[nothal]

Are you discussing the article or specifically folks reactions in this thread? Per the article, he had reasonably good odds of recovery had he taken a traditional route. I think it's absolutely fair to say that, if your end goal is living on (it's fair if it's not that), you should generally trust doctors and medical science in aggregate over the internet, though there are certainly times when modern medicine fails.

If it becomes ableist to critique those who follow fake medical advice from the internet, how would we reduce the this happening? If people are dying as a result, that's a public health issue and it deserves attention.

[wavepruner]

To the numerous posts in this thread.

"If it becomes ableist to critique those who follow fake medical advice from the internet..."

This is ableist because it claims that sick people are incapable of determining what is good advice and what is bad advice.

[Nursie]

> This is ableist because it claims that sick people are incapable of determining what is good advice and what is bad advice.

But that's exactly what happened here, the sick person was taken in by charlatans. How is that ableist? Not-sick people are also taken in by charlatans all the time, we blame the charlatans, the scammers, the frauds and the snake-oil salesmen for preying on people.

[wavepruner]

Because the sick person clearly did not view these people as charlatans. It was their choice. Not yours.

You are taking one case where the patient chose to follow bad advice, and using it to suppress the voices of hundreds of thousands of sick people.

[Nursie]

I'm doing no such thing. Get that chip off your shoulder.

I'm condeming those that peddle false information and profit from the sick as they do so. It's a shame you take that as an attack, but that's on you.

[wavepruner]

It's not your place to decide whether Sean was "taken in" by charlatans. It's Sean's. And there is not one quote in the entire article from him. And that he didn't want to see his girlfriend while dying does not give me confidence that she is someone who really speaks for him.

This article and Hacker News thread is largely comprised of healthy people trying to control what sick people think, feel, and say. And on top of that, you're trying to censor their discussions using government-backed violence. That is the conclusion of this article and many of the comments in this thread. I am sick and I fight against these authoritarian policies every day to get the information and medicine I need. I live in excruciating pain every minute of every day and then I have to argue with a bunch of clueless healthy people about what I can and cannot do with my own body.

You are at the very least advocating for others to attack me. Using government backed violence to prevent me from accessing the information or medicine I want _is_ an attack.

If the medical industry is so correct, then why aren't they curing people?

Why is the work of biochemists ignored in the health care industry? (in many ways they understand the human body better than doctors do)

Why do I have 1000's of people I've connected with online who have successfully treated/cured their illness? Do you think we're just making this all up for attention? Because the attention we get is far from positive. We are excluded by civil society. We only survive by hiding what we really think. The purpose of this hacker news account is to build up karma and then burn it in order to say these things. I can't just say them without paying a cost.

[Nursie]

> It's not your place to decide whether Sean was "taken in" by charlatans.

Yes, it is. He was taken in by people peddling false information. We know it's false information.

Your weird equivocating about this and demand for it to be taken as some sort of personal offence is ridiculous.

> If the medical industry is so correct, then why aren't they curing people?

You might have fallen down the rabbit hole, please be careful down there, it can do more harm than good, as this article shows.

[mcguire]

Sick or well does not matter. The general public is not capable of determining what is good advice and what is bad advice on complex topics. That is why experts exist.

(If you want to trade insults, your argument is anti-intellectual.)

[wavepruner]

"The general public is not capable of determining what is good advice"

I strongly disagree. Making choices for other people is tyranny.

Edit:

If you're referring to the term "ableist" as in insult--it is not. It is a technical term that accurately describes the logical conclusion of many of the arguments being made in this thread.

"The general public is not capable of determining what is good advice" because "experts" is not an argument. It's a belief. If you want to have an intellectual argument you've got to form an argument that I can respond to.