[jm4]

A guy gets a worm in his brain, somehow becomes secretary of health, loosens all the rules so the rest of us have a higher chance of getting a brain worm. This is comic book villain kind of stuff. Can we start a serious discussion about whether we might be living in a simulation with a troll teenager at the controls?

[customguy]

> Can we start a serious discussion about whether we might be living in a simulation with a troll teenager at the controls?

Nah. Power centers consolidate and seek slavery, whatever other differences they may have there is consensus there, which we can tell by their practices.

The "mission" of most people we recall by name is really just "knock out any pillars you can find, and cause chaos", they're given free hand and in that sense it's not planned or predictable, but overall it's no more random or silly than dead cows hurled via catapults. The cow has no name, no history, no meaning, it isn't hurled at a precise location in the exact right instant, but at a general location during the siege. And one thing is sure, it controls nothing.

[CalRobert]

Reminiscent of the toxoplasmosis life cycle.

[sethammons]

Instead of making mice seek out cats, this one encourages poor public health policies in people.

[hogwasher]

toxoplasmosis doesn't actually do that to mice. It makes them less scared, but iirc, not even so much that they don't flee.

it's one of those studies that got blown up into a worldwide news story sensation even though the actual paper didn't say what headlines claimed it did. I don't know if it was ever proven replicable or not, either.

[tim-tday]

Making prey less scared of the predator makes them significantly more likely to be eaten by that predator.

The reality is even worse than “seeking out cats” because it means if it does this in humans, (which it appears to do) those among us who get infected will engage in all manner of risky, dangerous and destructive behaviors.

[CalRobert]

If it results in more and fitter offspring it will be selected for.

[eqvinox]

Sounds like a nice topic for a PhD for someone 100 or 1000 generations down the line...

[ElProlactin]

I don't have a parasite in my brain so take everything I say with a grain of salt but at this pace I'm skeptical there will be 100 more generations.

[eqvinox]

Well I didn't say it would be generations of humans ;-)

[neumann]

Maybe it's the worm doing it?

[ourmandave]

Two things that got RFK nominated.

He's the opposite of Fauci, who Trump hates for contradicting him. And MAGA hates because during the pandemic they saw mask mandates as government overreach.

And he's the poster boy for conspiracy-loving anti-science halfwits like Trump and MAGA.

And he got approved because GOP senators get primaried and death threats if they go against Dear Leader.

[dredmorbius]

That's a large value of two.

[FireBeyond]

> And he's the poster boy for conspiracy-loving anti-science halfwits like Trump and MAGA.

I mean this is the guy who as head of HHS has funded research in his government department to "figure out which other government department is doing chemtrails" (He named DARPA as his prime suspect on an episode of Dr Phil, ye gods). You can't make this shit up. If it wasn't for his family name and connections he'd be living somewhere in a trailer as a sovcit with a Don't Tread On Me Decal adorning the back of his pickup truck on blocks in the front yard while he barbecues armadillo roadkill.

[tgv]

> Can we start a serious discussion about whether we might be living in a simulation with a troll teenager at the controls?

Why? To skirt the fact that this is reality and needs to be changed? There is no simulation. There is no super-natural teenager interested in making your life a tiny bit worse (I mean: a human teenager would just let N.Korea send nukes, and it's not as if you're living in Sudan either). Your question seems to be either trolling itself or delusional, or the feeblest attempt at humor. Neither is helpful.

[matwood]

At some point, humor is all that's left when we have this level of incompetence running the show.

[inigyou]

There's another thing that's left that's historically pretty common.

[wiml]

Civilizational collapse?

[hammock]

What rules are you referring to that he loosened?

[jm4]

My comment is partially in jest. Off the top of my head, I'm not aware of any particular policies that make brain worms more prevalent, although the person I was replying to mentioned prions and I believe that's a real concern. In general, this administration has favored a looser regulatory environment. Specifically, there have been policy changes directly linked to cyclosporiasis.

Last year CDC scaled back the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network from eight monitored pathogens to two. Cyclospora was one of the six dropped. The remaining two are Salmonella and E. coli. For what it's worth, there has also been an uptick in salmonella cases. Food policy experts have pushed back on the assertion that the policy change caused the outbreak, but concede that outbreak response programs are underfunded and the fact that cyclospora no longer being monitored makes it difficult to understand how it fits in with longer trends.

What the food policy experts say really points to the broader issue - an overall decrease in response and monitoring capability - and that's a bigger concern than playing the blame game on one particular outbreak.

It's reasonable to question how government agencies are making these decisions and one just yesterday on the peptide industry may be one of the best examples yet of how flawed the decision-making process is. The FDA's Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee (PCAC) met and voted in favor of adding several peptides to the list of substances compounding pharmacies are allowed to produce. Eight members of the panel had been recently appointed under RFK, including six who run clinics that offer peptides, increasing the size of the panel from 6 to 14. The votes on the peptides were 8-6.

So... back to my comic book villain theory. This is exactly how a comic book villain would do it and fool everyone with a veneer of legitimacy.

[Arodex]

Can we start a serious discussion about whether you might start taking responsibility of who you elect instead of wasting your time fantasizing?

I mean, it is not as if RFK was the darling candidate of HN at one time?

[Waterluvian]

The Americans have what’s basically a cultural trait at this point of deflecting ownership of their government’s actions with “not my president so not my failure” abdication of responsibility.

I wish we could open trade talks with these people instead. But, alas, that’s not how it works.

[w0de0]

Fine, it’s all my fault. Neither me nor my state voted that way, I’ve protested like hell, but nonetheless at your insistence I accept personal responsibility for the policy choices of the federal government.

What do you propose I do?

Or did you just want my permission to be personally angry at me? Not sure you needed it, but you’ve now got it.

[customguy]

> What do you propose I do?

They asked to stop deflecting. Take that literally. Imagine this page without the comment and the comments hanging off it.

"Don't do this thing". "What should I do instead?" Your choice. Maybe nothing. When there is nothing serious to say, maybe sit with the silence, that space where a little joke or some cynicism would relieve the pressure without doing any productive work, and let it work on you. At least until you can't take it anymore, and maybe tomorrow you'll last longer, and maybe next week you'll have a breakthrough.

At any rate, others can't tell us how to fix a situation we're not part of causing. In a society of millions, while each can say "I'm just one of many", nobody else can say more, so we always have "full" responsibility, that is, the maximum possible. Put differently, it is not possible for a single person to be solely responsible for what two people do, but that doesn't change the responsibility they do have.

This isn't about spilled milk, but rather about the question on who it is to fix this. It is on you. If you cannot do it alone, you have to organise with others. But there is nobody, as long as you're an adult and a citizen, that you can point to that should be expected to "do it" instead.

Though I don't mean this in a finger-pointy way either because we all sit in glass houses. There may be differences in degree and all that, but when it comes to what should or could be, and how it is, we're all so far from the mark that bickering about who is the worst and who should get "the" blame for the situation, rather than how to change it, seems pointless.

> Or did you just want my permission to be personally angry at me? Not sure you needed it, but you’ve now got it.

I personally wish you a really awesome weekend, stranger. You insisted on making this personal, now deal with it >:[

[swed420]

> The Americans have what’s basically a cultural trait at this point of deflecting ownership of their government’s actions with “not my president so not my failure” abdication of responsibility.

That's merely a symptom of the underlying problem, which is that capital interests run the show, and have for many decades.

What we refer to as a democracy is illusory. We basically have a uniparty, but most people are fooled by the sports team arrangement of good cop / bad cop. Those who aren't fooled feel powerless, and they are right to.

Anyone who balks at this need only consider which things receive bi-partisan support.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Well, a two-party system is bound to be compromised as voters don't have reasonable choices.

[swed420]

Euro countries with >2 parties have the similar capture problems.

[jibal]

No, it's those who say "He's my President! (also yours)" who deny and deflect all responsibility.

[ourmandave]

Yeah, the guy who declared "No Kings" demonstrators extremists and terrorists, and threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act against ICE protestors has in effect said he's not my president for me.

[epistasis]

I've been a long time foe of RFK Jr., spend way too much time here, and have never been under the impression that RFK Jr. was a darling here at all.

[Arodex]

Filter for dates around his presidential run: "he's not really anti Vax", "he's the only candidate talking about health"... With Dorsey and other SV actors boosting him.

https://archive.is/kce6f

[JKCalhoun]

"he's not really anti Vax"

Ha ha, what a glowing endorsement.

[idiotsecant]

This was never a majority opinion here

[lostlogin]

There are plenty of topics here where you’ll find that statement untrue.

[epistasis]

That appears to be a general news article that doesn't reference HN. Can you clarify why you think it's relevant, because a general news article does not represent HN general opinion in any way.

[pstuart]

Wait, so techbros angling for influence represent the HN population?

Sadly, there's enough MAGA here to share their downvotes but your "evidence" is pointing in a different direction.

[ZeroGravitas]

"Darling candidate" is overselling it but there's a solid chunk of anti-vax, covid-truthing, lab-leak is-proven-fact, JFK just wants better food nutballs on HN.

They overlap with the climate deniers, the nukecels, libertarians and Trump fans.

And it clearly goes to the top, since his vice-president and primary funded was a Google CEO ex-wife, and he had high level support even before he went back on his stated opinions and joined the Trump campaign.

"Trump isn't Hitler, Hitler had policies" being one memorable zinger of his.

[FireBeyond]

You forgot the chemtrail'ers.

On Dr Phil, an audience member raised concerns about "stratospheric aerosol injections." Kennedy responded, "That is not happening in my agency. We don't do that. It's done, we think, by DARPA," referring to the Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. "And a lot of it now is coming out of the jet fuel. You know, those materials are put in jet fuel. I'm going to do everything in my power to stop it."

[ChoGGi]

Is there a place that I can find this zinger of a quote? I assume the actual wording is slightly different.

[ZeroGravitas]

> In 2016, Kennedy said of Trump, according to newly uncovered recordings: “He’s not like Hitler. Hitler had like a plan, you know, Hitler was interested in policy."

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/rfk-jr-compared-trump-...

[SpicyLemonZest]

You might benefit from looking up the Goomba Fallacy. As a former anti-anti-RFK guy, I absolutely have to take responsibility, I severely misunderstood the wellness movement and didn't realize that inflicting disease on people was their goal. But I don't know why you think the person you're responding to supported RFK.

[pstuart]

He's definitely got the broken clock syndrome. And back in the day he was a strong defender of the environment.

I've got a family member and ex friend (both trained in science) and they drank the koolaid hard. A funny story about them -- both had stayed at my home (different times) and I had taken to heating the water for my coffee in the microwave.

Both of them were horrified by that and refused to use that water. Neither could give reason why, and artfully deflected when I pressed the matter. I think antivaxers caught a virus that melted their brains.

[jacobolus]

I think the worldwide disruption of the pandemic melted people's brains, and the recent surge in the anti-vax movement is a symptom. Along the lines of: if all this bad stuff happened and my life was significantly harmed, it must be someone's fault; all those doctors and scientists kept advising everyone on what they thought was happening and what to do, so they're probably the ones who caused the problem.

[throw0101a]

> I think the worldwide disruption of the pandemic melted people's brains, and the recent surge in the anti-vax movement is a symptom.

Anti-vax thinking was around pre-pandemic. An article from 2018:

* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6122668/

and 2015:

* https://www.bbc.com/news/health-33774181

2020+ was mostly about anti-vax 'contrarian' thinking merging with anti(-Democrat)-government thinking.

Before vaccines were created, Democrat and GOD death rates from COVID were about the same, but after they became available GOP rates became higher:

* https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37486680/

* https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/study-finds-large-gap-in-...

[mindslight]

I agree, but it goes much deeper than this. The pandemic provided a powerful distraction and an amorphous "other" to blame. Without the pandemic, after a first Grump term most voters would have seen his simplistic-destructive policies and ineffectual thrashing for what they were in the context of business as usual, and he would have been a one term failure.

The pandemic provided healthy doses of copium. It absolved Grump of responsibility for not achieving any of the reforms he promised in 2016 (having to deal with the pandemic instead). It created something that looks like a coordinated conspiracy, even though it is just people's obvious reactions to mitigate a pandemic. It created a whole bunch of "unprecedented" authoritarian actions by institutions even though you merely had to look back to previous pandemics to see precedents.

All of these effects also applied to Grump personally as well, as it seemed like the "deep state" was lined up against him (in the same way that one's entire family becomes "against them" as their dementia progresses), creating his obvious conclusion that the administrative state (ie the system that has brought us prosperity and stability in the post-WWII period) must be destroyed.

[noduerme]

I say this as a committed fan of RNA vaccines and masking, who believed we could have contained covid with more serious lockdowns very early in the pandemic: In point of fact, it was someone's fault, and the someones whose fault it was - the ones doing gain of function research - were the same people who took control of lockdown policy in the US. That would be enough to melt a lot of people's brains, even if it weren't for the psychological effects of lockdowns, remote schooling, and the consequent arrested development of an entire generation. At a bare minimum, the concealment by the CCP of what they knew of covid was an act of war. The cover-up itself killed millions of people and caused untold economic damage to their adversaries, with the collusion of health officials in the US government who had offshored illegal research there.

[UncleMeat]

Even if you accept the lab leak (highly questionable) and buy into the conspiracy that Fauci was controlling the operation of GoF research that created covid this is wrong. Lockdowns were managed by local authorities and state leadership.

[pstuart]

From what I've read about GOF research, it's essentially explored in defensive posture, because viruses mutate and they're looking at how to get ahead of the curve (not a researcher, just my take).

But what is never discussed in the Lab Leak pursuit is: so what? I mean, yes, poor biosecurity and containment should be called out and not covered up, but the real value is in being the foundation of a conspiracy. "The government conspired to make you sick!".

Think about this: covid has mutated consistently since it's been tracked. Were those mutations coming from a lab or was it viruses doing virus things. Was Ebola made in a lab or did it come from a place we know viruses come from.

Was the Spanish Flu a Chinese plot? Was AIDS?

The handling of the outbreak was clearly bungled, but let's remember who was in charge in the US when it happened. The guy who shut down research and tracking teams because Obama had funded them (So had Bush -- until then, this kind of stuff was non-political and taken seriously as a non-partisan issue).

The failure for masking was again, on the then POTUS, and it's been conjectured by many (including myself) that he was against masks because it would mess up his makeup.

Yes, it could have been handled so much better, and sadly, could have been an incredibly valuable teachable moment that made us all safer in the future. But instead it was used to further divide us and foster the literal fucking insanity of antivaxxers. I have nothing but contempt for those people because they are a danger to humanity.

[ChoGGi]

Ahem, let me try; the atoms are too excited they will bounce through my stomach lining straight into cancer.

They also tend to contaminate the raw milk bacteria you aren't using.

Close enough?

[preg_match]

Broken clock syndrome is very easy to "pull off" in medicine because medicine is incredibly complex and it's all risk calculus. For even the most benign or life-saving drugs, you can conjure up examples of how they've killed people. That includes vaccines, unfortunately.

So these people have a leg to stand on. It's a wooden leg (arrrg) but they have a leg. Of course they, and their supporters, are never doing any kind of statistical analysis or risk calculus. The the "risk" part is the thing that really, really matters. I mean, we have chemotherapies which have a very high chance of fucking your shit up or even killing you. But untreated cancers are fatal, and sometimes very quickly. It's all nuanced.

[thisisit]

> didn't realize that inflicting disease on people was their goal

I think the lesson here is just because someone is anti-something doesn't exactly mean they stand for something. Just because someone is anti-corruption it doesn't mean they are pro corruption etc. Because people always find it easy to run their mouths and be arm chair experts.

I had a chance to see the full 10 year cycle of an anti corruption candidate. He got elected into power and did nothing. Nada. Because all he knew was to fight and find someone to blame. He was just a weasel. 10 years later the place was worse off and corruption was even higher. When I pointed this out to some MAGA folks - they were like but how do you know until we try. Its like Americans want to tempt fate and want to see for themselves how institutions which took multi decades to get destroyed in few years.

RFK is similar case. He has a stance - whether right or wrong. But under pressure he just abandons them to save his own skin. He has never owned up to the issues his anti vax crusade causing the Samoa measles epidemic. And just like that Americans wanted to tempt fate with - "he is making good points about food". He is not. He demand accountability from others but owns up to nothing. He will weasel out of every issue is causing.

[monkpit]

Yes because everyone else on HN is one hivemind, other than you of course.

[cyanydeez]

the republicans spent the last 50 years gerrymandering and disenfranchising.

the "who you elect" is a specious argument. Everyone in California could elect democrarts forever, and 2 senators in Wyoming still have a larger sway per capita.

[analog31]

They should stop calling themselves republicans, since they don't represent a republic.

[collingreen]

Don't get me started on the words being all used incorrectly or misunderstood! Liberal, conservative, democracy, socialism, communism, free market. These are core concepts to a lot of current political debate and yet the words are effectively meaningless the way people use them. It wouldn't matter except the gap in understanding is exploited to paper over a bunch of dishonesty and corruption.

[FireBeyond]

Tangential but nonetheless, I always think of this quote from Lord of War:

> Yuri Orlov: [Narrating] Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters.

[rozap]

Goomba fallacy

[lovich]

>I mean, it is not as if RFK was the darling candidate of HN at one time?

Wasn't my darling candidate. Mostly because I can read research papers and understand that drinking raw milk and avoiding vaccines doesn't make me healthier.

[ButlerianJihad]

> risk without benefit

Indeed. There is no reason to consume raw milk. Pasteurization is not actually the problem.

On the other hand, there is no reason to homogenize milk at all. It is safe and legal to procure "cream top" or non-homogenized milk at many grocery outlets. Cream-top milk is not processed, and in fact there have been detrimental effects linked to the consumption of homogenized milk, which you can avoid by drinking cream-top milk instead.

Homogenization does not make milk safer or healthier to drink. On the contrary, it permits the processors to remove healthful elements and sell them in a more profitable vehicle. Why not simply keep your entire product intact, as it was found in nature?

The "raw milk" craze is a bonkers red herring for everyone. Don't drink raw milk. Don't buy the hype. But you don't need homogenization, either!

[mcbuilder]

Non homogenized, lightly flash pasteurized milk has been my favorite for years. Just tastier, luckily I grew up in a little strange town where it was norm, and I don't have the weird modern health movement baggage to go with it.

[ChoGGi]

Would someone who had never had it consider it tastier, or is it memories of growing up that make it tastier to you?

[ButlerianJihad]

If you can sit down and compare a glass of skim milk to full-fat milk, you’re getting somewhere.

Cream-top milk is not merely full-fat: the cream is unmixed and free floating. You can immediately tell it is different by texture.

Some people separate the cream and reserve it for coffee or something. Or you can agitate it for “manual homogenization”. The difference is texture, really. It may have bothered housewives trying to cook or to pour it. But I love the experience.

[ExoticPearTree]

FWIW raw milk is actually OK. Drank it “directly” from the cows, never got sick from it.

*directly = cow milked into a cup.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

"The objective of this review is to provide an integrated historical account of the complex, often convoluted events impacting milk hygiene and its resultant effect on infant mortality from 1875 to 1925. Heat pasteurization of cow's milk is necessary for rendering this important nutrient source safe for humans-particularly infants. Developed by Louis Pasteur in 1864, pasteurization evolved from the commercially important parboiling of wine and beer when the Industrial Revolution was effecting rapid societal change in Western societies. In European and American societies of the early and mid-19th century, infant mortality rates were 30- to 60-fold higher than the current rates of five or six deaths per 1,000 live births per year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30234385/

Not every pre-pasteurization child died, but far more died than post-pasteurization.

Raw milk is just a bad idea at anything beyond incredibly tiny tightly controlled scale. Sure, you got lucky. It's still not a good way to feed a society.

[lompad]

Raw milk _can_ be kind of okay under very specific circumstances. (But knowing the state american farms tend to be in regarding hygiene and controls, it's a ridiculous gamble.)

1) extremely closely controlled cow health

2) minimal storage time

3) minimized chances of cross contamination/reasonably clean cows <- that's the big one

4) healthy immune system to minimize infection chances

If even one of those isn't there, it's basically sickness in a cup. Why take a risk if there's no benefit?

In germany, there's the concept of "Vorzugsmilch", which is raw milk from specifically controlled farms with super tight regulations with regular and intense controls and testing of milk, e.g. monthly testing of every individual cow's milk.

But even then, it's an - albeit small - risk without benefit, with the exception of raw-milk cheese, which can't be made in any other way. I just don't get it, practically none of the claims of the raw-milk-gurus could be proven under controlled circumstances. Why needlessly take risks?

[mrwh]

I tend to think the risk is the point. It's an in-group marker, getting very sick every so often for no good reason shows commitment. Which of course makes it doubly pointless as a suggestion to the general public, but the fact that it's a bad idea doesn't mean that for the in-group it's a bad idea. (I mean, it _is_ a bad idea, you understand though.)

[ExoticPearTree]

In all truthness, it was in a village and I was under 6 or 7. It was the way things worked. And no one monitored the cows specifically: they would graze all day and then returned in the evening and be milked by hand.

[duzer65657]

This is exactly how the RFK shit gets support: one person says "hey, I did it and I'm fine!" somehow get extrapolated to "it's good for _Everyone_"

[ndsipa_pomu]

I played Russian Roulette a couple of times and I'm fine

[lostlogin]

There were a few times when I didn’t look as I crossed the road. It was fine.

[UncleMeat]

Cows are covered in their own shit, including their udders.

"I drank raw milk and didn't get sick" is not actually the same as "drinking raw milk is safe."

[manarth]

the plural of anecdote is not data.

[inigyou]

Yes, it is, actually. Especially in social sciences.

[voidfunc]

If were living in a simulation then all of this is meaningless :)

[apsurd]

as opposed to the meaning of absolute reality? oh boy you’ve got so much reading and movie watching ahead that you’ll enjoy very much.

[Dr_Incelheimer]

Read https://www.docdroid.net/MfW3sAr/parasite-pill-version-20-pd... and be enlightened. I believe it was originally made by a 4chan user so obviously there are a lot of insane ramblings there but if the theory is true, the implications would be hilarious