CharonY

In addition I would say that religion is obsessed with answers (or what folks assume to be answers). Scientists are obsessed with questions. In fact, I think we tend to be more focused on looking for the right question, rather than the right answers. Research projects and grant proposals are often set up like this, for example. Yes, the answer you get should be useful and advance science/technology/health yadda yadda. But typically, projects with really good questions are those that are getting funded. Science is largely driven by our curiosity and the need to figure out things. Religion is driven by our desire to be pacified by certainty and answers. We want to be able to communally obsess over questions. And for that, we need to remove bias as much as possible, other than that we would just keep bickering about interpretation without being able to make any objective progress.

No, science is a methodology that a) is focused on the physical world and b) acknowledges that is a journey. A scientist seeks new knowledge which implicitly assumes that there is no fixed end. If everything is understood, the job of a scientist is done and ends. And while I have heard many confident answers about the world from religious folks, I have not yet met a scientist who is confident that one day we will know everything there is to know. There is a type of humility in science (though not to be confused with personality of certain scientists...) which folks don't see due to limited interactions with it. Almost all scientists I know and talk to (excluding hotshot youngsters who still believe that they alone will change the world), know that we know little of the world and that each of us will only contribute a tiny bit throughout our career. Thinking that at one point we know everything is akin to the infinite monkey theorem. Yes, theoretically if it goes on forever, there is the possibility that we will have explored everything (at which point the world might be a very boring place) but it a very theoretical consideration. The key element in your sentence is "seek". It is a journey we do not expect to end.

That is not how it works, though. The papers will outline the statistical method in the methods section. That will tell you (if you know how to read) a fair bit about things like how strong the observed effects are, the cohort size and composition can be used to evaluate how specific or universal the data set might be and so on. For example, a paper doing calculations with only three patients is not going to have the statistical power of a study with a cohort of a few thousand participants.You just don't look at numbers without context. This, for example in isolation is entirely worthless. One would need to read the paper and look at how they arrived at that number. Especially the use of percentages without showing base value is not telling much.

Well, fair enough. I probably had a more myopic idea of what constitutes research in my mind, mea culpa. Though there are also many such channels with "hacks" in their titles, which seemingly are good ways to ruin things (especially food). But I think my main point still is that you have to be capable of sorting through a lot of nonsense, depending on topic, I think that DIY in general is not quite as infested as a myriad of other topics.

I think there are mostly slight variations in mammals (IIRC horses, rodents and rabbits, perhaps others are obligate nose breathers as the epiglottis basically seals off the other passage). But I think only mammals actually have it. Birds and reptiles certainly don't. And well, animals without lungs are unlikely to have those, either.

That, unfortunately is a huge can of worms. Mis and Disinformation is rampant on social media and we have seen plenty of cases of high-threat situation where those ultimately cost lives. I am honestly not sure what the topic here is as the issue goes well beyond individuals, even if if folks like Musk clearly are powerful amplifiers.

I think using youtube to do research on any topic is a horrible waste of time. If you wanted t look into Musk's lies, there are court filings regarding his businesses or the long history of overselling capabilities of the products of his companies. Getting outraged over videos is only benefits advertisers.

I think a basic wrong assumption many folks are making is science claims to explain everything (like religions does). Rather, science is a methodology that aims to improve our understanding. After all, the job of scientists is predominantly working on the cutting edge of current knowledge, rather than blithely perpetuate existing knowledge (outside of teaching that is).

Not sure whether that is a factor. It would suggest that food of various consistency would create equal issue. The inflammatory responses are mostly assumed to happen due to the the way the various sugars (which make up many stabilizers) interact with the gut and gut microbiome. But as TheVat mentioned, the effects are not quite clear. The EU has also a generally more cautious approach. I.e. the threshold for banning is lower requiring less evidence. But obviously politics also plays a role.

And to add to all of that, pro- and anti-inflammatory categorization is also a simplification of the mechanisms that are happening. Sometimes, it is an extrapolation of in vitro experiments but then it is not clear whether oral consumption would have similar effects, for example. I have not seen smoking-gun level of evidence of the benefits yet. But to be fair, it is easier to figure out harmful stuff (for the most part). I would not glamorize European diets too much, though. The US sticks out but the trends are not great in many, if not most countries. In almost all countries obesity rates are increasing, but I think in countries with a strong food culture the rates tend to be a tick lower. It depends a bit on the precise measure, though.

There were a few studies back in the days that traced habituation to sweets to sugar and vanilla extracts in baby food and formula. I.e., it is even sneakier than soft drinks, as you basically get folks addicted to sugar in the cradle. It was a few decades ago so I am not sure whether I got the timeline correct, but I think at least in part due to these findings, there are EU regulations regarding what types of sugar (e.g. lactose) area allowed and which additives (e.g., sucrose) are not.

One big issue with these studies is that almost by definition nothing you consume is fully inert. I.e. it is rare to have a binary yes/no response. To make it more complicated, quantification of responses is also not harmonized and there is no perfect marker which we could measure to estimate e.g., total inflammation levels. There is little doubt that highly processed food is bad, but to say exactly how bad is tricky. It is also compounded by the fact that folks consuming it, also tend to overeat. One of the reason is the earlier mentioned addition of sugar. The whole area of nutrition and its long-term effects suffers from similar methodological challenges, which is why there is really no clear quantitative measure to tell you what, in which amount and in what combination might be good for you to consume. We tend to fall back to fairly safe bets, but even very large cohort studies are not providing clear directions.

One thing I noticed is that in US processed foods there is way more sugar than in Europe. Also portion sizes are off. Kids get used to that esrly on and sadly the trend is also invading other countries.

You are missing my point. I did not say that additional funding does not improve outcomes, but I did say that it is dependent on the area and system. Putting money into something does not automatically benefit the outcome. As already discussed, for-profit health units often have more income (i.e. funding) but apparently do not allocate it efficiently to improve health outcome (i.e. the ratio of funding to outcome is often worse than in publicly funded units, even within a mixed system). There were a couple of studies on the US systems showing that e.g. privately owned hospitals and care homes had higher cost, but inconsistent outcomes, for example. I.e., more money did not result in hiring more nurses. Another one is misguided investment. I mentioned digital infrastructure, where algorithms were intended to speed up care, prioritizing treatment and overall save cost. But there have been well-documented issues where certain marginalized groups were put on the back of the line for treatments. As a results, the folks needing care most got it last, resulting in a degradation of health care for certain folks. This health inequity has degraded overall public health outcomes. As I said, the system is complicated, and it is not just a matter of more or fewer nurses. In fact, the issue is not only systemic, especially on the micro scale it can be very challenging to figure out how health care spending is best used. One highly cited publication a while back (it was JAMA paper, cannot recall the author) showed that higher spending (down to the per physician level) was not associated with better patient outcomes, for example. Again, a lot of challenges to maximize impact per investment and depending on circumstances more is not always better. Sometimes, it is wasted and is some rarer instances, harmful. So as mentioned, you do not always get what you paid for, as depending on what you pay into, the money might not go into improving health care. But again, if your statement is just to say that if everything is held constant, having more money is generally better than having less- it is trivially true, but also does not address associated challenges.

Well, that is also not necessarily true in the US, where in some cases you pay a lot for poor coverage. Of course one can extend the argument to all levels of the system (e.g., down to different plans within the same insurer), but I am not sure how useful of an argument that is. I think the basic point is that quality of a health care system depends on funding, but is shaped by the overall system. I.e. some can suck up money without improving care, others are more efficient in some, but less in other areas. Plus there are areas where additional funding even within a set system, does not necessarily improve care. One area where that has been found is related to health equity, where certain investments, such as in digital infrastructure, has inadvertently resulted in worse health results in already marginalized communities.

Direct comparisons are not really meaningful and comment about making money in health care often does not make a lot of sense. For example, is health care in China a for-profit system? Or does it aim to be revenue neutral? Are there mixed elements (e.g. private hospitals vs public hospitals)? What is the difference in salaries? What is the outcome? I.e., there are many factors to consider and especially if a health care system is designed to cover cost, rather than generate profits, you cannot really apply the idea of profit (i.e., making money) to the equation.

You can make that for any other comparison. IIRC private insurance is a top up from the regular insurance and is a tiny fraction. I.e. it is not just the additional funds, but because the public system takes care of much of the basics. Also, the per capita expenditure for health in Denmark is lower than Norway, but as mentioned, has shorter wait times. Again, the issue is somewhat complicated and generally the US is the easiest to identify issues, as it has the largest discrepancy between cost vs outcome. Obviously, investment plays a role, but also how the system is set up.

It is not that easy, though. For example, Denmark has some of lowest wait for hip replacements and it is a single-payer system. Canada and UK are just below OECD17 average and Norway with Australia, with a mixed model have longer wait times. For the US I have seen varying times (some median values exceed OECD averages, but I have not looked in detail at their data collection), plus the fact that folks not covered by insurance likely won't get one.

Generally speaking, single-payer systems have on average lower cost but there are often issues compared to mixed models. The US is the highest in cost, with worse outcomes on average. As expected the outcome is heavily skewed in the US by income. Mixed models can be fairly odd but most cost are publicly funded with some elements sometimes requiring private insurance. In some systems you can also opt out and do full private, but typically with strong limitations (e.g., unable to return to public system once out). Each of them is on average doing better than the US. But as Swansont mentioned, a key element in all of those (except US) is that the systems are set up to cover expenses, rather than trying to maximize profit by denying care. Also, it is easier to blame and demand systemic change from the government (and many folks are angry about their health care, even if it is better than in the US), rather than from companies.

I think only few countries are actually government employees. Canada is weird, it is single payer, but MDs are basically self-employed and often functionally incorporated and they bill the provinces. They are fully or partially government employees if they work in hospitals, IIRC. Most other countries are not single payer but often have a mixed system. But there self-employment makes more sense (plus government run facilities).

I have not read in detail all the posts, but I would like to point out that there ares studies on the use of human or other waste in agriculture. One aspect that has been promotes was the use of biosolids, which are processed byproducts of wastewater treatment. Now, there are a couple of issues, but from what I remember they are not unique to human manure. A couple of things that one found is that even after treatment (compost or biosolids) antimicrobial resistance determinants persist. That is a health concern, but again, not specific to human waste). In waste, we often also are able to measure a range of chemicals (e.g. pharmaceuticals, pesticides, heavy metals and other contaminants). In some studies, some livestock and surprisingly many wastewater samples (i.e. human waste) had heavy metal levels beyond safe limits, which have raised question regarding the safe use of biosolids. However, not all of that might be attributed to human waste exclusively as some sewer lines might also connect to industrial waste (but many pharmaceuticals and personal care product contamination is likely caused by human urine/feces). There is also some work on microbial risk and I think human urine is comparatively safe it has usually lower microbial contamination. Others, remain a risk (and again, composting or even heat treatment is insufficient), but I am not sure whether there is an increased risk over agricultural manure (neither are risk-free, though). Generally speaking, the use of manure (human and animal) is strongly associated with risk of contamination with harmful bacteria (including mentioned E. coli as well as Salmonella, Listeria, Shigella, etc.). If present, even regular cooking might not enough to fully decontaminate, especially as certain toxins are fairly heat stable. Some have raised the issue that pathogens present in human feces might be better adapted to re-infect humans, but I do not know if studies have substantiated that (as in, I have not looked, not that those don't exist).

I should have clarified, what I meant are not tool uses, but the constant need to interact with it, even when there is no functional need. I started off with listing examples, but it got a little bit unfocused, so I am giving only one example for now: When there is any down time, even if it was for a minute or two, especially younger folks immediately grab their cell phones, not to look up or note down info for example, but searching for distractions (social media, videos, messages etc.). In cases where they are not allowed to, they get visibly upset and fidgety, not unlike smokers who are not able to get their smoking breaks. This extends to odd situations, for example if they are not able to follow training. I originally thought that they were looking up other instructions (rather than asking me directly) but as it turns out, they are actually looking at posts and videos to distract themselves. When confronted, they argument is that they are stressed out and needed something to feel better. This is is just a limited example, but the use of a cell phone as soothing mechanism (or to give a dopamine hit), even if detrimental on many levels and the need to use it, even in inappropriate situations and to their own detriments does have strong similarities to addictive behaviour. I will also add that we all know that the various engagement platforms use addiction-promoting algorithms and I do think that we are seeing associated behavioural patterns emerging because of that.

While OP is a complaint post more than anything, I think there might be an interesting question regarding reliance on a specific type of electronics. While in isolation it is perhaps just a hassle, cell phones have become an universal tool for everything, ranging from purchases to entertainment. The way some folks interact with it, is pretty much close to addictive behaviour. By increasingly requiring it for services is likely going to make it more difficult to disconnect.

A big issue is that the lack of critical thinking creates a positive feedback loop where you do not even need forces with an agenda to create harmful movements. I think in the past it was necessary, as otherwise these trends would fade away, but due to the viral effect of the internet (which is a fitting description in more than one way), it can sustain itself. In some cases I suspect that the propaganda was not actually started by certain players, but that it was harnessed by them. Many of these are examples have started as joke and got accelerated themselves to a point where they could be weaponized. I think one has to start thinking of these issues less of a targeted weapon by enemy forces, but rather a self-perpetuating disease where the only defense is inoculation with skills that allow us to critically evaluate and gain knowledge.

Wait, are you suggesting he bought it without being high?