Search results

Mediocrity spreads like radioactivity, everything it touches turns to waste. The BMJ was already too infected and once that happens it's too late to go back, it's impossible to do so without consequences, the career-ending type. We're seeing the same with Cochrane. They are doing such an...

Cats sleep nearly 20h a day. You need to be nearly entirely bedbound and immobile to get to a level that qualifies as genuine deconditioning. Only 25% of ME patients even qualify as housebound or worse. The hypothesis was always flawed based on what we know of the disease. Even PACE literally...

There are some religious cultures that teach very repressive conditioning that is hard to break. It creates a strong sense of guilt that makes it hard to function in normal society. The stories told by those who leave these cultures they are pretty harrowing. It's more about self-blame than...

https://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306 Some people are just bad at predicting the future. The technology is still too immature to be disappointed at its success.

I think this would be most useful if they restricted the study to clinicians and researchers. They represent 99% of the problem. It is their bizarre ideas about symptoms that cannot be tested for that are the main issue here. There is so much to explore, especially given historical lessons that...

Somehow I highly doubt that, considering CSS is still just a hypothesis existing only in an ideological echo chamber with no more evidence for it than astrology. It may hold true, it is nonetheless no more credible yet. Putting words in other people's mouths is dishonorable. And I really expect...

Thanks :) It means a lot. It's one of the things I miss doing the most. Now it feels like playing piano with boxing gloves. There's the occasional melody, it just comes with a whole lot of dischord and ranting. I can deal with a broken body, I just really want my brain back.

I really would like it for them to address people like me, stoics who completely defy every single assumption they bring forward. Hypervigilant? Worry too much? Puh-lease. I once got within 2 inches from a car accident and just kept talking normally through and after. I would be a good fit for...

We can say the same of amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease or demyelination in MS. Are they cause or consequence? All we know is they are relevant. Every small step counts if it's significant. But there is definitely a growing body of evidence for the role of gut bacteria in many diseases...

Uh. Don't know if that's meant as an observation of how it's currently operationalized or an opinion of how it should be. It's definitely true that, like anxiety, fatigue is basically used as a catch-all hand-waving explanation for everything under the sun. Which obviously is a very bad idea...

Honestly, given everything we know, I assume those "testimonials" are fake. They sound too much like how the psychosocial ideologues themselves would frame praise, it uses their language and that's always a big tell. When a "customer" uses the corporate language, they rarely are genuine...

For a while. It's a self-defeating ideology. Millions will suffer, possibly for years, but the foundations are so weak they won't hold up very long once they are at full speed and billions have to be accounted for. For now it stays within the echo chamber but once it gets mass implementation...

I find some hilarity in using it unironically, but seriously: won't somebody think of the children? This isn't right. This isn't even close to be right.

Yeah, this grand experiment was doomed from the start but that won't stop it from surviving way past the point at which it's indefensible. It's only when the accounts are tallied that it will end. Bullshit talks, money walks. Which basically makes all of us lab rats, with just as much say in...

There is no graphite on the roof of reactor #4. Not quite as bad but the reality of protecting institutional reputation being above good science is still extremely bad.

That really seems to be the secret sauce, uh? Just make it seem solid, all style and no substance, put all the effort on seemingly-competent analysis, make it as complex and sciencey-soundy as possible and you can sell anything. Overanalyze the crap out of it, use all the cheap pop philosophy to...

What? PACE was explicitly not about the causes. This is something Sharpe and Wessely have often stressed: that they do not care about the cause because they believe there isn't one and all they are interested in is a "treatment". Nowhere in the trial is there any material remotely related to...

Ah, yes, I missed the apparent. Definitely the mere appearance of a competent process is just as convincing as the real thing here. I had definitely assumed people would be concerned about the difference, though. That is a gut punch.

At the point we're at, correlation is still good if it is reliable and replicable. If only for the purpose of a test. When you're still shackled to the starting line, every step forward counts.

This almost reads like a cry for help. I don't understand why this warrants publication in Nature. It basically "confirms" that tired people (which is obviously the operating definition they are using for CFS) have lower attention. OK. That is what is expected. And? Also WTH is sad stimuli? Not...