Notice how every pitcher in baseball wears those stupid titanium necklaces.
Of course, sportsmen are notoriously superstitious. If they had one good game while wearing one they’d probably never take it off.
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The anti-doping bodies just don’t have a test for serum-placebo levels yet, so all the athletes are getting in while they still can.
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I think there is a real snob factor to placebos. I have many many friends who are yoga practitioners and you would not believe the crazy shit they believe in - oil pulling (swish oil around your mouth 30 minutes a day - does wonders for everything) is one I just heard about.
The magnets are obviously hokey and reek of quackery, but the fizzy C powders, the elderberry juice, Reiki, and gluten free diets are also placebos - just ones that pick your pocket for a bit more dough. The last time I visited a friend at the wonderful hugging yogini Amma’s event, the little marketplace was selling pajamas worn by Amma herself - these talismans went for upwards of $100.
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They’re totally suckers and you’re totally a sucker for thinking a $5-$10 price tag for absolutely nothing is a therapeutic bargain. If you thought $5 was good you should see my $2 placebo-thing… i mean… legitimate medicine.
Surely sugar or vitamins would be a better option? Cheaper, doesn’t require mining.
C’mon man… that comment should at least have some doubt quotes around the word “research”.
The “research” involved 3 groups of 17 people. At those laughable numbers any result is ignorable.
Considering electroshock therapy is an effective way to manage some illnesses I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if electromagnets did have some effect, but “research” involving 51 people is not gonna be in any way conclusive.
Placebos are much more powerful than you are giving them credit for.
To prove it here are my personal assurances. Which are enough to cure your doubt. Don’t let your skepticism ruin it though.
I’ll send along a bill at the end of the month.
Hey, hey guy… I don’t see any unverifiable claims of miraculous recovery or any appeal to tradition: You’re shilling it wrong!
This post smells of Confirmation Bias!
Ah, well as a neophyte you have made a bit of a mess of it, but here they are again. Please be more impressed this time.
Don’t worry, double billing is not unusual for a first timer.
Says the guy subscribed to “The Truther Girls”
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I will only feel bad about that if you ordered a home MRI unit to cure your depression.
Pain relief is not “absolutely nothing”. It’s a serious quality of life issue which placebos certainly can be effective for.
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What you’re missing, and why you’re their perfect target sucker, is that you don’t understand that a placebo could be 1 cent or even free. You think it’s acceptable for someone to make $5 selling the promise of healing, when we know full-well that teapot’s patented energy-rock (available at all good parks near you) will “heal” you just as well.
Selling nothing more than placebo is a scummy tactic, makes people potentially forego real treatment and makes the internet a bottomless pit of useless home remedies and misinformation from the purveyors of snake oil… and then when there’s level-headed discussion somewhere about how it’s a big-ass waste of time and money there’s always contrarians who presume that any remedy is better than no remedy. I agree that placebo is useful, but I’d argue that it’s merely useful to distinguish which medicines work and which ones don’t.
Personally, I’d prefer actual pain meds than nonsense bullshit.
Not necessarily. If people believe that a copper bracelet will help heal their pain, then it’s going to need the cost of a copper bracelet to activate that placebo effect. Hey, maybe there’s some cheaper option that has the same psychological effect, I don’t know.
You’re not getting it. A placebo is real treatment for pain if people report less pain. How else would one measure the effectiveness of any pain control therapy? And a one-time $5-$10 cost is pretty damn cheap for any medical therapy.
Would you be ok with it if I managed to convince some women that my semen, when ingested from the source, was an effective painkiller? That seems unethical to me, even if the placebo effect meant it worked.
If people believe that a copper bracelet will help heal their pain…
Then they’re fucking idiots. I’m not going to perpetuate THEIR fantasy and potentially hoodwink others in order for them to feel better. What’s stopping them believing in another placebo? If they’re dumb enough to accept something that has no demonstrated efficacy then why can’t the placebo be “fresh air, breathed in a westerly direction” or “punch in the face from teapot”?
And a one-time $5-$10 cost is pretty damn cheap for any medical therapy.
Not if the one-time cost can as effectively be zero dollars. I think you’re somewhat confused as to how one measures effectiveness: “no better than placebo” means “don’t bother trying this as a medical intervention” in medical journals.
You’re still not getting it. It’s not a fantasy. They really do feel less pain. The placebo is actually effective in reducing pain.
Except that placebos do have demonstrated efficacy at pain control.
Hey, if you can figure out a zero-dollar placebo with a similar psychological effect, go for it! But it actually has to have a psychological effect.
Look, it’s really simple. Person A uses no placebo, and feels pain. Person B uses a placebo, and feels less pain, due to some purely psychological effect. You can whine all you like about how B is a “sucker” or a “fucking idiot” who offends your sense of rationalism or whatever, but at the end of the day, B feels less pain. And that’s all they care about. That’s the whole point of the treatment, to feel less pain. That’s its purpose, nothing else. For B, it is successful in that purpose, because, again, they felt less pain, so it was a sensible decision for them. Really all they need to consider is whether the reduction in pain is worth the $5-$10 they paid.
So you’re saying that the self-reported pain levels of those who used a placebo would have been different if they had chosen it freely, spent money on it, and believed it would work. This is plausible, but I don’t really know how the medical profession can ethically make use of the information if true.
But it’s at least possible for them (with the exception of Reiki) to do something. Gluten free diets, Vitamin C, juice, they all have a well established mechanism for them to do something. Whether they do actually do what the practitioners claim is another story entirely, of course, but it’s not outside the bounds of everything we know about medicine like Homeopathy, or magnets, or copper or whatever else. In fact, gluten free diets are basically a necessity for people with celiac disease are they not?
In any case, the thing that bothers me in all this is that in Canada at least, pharmacies staffed by qualified pharmacists, still sell this bunk. I suppose it’s not a surprise that they’re only doing things to maximize their profit, just like every other company, but It’s be nice to see them demonstrate that they won’t take part in the scam that is causing harm to their customers. They actually have the homeopathic stuff right next to the real medicine, without anything showing the difference between one or the other. If they even just put “what you need to know about homeopathic remedies” stickers beside them it’d be all right.
You can also just get your doctor to prescribe you some Cebocap. It comes in many different colours, for all your medical needs.
