us election thread

[Delirious Biznasty]

imo if she's against nuclear power it's most likely for the same reasons every other candidate would be (money bag emoji)

They usually use the excuse of pryipyat or fukishima for not building it. Wow, you mean there is a chance that the reactor might fail if you purposely mishandle equipment? Or if a tidal wave AND an earthquake hit it? Whew, guess nuclear energy is extremely unpredictable, let's stick to oil.

[grue]

ok like I said I'm not that big on jill stein anymore but I have to say that

a) supporting access to alternative medicine isn't denying the scientificity of conventional medicine. I don't believe in homeopathy, but acupuncture and meditation has been known to be very helpful for a whole lot of people, and if they can be used as an alternative to pumping your gut full of meds then I say go for it. that being said, I can't support that this should be done without the supervision of an actual doctor, always

b) that drugs are promoted and excessively distributed with disregard to its side effect or target (see: distributing ritalin to children) shouldn't be a surprise to anyone

c) she wants to get rid of nuclear power by substituting it with clean energy, not by using oil

conversely, fearmongering about nuclear plants and the evil GMOs is stupid, i agree.

sidenote: though im not against gmo's on principle, i am against patenting lifeforms and genes. and there is a lot of vucking valid criticism against what certain companies have done in the name of spreading their gmo crops. more often than not, criticism of these exploitative behaviours is silenced by conflating it with the purist defense of life "as is" and the sacrality of dna.

[Delirious Biznasty]

ok like I said I'm not that big on jill stein anymore but I have to say that

a) supporting access to alternative medicine isn't denying the scientificity of conventional medicine. I don't believe in homeopathy, but acupuncture and meditation has been known to be very helpful for a whole lot of people, and if they can be used as an alternative to pumping your gut full of meds then I say go for it. that being said, I can't support that this should be done without the supervision of an actual doctor, always

b) that drugs are promoted and excessively distributed with disregard to its side effect or target (see: distributing ritalin to children) shouldn't be a surprise to anyone

c) she wants to get rid of nuclear power by substituting it with clean energy, not by using oil

conversely, fearmongering about nuclear plants and the evil GMOs is stupid, i agree.

sidenote: though im not against gmo's on principle, i am against patenting lifeforms and genes. and there is a lot of vucking valid criticism against what certain companies have done in the name of spreading their gmo crops. more often than not, criticism of these exploitative behaviours is silenced by conflating it with the purist defense of life "as is" and the sacrality of dna.

http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-ener...00000.html

[Ben]

ok like I said I'm not that big on jill stein anymore but I have to say that

a) supporting access to alternative medicine isn't denying the scientificity of conventional medicine. I don't believe in homeopathy, but acupuncture and meditation has been known to be very helpful for a whole lot of people, and if they can be used as an alternative to pumping your gut full of meds then I say go for it. that being said, I can't support that this should be done without the supervision of an actual doctor, always

b) that drugs are promoted and excessively distributed with disregard to its side effect or target (see: distributing ritalin to children) shouldn't be a surprise to anyone

c) she wants to get rid of nuclear power by substituting it with clean energy, not by using oil

conversely, fearmongering about nuclear plants and the evil GMOs is stupid, i agree.

sidenote: though im not against gmo's on principle, i am against patenting lifeforms and genes. and there is a lot of vucking valid criticism against what certain companies have done in the name of spreading their gmo crops. more often than not, criticism of these exploitative behaviours is silenced by conflating it with the purist defense of life "as is" and the sacrality of dna.

a) if your platform involves forcing me to pay money to provide sugar water to hippies, its not harmless

c) yes, but nuclear energy is undeniably effective and relatively safe. if she were to say "its a good alternative but im shooting for something even better" and had a good technical reasoning to match i would be on board. she isnt doing that

[grue]

a) if your platform involves forcing me to pay money to provide sugar water to hippies, its not harmless

that's a very big "if". last time i checked, meditation costs less than drugs and doesn't come with side effects.

alternative medicine, specially in branches like mental healthcare, is nothing to scoff at. homeopathy may be all about overly complicated placebos, but acupuncture is widespread worldwide, demonstrably effective and supported, even if under some limitations, by major first-world NHS's such as the uk's and germany's i think. one of the reasons why is, again, that it's better than conventional medicine on some cases on the long run because it avoids drugs and its side-effects.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16842918
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16095547
http://aim.bmj.com/content/30/4/273.full 

i wont go into this issue again because my point is that you're being blindly dismissive, because you seem to have a general prejudice against "green" ideas. i get why, there's a lot of bullshit out there, but you shouldn't let that cloud your judgement

[fat lesbian]

man idk. alternative medicine isn't shit for mental health, even traditional medicine sucks for mental health so idk about using that as a point in support of it. but i guess it depends, are we paying for like some snake oil shit or things that have actual medical value (ie ginger for gastrointestinal issues)? because "alternative medicine" can mean either of those and anything in between. if the kind of alternative medicine she's promoting is to meditate away a staph infection i think id rather stick with the antibiotics

[fat lesbian]

+ does she have any type of regulation in mind for alternative medicine? or laws requiring traditional medicine in certain cases, such as when a child or other dependent is seriously ill? if she doesn't then you can be given medical advice which can literally kill you by uneducated people, a lot of like medicinal plants and shit become toxic mixed w actual medication. and if it's not legally required to seek actual medical help for children and dependents it seems like another loophole for "i didn't treat my kids cancer because jesus told me not to" fundies

[grue]

you're hitting on why i started to doubt her, and what i mean when i dont see much solidity to her claims. when you get to the practical implications she seems to fall flat, at least i dont see much outside of vague bold claims

as for alternative medicine in mental health i dont know, mostly my information comes from my sister who's a psychiatrist and she is one of those claiming mental patients are overmedicated and that a lot can be treated alternatively, removing the harm from side effects. not being a doctor myself i cant really go much further than this but in theory, if that's the case, then by all means. just as long as an actual doctor is overseeing things

edit: adding, her claim is that there's a paradigm that leads doctors to usually go for drug A to treat a certain something. drug A has side effects, which are countered by drug B. both are sold by the same company, and that company constantly seeks out doctors with propaganda and gifts, making the whole business very shifty. if alternative therapy could minimize the symptoms, maybe thee patient would need a weaker drug than A or even get rid of it altogether, thus breaking the cycle

or something like that

[fat lesbian]

i both agree and disagree w mentally ill ppl being overmedicated. it's very much a case by case basis considering some medications that help people live much more happy lives can completely ruin the lives of others (looking at you ssris) and there's an issue with general practitioners prescribing medicine that will affect you extremely negatively if you have any comorbid issues (again, ssris) and not really having the full knowledge of psychiatry to know that. but like i said, case by case. is a person w depression being overmedicated by being given meds before trying therapy or anything else? maybe. is a person w schizophrenia on antipsychotics who can hold a job because of them overmedicated (and don't take this to mean that's what should always happen bc antipsychotics are dangerous and hit or miss but it's what we have)? absolutely not. and alternative medicine will not help this group of people. this is also all from my experience tho so ymmv.

and that's true, drug companies are evil, but is forgoing medication for medically shaky at best alternatives the answer to that? probably not. there are better options available for medical care, especially in the us, and those come down to breaking up the huge pharmaceutical companies if not disbanding them altogether (to b replaced with what i don't know but im sure someone smarter does) and/or holding them significantly more liable

[grue]

I would add that one of the dangers here is that alternative medicine could become the cheap choice for those who can't afford the good meds, and that's just disgusting imo

like your insurance telling you "look, your plan doesn't cover that drug that actually helps you, but here's a selection of homeopathy pills for you if you want"

[fat lesbian]

yeah i didn't even consider that and that's really gross. unless she also plans on Completely socializing healthcare, none of this OH INSURANCE IS CHEAP NOW! but still won't cover that ekg to make sure your heart isn't exploding! bullshit then that opens a really easily exploitable loophole for them as well as the fundies

[GSOM]

"Nuclear power plants = weapons of mass destruction waiting to be detonated. Time to shut them down. #EndNukes"
That shit is infuriating. Fuck it, I'm not voting.

[fat lesbian]

well that's just plain not how nuclear power plants work

[Delirious Biznasty]

Hillary is being investigated again, oh boy! "she doesn't know how to handle money, she's incompetent! She's not a criminal!"

[Ben]

god bless 99.9% of america