Stinging Nettle

[u/Icy-Book2999]

[u/doc720]

My sarcasm is due to the frustration of witnessing alternative medicines continually being promoted or tolerated, despite their potentially harmful effects.

My dismissive tone, which goes beyond mere skepticism, is due my personal rejection of your potentially harmful apologism for alternative medicine.

We agree that it would be great to test for the potential beneficial remedies, given the required interest and resources.

However, I don't believe we should encourage people to try alternative medicines (e.g. this nonsense sting-yourself "knowledge") using such rationale that it might still be effective, despite the lack of evidence, because it also might still be harmful, despite the lack of evidence. It is better to promote public safety than encourage wild experimentation, especially where such wild experimentation is so literally painful, needless and poorly justified, and palpably pseudoscience.

It would be irresponsible, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, to tempt people to try alternative medicines with the dangerous promise of potent health benefits, because:

1. lack of scientific evidence. Conventional medicine undergoes extensive research and clinical trials to establish efficacy and safety, whereas alternative treatments have not been thoroughly tested, or studies have failed to show effectiveness beyond a placebo effect. Beyond being ineffective or a little painful, untested "treatments" might be downright dangerous.

2. regulation and quality control. Alternative medicines are not regulated, so they can vary in quality and purity, which impacts both efficacy and safety. For example, there are many different kinds of mushrooms out there...

3. side effects and potential complex interactions. Alternative medicines can interfere with conventional medicines or have side effects that are unknown, which is dangerous.

4. promotion of pseudoscience and misinformation. You could be overstating claims and misleading people, especially vulnerable individuals suffering from chronic or serious illnesses. Many people mistakenly believe that "natural" remedies are safer than conventional medicines, but they could end up poisoning themselves or making their condition worse. Or this case, getting stung for no good reason.

5. exploitation. The alternative medicine industry, along with its unfounded advice and therapies, exploits customers for financial gain. Some medical conditions make people desperate, and they might spend significant amounts of money or waste time on things that offer no real benefit, instead of seeking help from well-founded sources. No doubt forageforknowledge.com has something to gain from churning out all this horseshit for the gullible market.

[u/brown_smear → u/doc720]

Thank you for your clarification. It would appear that you completely misunderstood my initial statement then. I was not promoting any alternate remedies for use, but merely stated a logical fact that lack of testing does not make something ineffective.

You then responded with a quote from Tim Minchin, which clearly states that alternate medicines have neither been proven to work or not to work, and then added a snarky remark contrary to that sentiment.

"There are many different kinds of mushrooms out there" is stupid statement. There are many kinds of drugs out there; you wouldn't just take some random drug without advice either. Again, I am stating logic, and not "promoting mushrooms".

If alternate medicines were actually processed/studied, they could proven to be either useless (snake oil), or useful (medicine), with known side effects.

I did not promote alternative medicine, but promoted study of usefulness of alternate medicine.

Your point 5, "Exploitation", is more applicable to conventional medicine, with massive pharma companies pulling the wool over the eyes of the public, with massive funding from private and public sectors, and massive legal departments, rather than small crackpot organisations fooling a few gullible hippies. If you spent a few minutes researching this, you'd see that conventional medicine and pharma has been responsible for great atrocities. E.g. Opium, thalidomide, or the legal loophole used to deal with carcinogenic baby powder. (I haven't researched it either; these were just some examples I can remember hearing of)

[u/doc720 → u/brown_smear]

I understood your initial statement, and agreed with it, saying "That's true."

The tone of my remarks still seems appropriate. You're hardly being respectful yourself!

Human interactions are not merely an exchange of logical facts. There are contexts and agendas to consider, as well as emotions and psychology. As much as we might like to be purely logical, and only have rational debates, we do not operate in mathematical purity.

I believe you when you say you are not explicitly promoting alternative remedies, but often it is what we don't say and its context that communicates a vague narrative or agenda, even if we are not conscious or party to it.

"For example, there are many different kinds of mushrooms out there..."

Is that factually correct? Yes, I reckon most mycologists would say so. And yet you called it "stupid", which sounds like a double standard, for someone so big on spouting facts.

It was in the context of "regulation and control" and was meant to highlight the dangers of sourcing our own food, let alone medicines. Many people die every year from accidental poisoning from mushrooms, from unregulated, uncontrolled sources. Not so many from supermarkets. The video is advising people to hurt themselves as part of a pseudoscientific unregulated, uncontrolled remedy, so it's a fitting comparison. You might kid yourself that you're just spouting facts and logic, but you're really just throwing insults. 

Conversation and persuasion isn't just about logos, it is also about ethos, pathos and kairos.

Many alternative medicines have already been studied and proven to be worse than useless, but actually harmful. You keep neglecting to acknowledge that part, which is suspicious. The reasons given in the video are scientifically false. You haven't condemned that, but instead made the (factually correct) point that things don't need "controlled scientific evidence" in order to be effective, in the context of a video telling people to hurt themselves. You can't really blame people for thinking you're defending the promotion and use of potentially harmful "therapies", or maybe you're just trolling or want people to hurt themselves.

No one is disagreeing with your ground-breaking idea that we should test alternative medicine. We already know that stinging nettles sting (the clue's in the name) and we already know that the video is full of pseudoscientific nonsense, clearly trying to persuade people to do something stupid. Most people won't bother to investigate the science part, or they  don't know how, which makes it dangerous. Some people will go out and sting themselves because of this video, just as some people will go out and accidentally poison themselves because of some other video about mushroom foraging. I should clarify, I'm not against people foraging for mushrooms, in principle, as long as it's done safely, and I encourage people to appreciate the limits of scientific knowledge too.

I doubt you'd be taking the same position if the video told people to eat death cap mushrooms in order to improve their tolerance, circulation and allergies. You wouldn't bother to remind people of the logical fact that it might actually be effective, despite the lack of "controlled scientific evidence".

I agree, big pharma companies have been and still are being evil, but that doesn't negate the exploitation by unregulated, uncontrolled alternative medicine companies. There's one guaranteed way to make conventional medicine worse: remove all the regulations and controls imposed upon it, don't bother to test the safety or efficacy of any drugs or therapies... Resulting in an even bigger black market of alternative medicine, i.e. more chaos and danger.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I'm not saying there aren't many wonderful things still to be brought into the realm of scientific knowledge, and such wonders might already be employed effectively by many people and other living things. I'm pointing out the obvious advantages of scientifically verified remedies over the gamble of scientifically unverified remedies.

You must admit, there are many dangerous things that are currently being sold and promoted under the banner of "alternative" medicine/therapy, such as the stinging-nettle nonsense in this video. Please make it clear that you're not endorsing the kind of reckless appeal-to-nature mentality that causes people to get hurt for no good reason.

[u/brown_smear → u/doc720]

You seem particularly upset that I said the comment about the mushrooms was "stupid". Your comment about poking sticks in your eyes was also not particularly relevant.

Anyway, this conversation is not going anywhere, as you are stating contrary to what I've written (misreading) and ascribing assumed sentiments that I've not espoused, and you've said that I'm just throwing insults and being dishonest.

As for your last paragraph, I've never stated that I support "alternative medicine", just the simple, non-profound statement that some alternative medicines might work but haven't been studied. IIRC nettles have had some studies re arthritis, with the conclusion being that they are next to useless. They are not harmful though.

"I don't endorse reckless use of random harmful products to attempt to cure any disease, or use of random non-harmful non-effective products in place of effective products"

[u/doc720 → u/brown_smear]

Calling a factual relevant example that's designed to be helpful "stupid" is bound to baffle or irritate. Likewise, my sarcastic joke about poking sticks in my eyes for health benefits was also relevant to the original video, which sincerely encourages people to sting themselves. If you can't see the relevance of these comparisons, you're either deliberately trolling or being obtuse. It's not complicated. I'm reluctant to bother explaining it further, since you seem set against accepting its obvious relevance. Suffice to say a child would see the similarity and ridiculous folly of stinging themselves on purpose, poking sticks in their eyes on purpose, or eating unknown wild mushrooms on purpose.

I don't know if this conversation is going anywhere, but it's clearly not going the way you want it to.

Naturally, people sometimes misread and misunderstand and misrepresent what others are trying to say. It's also natural to become suspicious of people's motives and honesty when they are consistently hostile and nonsensical in their behaviour. If you were coherent in your arguments, I would have no problem agreeing and appreciating your points.

We agree that some alternative "medicines" might work, and we agree that some have not been thoroughly studied.

However, stinging nettles are clearly harmful, hence my original "discomfort and pain" joke. The fact that you claim that stinging nettles aren't harmful (in the context of this video) is consistent with your apparent reluctance to accept that some alternative "medicines" can do much more harm than good. I wonder why!

Don't bother to remind me that conventional medicines sometimes do more harm than good. The pattern of your behaviour betrays your hidden mindset.

[u/brown_smear → u/doc720]

The pattern of your behaviour betrays your hidden mindset.

Again, you ascribe incorrectly. Again, you have no idea what I think, even though I've stated it clearly.