Hate is good

[Boston Rockbury]

Hey Righteous Dude, tone it down man. You claim not to do full intellectual warfare, but when challenged a bit you break out the Uzi. Rev GMS didn't come out swinging. He just made a valid point, and rather politely.

I rarely step in to police things here but personally I see a growing tendency for Dudes here to get arrogant and aggressive and dogmatic about their beliefs. I don't want this forum to go the way of other forums. One of the great things about it is that people here are generally able to argue without resorting to personal attacks or over the top sarcasm. Nothing wrong with a little sarcasm. Just don't go over the line.

Okay, Pubic Service Announcement over.

I think this is relevant to the begining of the thread, we tend to turn up the volume when things that are important to us feel like they are being attacked. When it's someone else's religion, gun-law, lifestyle etc' we think 'why are they getting so uptight?' Then when someone tells me herbal medicine is 'superstitious' or what have you I can get really heated. RD is a true dude. I'm certain this is all that happened - hit a bit of a nerve.

I've noticed that dudes are amazing when a fellow dude is in trouble. We rally to that person's assistance without reservation. It's inspiring and heart-warming. I believe this says a lot more about Dudeism and the people on this forum than any passing squall.

[forumdude]

Also, it's a bit hard to know if someone is being jokey or serious. Some of righteous dude's ripostes to Rev GMS sounded a bit venomous, but then maybe that's just how I read it. He definitely pulled back a bit at the end.

It's a fine line, sarcasm and humor. I confess to not always knowing where the line is. I think those lame emoticons help. Maybe some dude emoticons might be more fun:

The grinning Dude emoticon when you're trying to be ironic:

{B-D>

or the smiling dude

{B-)>

or the Dude sticking his tongue out sideways:

{B-P>

[RighteousDude]

Hey Righteous Dude, tone it down man.

Consider the tone downed. My intent was to illustrate how and why it's a bad idea to directly assail someone's beliefs, not to come across as an asshole.

I see a growing tendency for Dudes here to get arrogant and aggressive and dogmatic about their beliefs.

That was the point I was trying to make... Looks like I blew it. Or overachieved. Either way...

My apologies to the assembled Dudes.

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

Internets are serious business! LOL

For my part no apologies necessary, and maybe I came across too forceful as well, been known to be the case. I gotta say tho, this is the derned friendliest forum for having a lively debate. I could tell some stories man, I seen some shit out there, epic battles and scorched Earth flame wars. Yeah man I love lively discourse, I just don't view my adversaries as enemies, but rather as co-authors in this derned human comedy.

RD Dude, you are no asshole, challenging and colorful, yes, asshole, naw.

So, now that we are done proving this aint 9gag, and the touchy feely crap is outta the way, shall we continue?

[MindAbiding]

Dudes,

What makes a Dude, Mr. Lebowski?  You all have once again shown how a dudeist approach to life promotes harmony - inside and out.  Great stuff, man, arguing one side then the other, then gettin in bed with everyone.  Far fucking out, man.

Internets are serious business! LOL

For my part no apologies necessary, and maybe I came across too forceful as well, been known to be the case. I gotta say tho, this is the derned friendliest forum for having a lively debate. I could tell some stories man, I seen some shit out there, epic battles and scorched Earth flame wars. Yeah man I love lively discourse, I just don't view my adversaries as enemies, but rather as co-authors in this derned human comedy.

RD Dude, you are no asshole, challenging and colorful, yes, asshole, naw.

So, now that we are done proving this aint 9gag, and the touchy feely crap is outta the way, shall we continue?

[Hominid]

This is indeed a very unique forum in that way.  Gotta say, there's some smart dudes here...

Great stuff, man, arguing one side then the other, then gettin in bed with everyone.  Far fucking out, man.

Ya, make-up sex is great! 

[RighteousDude]

What I see in the US when it comes to health seems to me to be the product of lifestyle choices. People eat too goddamn much and generally get most of their happiness from consumption. Restaurants are recreation. The solution is always more consumption, so it makes sense to consume pills to fight the problems. Everything is about filling filling filling. Fill belly with food, fill house with stuff, fill mind with passive entertainments, fill veins with medicine.

My take on it, if I might be indulged for taking a circuitous route to the point:

When my youngest was in high school and the topic came up, we played a game that I thunk up in a rare moment of mental clarity. Find The Fat Kid. I took up her yearbook, and she took up mine. My high school had about 800 students in it, hers fewer than 80. I gave her a four page head start. Obviously, the game was rigged in my favor.

In the 70's we had sugary drinks, fast food, television, and so on. Many of us left campus to hit a fast food joint for lunch every day. Many of us met up at a donut shop or restaurant before the school day started. All of us either had our own cars or hung around with someone else who did, and it was well known that a driver's license would put five pounds to you. But we were not fat. We had just a few fat kids in our entire 800+ student high school: one in a wheelchair, a couple with metabolic disorders, and a couple or three more with emotional hangups. That was it. Something has changed, but it's not the stuff the media is talking about. We were cola guzzling, fast food consuming, television watching slugs, too.

Maybe it was Led Zeppelin kept us thin? Hmmm...

I see a couple of things going on, and both are taboo topics in our corporatized culture. One is that the quality of our food supply has gone to shit. Whereas it was energy dense in the 1970's, it is nutrient poor and energy dense today. Human bodies as they are wired don't regulate against body fat. They regulate for nutrients. So, for example, when your electrolytes are running low you crave salt. Rip the nutrients out of the food supply, and all of those human bodies out there go into feast mode, craving this and craving that because they're not getting the things they need. The extra carbs and fats? WTF, we'll just store that energy for later. When your body thinks you're starving, it regulates for body fat. The fat is not only raw energy, it is used to store the fat-soluble nutrients (and water). Unfortunately, it also stores fat-soluble toxins but that's another matter.

The second thing, which is just obvious as balls on a tall dog to people who have experienced American culture and just about any other where obesity is not epidemic: We are isolated and transient, with no real culture, no real community, no deep and lasting bonds to anyone or anything at all. And we know it, and we try to pretend it does not matter or even that it is a superior model for living. But we feel the impermanence and isolation and we quite rightly feel terribly insecure. Our jobs can be snatched away from us without notice even though we serve in an exemplary manner. Our acquaintances who rarely cross that vital threshold to become true friends come and go as careers dictate. Our neighborhood is an ever-changing cast of characters. Our work environments reduce us to the level of machinery, only slightly more evolved than the programmable metal and plastic bits ,and dispensable once the capability of the machines catches up. We are not allowed in the work environment to express our humanity, must instead go along with the prescribed corporate culture, and always strive to produce more, faster, with less. Our employers even monitor our off-duty behavior, and if we get caught expressing ourselves outside of the prescribed boundaries our barely comfortable enough lifestyles are taken away. These days you can be denied an opportunity for employment for no reason other than having said the wrong thing years beforehand.

What most people have in common with their co-workers, the people they see more than anyone else, is that they're all being driven like rented mules and they watch the same shit on television. "Did you see [blank] last night?". That's telling. These are people whose shared experience isn't even their own. The experiences they share are the fictional, scripted representations of other lives presented to them in two dimensions as they sit, still isolated, on their respective sofas. The bits that don't appear to be scripted come by way of "the news", which is designed to tell people what their opinions will be. And it works amazingly well. Among the opinions that Americans have been force fed for the past 30 years or so: We are threatened by invisible enemies who want to destroy us. First it was the damned dirty commies of the USSR, then it was the damned dirty terrorists. (Apparently, living in proximity to fossil fuel resources causes murderous intent.)

It's probably fairly obvious to the assembled fine and enlightened Dudes here that there are no terrorists in this century just as there was no real Soviet threat in the last century, but to those who think in uptight, fucked up manners as the television tells them to think, that shit seems real. They really are afraid that some impoverished dude in some far away land is going to bumble his way into a nuclear weapon and miracle that sumbitch across the ocean to blow up an American city.

So we are isolated and afraid, and we self medicate. Food. Booze. Pharmaceuticals. Television. Video games. Pornography. Anything, anything at all that will numb the emotions, quell the fear, get us through this fucked up day. Anything that will make money for the corporations who sell us that shit.

To close the circle on this here thread where my intent was, I think, misinterpreted: Another thing we do in our stressed out fucked up non-culture in a vain attempt to bring relief is try to fix what we perceive to be wrong that's causing our distress. It's not us, or people like us, because we're good, hard working, peaceful people, so it must be people unlike us. Things would be so much better if it weren't for them. We can't just kill them off (unless them happens to be Muslims in other countries or illegal immigrants in this one), so we will reform them. We will actually be doing them a great personal service by unfucking their thinking, and once we're all the same page there will be peace and harmony and prosperity all around. They'll thank us for it!

The popular media reinforces this kind of thinking, even though it's demonstrably false. This happens for two reasons: First, it serves the (hopefully) obvious political agenda which is primarily geared toward serving the financial interests of the ruling elite. But, just as importantly and very, very rarely ever addressed, once the media has set the agenda, the sociology majors they employ for this very purpose tell them what their chosen segment(s) of the population want to hear. What they'll tune in to watch. So this media outlet appeals (by choice) to this group who wants to hear this kind of bullshit, and that media outlet appeals (by choice) to that group who wants to hear this other kind of bullshit. The loudmouths on this side attack the loudmouths on that side, and the loudmouths on that side attack back. Neither has anything to lose by behaving badly because the bad behavior is a big reason for people to tune in. Those folks who think differently are so obviously fucked in the head and are what is wrong with this country so dammit it's good to beat them down and I want to be associated with the brave soul delivering the beating.

Because that other guy, he says things that directly assail my beliefs so he must be beat down. This aggression will not stand, man! (Your aggression won't. Mine will.  )

Everyone is afraid of emptiness, space, quietude, vacations (Americans don't take them).

Afraid of additional emptiness, I think, in most cases. And afraid to let the mind run free because it will either turn around and look into the void that is one's life, or express itself inappropriately and get fired, or arrested. Vacations? Americans are afraid to take them because it might cost them their jobs. And it truly might.

My expat friends here are all in remarkably good health - and most of them are in their 60s. They don't take any medicines (one friend can't kick nicotine gum though). Most don't have health insurance. I don't know what it is.

They're not here! You haven't said it, but I'd be willing to bet that they feel engaged with and part of a community in a way they never could in this country.

For what it's worth, nicotine by itself and in small quantities (as in gum) isn't all that hazardous as vices go, as long as the stimulant effect isn't thrashing a weak heart. Ice cream is more dangerous.

Let's not be disingenuous about Western medicine. There's an avalanche of data to suggest that western medicine (vaccination, antibiotics, epidemiology, sanitation) has given us longer lifespans. But I agree that the current state of pharmaceutical overprescribing is a huge problem and probably does more harm than good. But that's a completely different issue.

I am not totally opposed to western medicine. My wife and I avail ourselves of the medical services industry as needed, and as she's got a vexing heart condition a lot more than we'd like to or can readily afford even with health insurance. My big problem with the medical services industry is that it's entirely pharmaceutical and profit centered. These two factors make it dangerous. The fact that it strives for pinpoint diagnosis and treatment makes it ineffective and dangerous. There are in fact times when pinpoint diagnosis and treatment is absolutely correct, but there are more times when it's not.

I don't count things like improved sanitation and hygiene, lead and asbestos (heavy metals, mosquito, etc.) abatement, improved workplace safety, and automobile safety as medicine. The stuff I'm talking about is what happens when you actually avail yourself of the medical services industry's products and services. When you go to the doc and say, "Man, it hurts right here", that kind of thing. There are times when what they do is great, there are other times when it's as wrong as dating outside your own species. There was absolutely no reason for the cardiologist to send my father-in-law home to die, for example. If some random computer programmer can save the man's life, why the hell can't a highly trained, decades experienced cardiologist? Why do I see this kind of thing as often as I do, when I don't even offer my medical herbalism services to the public? Those are frustrated, rhetorical why questions, not please explain this to me why questions.

Every day, people just like my father-in-law are sent home to die, and if they don't happen to know any medical herbalists or have been brainwashed into thinking it quackery, that's what they do. They dutifully sit there in their recliners in front of their television sets and wait for that terminal stroke that will end their lives, completely unaware that in most cases everything they need to save their own lives is just around the corner at that large, well stocked supermarket. It's a horribly broken system that causes that to happen. We can't righteously call it health care, that thing they do. It's medical services delivery.

I see the US in time lapse photography and so I notice changes more acutely than most. The commercials for prescription drugs have multiplied like crazy over the last 20 years. It's a horror show. Not to mention that all commercials have eaten into our psychic health, which I secretly suspect are at the root of all our medical problems (well, part anyway). Remember when you could go see a movie and the only ads were for coming attractions? In the Netherlands there are only 10 minutes of commercials an hour on TV. In the states it's more than double that. I can't read Thai so I'm immune to them here. Thank Buddha.

Ain't it interestin' how you chose television programming as a means to differentiate the cultures? 

[RighteousDude]

For my part no apologies necessary, and maybe I came across too forceful as well, been known to be the case.

I didn't perceive you as being too forceful. I thought we were having a discussion and was surprised to find out that it was seen as bigger'n 'at.

RD Dude, you are no asshole, challenging and colorful, yes, asshole, naw.

Thanks, Dude. FWIW, I wasn't at all emotionally involved in, and certainly not tweaked over our discussion. If we'd all been sitting around the Dude pad making the Kahlua go away it would have been obvious enough, I guess. Thanks for not taking it as a paraquat spraying run!

[forumdude]

Excellent points, Righteous Dude, and written with the skill of a pro writer. Are you? With a little structural tinkering this would make a great Dudespaper article.

Yeah, I've been out of the loop when it comes to the US medical system, or at least I was until my mom came down with a mystery illness in the summer of 2011. It was terrible. They wouldn't be straight with her or me (even when she wasn't around) and it only multiplied the suffering. Tried all sorts of tinkering and medicine that made her feel awful until finally a Canadian doctor gave it to us straight and the last month of her life was much more comfortable as a result. "We don't do it like this in Canada" he said. My Dutch girlfriend also was shocked by how shitty they treated her and how evident it was that no one wanted to be straight about anything. Gave her lots of false hope and exhausted her with too frequent office visits (she was practically paralyzed so each visit was a nightmare). In fairness, she was never diagnosed, but still, it was a thoroughly awful eight months. I would much rather be treated here in Thailand to be honest. For one thing, the nurses are much prettier! Ha ha.

Yeah, TV. I confess to watching series, but mostly comedies downloaded via bittorrent. I adamantly refuse to watch programmed TV anywhere due to the commercials. I'm thinking of printing up a stack of stickers to paste over ads that shouldn't be there (like in taxis) that say "This Adgression Will Not Stand, Man!" Maybe sell shitloads for cheap through the site and have people crusade around their city, Adbusting.

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

I dunno man, I see you are very careful to stuff your post full of qualifiers, but the semantic thrust of your argument is to demonize modern medicine, and promote false equivocations.

Gonna jump over the modern medicine thing, really my problem with that part of your argument is semantics and a tad too extreme. One of those times when I want to say, "can't we have both?", can't it be a wonderful human development that has some serious problems that need attention? Not a quackery set up to peddle pills and pocket the money? I offer up Doctors with out Borders, and the good parts of the CDC while recognizing there are some short falls on their part. Or the publicly funded Genome project, surely that is worthy of some love for the medical world. I would also like to argue that a lot of the problems you highlight are a product of the free market capitalism that is infused into much of our medical systems, like you said, medical industry.

To say one side bitching is the same as the other side bitching is quite often wrong. Case in point, gay marriage, is there truly no 'right' answer? Are those calling for equality of marriage entitled to merely the same amount of consideration as those who are opposed? There are right and wrong beliefs, the belief that one can own another human being exists to this day, yet it is clearly a wrong belief. And it is still a wrong enough belief to justify open war if no other option exists to squelch that belief.

My point was that we should endeavor to find the right answers, that there are right understandings, that in some cases there is a clearly right answer.

I also said we should engage others when we have justification to challenge their beliefs, I said to do so as strongly as the situation requires, "full on intellectual warfare" I think I used. Which is exactly what happened here. I would further assert that all who were involved here have grown or experienced other positive effects. So my premise has been proven ITT.

I leave you with Sam Harris to continue to argue my point. http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html

[Boston Rockbury]

There are right and wrong beliefs, the belief that one can own another human being exists to this day, yet it is clearly a wrong belief.

There are child prostitutes in many countries who are owned, so the belief that one can own another human being is not wrong, it is factually correct.

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

Factually is the best kind of correct.

That sentence worked until you had to say something, now all I see is a train wreck of a sentence and it will haunt my nightmares. thanx man :p

[Boston Rockbury]

Factually is the best kind of correct.

Not necessarily. Sometimes it may be more appropriate to be socially correct, morally correct, aesthetically correct.....
That's exactly why I make the point, because you discuss right and wrong as if these were objective, factual issues when your examples are concerned with beliefs about right and wrong in the ethical, encultured, social senses and that makes the belief far more subjective.

[RighteousDude]

Excellent points, Righteous Dude, and written with the skill of a pro writer. Are you?

Only in programming languages, but thanks for the flowers, man! I do a little technical writing here and there as it's required but that's the extent of it.

With a little structural tinkering this would make a great Dudespaper article.

If you'd like for me to work on it a bit, clue me in on what you think is the most important message and I'll twiddle the bits around to suit. It was stream of consciousness on the way out, but it could be great good fun to write something for general public consumption.

Tried all sorts of tinkering and medicine that made her feel awful until finally a Canadian doctor gave it to us straight and the last month of her life was much more comfortable as a result. "We don't do it like this in Canada" he said.

I'm really sorry that your mom had to go through that.

They don't do the same things anywhere else on Earth that are done here, that I know of. I talk to/consult with medical herbalists all over the globe and don't hear from them the same horror stories that I hear from my compeers here in the land of the great bald bird. Distilling the whole darn thing to get at its essence: We have a medical services industry rather than a health care system, and the patients are viewed primarily as cash cows who might be ridden by lawyers. That's why they're so often unwilling to be straight with you -- they're avoiding the creation of evidence. A doc who says something off-script that appears in court can kiss his or her career goodbye.

Don't get me wrong, though. I know and have known many really good docs who entered the field because they care and want to do good works. Quite a few of whom have told me that if they had another marketable skill they'd abandon medicine because of the great frustration they endure every day from dealing with administrators and peers who care more about profit than patient care. Others say that they'll continue toughing it out because if they don't their patients will be stuck with that other lot and they can't stand the idea of that happening. And, sadly, it's over on the mental health side, too. I knew a shrink who was then about my age or a little older who told me that he could never retire because there would always be too many people out there being ground up into mental hamburger by the system. And it's not just medicine. Some of the software I get in for debugging is horrid. It seems that where there's an above-average wage to be had for sitting on your ass, there's sure to be greed, chaos, and mayhem.

I adamantly refuse to watch programmed TV anywhere due to the commercials.

I'm the same way, though when I traveled a lot I would watch a bit in the hotel room just to get a taste for the culture. I always got a huge kick out of being in Australia around the holiday season, seeing commercials full of bikini clad babes and barbecues on the beach. It was like a mental anchor, pinning me to the map, reminding me to groove on where I was so fortunate to be at the time.

I'm thinking of printing up a stack of stickers to paste over ads that shouldn't be there (like in taxis) that say "This Adgression Will Not Stand, Man!" Maybe sell shitloads for cheap through the site and have people crusade around their city, Adbusting.

Sounds like a fine idea to me!

I was really blown away during the time we spent in Las Vegas by just how aggressive the advertising is. Here in this little mountain town that most consider just a wide spot in the road, there's none of that. It would be considered to be in exceptionally poor taste. There? I was reminded of the movie Idiocracy. It was everywhere. There were trucks that just drove around with billboards on the back, people whose job it was to shake signs on the side of the road, cars wrapped completely in advertising, stickers on every sign post... it was just crazy. I found it offensive. I think it might have negatively affected my mental health.

Something did. I'll blame that. 

[Boston Rockbury]

she's got a vexing heart condition

You probably know this already RD, but Hawthorn berries are organ specific for the heart and support its function almost regardless of the exact pathology. They combine well with Leonorus cardiaca (nice that the latin dudes put the clue in the name). My father had two heart attacks and was put on strong allopathic medication. I got him off everything in two weeks (he only took hawthorn after that) and he never had any further heart problems in his remaining twenty years. Of course things aren't always so straightforward and I too am not against the judicious use of 'orthodox' medicine occasionally. I'd say we sort out over 90% of our family's medical needs with herbs.