Posted by alexandra_k on December 14, 2019, at 15:23:35
In reply to Re: hope and friendship, posted by sigismund on December 14, 2019, at 13:23:36
Or like selling arms to both sides of a war and becoming invested in keeping the hatred / conflict alive.
I guess that was the 'conspiracy theory' about HIV. That it was cooked up in some laboratory and dissemated by the people who wanted to sell their cure.
I read a book... I can't remember the author or the name of the book.
Little vignettes (half remembered) about the Medici family.
Apparently (this is likely a false remembering but the idea:)
If you give a person just a tiny little bit of... Mercury? Then they won't die (but they would die if you gave them too much of it). They adapt. You can increase the dose. You increase the dose. You increase the dose. Then if they don't get the dose (without a gradual reduction taper) they will die from having it suddenly withdrawn.
Apparently the Medici family used to do this to their household servants. Putting it in their food or whatever. On the down-low, I believe. It was a form of insurance that the person who likely heard many secrets wouldn't go work for the opposition. If they tried to leave the household, they would die, you see.
But then you can probably get more leverage out of telling people that that is what you have done (whether you have in fact done that or not). The people will stay and won't be so complain-y becuase they believe you have the power to end them.
And of course then you get to thinking about infant formula. And about the next step: The weaning foods. And about the next step. And the next step. And you can see why Countdown (Australian supermaket) tracks your Countdown purchases (for a discount price you will allow it) and... Sells you pharmaceuticals. For whatever ails you.
There was an art exhibition here last year around the time of Medical Interview. It was really freaking cool. Lights. Very trippy. Looped animation.
It is an ancient symbol of the snake chasing it's tail. Devouring itself.
But that is perhaps the inverse of what I was talking about of the co-dependence of the problem and the cure.
Anyway...
I suspect Coca Cola (or some subsidiary, Nestle or whomever) probably does pay or sponsor a job or two in public health. Every now and then we get a 'should we tax sugary drinks' debate. I think they are hoping (really and truly) that the public health people will think it a good idea to (all on their ownsome) launch a public health campaign actively promoting artifically sweetened drinks and / or fruit juices as healthy. The companies make more money off of these 'premium products' (well rubbish marketed as being) than they make off of cheap sugary soda drinks anyway. Chance to make still more.
The Public Health people here actively promoted vaporising, too. Apparently oblivious to the fact that people have been vaporising marajuana for years for the supposed health benefits of not inhaling smoke and oblivious to the obvious problems likely to arise with these liquid ampules with respect to f*ck knows what substances the drug companies are putting in these new and trendy crack pipes that Public Health actively marketed as healthy. For 10 year olds. Well no, they say, they marketed them as healthy for people quitting smoking. But no they didn't. They did their inaccurate minimal paraphrase to try and keep things as simple as they could for people as stupid as they could find them and they marketed them as healthy. 'Good'. 'Eat most'. You get the idea.
Cheapest marketing campaign ever (from the companies with the most money to burn). I'm sure.
I got reading back through forum posts I made (not here) during first year.
I was clear all the way back there that they weren't grading things properly. That the lecturers couldn't tell the difference between 'impossible' and 'improbable' and 'x says' and 'x has shown' and 'x is true' and the like. So... Impossible to know what they want you to say on multi-guess questions.
Answer the question like you are too stupid to grasp these distinctions? But where do you draw the line on how stupid you are supposed to be? Mateship is the primary value on the Australian Ethics Test? I mean... ?? Who the f*ck knows.
They picked the kids already. Everyone else was only there to fund them their place. To fund them their scholarship. To fund them their residential hall.
Was the... Inhumane treatment of the masses required or essential for greater freedom?
The kids who were chosen to do it... They weren't free. They were being tortured, too. They were getting an entire year of 'if you don't join us then this is your lot -- you can join them'.
That's not freedom either.
Who are the people deciding?
The people re-acting their own traumas of what was inflicted on them most likely.
They are not free, either.
It's not freedom.
They go around saying 'our kids don't really understand anything they just parrot back what they have memorised'. They say it like it is a bad thing. Like their students should hang their heads in shame.
But I have realised that they are bragging. They do want to induce shame in their students (of course) but it is also a brag.
Because they fail people for encoding for meaning.
We were taught many things awkwardly or unnaturally or unnecessarily confusingly.
You could just blindly rote learn memorise repeat what you were told and do a meaning blind mechanical search like a computer for the piece of information...
I re-encoded things so they made sense and recalled the meanings.
So I hemmorrhaged marks when I used synonyms or said 'ipsilateral' or 'same side' rather than 'left'. Etc.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1106285
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20191212/msgs/1107254.html