I was invited to be on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News this morning – which I always find a great deal more intelligent than the Andrew Marr alternative on the BBC. I declined because I did not want to get up and get a 7.30am train from Ramsgate on a Sunday morning. I had a meeting until 11.30pm last night planning a conference on human rights in Balochistan [I still tend to say Baluchistan], and I have a newly crowned tooth that seems not to want to settle down. But I am still worried by my own lack of energy, which is uncharacteristic. Is this old age?
I also have some serious work to do on my Burnes book, and next week I shall be staying in London to be in the British Library reading room for every second of its opening hours. So there may be a bit of a posting hiatus. I have in mind a short post on an important subject on which I suspect that 99% of my readership – including the regular dissident commenters – will strongly disagree with me.
This is a peculiarly introspective post, perhaps because my tooth is hurting, but I seem to have this curmudgeonly spirit which wishes to react to the huge popularity of this blog by posting something genuinely held but unpopular; a genuine view but one I don’t normally trumpet. The base thought seems to be “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
Similarly when I wrote Murder in Samarkand I was being hailed as a hero by quite a lot of people for my refusal to go along with the whole neo-con disaster of illegal wars, extraordinary rendition and severe attacks on civil liberties, sacrificing my fast track diplomatic career as a result. My reaction to putative hero worship was to publish in Murder in Samarkand not just the political facts, but an exposure of my own worst and most unpleasant behaviour in my private life.
I am in a very poor position to judge, but I believe the result rather by accident turned out artistically compelling, if you don’t want to read the book you can get a good idea of that by clicking on David Tennant in the top right of this blog and listening to him playing me in David Hare’s radio adaptation.
Anyway, that’s enough musing. You won’t like my next post, whenever it comes. Promise.
Clark,
Not sure if this is of interest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjWUsrPmgY0
Clark, I am sorry to hear about your friend, and her distrusting conventional cancer treatment. That’s a difficult one to resolve. I wonder, does her reticence come from a fear of doctors/hospitals, or a genuine faith that non-conventional medicine works?
If it helps, I wonder if suggesting that conventional medicine is worth a go additionally, on top of her preferred treatment? You could argue that two approaches must be better than one.
Scouse Billy – don’t be angry with Clark if he doesn’t accept your hypothesis immediately. What you are claiming is outlandish, as all physics-changing discoveries are; this does not make it categorically untrue, but if we have is all theory and no proof, you can expect people to be sceptical.
I read last night that “wireless energy” was regarded as “difficult to monetise” in Tesla’s day. At first I thought that people would be receiving it without paying for it! But in fact it was thought that in fact the transmission part of “wireless” energy was itself a fraud, and people could just receive it from the atmosphere themselves.
It should go without saying that if this technology exists, it beggars belief that no-one is using it, even on the sly. It would be too enormous a secret to keep for very long, and all manner of collusion between the scientific community and energy companies could not keep a lid on it. Surely?
(The video is downloaded and in my watch list.)
No, Jon I am not really angry – perhaps disappointed because, as those who watched have attested, the documentary is not about Tesla but really addresses the concerns of those that are looking for cheap or “free”, clean and essentially infinite energy.
Perhaps I did not make this clear enough but having read Clarke’s view both here and at Tallbloke’s, thought it would be of interest to him especially as it is sympathetic to his viewpoint.
The cancer issue is something else – a difficult and highly charged topic with conflicting views. There are a couple of thought provoking documentaries that I have watched more than once: Cancer – The Forbidden Cures by Massimo Mazzucco, and Burzynski: Cancer Is A Serious Business. Having watched these,I am not so sure I would go the conventional route if I were diagnosed with cancer either but nor would I proselytise to others one way or another.
So, my friend should apparently travel to Rome and have sodium bicarbonate solution injected into her breast for several days, because “cancer is a fungus”.
Or, maybe she should exist exclusively on juiced vegetables, and perform regular enemas with coffee, as this is the Gerson therapy.
Or, she should travel to some place, I know not where, where child “psychic surgeons” apparently push their hands through the skin without using blades, and have the lump lovingly removed.
Or, or, or…
How do we tell which of these pet “cures” actually work?
@Scouse Billy – yeah, I wasn’t talking about the documentary as such, just the general claim about free energy. It is a lot to take in on little evidence, even though I plan to watch the film.
In relation to all of these things – cures for cancer included – there is a danger that “trust no-one” seems to apply. As I said yesterday: this implies that people who have not the time or skills to garner a lifetime’s experience in each field and obtain the various qualifications required, can still claim to know better than people who have. Thus, the good approach of being reasonably wary of authority is warped to recommending paranoia about everything.
@Clark
I am sorry to hear about your friend. Life is sometimes a friggin nightmare.
Sometimes people make poor decisions. You know she has and I obviously agree that cancer is best treated with modern medicine. You have provided her with the information. Don’t blame yourself about her decision. Ultimately it is her decision. And maybe even think about seeing her on her terms.
Take some time away from moderating this place. You take it easy mate.
@Clark & Jon
What spam filter are you using? May I dare to recommend Mollom. In my experience it would have caught the spam I saw earlier.
[If you ever need some technical man hours contributed, to lighten the load and give you more time to moderate (or even live your lives) I would be more than happy. I know my way around PHP/CMS types of things.]
Phil (just above) provides sense as always. You – Clark – are absolutely not responsible for the decision of another adult. That they choose a stupid route is not your fault, because you failed to convince them to do otherwise.
For instance, a very dear friend – we regarded each other as brothers, actually – has succumbed to alcoholism, to the point I can no longer stand to see him. This intelligent, witty, talented man now lives in squalor, in stinking, filthy conditions that would not be considered fit to house animals. There is absolutely nothing I nor any other of his former friends could do to persuade him stop, or even make a serious attempt to get help. The AA and so on just gets in the way of his drinking too much. A litre of that filthy “white cider” is needed just to stop the hands shaking upon waking, and he’ll drink until passing out two or three times every day. Years worth of brave new beginnings, new hope just around the corner and so on, have always turned to nothing.
It doesn’t matter how earnestly we want someone to do the right thing, we cannot take responsibility for the choices they take.
@Clark “If we follow “New Age” thinking to its extreme conclusion, my friend’s illness is my fault. Consciousness manifests reality, right? The cancer in her is growing because I believe it is, I am manifesting it in her, right?”
Dear Clark, absolutely not, that is not the conclusion. I pointed out a problem with applying conventional science in areas where those “tools” might not be good enough. Not to speak of consciousness, even mind or ether can be understood by our blunt material senses, although those are a lot easier to relate to with conventional science than consciousness.
My example does not in any way put you in a responsible position the way you infer.
The mechanical perspective stipulates there is a beginning to our lives “birth” and an end “death”, there is no higher purpose to life than to enjoy this body and it’s senses to the maximum degree until death. There is no higher purpose and everything was created out of nothing by a big explosion that somehow, mysteriously, created a universe full of perfection on all levels.
If you hypothetically try to understand the world as having purpose, that consciousness is eternal, it is never born neither does it ever die and the actual “you” is consciousness not the material vehicle (body and mind) that you happen inhabit at the moment to interact with this material dimension, then everything becomes a learning experience instead.
We are going to meet good and bad and we are going to suffer, there is no doubt about that, in this hypothesis the crucial point is what do we learn form our journey?
The essence of conciseness is love and free will, in your particular example, out of love you want to help your friend, on the other hand your friend has free will and even if her choices may bring pain to you and you think there are other better ways, it’s still her free will and you have no responsibility for her choices.
@Clark & Jon
I’ve just noticed that Mollom seems unmaitained for wp. Just goes to show how much web site development I have done in the past couple of years. Obviously not much.
@Phil, thanks for the anti-spam suggestion. I’d be wary about that one, as it appears to have been abandoned, and so we wouldn’t get timely security updates. For blogs that need a bit of extra security, I tend to prefer plugins that have a large usage base (100K+ downloads) so we can have more confidence in them.
@Clark & Jon
Although the Mollom web site suggests it is fine for wp. Anyway I will stop banging on about it now.
@Jon
Sorry my last comment cross posted with your response.
Here’s what breast cancer does if left untreated:
http://www.ariplex.com/ama/amamiche.htm
And here’s the story behind the pictures:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/11/08/a-different-kind-of-testimonial/
Clark, I am not suggesting anything of the sort but I don’t think conventional medecine has a good track record wrt cancer. There are alternative approaches that some claim to have helped them.
I don’t know your friend’s views but I concur with Sunflower that they should be respected. Neither you nor I nor I suggest the experts really know the causes and cures for cancer.
Jon, fair point regarding “free energy” but I hope you find the documentary (intellectually) stimulating.
Scouse Billy 26 Sep, 2012 – 1:53 pm
“Neither you nor I nor I suggest the experts really know the causes and cures for cancer.”
Is nothing more important to you than you having your say, getting the last word in?
You are truly contemptible.
JHC, Billy – is there a single expert on Earth, who do the sciency-thing with all that book-learnin’ and stuff, that you wouldn’t say has it all backwards, is wrong, corrupt, and the real answers are elsewhere?
No – a decision to favour quack medicine should not “be respected”. No more than I respect my dear friend’s decision to drink himself to death. I can’t do anything about it, that doesn’t mean the decision is respected.
Your knee-jerk, arrogant dismissal of all conventional understanding is exceedingly dangerous, particularly since you dress it up as crusading against The Man, fighting the system, striking a blow for the people. I don’t think we’ve come across a subject yet in which you don’t feel you know better than the experts, and advise anyone willing to listen that experts shouldn’t be trusted.
Sunflower, you wrote:
My friend is restricting free will. She refuses to discuss the matter with me, because I wish her to think about what could happen if her alternative approach doesn’t work (see my last two links). She is restricting my free will, by blocking communication. She is restricting her own free will by ruling out certain courses of action in advance, and refusing to examine the matter with an open mind. Ironically, she frequently accused me of being closed minded, relating a very similar argument to Sunflower’s “clash of the mechanistic and non-mechanistic”.
Having read lots of misleading alternative sources, she feels that there is a grand conspiracy by doctors, nurses, the pharmaceutical companies. They wish to torture her, to “chop her breast off”, and eventually kill her with radiation and chemotherapy, in order to make money. So she has to block my communication in order to protect herself from the propaganda I would expose her to.
The parallels with the global heating “debate” are obvious.
Earlier, Zoologist linked to an article by Ben Goldacre about distortion in the field of drug testing. I am well aware that this is happening, and it is a very big problem. I greatly respect Goldacre’s Bad Science blog, and I would visit more often if I had more time.
Zoologist, however, is almost certainly quoting Goldacre as “evidence” that science is utterly corrupt, in support of the theory that global heating is another of those grand conspiracies, whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that Goldacre is a scientifically educated doctor and psychiatrist. It is Goldacre’s commitment to science and rationality that enables him to be such a powerful critic of corruption in the field of science.
Zoologist, Sunflower, and possibly Cryptonym have all been supportive of the video that Scouse Billy linked to. It is pseudo-science. It is lies and deception, and it distorts history in order to be sensational. I know this, because electrics, electronics, and physics in general are special interests of mine. I have sufficient technical knowledge in this field to make a valid judgement.
In my world view, honesty is one of the highest virtues. I am heartily sick of seeing lies pedalled as some higher truth that cuts through some imagined grand conspiracy. Such nonsense is causing my friend to kill herself.
Of course, I suspect that having stated my case so strongly, some of you expect that I am a shill, that I am paid to pedal lies to help the grand conspiracy to continue. Maybe you suspect that my friend doesn’t even exist. If any of you would like to, come and live at my house to check me out, follow me around and see what I do. I’ll show you receipts to prove my sources of income. I’m not rich and I’ll expect you to pay your keep. My contact details are on my web page linked from my name by my avatar. I post under my own name. You conspiracy theorists do not. Overcome your paranoia.
Glenn and Phil to Scouse Billy, 26 Sep, 2:13 pm and 2:05 pm. Hear, Hear
[Mod/Clark: Edited to include Phil.]
Lady doctor refuses surgery, chemo and radiation – why?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXUx_juHXXU
Who is that picture of on your latest avatar, Scouse Billy?
@Clark “Of course, I suspect that having stated my case so strongly, some of you expect that I am a shill, that I am paid to pedal lies to help the grand conspiracy to continue.”
Of course not, at least not me, your sincere concern is obvious.
@Clark – re friend with cancer
There’s a thousand things I and many others can say but only one thing makes sense. You are powerless to act on this problem as you describe it. Therefore, what else can you do? You might find the strength to bury your fears, frustration and sadness (that’s tough) and give her comfort for the remainder of her life on her terms, however irrational they might be. Or you can distance yourself from her in frustration and regret it for the remainder of your life. Whose feelings are most important?
There is another course, but it involves emotional blackmail. Does saving a life justify the means in doing so? In any case, you will need to eventually resign yourself to the fact the she is going to die anyway – sooner or later, just like you and me.
Chin up old man.
SCOUSE BILLY, CHECK YOUR FUCKING “FACTS”!
The dreaded, subverted Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorraine_Day
[Mod/Clark: I have repeatedly edited this to correct my own typos. Sorry, I am fucking furious.]
Jemand, what I can try to do is convince anyone, just one more person would help, to check their facts before spreading disinformation. To try to prevent this happening over and over again.
Phil, Jemand, Glenn, Jon; thank you all for your support.
Sunflower, I hope you’re learning on this thread. Thanks for your kind message.
Clark, the lady in the video is Dr Day try listening to what she says.
I do know her story btw and she did have some of the tumour cut away but here she is saying she refused a masectomy.
NOW the important bit is where she reveals that chemotherapy causes cancer and that “the patients don’t know that but the doctors do”.
She adds that doctors only prescribe cancer giving “therapy” because they don’t know what else to do.
Btw Dr Day is well into her 70’s in the clip and had been cancer free for over a decade – SHE DIDN’T DIE she must be doing something right.
Try getting your facts right – your friend is clearly no fool.
Best wishes sent in your direction, Clark. Take a break from the screen for a bit, if you can – it’s not too bad outside weather-wise, at least here in the Midlands!
@Scouse Billy – I think you and Clark are not going to agree on this topic. Since serious illness is an upsetting topic, I wonder if you might exercise some sensitivity, and choose not to pursue the discussion? Plenty more threads to choose from 🙂
Clark; We discussed guilt a little the other day (or rather I talked AT you) in another matter.
I have often said I wouldn’t let the Dr, cut me for fear of spreading out in my bloodstream, but now the risk is greater, and the techniques have improved with excision. Then, there’s chemo which sometimes seems a disease to overcome in itself. My best friends wife recently succumbed after 4 years of abject misery . He is a dispensary, but she refused the cannabis. IMO she was being a martyr as she had separated from him due to their failed personal relationship. I think our genetic structure forms a sort of Physiological Determinism. It is what it is. She will survive or not based on factors which have nothing to do with your action, or omission. Don’t take it on yourself, as you have before.