoscience is on the front page."

Well, it's so nice not to be alone, at last.

Now how do we get out of it?

More Rye Observations (From The Blog With No Bread)

Rock, rock, the planet - ROCK - Get It? No? Really? 

This morning, the first private email in TMR's box was a joy, and it contained a warning for others - listen to TMR:

"For what it's worth: I really appreciate your commentary. I also remember your history. 

Back in the Day (around 08 or so), you gave two very good pieces of advice, one of which I followed, the other of which I didn't (to my detriment):

1.) Watch out for urban kebab places: I did that. What you said about how dirty they could be was totally correct. I found decent family restaurants, which were couscouses that served kebabs; never a standup kebab place. 

2.) Beware of New Age. Now, back in the US, I'm dealing with medical issues due to "homeopathic" quack treatment that I took in France, because I was in pain, and it was August. (Oy.) 

I wish the best to you. Wish I could support you better.”

TMR is now an Afro-desiac to whites on race

Not much to add to that (TMR wrote back privately) except - to understand quackery AND to build up the proper level of skepticism - readers should check out: 

He's white, and English, with a German name - Maybe Crack's right!

Dr. Edzard Ernst. For instance, his topic today is "Another dodgy study of homeopathy," which is how the English talk - the shit's "dodgy" - which makes it sound kind of cool. But it's not. 

Life is filled with things that "sound kind of cool" but it's not.

Remember "The Artful Dodger"? (Not remember, remember, but remember?) It's like that. But bad art. Really, really badd. 



If a man owns a pocket comb he's probably a Republican - Good to know!

 Another great resource is Penn Jillette's (?) "What's The Harm?"  There readers can get a glimpse at the worst - before it happens - and head trouble off at the pass. 

Here to help - 100%

As far as "support" goes, it's not all about money. Write - let TMR know it did you some good - which does TMR good:

Some will only be impressed, by displays of originality, over time

There was a time when very few thought The Macho Response would ever be seen as correct, on anything, because - they said - the topics being taken on, like NewAge, were "too big."

This was the very first time TMR was glad to see Dr. Oz on television

That hurt - a lot - right up until the tide started turning. But it did.

Yeah, you heard me - You're the white one.

So now the topic is race - specifically the white one.

Whoa - this blog's about problems arising from cultish thinking - Wait a minute!

IT'S JUST TOO FUCKING BIG!!!!

"Too fucking big" leads, naturally, to a picture of Dirk Diggler - that's all you get about art - Think

So check it, shout to someone there's a blog they can trust, whether they'll like the style (or positions taken) or not. That alone *might* bring TMR something more, some day. You never know.

You don't have a country unless somebody's got your back

Right now - at this very moment - just hearing of someone else's actual benefit (yes, even a white person's) is more-than-enough to keep going,...

Right Again: Kevin Trudeau Locked Away For Ten Years

COOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!:

  “They” sentenced infomercial huckster Kevin Trudeau to a decade in prison 

Yes! "We" skeptics have been trying to bust that prick for years. 

This deserves a celebration - I'm off to the liquor store,…

 

The Unpersuadables Is A Cock-Up NewAge Investigation

These are three pictures of the author.

Having had a bit of experience with the NewAge offshoots, pro and con, that are covered in Will Storr's new book, The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, I grew rather frustrated reading it's reviews. That's because Storr seems to have reached the conclusion that, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em - just don't believe what they say - and that, my fellow bugaboos, will not do. Why not? Since I don't want to recount my own tale again, I'll let Mark Henderson of The Observer explain:

 It is the very quality of these chapters,...that makes Storr's book disappointing and infuriating. For having shown he can achieve the kind of sceptical distance that makes Jon Ronson and Louis Theroux such effective chroniclers of weirdness, he casts it aside in an indulgence of wishful thinking. It is not enough for Storr to consider why people believe weird things; he also wants to challenge whether these things really are weird. He seems to accept, deep down, that they are, but he doesn't want to admit this. He is like the child who still wants to believe in Father Christmas, but who is just old enough to know better. Life would be more magical, more fun, if the story were true.

So it is that homeopaths are given a more sympathetic hearing than sceptics, with no discussion of the harm that unscientific medicine can do: Storr's storytelling does not extend to children like Neon Roberts, denied timely radiotherapy for his brain tumour as his mother sought an "alternative"... 

Someone Storr didn't interview.

That's it, right there, and anyone knowledgeable knows it - people die behind indulging these beliefs. Usually other people - not the "happy" ones Storr was searching out. They've already "moved on" to the next sucker. This is something Storr never considers (nor do most others) as he assumes his position as NewAge's latest entry in the cheerleading line-up. 

A mind so open his brains fell out.

Storr wrote the book he wanted, no doubt, but, if you ask me, from the very beginning, he was asking the wrong questions to all the wrong people, and, thus, getting all the wrong answers. 

Accept them as they are.

And, if that's the case, how could anyone expect otherwise?

Beliefs Have Rooms Full Of Strangers Accepting Crazy

But then a few skeptics stop by,...

Look Around: Would You Believe What ANYONE Says?

"The reason Canada is breaking out with brand new gun violence has nothing to do with the United States and guns. It has everything to do with a culture that is morally bankrupt. What kind of culture is that? It's called hip-hop."

"How Music Executives Created 'Black' Hip Hop For White Suburban Kids"

"I don’t mind being 'that' visitor who hijacks the tours with corrective interpretation. I am that brown face that may give guides pause when they launch into a selective version of history."

"Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.

Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment — an attitude that has never again left me, even though, later on, it has been tempered by a better insight into the causal connections. "

A Better Explanation (Than TMR Went To The Dark Side)

Why Creative People Sometimes Make No Sense

 

"Most creative people combine both playfulness and productivity, which can sometimes mean both responsibility and irresponsibility,…usually this perseverance occurs at the expense of other responsibilities, or other people.”

"Most creative people alternate fluently between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of reality. In both art and science, movement forward involves a leap of imagination, a leap into a world that is different from our present. Interestingly, this visionary imagination works in conjunction with a hyperawareness of reality. Attention to real details allows a creative person to imagine ways to improve them.”

 

"Most creative people are both rebellious and conservative.”

"Most creative people’s openness and sensitivity exposes them to a large amount of suffering and pain, but joy and life in the midst of that suffering.”

Red, White & Blues: The Flaws Within A Perfect System

 "The fact remains that 'shooting the messenger may be a time-honored emotional response to unwelcome news, but it is not a very effective method of remaining well-informed.'"

Facts Society Ignores (In Order To Run Things Wrong)

"The last stage in the career of a believer has been reached when hardly anything that he or she is convinced of resembles reality any longer,...

...The final stage on the journey from ‘sceptic scientist’ to delusional disciple is characterised by an incessant stream of incoherent statements of vile nonsense that beggars belief. It is therefore easy to recognise and, because nobody can possibly take the delusionists seriously, they are best viewed as relatively harmless contributors to medical comedy,...

Many homeopathy-fans are quasi-religious believers who, in my experience, have degressed way beyond reason. It is therefore a complete waste of time trying to reason with them. Initiated by a highly emotional epiphany, their faith cannot be shaken by rational arguments. Similar but usually less pronounced attitudes, I am afraid, can be observed in true believers of other alternative treatments as well (here I have chosen the example of homeopathy mainly because it is the area where things are most explicit).

True believers claim to have started out as sceptics and they often insist to be driven by a scientific mind. Yet I have never seen any evidence for these assumptions. On the contrary, for a relatively trivial episode to become a life-changing epiphany, the believer’s mind needs to be lamentably unscientific, unquestioning and simple.

In my experience, true believers will not change their mind; I have never seen this happening."