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Majority of the “AI inside” software and solutions. It’s in a bubble and everyone is throwing crap to a wall hoping it sticks.
“AI” is the new “blockchain”. It’s a solution looking for a solid problem to tackle, with some niche applications
I mean, at least Ai has SOME useful applications, the blockchain was just wasting energy for some numbers.
Blockchain also has some useful applications. Most (but not all) of them are also possible with technology and such that existed when bitcoin was first created, at far lower cost for a minor tradeoff in accuracy. On top of that, almost none of them are related to speculative markets.
It’s a way to do distributed transaction logs in a non-refutable and independantly verifiable way. That’s useful and important, but it was a solution in search of a problem. Even for the highest security, most at risk transactions, the existing international fincancial systems are “good enough” to ensure reliability of transaction logs.
In the end, blockchain and now AI are just falling victim to con men trying to milk as much money as they can from things before people build a working understanding of them. They’ll just keep moving onto the next big thing as it comes.
useful and important
solution in search of a problem
Mhhh
I just wish people had long enough memories to see the cycle for terms like these. Some new word catches vogue, companies fall over themselves trying to find ways to implement them for shareholders and consumers who have no idea what they actually represent. As that fades, a new term arises… it’s sad.
And virtual reality gets a free revival every other technology, while we’re at it.
I’m predicting VR coming back into the limelight, try again, shortly after everyone loses interest in AI.
Also, I’m still pissed that flying cars aren’t in the limelight more. I was promised daily updates, and I’m not seeing them. That’s the biggest proof that the media is completely disconnected.
We have flying cars. They’re called helicopters, and they suck for most activities
Good point.
I’m willing to accept a reality where the science magazines are constantly excited about every development in helicopter technology.
Blockchain also has problems its solving I recon the whole not bullshit was a psyop by thr us government cos finances that they couldn’t have absolute control over would allow the people to bs free. I recon monero is the best as of present especially since its actually anonymous payments.
I am so over hearing about AI. It’s getting to the point that I can assume anyone dropping the term at work is an idiot that hasn’t actually used or utilised it.
It’s this LLM phase. It’s super cool and a big jump in AI, but it’s honestly not that good. It’s a handy tool and one you need to heavily scrutinise beyond basic tasks. Businesses that jumped on it are now seeing the negative effects of thinking it was magic from the future that does everything. The truth is, it’s stupid and people need to learn about it, understand it, and be trained in how to use it before it can be effective. It is a tool, not a solution—at least for now anyways.
The truth is, it’s stupid and people need to learn about it, understand it, and be trained in how to use it before it can be effective.
So, like a hammer. A very expensive, environment-destroying hammer.
That’s actually a pretty good analogy.
I think more like discovering making fire or something. 90% of all the energy burnt is people worshipping it as it blazes away, never actually fulfilling any practical use except being marvelous to be around.
But once the forest is all chopped down, people are forced to understand fire and realise a couple small logs in a contained place was all they needed to have it be incredibly effective.
Oh, but that’s too hard. It’s magic right now. All hail the AI bonfire!
Genuinely curious, how does it destroy the environment?
Massive energy consumption. Huge datacenters and not enough green energy. Now they want to build small nuclear plants. Without talking about the waste problem.
Their waste is less destructive than coal plant though. Perhaps this could be a silver lining to finally get nuclear back in action and get closer to dropping coal once and for all.
So AI uses energy, and it’s how we are choosing to provide that energy is destructive to the environment? So AI isn’t itself destructive.
Ah yeah, just choose a different energy souce. Simples.
Have you seen the growth in % of renewable (incl, nuc biofuel and waste) electricity generation over the past 30 years. (36% i in 1990 , dropped to about 33% in late 2000s up to 38% recently) this is global, IEA figures.
There have been two years since 1990 when renewable electricity output has grown faster than total electricity demand. 2008/9 recession and 2020 covid. The only way renewables will come close to meeting current electricity consumption is actually to start reducing those demands.
If we start transerffing gas( domestic heating), and petrol( low-capacity road transportation) onto the electricitry grid then the scale and speed of renewables needs to ramp up inconcievably quickly - it has grown fast over the past decade, but it hasn’t been cheap nor has it been fast enough to keep up with current demands.
TBH I don’t know where AI lines up next to EVs in scale of potential extra demand, probably lower but still an added demand (unless it can substitute for other stuff and improve efficiency somehow).
Electricity source is not really a choice, it is resource and tech constrained many sources are needed; the cheapest fuels will continue to be in the mix used so long as demand keeps increasing so fast.
Maybe, If you ran all AI in peooles houses in cold countries in winter, it’d substitute for heating - that’d be one way it could reduce its impact. Or maybe it can get its act together and spark widespread, frequent, deep, long lasting recessions in economic activity.
Maybe renewables is not the solution to our energy needs if it can’t scale up like we thought it could. Conservation of energy is not the answer. We as a society must find new, cleaner, sources of energy. Maybe AI can help us do it.
Tbf the energy issues are getting better, or at least there are some more efficient models being created. Back in April there was a version of Llama that only needed 8gb to almost match GPT4
I equate an AI to an intern. It’s useful for some stuff but if I’m going to attach my name to it I’m going to review it and probably change a lot about it.
There’s one good use case for me: produce a bigload of trialcontent in no time for load testing new stuff. “Make 2000 yada yada with column x and z …”. Keeps testing fun and varied while lots of testdata and that it’s all nonsense doesn’t matter.
I’ve found that testing code or formulas with LLM is a 50/50 now. Very often replying “use function blabla() and such snd so” very detailed instructions while this suggested function just doesn’t exist at all in certain language asked for… it’s still something I’ld try if I’m very stuck tho, never know.
Very often replying “use function blabla() and such snd so” very detailed instructions while this suggested function just doesn’t exist at all in certain language asked fo
I’ve noticed this a lot too—especially for M. But even though it makes up a function, it sometimes inspires a more optimised idea/method that can be more flexible for future datasets.
But most times it starts to massacre things and disregard prompted parameters or even producing an identical suggestion immediately after being told not to, why not to, and reconfirming original parameters of the query.
Some times punching in the same prompts five times for five iterations produces completely different results, but one may be on the right track and I can code the rest. It helps to set it’s personality first, so it’s sharing ideas it’s seen out there, rather than trying to please.
At the least, it’s a big time saver. Gone are the days where I get a few days spare to work on solving a complex problem through trial and discovery, so it’s an excellent tool for reducing testing time and speeding up the route to an optimised method.
notice how all of those crypto features were quietly removed from platforms after people realised they were paying millions for some numbers, i think that will happen with Ai
I just got a notification on my phone telling me that I can chat with my PDF documents. Why the fuck would I want to do that? Do these companies realize that literally no one is asking for this shit? I also saw an ad for a computer mouse that had AI inside it. Whatever that means.
I just got a notification on my phone telling me that I can chat with my PDF documents
I belive you got that notification but I honestly have no idea what it even means.
It’s from the Adobe Acrobat app. Basically you can ask it to give you a summary of whatever document you’re reading.
Don’t knock it too quickly. I thought like you but one evening I was a little tipsy and started chatting with a PDF document. Let’s just say things got a heated and now we’re engaged.
Oddly enough, that’s one of the few functions I’ve found the LLMs useful for. Looking through big pdfs for specific information, lots of times “ctrl+f” doesn’t do the trick because the exact term I’m looking for doesn’t appear. Worse sometimes it’s a phrase that could be in there under many synonyms. Using the LLM to find the actual info is pretty nice, it just isn’t “AI”.
My research was literally on AI back in college. Most AI solutions are just basic algorithms and don’t use real AI solutions. There’s a huge difference.
It’s even better than that. A lot of companies are taking NVIDIA’s pre-built workflows, running their data through them and selling the results as their own AI. “We build proprietary RAG AI!”
I can’t wait to get a Smart AI refrigerator that tells me I have a bunch of food that isn’t really in there even when I didn’t ask it to.
Watched a bit of a video of a guy that went to Computex and asked any vendor with AI plastered somewhere what they were doing with it. Most spouted some meaningless word salad and a few literally shrugged.
Chiropractic.
Everything in Holland and Barrett.
As a medical device engineer working in spine - absolutely chiropractors.
What about osteopaths?
I was not familiar with this term and had to look it up. From my brief search, it also seems like snake oil, and I don’t know why someone would not go to a real physical therapist instead.
Not saying anything about the source, but https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/osteopathic-medicine
I absolutely had a PT after a car accident that used spinal manipulation and it seemed to help. She also had me using elastic bands for stretching and hydrotherapy, so there’s that
Fair, I do have a number of MD DO consultants. The initial look I had was not within the DO licensing.
Osteopaths (who have a Doctorate of Osteopathy and are often referred to as DOs) go to medical school and receive training that’s almost exactly the same as an MD.
the difference (so i’m told) is that DOs are trained to take a more holistic, full-body approach to diagnostics and treatment rather than only focusing on one set of symptoms/treatment. They also do their residencies and internships alongside MDs.
Yes, I’ve heard some people say that they trust DOs more because they’re more deliberately trained to look at a larger picture of a person’s health. I don’t have my own opinion since I’ve never met with a DO.
My PCP is a DO. It works for me as my body is still relatively young. (late 30’s) I also don’t have many issues that would require more intensive/specialized treatment that I don’t already have a specialist for.
DO are real doctors. Rarer than MDs because there are less schools but totally real docs. My Mom with 30 years nursing experience says their training is basically identical, but DOs are generally nicer.
It depends on the country. Everywhere but the US, I believe, osteopaths are witch doctors on the same level as chiropractors. In the US, they were originally like that, but their professional organization basically pushed it into being a real medical degree.
Now they go to the same length schooling as MD’s, and take the same exams as far as I know.
The core of the whole discipline, osteopathy, is a pseudoscience, though. While they are usually competent doctors they still have that core of pseudoscience. They like to market themselves as more “holistic”, but that’s usually a good dogwhistle term to let you know information not supported by science is going to follow. They bring up that they are the same as MDs, but with additional training in osteopathy, but that can’t be true because the schooling is the same length, so to fit in the pseudoscience, they get less science.
The real reason why we have DO’s is that we don’t have capacity in our country to educate enough MDs, so we have this weird parallel system.
I sometimes come across influencers pushing chrio “treatments” on pets or newborns, saying it makes them “breathe better” or be “more energetic”
It’s infuriating
its a bit more than infuriating, thats straight up dangerous.
I’ve told this story before, but newborn chiropractors are a thing, and many new parents will take their BABIES to get their neck and back snapped around. It’s frankly fucking disgusting.
I used to see a lot of threads on reddit about people who got injuries from cheap chiropractors.
Problem is, people go to chiropractor when they don’t have access to real doctor, problem either the money or/and most doctors in your city/state can’t/refuse do anything about your problem, desperation is one hell of a stimulus
most doctors in your city/state can’t/refuse do anything about your problem
There’s almost nothing a chiropractor can do if doctors aren’t treating you. Except lie and steal your money.
The thing is, placebos can actually be pretty effective. Hell, they’re effective even if you know they’re a placebo. And the more elaborate and similar to what you think would be involved in curing you, the more effective. So people going to chiropractors might actually be getting real results even if the things they’re doing are junk.
Except snake oil can contain bleach…
I can somewhat understand this. I have IBS, and most people with a bowel issue will tell you that IBS is basically your doctor saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Instead of getting help from your doctor, you go online and you hear about people finding relief through taking weird supplements, or eating only rice, or taking pre and probiotics of varying types. None of it has any proof, but it’s better to try something than to struggle - and sometimes you’re lucky or you find some short-lived relief.
The difference is that there often isn’t evidence for these things working, whereas there is plenty of evidence out there that says that chiropractors are doing legitimately dangerous practices to your body. The difference is that someone is trying to make a profit from this lack of knowledge.
I’ve had loads of advice like that for IBS, but no amount of FODMAP or probiotics actually makes a difference, because my IBS is stress-triggered. My doctor helped by advising me to avoid stressful situations, which is hard when you move to another country.
It may be that your gut health is constantly poor when stress triggers things. I used to become ill from cold exposure for several years - tyramine from foods leaked through the small intestine to the bloodstream (which is bad) for about three days after each exposure. See https://lemmy.world/comment/10672140
This was basically my experience but with tinnitus.
It’s a symptom of a larger problem but if there is no clear correlation then you’re kind of on your own
“Only rice” is an elimination diet for allergies that I should have tried decades ago, but dumbass mainstream medicine never recommended.
I found out there are slow allergies mediated by immunoglobulin G that you can’t detect while eating, so I did a blood test. Found some strong positives (milks, eggs), and then through elimination found out false negatives that I also can’t eat (peanut, soy), and, thanks to the doctor whom I went out of my way to see about IgG, some that are typically harmful to those with IBS that I also need to avoid (gluten, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil). Supplemental protective agents Aloe barbadensis, xyloglucan, and butyrate also help. Getting really healthy now - no more IBS if I don’t eat mistakes.
The mainstream doctors say that’s all nonsense and that I’m a hypochondriac who perceives having gotten better for no reason.
My previous successful departure from the mainstream was making my gallbladder go from “full of stones” to “empty except a thin layer of sediment on the bottom” as seen by ultrasound. Now that there’s proof, the doctors can’t dismiss that. https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-diet-considerations-for-Gallstone-sufferers/answers/107344862
Holland and Barrett sell supplements. Some people do need to take a vitamin d tablet a day. I do but I’ve got a prescription for a vitamin d and calcium tablet because I’ve been low for years.
I work 3rd shift, so I take Vitamin D because the sun is my nemesis.
Be careful with vitamin D though. That is one of the very very few vitamins that you can actually take too much of because it’s fat soluble, not water soluble, so excessive vitamin D will build up in your fat cells rather than just getting peed out. It’s called vitamin D toxicity (VDT) and it can have some unpleasant neurological effects among other things.
So it’s probably a good idea to get your levels checked anyways just to make sure you’re taking the right amount if you need it.
Funny, every primary care provider in my country recommends you take Vitamin D, usually pretty huge amounts
Could be because we get barely any sunshine between like October and February. I’m talking 6 hour days, and even those mostly cloudy.
I take vitamin D about 5 months out of the year. Stupid fall back daylight saving time is part of it. Makes me furious my already battered mental health has to get worse from changing the clocks.
Essential oils. Homeopathy. Chiropractic. Reiki. Juice cleanses. Perineum sunning. Internet accelerator software. Iridology. Faith healing. Organic food. Oil pulling. Gold plated digital audio cables.
It’s worth noting that gold plated connectors are not snake oil. Gold is a good conductor and doesn’t form a nonconductive oxide layer. That means it’s going to be more durable and won’t corrode together or apart like those old ass sheet metal tube sockets that all need to be cleaned.
Everything marketed audiophiles, not only gold plated cables, but also anything that uses vacuum tubes because “they sound better”
There’s a LOT of snake oil in the audio world. Especially home theater and home studio setups. I’m a professional audio technician, and some of the “audiophile” setups I have seen are just outright asinine.
Use balanced signal for runs over ~3 feet. Use the cheapest star-quad cable you can get, and the most basic $4 Neutrik connectors. Why? Because that album you’re using to test your “hi-fi” sound system was recorded using exactly that: Cheap ¢30/foot cable and basic Neutrik connectors.
It’s also what concert setups use. You think a concert with six combined miles of cabling is going to be paying $2000 per cable? Fuck no, they’re using the cheap shit (which was hand soldered in bulk at the warehouse workbench by their lowest paid shop tech), to run that million dollar audio system. Their money goes to the speakers, amps, and mixer; Not gold plated wire, robotic soldering, or triple insulated jackets. In double-blind tests, audiophiles can’t hear the difference between a $500 cable and a couple of plasti-dipped coat hangers twisted together.
The people who complain about digital audio also can’t tell the difference in double-blind tests. Because modern audio hardware is able to perfectly emulate old analog gear. Google the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem for a breakdown of how we can perfectly capture and recreate analog audio with digital equipment. Vacuum tubes were groundbreaking when they were first used. But they had a lot of issues, and have very little relevance in today’s systems. They’re prone to burning out, notoriously fragile, and can be emulated perfectly.
I was buying a toslink cable recently and I shit you not, there was a gold plated optical cable…
I agree, but with one caveat.
Fully analog tube amps do definitely produce a warmer/richer sound with less complicated things to go wrong. Artists like them because they are reliable, generally user serviceable, (usually just need to replace bad/old tubes) and makes each recording sound relatively unique.
The thing is, is that it really only works during production. Unless being cut direct to a master record, the sound will get saved in a digital format to produce the user-facing media, which can include digital-source vinyls.
Those products marketed to audiophiles try to take the digitally recorded/archived products to “try” making it sound like the original.
I remember buying some bits and pieces to setup my home theatre in a new house years ago, and the guy at the store tried to sell me a $100 TOSLINK cable. When I asked why a $12 cable was going for so much, he pointed out that it was the “premium” cable, to ensure the highest quality audio.
I couldn’t stop laughing. Like their special cable scrubbed the photons before sending them or something.
The Guys podcast has a pretty fun episode about this.
Perineum sunning
I’m sorry WHAT
Oil pulling, if you’re also OOTL. Swishing fancy oil around your mouth.
How do you bundle up organic food with the rest of that ?
Organic food is devinetively not snake oil. As you mentioned,Nutrition wise its exactly the same. However, the Environmental Impact is completely different. Organic farming is much better in terms of biodiversity, soil health. Since organic farming doesn’t include the use of pesticides it doesn’t kills everything else that would live on a field. Also, Theres always parts of the pesticides that stay in the crops and that you eat. I don’t know exactly how bad they are, but considering that(at least in Germany) Parkinson is an accepted work related illness for farmers its sure that they aren’t entirely safe for humans. However, we should take into consideration, that farmers get exposed to much higher doses of pesticides. If someone has some articles regarding this topic feel free to share.
Organic food? Please let me take that out of your list. Organic produce has a huge lot of benefits over industrial, to both the consumer and the environment.
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Chiropractic
I dunno what shysters you’ve all been going to. My chiro, with his kinesiology degree and full physiotherapy ticket in addition to his nationally-recognized certification, seems to do a lot more “do these stretches and stop sitting stupidly” guidance and reeeeally isn’t interested in a “programme of wellness” grift that my friends in other regions worry about.
Downvotes? What, jealous my guy isn’t an overt shyster quack like the horror stories? I hope when you need them, there’s a good one out there for ya. I’m 30 years on a wicked back injury and I’m still limber so woo!
Blue light filter on glasses. When I got my glasses, the lady said they come with blue light filter for free, and I said, “I don’t want that, my job requires that I see colors accurately, so I can’t have any sort of color filter.” She said don’t worry, it doesn’t filter any colors. Ok, then what the fuck is it exactly?
I have a couple from the hip actually, because America has grifting baked into it’s soul. In no particular order:
- MMS (Drinkin’ bleach)
- Crystal healing (most sellers)
- WitchTok kits (TikTok influencers selling expensive spices)
- Brain pills
- Any product peddled by a megachurch (see the Baker bucket for a great example)
- Chiropractors
As more of these come to me, I’ll try to expand the list.
Update: I can’t believe I forgot chiros! They turned themselves into a religion at one point to try to dodge medical licensure laws.
I would say that a lot of stuff being peddled through tiktok and Instagram are scams. Those anti-5g dongles come to mind.
Tin foil hats are much better anti5g solution.
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Anti-5g dongles? That’s new for me, but I consume a lot of these grifts secondhand through a few podcasts I listen to. I might be behind.
Sounds like the bones of a good scam are there though, assuming the anti-5G conspiracy still gets traction and clicks.
Edit: Do you know if someone like bigclive got one? He takes those sorts of devices apart a lot to explain them and I’d love to see what’s inside. I just don’t want to pay the money for one to fund the grift.
There is a good few videos on them, it has died down significantly since the whole 5g panic went away. Some of them were just some clear USB keys, some were just stickers. Mr. Whosetheboss did a video on them.
Baker Bucket is a good name for a gravity bong setup.
Idk about prevagen but my opthomologist definitely said any generic of preservation is very good, and artificial tears with flax seed oil will definitely relieve dry, itchy “sandy eye” feel. Idk if he really believes that or not but I thought I’d give some drops a try. Last time I tried artificial tears, it burned like soap so I hope it’s not a waste of money.
Oh I looked it up, there may (study funded by the industry) be a basis for that. Medical News Today
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Anti virus software. To protect your computer let’s constantly run this software with root privileges!
I remember mcAffee webadvisor came preinstalled with a crappy asus vivobook i got when i was younger, i could not delete it, i had to manually remove the files from the programfiles folder but it reinstalled itself every time it updated, the laptop bricked itself recently anyway so it doesn’t matter.
That’s when you wipe the os and install linux
I run linux on my main pc, but some other people used the laptop.
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Chiropractic anything. John Oliver covered it quite well.
Shampoo and conditioner with vitamins in it.
Your hair is dead. It can’t metabolize anything.
I don’t know anything about how it works, but I assumed it was absorbed by the skin on your head not the actual hair.
I still doubt that putting vitamin whatever on your head everyday will actually make a difference
This is correct. It’s about a healthy scalp. Like lotion for your head.
Yeah but you gotta remember “vitamins” is just a dumbed down term to refer to fats and compounds. It’s not actually like food or anything nourishing for the hair. Like a lot of haircare stuff has vitamin e in it, which is supposed to help protect hair from hot blow drying damage and also make it shiny. A lot of the stuff is also moisturizers for your scalp.
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Vitamins yeah that’s no good.
Things like fruit, honey, or flowers must be good though right?
I mean, my wife’s honey pomegranate and hybiscus body scrub must be amazing with all that fruity yummy stuff.
PH numbers in any hair washing/conditioning product that gets rinsed out.
You end up with the PH of the water, people.
I didn’t know that. I am definitely going to keep this in mind now.
VPNs for internet access, at least the way they are advertised
I’m sure plenty of them have nice little deals with the NSA lol
Most of them are owned by one company. The only independent ones are Mullvad, Proton, and IVPN. For the most part, you want to Tor and never sign into anything if you are being ultra private about your browsing.
What about airvpn ?
AirVPN are probably the best. They’re independent, more transparent than the other providers, and support port forwarding.
I hate that these commercial providers are the first thing people think of when they hear “VPN” these days, rather than the actual main use case for a VPN (connecting to a remote network, like a work network, from another location).
Any “quick fix/all-in-one” fitness or nutrition solutions. While there are minute optimizations for elite athletes, 99.99% of the population can adhere to the general consensus of nutrition and health science.
- Do something that gets your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes a day. Speed walk, bike, row, shoot hoops, jump rope, doesn’t matter, just get your heart pumping hard for at least half an hour a day.
- Roughly a third of your food should be fresh leafy greens & veggies. A third should be whole grains and unprocessed starches and sugars like sweet potato and fresh fruit. The final third should be a protein. Lean meat like fish or chicken, or if you’re veg/vegan, beans, tofu, seeds, peas, etc.
- To build strength, general bodyweight exercises combined with stretching is fine for most people. If you wanna get really strong, get a few kettle bells or adjustable dumbells on the used market for $50-$100. You don’t need an expensive fitness club membership or one of those all-in-one $2,000+ fancy machines that mounts on your wall.
- Don’t drink often, don’t smoke, don’t pound stimulants like caffeine or nicotine.
- Brush your teeth well.
- Get 6-8 hours a night of good quality sleep.
- Keep your brain engaged, read, play music, play games, learn a language, etc.
I’m speaking from experience, because I have fallen for stuff over the years that promised fast results and optimal methods with minimal effort. Fact is, unless you’re training for the Olympics or you have very specific heath conditions, those basic bullet points will cover the vast majority if general health and fitness.
I agree with almost everything you said, except I wouldn’t advocate for people including stretching as a regular part of exercise. Despite what people tend to think, there isn’t really evidence to support broad general benefits of stretching. Obviously, if you are a gymnast or another type of athlete with specific needs for range of motion beyond what is “normal”, go for it. It may not hurt, but it is likely a waste of time, and if you are constrained in the amount of time you can spend on exercise, you should spend that time doing things with well established benefits, like weightlifting.
The other thing I want to add on (again cause I agree with what you said) to the diet part is that people probably shouldn’t trust products like Athletic Greens to “count” as their daily vegetables, despite their marketing. I haven’t been able to find good research on it that wasn’t funded by them. Also, just more generally, I’m skeptical of the purported benefits of juice and smoothies. Again, it’s hard to find good studies on it, but much of the benefit of fruit and veggies is in the fiber and resulting delayed digestion, so it stands to reason that the processing removes some of the benefit.
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If you want to get really strong, you might want protein and creatine supplements to speed up your progress, but even that’s not necessary and they only speed things up a little.
Homeopathics, though sometimes even a placebo can have beneficial effects.
Definitely this one, the products are sometimes placed right next to legitimate ones and worse:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-homeopathic-products-1.6254025
Hidden camera reveals some pharmacists recommend homeopathic products to treat kids’ cold and flu
The thing is, placebos can work even if the patient knows it’s a placebo. Which I think is crazy and amazing.
But it doesn’t look good for homeopathic grifters.
The problem is thinking anything cures the cold or flu. Once you have either, you have it until it runs its course. The only way to cure either would be to completely eliminate them or how they function in the body with medicine that doesn’t currently exist.
There are a number of antiviral medicines, some of which work against influenza A and B. I’m pretty sure these are prescription medications in Canada.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Not really “modern day” snake oil when it was invented in the 1700’s lol.
As long as it continues to be sold on store shelves, it’s modern enough to count.
This is a common misconception of the placebo effect. The placebo effect is a measurement issue, not an actual benefit.
Tests are corrupted by using the reposnes and judgement of humans. People will say they had some sort of benefit because of expectations, poor recollection and politeness. It doesn’t mean a benefit was gained. A placebo group allows researchers to quantify how much the placebo effect has on the data they gathered, they can then see if the experiment they did had any effect. Placebo is literally our definition of zero effect.
Anyone telling you placebo is a good thing is wrong, misinformed or deliberately misleading you. In many countries it is illegal for doctors to prescribe ‘placebo treatments’. They will still recommend such things to their patients - not because they work but because they get the patient out the door and less likely to come bother them again.
AI, particularly in how the likes of microsoft are marketing it to businesses.
Anything sold by Gwyneth Paltrow in her online shop, which I will not name here so as not to promote it. In the best case, goods sold there will be harmless and entirely useless. In the worst case, they will cause serious harm.
Cleanses. You don’t need a cleanse if you have a liver and kidneys, and if you don’t you need dialysis.
Apple products
I don’t think you understand what “snake oil” means.
