The Gaming Den

Maj wrote:So I mentioned that I'm looking at houses, and I just have to ask...

I already have issues with people putting wall-to-wall carpeting over wood floors - that's at least understandable. But what on earth is it with people who put laminate floors on top of hardwood?

As far as I know, it's the maintenance issue. However infrequently you choose to do it, hardwood floors require maintenance from time to time. Many of the new laminates don't require a second thought once they're installed.

That makes sense. And even still, it's probably less work to rip up your old laminate and replace it than it is to sand, clean, and triple-coat varnish your wood floor. It might cost more, but I think it's less work.

I could understand it if you have particularly ugly floors, with holes and the like.

My question, which has really got to me recently:
Why do so many people assume that experts in a particular field are either
a. lying to them, or
b. just stupid
and that years of research can just be ignored?

Psychology and other medical fields are where it gets to me most.
If your psych recommends medication for your kid's bipolar disorder, he's not doing it just to make your teenager a zombie.
If you have cancer and the oncologist recommends chemo, WTF are you doing going to a herbalist? It's not going to help, not at all.

Of course, this can be applied to many areas. These examples just piss me off the most.

Blasted wrote: My question, which has really got to me recently:
Why do so many people assume that experts in a particular field are either
a. lying to them, or
b. just stupid
and that years of research can just be ignored?

Psychology and other medical fields are where it gets to me most.
If your psych recommends medication for your kid's bipolar disorder, he's not doing it just to make your teenager a zombie.
If you have cancer and the oncologist recommends chemo, WTF are you doing going to a herbalist? It's not going to help, not at all.

Of course, this can be applied to many areas. These examples just piss me off the most.

Probably has to do with fairly low perceived reliability rates for those fields, or that they may well get differing advice depending upon what expert they go to.

Also a large factor is that people may not know which experts are charlatans.

Tons of psychiatrists prescribe ritalin and other shit to kids. I would spit in their face (figuratively) if they told me to put my kid on downers because he was hyper. I'm happy that my parents made the same decision to not put me on drugs despite recommendations to do so. So yeah, I find nothing wrong in questioning the pharmacological recommendations of people with experience.

Many (most) medical practitioners are not actually up on the latest research but instead are biased towards whatever pharmaceutical rep has been visiting them and pushing them their brochures.

If you aren't questioning these people then there's something lacking in your level of interest. I wouldn't ignore them, but I would not eat shit from a shovel blindfolded without sniffing it first.

Blasted wrote:My question, which has really got to me recently:
Why do so many people assume that experts in a particular field are either
a. lying to them, or
b. just stupid
and that years of research can just be ignored?

The problem in part stems from the misuse of the word "expert".

Lots of people try to label themselves as "experts" nowadays. The problem is, there's no clear definition of what an expert is.

Somebody who has spent 10 years practicing psychology may claim to be an expert for instance. But if that same person has undergone 60 lawsuits for malpractice during that same period, it'd be much harder to believe that person is truly an "expert".

Questioning a single practitioner, I have no issues with.
It's when there's a significant body of evidence with very little or nothing to the contrary and someone will happily ignore it for ???
The anti-vaccine mob is another one that grates on me.

violence in the media wrote:As far as I know, it's the maintenance issue. However infrequently you choose to do it, hardwood floors require maintenance from time to time. Many of the new laminates don't require a second thought once they're installed.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever lived with wood floors? I've lived with them for a large portion of my life, and the only maintenance my mom has ever had to do to them is sweeping and mopping.

But then, I've never lived with laminate. The only thing I can tell you about that is friends telling their kids to be careful when it came to dropping stuff. But I don't know if that's a real thing or not.

Blasted wrote:My question, which has really got to me recently:
Why do so many people assume that experts in a particular field are either
a. lying to them, or
b. just stupid
and that years of research can just be ignored?

Because experts and science can now be bought, which means it's hard for a person to know whether it's real science talking or money. See: Trust Us! We're Experts!

Blasted wrote:Psychology and other medical fields are where it gets to me most.
If your psych recommends medication for your kid's bipolar disorder, he's not doing it just to make your teenager a zombie.

Depends on the psych. I don't have a problem with people getting second opinions on major diagnoses like this.

Blasted wrote:If you have cancer and the oncologist recommends chemo, WTF are you doing going to a herbalist? It's not going to help, not at all.

Quality of life. Chemo sucks.

Blasted wrote:The anti-vaccine mob is another one that grates on me.

It's important to realize that every crazy movement usually has a grain of truth behind it.

Regarding the anti-vaccine mob... the problem really is that people aren't being educated about the problems of vaccination. Yes, it makes you immune to certain diseases. But it's not common knowledge that there's a good chance that you may get a little sick after a vaccination (and for kids, this could be a serious sickness). Or that you need many different kinds of vaccination for the same kind of disease to combat different strains.

The anti-vaccine mob is just exploiting people's ignorance about how vaccines work by adding in a tablespoon of hysteria.

To counter this, it's usually best to just be up front and honest about the pitfalls of vaccination, along with its advantages.

Zinegata wrote:

Blasted wrote:The anti-vaccine mob is another one that grates on me.

It's important to realize that every crazy movement usually has a grain of truth behind it.

The only anti-vaccine people I've talked to didn't dispute vaccines can work. There issue(s) is that mercury was/is being used as a preservative and that there have been instances of contaminated vaccines not being recalled.

Juton wrote:The only anti-vaccine people I've talked to didn't dispute vaccines can work. There issue(s) is that mercury was/is being used as a preservative and that there have been instances of contaminated vaccines not being recalled.

Locally, the issue was more of "vaccines make your kids sick rather tha better!", which stemmed from ignorance about the vaccination process. Which is crazy.

The guys you're talking about don't seem to be "crazy anti-vaccination" people though. They're really more of consumer's rights people who are (correctly) protesting the use of contaminated products. And I think we can all agree these are okay people.

Zinegata wrote:

Juton wrote:The only anti-vaccine people I've talked to didn't dispute vaccines can work. There issue(s) is that mercury was/is being used as a preservative and that there have been instances of contaminated vaccines not being recalled.

Locally, the issue was more of "vaccines make your kids sick rather tha better!", which stemmed from ignorance about the vaccination process. Which is crazy.

The guys you're talking about don't seem to be "crazy anti-vaccination" people though. They're really more of consumer's rights people who are (correctly) protesting the use of contaminated products. And I think we can all agree these are okay people.

No. You must be unfamiliar with this whack job group. They continue to insist that mercury in vaccines, which no longer exists is causing their children to have autism, based on "scientific" "research" which has been proven 100% fraudulent. They also reject all GOOD research, claiming it's made up. They are surprisingly prevalent.

Eh? Based on what Juton is saying they're fighting against contaminated vaccines that weren't recalled. That's quite clearly malpractice on the drugmaker's part, and it wouldn't be the first time.

If they're not actually contaminated... then I revert to my original position of "grain of truth mixed with a tablespoon of hysteria".

Zinegata wrote:Eh? Based on what Juton is saying they're fighting against contaminated vaccines that weren't recalled. That's quite clearly malpractice on the drugmaker's part, and it wouldn't be the first time.

If they're not actually contaminated... then I revert to my original position of "grain of truth mixed with a tablespoon of hysteria".

Right. They're "contaminated" by mercury. Mercury which medically has been proven to not been a problem, and is no longer in the vaccines. Claiming the vaccines are contaminated is just part of them being crazy. And they *DO* need to be met with outright hostility, as these people are literally killing children.

The mercury thing was completely overblown. I think Frank can give more details than I can, but it's basically an elemental vs organic mercury thing. Elemental mercury, like in thermometers, is really fucking bad, yeah. But the small amount of organic mercury found in the vaccines as a preservative was 100% safe. It's the difference between chlorine gas and the chloride ions in table salt.

But a crazy doctor made up some fake research about how this mercury was "causing autism" in children, and ended up using idiots to make himself rich and famous. All the idiots like Jenny McCarthy flocked to him, and started this crazy. The manufacturers said "well, maybe" and outright removed all mercury from vaccines.

But this didn't stop these people. They wouldn't be happy until children started dying. So they kept preaching the evils of vaccines, complaining about mercury which no longer exists. And then the crazy doctor's work was tested... and several other, non-crazy doctors found results that didn't match with his. That STILL didn't stop the child murderers. Then it was found that the crazy doctor outright fabricated all of his information, and was a complete and utter fraud.

But that didn't stop the nutjobs. Because it's more important to never admit you're wrong, then it is to keep children from dying.

Those vaccines did not "contain mercury" in the manner of having poured the metal mercury into something. They contained mercury atoms. In the atomic structure of a chemical called Thimerosal:


This isn't even like Chloride Ions, there is no freely available mercury. It can't convert from one state to another by accepting an electron or some shit. The potent nerve toxin that Mercury is part of is monomethylmercury, which looks like this:


Metalliz Mercury can and does get transformed into monomethylmercury in situ when it is exposed to bacteria that live in your body. Thimerosal does not appear to do that.

-Username17

Again, I don't really know which group you're talking about anymore. But if they're preaching something wrong, then like I said, just note that they're taking a very minor grain of truth and blowing it out of proportion.

Locally (which I mean the Philippines), the issue was more of mothers who didn't realize vaccinating their kids could result in them getting a fever.

Zinegata wrote:Again, I don't really know which group you're talking about anymore. But if they're preaching something wrong, then like I said, just note that they're taking a very minor grain of truth and blowing it out of proportion.

No. They are not. There is absolutely no evidence that vaccines cause autism. There was one study that claimed that, but the guy who did it admitted to fraud this year.

Tons of psychiatrists prescribe ritalin and other shit to kids. I would spit in their face (figuratively) if they told me to put my kid on downers because he was hyper.

If I'm reading this right, Ritalin doesn't work anything like what you think, speaking from experience. It's an amphetamine, and also doesn't have a serious negative effect in most cases.

Zinegata wrote:It's important to realize that every crazy movement usually has a grain of truth behind it.

My best friend is anti-group-vaccination. She got info the school where her kids were studying was allowing doctors to test new medicine on the schoolchildren under the guise of group vaccination. It doesn't help that 1) she's sort of a conspiracy nut in general and 2) I'm in Russia and crazier shit happens all the time. I mean, primary schoolers being quizzed on their sexual satisfaction does not make national news any longer.

Maj wrote:

violence in the media wrote:As far as I know, it's the maintenance issue. However infrequently you choose to do it, hardwood floors require maintenance from time to time. Many of the new laminates don't require a second thought once they're installed.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever lived with wood floors? I've lived with them for a large portion of my life, and the only maintenance my mom has ever had to do to them is sweeping and mopping.

But then, I've never lived with laminate. The only thing I can tell you about that is friends telling their kids to be careful when it came to dropping stuff. But I don't know if that's a real thing or not.

Personally, I've never had to deal with any hardwood flooring maintenance, as I was 9 the last time I lived in a house with hardwood flooring. My home is currently all carpet and tile. My dad, on the other hand, has had to deal with hardwood floors at various times in his life and the issues he's reported are the sometimes fiddly nature of the cleaners you need to use, depending on the floor and finish you already have; the need to remove/reapply wax from time to time; and the possibility (admittedly only on older floors) of having to sand the whole thing down and refinish it. The various tasks aren't necessarily arduous, but they're competing against the near-zero maintenance of tile and laminates.

Now, part of this might be related to him growing up in a house that was built in 1924 and, thus, when my grandfather bought it in the mid-50s the floors were right at the "strip and refinish" portion of their life. So, take that as you will.

As far as being careful about dropping things, I thought that was just something you told children, regardless of the flooring situation.

Just to reiterate, I'm not passing judgement one way or the other on hardwoods, I can just imagine that a lot of people in the 60s-80s probably decided "fuck this shit" and put down carpeting around the time they needed to refinish their floors.

DragonChild wrote: But that didn't stop the nutjobs. Because it's more important to never admit you're wrong, then it is to keep children from dying.

They're getting people to turn their children into walking bio-weapons labs. How does that not qualify as terrorism, thus triggering the Patriot Act, "No rights, one-way to Gitmo"?

Fuck it, that original doctor admitted to fraud, he should ping the Felony Murder law (his felony of fraud directly resulted in deaths that could have been prevented by him not committing the felony) and Go Straight To Jail. Or, depending on state, he says needles are bad... *sunglasses* ...it certainly will be for him.

(No I don't actually endorse his death, I just wanted to fit the CSI Miami thing in. But him not getting charged with a serious crime is messed up.)

Andrew Wakefield has had his license to practice medicine in the UK revoked, and is not licensed to practice medicine in the US. At this time, he makes his money by selling books full of lies.

But yes, the question of why Wakefield is not in jail right now is an open one.

-Username17

I'd like to throw something in.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that there aren't people who are severely autistic in the world, before anyone decides to jump me.

Is it me, or is "autistic" the word people are now using to refer to kids acting weird ever since the last DSM edition?

I don't believe for a second Bill Gates is mentally disabled in any way.

Maj wrote:

violence in the media wrote:As far as I know, it's the maintenance issue. However infrequently you choose to do it, hardwood floors require maintenance from time to time. Many of the new laminates don't require a second thought once they're installed.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever lived with wood floors? I've lived with them for a large portion of my life, and the only maintenance my mom has ever had to do to them is sweeping and mopping.

But then, I've never lived with laminate. The only thing I can tell you about that is friends telling their kids to be careful when it came to dropping stuff. But I don't know if that's a real thing or not.

From my understanding, a good, protected hardwood floor could probably go a decade or more without maintenance. This also depends on if you have dogs, and if so, how often you walk them or trim their nails. I redid the crappy pine floors in my old house and they were showing wear within a few years, but the new oak floor we put in was still in solid shape the whole four years we lived there. The oak room was the kitchen which also had the primary door in and out of the house, so it saw plenty of traffic.

As for laminate, we had that in the basement in one room which I barely used. I have no idea how durable it is in practice. I'm sure once it's damaged it's harder to fix, but it might be pretty tough.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I'd like to throw something in.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that there aren't people who are severely autistic in the world, before anyone decides to jump me.

Is it me, or is "autistic" the word people are now using to refer to kids acting weird ever since the last DSM edition?

I don't believe for a second Bill Gates is mentally disabled in any way.

Oh, I think the people who know others with legitimate debilitating Autism would be far from jumping down your throat.

They'd likely agree that it gets watered down in common usage. Socially awkward is so far down on the spectrum of autism that I'd rather classify it as something else entirely.

My cousin has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a fairly mild form of autism. She is an 18 year old with the emotional maturity of maybe a 10 year old, and intellectual maturity not much better because of it.

It's hard to say how much is nature and how much is nurture since she had a very shitty childhood. Her mom (my aunt) died when she was a toddler, then her dad married a sociopath bitch who hated my cousin and basically the biyatch basically spent the next ten or so years telling my cousin that she was useless and would never be able to do anything. After that my cousin has essentially grown up living with my grandparents (who are nearly in their 90's and have their own health issues) and they are barely able to take care of themselves, let alone a special needs child.

I don't know how long it is going to be before my cousin is able to live on her own. I think she may have to live in a group home first. My parents and other cousins try to help out but it's been difficult and I don't think we can meaningfully help out unless we actually take over the parenting entirely, and nobody wants to sack up and do it and many of us are in no position to do it.

*sigh*

That's like the only piece of drama at all in my entire family, but it's a biggie and very autism related.

So, several years ago I flat-out stopped taking care of my body. I mean, when you don't intend on living as far as the next year, why bother doing irritating shit like brushing your teeth every day, right?

Even recently, I've only just started properly looking after my appearance again - I always showered as much as possible, that's a comfort thing. But using proper conditioner for my hair, shaving my legs and so on. And well, I recently decided to get back into the habit of brushing my teeth, as opposed to "When I remember and can be bothered (so, monthly)".

I noticed some of my teeth now have holes in them. Not giant things, but visible when I lean towards the mirror to take a close look.

Now let's pretend Australia's public health care is so advanced that dental is covered (it isn't) or that I can afford it without the cover (I can't). Like fuck am I letting them stick a needle full of "not a pain killer" into my face before attacking me with a drill and hook. There's a reason nobody goes to the dentist once they're old enough to make that decision, and that reason is dentists.

1. Is there a way this can be fixed at a hospital (including "let it get bad enough that it has to be fixed at a hospital"), thus invoking magical health care rules and with proper painkillers?*

2. When are we looking at reliable "I can eat chewy things with these" replacement teeth being available? As in, not a whole set, just "yeah, here, we'll pump you full of morphine, surgically remove this tooth and implant this shiny new one".

3. If seeing a dentist is unavoidable, are they okay with letting you rock up while up to your tits on oxy?

I mean, thanks to nerve damage, I have a high tolerance of pain in things like my arms and legs (more correctly, I can't feel it). But the downside of that is I don't get the regular daily pains in limbs that people use to build up a resistance, once it's in the head, spine or teeth, I fucking notice it.

Still banking on one day "suffering" from the condition where the body does not register any kind of pain, and of only living as far as perhaps forty, but in the mean time, it's possible that simple damage-control isn't enough and I'll need to get something done to fix my body up. And that requires powerful drugs.

*If it isn't made from opium, it's not a painkiller. You can argue with all kinds of things but you can't argue with results.

Antivaccine folks have more trouble with vaccination than mercury. Its a diverse crowd.

First, there's the folks that will rely on herd immunity to cover them against disease, taking the chance that the opt-out rate is small enough that their non-participation in the immunization process will not compromise herd immunity. That's probably a more intellectualized rationalization than you'd get from this group; their version runs, "you're more likely to get a horrible complication from the vaccination process than suffer a horrible outcome from the diseases they prevent".

Second, there are the folks that are anti-medical. They don't like the idea of flu shots and measles shots and shots for shit that used to not be a big deal. These are also a subset of the same people that don't take Tylenol/Advil/etc when they have a headache.

Third, there are people that have problems with the system of vaccination, namely its schedule. Getting multiple shots spread out lowers the max load of adjuvants, specifically neurotoxins like aluminum. Aluminum's toxicity is only shown in high concentrations though, which are absent from shots. There is a correlation between aluminum and Alzheimer's but causality is not established, and again, there is severe doubt that aluminum concentrations in shots are sufficient to manifest any neurotoxicity.

Fourth, there's the flourides-in-the-water crowd. They don't like vaccines because the UN or the Communists or something.

Fifth, there are the vaccines-cause-autism crowd. Autism rates are climbing (some say this is only reporting increasing) and with nothing to blame, they point at vaccines. I think the only X-correlates-with-autism study I've ever read linked vinyl floors (and presumably phthalates) and cigarette-smoking-parents to autism, and that was only in 1 study.