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Grant's May 2022 Update
This post is a reply to @wavygravygadzooks, who wrote:
It is also slandering me inappropriately...thanks.
You are in no way being slandered, which is a legal term and serious word to use.
First, slander is “oral defamation” and not possible in written communications.
Second, it would imply character defamation based on a false statement. We’re talking lying about people saying they stole money or committed adultery, etc. Something that would expose people to public ridicule.
In reality, you openly ridicule people here on this forum. You called “us people” “hilarious” and accused “us” of saying “stupid” things and entrenching “idiocy”:
You people are hilarious…
Your comment was not helpful, it is inaccurate, just as Grant’s were, it is only entrenching the idiocy that is swallowing people up.
If I had a nickel for every time Smith said something stupid...
My comments to you did not make any statement about your character or intelligence, good or bad. I explicitly stated that logical fallacies “can be intentional or unintentional” and nowhere did I state that you intentionally used a strawman argument.
To defend your original comment, you differentiated clever and intelligent in your reply (emphasis mine):
The definition of “clever” revolves around “skill”, and “skill” is the ability to do something well. You don’t have to be “intelligent” (a highly subjective term, which is precisely what I was pointing out in my original comments) in order to be skillful. Therefore, because viruses do exist, and they don’t have to be “intelligent” in order to be “clever” and successful at what they do, Grant is doubly wrong.
In contrast, your first post made no such distinction between clever and intelligent. It clearly treated them as synonymous, as in the excerpt below:
Since when was cleverness or intelligence a necessity for reproduction of RNA/DNA? Are single-celled organisms “intelligent”? Are worms “clever”?
Regarding:
Your comment was not helpful
By your logic, that’s subject to interpretation, and the interpretation(s) of the five people that liked my comment so far are
as valid as yours.
Finally, though at one point I was an atheist, I am no longer. I’ve been a bible believer for over twelve years. I am not ashamed of my faith in Jesus Christ, nor the “gadzooks” (nails of Christ’s cross) He suffered for us.
I say this because faith and religion keep being brought up which is IMO irrelevant to this discussion about the virus model.
I do not wish to continue this conversation with you.
Ever heard of antibiotics? That's probably the most obvious class of drugs/medicines that has true life-saving properties. When abused (as it has been in recent decades) it causes all kinds of problems. But when used appropriately, it saves lives, and I don't need to show you case reports for that... If you get sepsis, I'd like to see you turn down antibiotics.
You mentioned getting colds or flus about once per year. Those are both viral illnesses, and I wouldn't say getting them once per year is "rare".
There is terrible abuse of all kinds of pharmaceuticals these days, but that doesn't mean they don't have utility in the right hands at the right time. It's all about understanding the tradeoffs!
I’d like to point out that your only two posts on this forum were basically to attack me, whereas my 400+ posts have largely been a discussion with others about how to heal ourselves, and which hypotheses about health do or do not make sense in light of the evidence we have.
I made a very thorough critique addressing each of Grant’s thoughts on viruses in turn, and out of that entire list of substantive points I made, you selected a single one to criticize and did not even address the real substance of it, choosing instead to focus on the subjective use of the term “clever”. In the end, that adjective doesn’t have any bearing on the fact that viruses gain entry to humans cells, which is the point that should concern you, Grant, and anyone else trying to dispel the existing theory. You then went on to say that there were many other logical fallacies in my post, yet you didn’t attempt to address any other purported fallacies.
You wrote:
“… yet his response to Grant is a ‘strawman’, a fallacy of misdirection. It’s framed in a way that distracts from the topic at hand and makes Grant appear to be wrong in some way.”
Then further down you wrote:
“To support his ‘strawman’, @wavygravygadzooks implied that worms are an example of an unintelligent pathogen.”
If that’s not you claiming I’m using a strawman argument, I must be mistaken about how language works… Not only that, but it is you who is attempting to draw attention away from the core point I’ve made (viruses gain entry to host cells) by waving your arms over the use of the subjective term “clever”.
"Slander" is not exclusively a legal term. It is used casually as a verb meaning "to defame", and defamation doesn't have to literally be said aloud to be slanderous.
You're trying so hard to find any fault in what I say, no matter how tangential, because you have no real grounds with which to make a useful argument against the substantive points I made in my original post, in which I thoroughly deconstructed Grant’s criticism of viral theory.
A thumbs up on your comment doesn’t mean it was helpful…it implies that somebody liked it, or supports it, or approves of it, but it could really mean anything, or absolutely nothing. There is no rule that says you can only click that button to mean one specific thing…somebody could select it for whatever reason they choose, including simply because they dislike me for some reason (e.g. I'm an atheist who speaks out against religion), or they like you for some other reason (e.g. they find you relatable because you’re Christian and supporting Grant’s ideas). I’ll tell you what that thumbs up button sure doesn’t mean though…that what you’ve said is factually correct or logically sound. That button is ubiquitous among social media sites, which are the domain of unfiltered and unqualified opinions and trolls.
If you don’t want to have this conversation, then don’t respond to my comments! lol I didn’t invite you to come spout non-sense that has to be rebuked, that was your choice.
I can’t believe we’ve reached the point where bible thumpers who believe in myths and logical inconsistencies are attempting to “fact check” and critique the logic of scientists.
I think Wavy crosses the line a lot, and a good example is when he said "if I had a nickel for every time... ". A "fair fighting" way of conveying the same info would be from his side of things, perhaps "I often don't agree with Smith".
@Jude I'm not sure I should wade into the discussion of whether pharmaceuticals (and OTC's) ever have there place, LOL. But I think you are a very smart young person if you've already realized that you have to pick and choose them VERY CAREFULLY. You need to use them with surgical precision.
Some of the most important ones, that I've seen, have been pain relievers and antibiotics. The less often you use them, the better they work.
But it doesn't make sense to be a hero. Take this from someone who has had a lot of pain.
I've heard that ivermectin works by allowing more zinc into the cell, and that the cell can fight against invaders better when it has more zinc? But gosh I can't even remember where I read that. I have heard that it helps rosacea, and zinc and rosacea seem to have a meeting place, so if that is ivermectin's method, maybe it is true. Farm animals can die of parasitic infections, and it does appear that ivermectin has been used as often as aspirin has in this world, it's side effects are well known, and it probably does have some usefulness when used with precision!
Now and then I get an infection starting on my face (impetigo). A dab of antibiotic early on saves me a lot of trouble down the line. When I was getting a lot of headaches, it was getting to the point that (normally cheery) me was getting rather depressed due to pain. Pain relievers are better a better choice than slipping into depression.
I myself tend to avoid long-term meds for chronic conditions, and feel like lifestyle changes are more of what's needed when it comes to long term-things. For acute conditions I use them sparingly.
I also think that some of my reactions to meds (and also people who share my DNA) are bizarre, overblown and unusual.
Maybe I go too far, or maybe I don't go far enough. I try to match my language to the person and topic in question.
With you, for instance, I can tell that you are open-minded and like to chew on all kinds of different ideas. You are not quick to pass judgement. Even though I dismiss many of your ideas, I can see that the wheels are turning in your head and I appreciate that. I've really tried not to be short with folks like you who do genuinely seem to be searching for valid answers.
On the other hand, Smith is a practitioner in a position to spread all kinds of fallacies, and he really needs to be held accountable and kept in check. Some of the things he writes on his site are just plain false. It's often not a matter of disagreeing about something debatable, it's that Smith is completely misconstruing a widely accepted reality in order to match his way of seeing the world, which is getting closer and closer to saying that every nutrient is actually a poison. I feel the need to use stronger language to ridicule someone like that who is wielding influence over a lot of people and has greater potential to cause confusion and misdirection. Let's not forget, it wasn't all that long ago that Smith was prescribing Vitamin A supplements to his clients. Who's to say how many of the things he's currently recommending are going to wind up hurting people down the line, yet he communicates with this air of narcissistic confidence as if he alone has the ability to see all these supposed nutritional patterns - that's a sure sign of someone with delusions of grandeur. The scientific support for his ideas is usually seriously lacking...I can't tell you how many times he's drawn a firm conclusion from just reading an abstract, or even just the title!
Bret Weinstein has discussed the act of ridicule on his podcast, and how it is an adaptive measure for keeping people away from potential harm before they have gone too far and made themselves completely vulnerable to that harm. It could be thought of as the social action of collective wisdom within a group that serves to discourage those within the group from straying too far from what is accepted as viable truth. Obviously, many people who have been ridiculed throughout history actually did discover an improved paradigm, so ridicule is not without its flaws, but there is a good reason such a behavior has persisted to the modern day - more often than not, it has prevented harm to the individual being ridiculed and the group they were part of.
I hear you, Wavy!
Even though my life has been greatly damaged by a med, I believe many meds are useful, like it was said anitbiotics, antiparasitical, pain relievers. Both conceptions, terrain & germ are right. Life is full of accidents, microorganisms that don't have to be in human body or in some of it's parts can gain access to it.
I also start to believe that there's no ever ideal diet, every exclusive/limited diet has its drawbacks. Some foods are to avoid clearly, like those with high A content.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on May 20, 2022, 4:12 pm...
Bret Weinstein has discussed the act of ridicule on his podcast, and how it is an adaptive measure for keeping people away from potential harm before they have gone too far and made themselves completely vulnerable to that harm. It could be thought of as the social action of collective wisdom within a group that serves to discourage those within the group from straying too far from what is accepted as viable truth. Obviously, many people who have been ridiculed throughout history actually did discover an improved paradigm, so ridicule is not without its flaws, but there is a good reason such a behavior has persisted to the modern day - more often than not, it has prevented harm to the individual being ridiculed and the group they were part of.
1. ridicule and 2. Dr. Smith/gurus/truth/VA 3. a "ridiculous" thought 4.a question
1.And you have had me thinking about whether ridicule is something important that political correctness has squelched. Is it less or more evolved? Especially when humor is added, I can see that the use of ridicule might be part of an evolved life. Political cartoons are a good example of this.
2.I think dosing people on minerals is probably pretty likely to run into problems, I've had very little luck with it, and so I've never been a follower of Dr. Smith. (I think you can put many supplements in the same category as meds and herbs! double-edged swords each one). However,
I do want to point out that he at least is open-minded enough to realize that you can't treat a patient who is vitamin A toxic, without first meeting that challenge head-on. A lot of the wapf practitioners seem to not get that. It could be that there is some magic in the wapf diet if you start it *before* you are vitamin A toxic. And especially if you run it in a certain way...(perhaps without cod liver oil and without too much liver or high-carotene veg) (and many people dislike these foods and are probably sparing themselves just through instinct). My own experience taught me that you cannot *fix* acute vitamin A toxicity with the wapf diet. Dr Smith is currently above all wapf practitioners in that respect. (and some of these people are pretty smart!)
I think this must be because of his own experiences fixing himself. We are lucky that he has had that experience.
I have yet to find any online guru that gets everything right, so... In my opinion one must skim the cream of the truth from the top of all the gurus. And in that respect we need Dr. Smith. He is part of the truth that is rising to the top of the internet froth.
3.I just realized my current diet *is* that lowered-VA wapf diet. "Ridiculous" as that thought may be... maybe even oxymoronic?(Low-VA wapf! LOL) But homestead-type eating is what I've been drawn to my entire life. As Grapes said above, there are limitations to every special diet, but homestead-type eating is how most of us got here. Traditions aren't the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.
4. Are all fad diets worth of ridicule?
I really dislike the term "fad diet". Many reasonable dietary strategies with scientific support have been labeled as fads by the media simply because one day they're "in style" and the next day they're not. One could fall out of style because it really doesn't work, or more likely it falls out of style because the people who try it have absolutely no determination and are looking for an easy fix for their health problems that also miraculously allows them to keep eating all the shit that is making them ill. That's why everyone is a pill-popper these days...everyone wants the easy solution that allows them to keep doing what they're doing even though it's what they're doing that's killing them. One fad that I think deserves the label is adding activated charcoal to stuff you shouldn't be eating, like commercial iced cream...that is precisely the same concept as popping a pill to mitigate the damage from stuff you shouldn't be doing in the first place.