jenny mccarthy wants your kid to get measles: autism, vaccines, and stupid idiots

- All sugar bad in large quantities
- Some don't taste "as sweet" so they add more of it
- Just stop drinking soda all the fucking time so you can recalibrate your taste buds

Oh man have you guys heard the "store-bought bread has evil shit in it" people? A distant friend commented on facebook about some bread she threw out for the birds still looked the same a couple days later and she smelled a conspiracy

What irks me about this isn't even the child abuse aspect of it, it's the danger to other children and to ppl w/compromised immune systems.

i haven't heard that in particular about store bought bread but I will say that about 90% of it tastes like crap. It definitely doesn't taste as good as it did when I was a kid. I'm not sure why.

there are plenty of decent store bought breads; they're just more expensive than locally made breads.

this dumb bullshit about not vaccines is for latebloomer, I don't know why I'm posting it, I typed it I guess

It was me that underwater alien technology dude and one other friend sitting in that other friend's apartment late at night after going out to a show, and we were talking about how hilarious my friend's apartment was because his landlord (a USC professor) put a freaking little curved bathroom sink into his kitchen. I mean I still smile when I think about it because he can't even fit any dishes in it, and those that do fit fall on their sides and take up the whole sink, and its covered with 70s bathroom tile for some reason, like when I first walked into his apartment I was like "Holy shit is...is that a bathroom sink?" and he was all (in a soft voice because he's a soft spoken guy) "I...I guess so, I guess that's why it's so small. I never realized that" and I just started cracking up for a few days.

We were all sitting there, talking about that again, because that's usually the first thing we talk about when we're there, and suddenly alien technology dude was like "Have you guys heard about the alien technology people are all talking about these days." At this point I was extremely stoned and alien technology dude was not, so for a while, while he was talking, what he was saying was so out there, that I didn't even want to believe it was really happening, that a friend of mine could wholeheartedly believe this in all earnestness and that I didn't have any inkling about it.

So I silently listened wide-eyed to his theory that because there is life on Earth, there must be, there has got to be, advanced life in other galaxies, and, if you look at the course of human history, there have been so many major technological advances in a relatively short period of time that it is impossible for humans to have developed such technology on their own. Then he kept talking about the surface area of the ocean on earth and how if an alien aircraft fell somewhere where the masses would not know it would be the ocean. When I asked him if he was really serious about it, after I had turned this O.Rang album playing in the background off, because it wasn't helping anything at all, he said, "DO YOU HAVE AN IPOD?" and I was like "an old one yeah" and he was like "listen, do you really think man can make ipod, do you think everything humans have achieved is due to only mankind's work" I don't know how I changed the subject after that, but I think I was able to. I'd never seen this side of him, usually we used to just talk about how dumb lost was after every episode.

sorry for that post

don't apologize!

Not at all!

lol thanks for typing that out!

"...do you think everything humans have achieved is due to only mankind's work"

"Uh, dude just because you're dumb doesn't mean everyone else is."

What irks me about this isn't even the child abuse aspect of it, it's the danger to other children and to ppl w/compromised immune systems.

Yup. F these ppl imo

I didn't mean to imply that the child abuse aspect doesn't bug me, btw.

the part about aliens crashing into the ocean seems logical tho

anyway I'm in a lecture about ~autism~ right now and dude is basically saying that there's at least twenty odd genes involved in autistic disorders, and that several other developmental disorders are related. all this magic bullet stuff is the sad theater of ppl reaching for answers for something they don't understand

all this magic bullet stuff is the sad theater of ppl reaching for answers for something they don't understand

I think that's one of the reasons this stuff is still ongoing; it's a little bit harder to respond vehemently, even with some indignation, to someone who has an autistic child.

yeah that's true, also sometimes its hard just to know where to put the effort in life

Fucking iPods, how do they work?

*sorry*

If you found an ipod lying on a beach would you assume it assembled by random, or would you judgementally look through the playlists?

ancient alien civilization: what's on yr ipod

If you found an ipod lying on a beach would you assume it assembled by random, or would you judgementally look through the playlists?

― textbook blows on the head (dowd), Thursday, April 21, 2011 11:43 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

A+

Would people here (or in general) be opposed to, or made uncomfortable by, mandatory vaccinations?

I'd say I wouldn't be uncomfortable simply because I always thought they WERE mandatory when I was growing up, in the sense of "Well of course everyone gets their shots, surely."

Right. You enroll in public school, you get your shots. Unless you're Amish.

Right, just wondering why it's not mandatory as it is. There surely must be people who object, but it just seems like a straightforward case of public safety trumping individual delusions.

ilx book club imo:
http://i.imgur.com/e2pyv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TndBh.jpg

Not "mandatory" as in "the state will perform this procedure on you, period" - that's a bridge too far. But I'm 100% into "no child may attend public school who isn't vaccinated," and I'm 100% for all private schools setting the same rule for themselves, and even into weaselly state maneuvers like refusing to license any private school that doesn't require vaccination. Which don't get me wrong is high weaseldom - it'd be the state mandating a medical procedure for a person to be able to avail themselves of a private service - but the risk to other children (and to teachers) is high enough that a workaround like that seems like fair play.

I have that voodoo histories book but haven't read it yet

sorry for getting way off topic here but,

while this is kind of a dumb documentary:
http://i.imgur.com/baNoL.jpg

the segment in this clip (from 2:22 - 8:12) is kind of a chilling anecdote about how much weight our culture gives emotions over science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww7WqrB2M2o

"My son is dead. All of the intellectual arguments about whether or not steroids are dangerous or not... don't matter to me."

http://www.bma.org.uk/images/childhoodimm_tcm41-20002.pdf Some interesting stuff in here from the BMA addressing compulsion.

Table 3: Those who agreed with compulsory immunisation for some vaccinations
Group Per cent
GPs 51
Health visitors 58
Paediatricians 29
Clinical medical officers 30
Parents 53

Also: MMR
• compulsory: Barbados, the Czech Republic69
• semi-compulsory (if you want to go to school): Canada, USA, Belgium
• measles compulsory: Singapore, France (if the child goes to nursery)
• rubella compulsory for girls: India, Kuwait70
Other
• USA: Laws which require school children to be immunised against tetanus exist in 47 out of
50 states. All 50 states require children entering day care to be immunised against tetanus.71,72
In all states, children must have proof of immunisation or immunity to certain infectious
diseases, including whooping cough, before they start school. However, parents can opt out of
immunisation on ideological or religious grounds.17
• Italy: Compulsory vaccinations for children are required against the following diseases: polio,
diphtheria/tetanus, and hepatitis B virus (HBV).73 Children must have proof of immunisation
before they can go to school. However, compulsory vaccination has not been enforced for
many years.74

listen, do you really think man can make ipod

omg

http://www.notempire.com/images/uploads/Picture%203-114.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/134/384194403_c3df4db38c.jpg

Yeah, somewhere on the conspiracy theory thread I posted a good amount of reading material that really helps on this stuff, including the two books upthread. Lemme find it.

or i can just quote myself from upthread:
--
great New Scientist piece: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.100-living-in-denial-why-sensible-people-reject-the-truth.html?full=true

echoes much of what Plasmon wrote upthread.

...Similarly, global warming, evolution and the link between tobacco and cancer must be taken on trust, usually on the word of scientists, doctors and other technical experts who many non-scientists see as arrogant and alien.
Many people see this as a threat to important aspects of their lives. In Texas last year, a member of a state committee who was trying to get creationism added to school science standards almost said as much when he proclaimed "somebody's got to stand up to experts".

It is this sense of loss of control that really matters. In such situations, many people prefer to reject expert evidence in favour of alternative explanations that promise to hand control back to them, even if those explanations are not supported by evidence (see "Giving life to a lie").

All denialisms appear to be attempts like this to regain a sense of agency over uncaring nature: blaming autism on vaccines rather than an unknown natural cause, insisting that humans were made by divine plan, rejecting the idea that actions we thought were okay, such as smoking and burning coal, have turned out to be dangerous...

seriously, you guys, Specter's book is awesome.

Also, useful to this discussion: http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2010/05/the_new_scientist_debates_deni.php

...Whatever they are denying, denial movements have much in common with one another, not least the use of similar tactics (see "How to be a denialist"). All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism. ... All denialisms appear to be attempts like this to regain a sense of agency over uncaring nature: blaming autism on vaccines rather than an unknown natural cause, insisting that humans were made by divine plan, rejecting the idea that actions we thought were okay, such as smoking and burning coal, have turned out to be dangerous...

― Jaw dropping, thong dropping monster (kingfish), Friday, September 10, 2010 1:29 PM (7 months ago)

I wish Plasmon was still posting

ok, found the post:

1. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time

2. Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives

3. Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind

4. (still need to read this one) Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt

5. The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount

6. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

To him, the M.M.R. vaccine, so aggressively studied since the media splash following Wakefield’s 1998 paper, is one of the few factors that can be been ruled out. But could it be aspartame? UV rays? Elmo? No one knows.

Still sticking with my Thomas the Tank Engine theory

has anyone read about ramachandran/others work on autism and 'mirror neurons'? shit is dope

― max, Friday, February 5, 2010 6:32 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

OTM

I haven't read ramachandran but just reading a summary of the mirror neuron idea - I mean - this is what's tricky about talking about psych pathologies. the underlying pathology results in a person who thinks, feels, behaves differently. the person is not the pathology, and I'm guessing yr point is, "there's nothing 'wrong' with autistic people." but, I mean, this is a classic question with psych maladies: if we say there's "nothing wrong," then why are we devising treatments at all? at root is the way that people have a pretty animal horror of anything that codes as "unwell" I think & that's a whole ball of Levi-Strauss & Foucault iirc

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Friday, February 5, 2010 8:30 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

Not sure how this applies to mirror neurons at all. Also, there is nothing wrong with autism in the sense of a person reacting to the world in a different way than most but that most have built a society where to survive you need to be able to socially interact in a certain way to work, develop relationships etc. Whether its this part of autism, social anxiety disorder, borderline personality, bipolar.... treatment is primarily aimed at getting a patient to the place where they can comfortably do these things.

Back to mirror neurons, my personal stance is that they play a part but its v hard to believe its the whole, or even a huge part, of the explanation. Yes, empathy is rare or absent from even the highest functioning autistics along with denial of knowledge outside themselves, but what about the comorbidities of autism like anxiety disorders, epilepsy, cerebral palsy etc? Lack of behavior modeling as it affects social and language development is probably the poster symptom of autism but it really seems like a cog in a much bigger machine.

I read a study a short while back that claimed 1 in 4 people are sociopaths which seems impossible unless you try to think of it on a spectrum then it starts making some sense. The truth is sociopaths frighten me to near phobic levels and while I think researching a possible link between lack of mirror neuron activity and autism is still valid and necessary (although past studies have shown autistics to have 'normal' levels of activity), I really hope someone out there is attempting to establish a causal relation between low firing mirror neurons and sociopathic behavior.

Also, if you are at all interested in mirror neurons, there are a slew of podcasts and itunes U lectures covering the subject, some in relation to autism, mostly by Marco Icaboni.

they moved the sociopath next to me at work

yikes

read a study a short while back that claimed 1 in 4 people are sociopaths which seems impossible unless you try to think of it on a spectrum then it starts making some sense

Are you sure you're remembering this study correctly? All of the personality disorders I can think of occur in about 1-3% of the population. And sociopathy is a concept in criminology, not psychiatry.

actual sociopathy is extremely rare, this terms gets massively overused imo

I can think of exactly two off the top of my head - Ted Bundy and the one Columbine kid.

Girls I've dated imo

actual sociopathy is extremely rare, this terms gets massively overused imo

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, April 23, 2011 12:10 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

otm

^^^

"sociopath" is definitely overused in cases where "asshole" would suffice

^^^^

I think I'm running out of carets.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-study-reveals-most-children-unrepentant-sociop,2870/