The Chemical Lobby: Priestcraft Masquerading as Science‏

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Science and religion appear to be at loggerheads with scientists inquiring into topics that the minions of the material Creator claim as their own domain. On the other hand, there are people who profess to advocate science, but who approach it as if it were a religion. Roman despots are not nearly as detrimental to the pursuit of inquiry as are "scientists" with an economic interest in their pet theories. The latter class of people form a caste of priests who jealously guard the magic formulas for their chemical communion wafers. Scientific inquiry that threatens their monopoly is rejected out of hand and tarred with the label of a Hollywood cult.

Imagine a group of people with little knowledge of electronics. As they investigate the operation of a computer, they discover that interfering with the circuitry causes a malfunction. They establish a "scientific" theory that all malfunctions stem from circuit failures. They find ways to "treat" a faulty machine by inducing a secondary fault that does not fix the machine, but makes the primary fault less striking. The machine malfunctions, but the "treatment" of inducing a secondary fault causes the machine to malfunction in a more graceful manner.

Another group of people approach the machine using a different tack. Rather than trying to determine its failures, they seek to determine its capabilities. These people want to know how to use the computer for higher purposes than as consumers of fault injection methods. They work with it to find ways of improving its use. They modify its programming to have it perform miraculously. Naturally, their successes are sneered at by the fault injection specialists. Improvement in capability can only occur as a result of circuit failure. These highly performing machines are to be treated with fault injections to make them more "normal."

There is more to a computer than electronic circuitry. Likewise, there is more to the nervous system than neurons. This may seem obvious to lay people who espouse the notion of a magical entity that will outlast the decay of the neurons, but it seems counter-intuitive to people who have been indoctrinated into bio-chemical dogma. Of course, there is a third group of people who buy into neither magical craft. These people are faithless in the eyes of the former and unscientific in the eyes of the latter. Some even think of them as followers of L. Ron Hubbard despite a lack of any logical connection.

The pill bottle priesthood is a powerful lobby in the halls of governance. They have ties to the military and to law enforcement as well. Do you have experience with any chemical communion?

Comments

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"The analogy with Nazism may seem hyperbolic to people who appreciate the practice, but it is not far off the mark for people who suffer from brain damage due to psychiatric intervention."

I'm sorry, Sophia. But until I see members of the American Psychiatric Association call for the mass murder of jews and gypsies, I'm going to have to join the others in Godwin-ing this thread.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Your pattern analysis skills need a bit more polish. There was more to Nazism than racism.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

Yes...like mass murder.

Let me explain how Godwin's Law works. Any group can be compared to Nazis because all organizations have bad apples in them, among other things in common with the Nazis. If I really wanted to reach hard, I could probably even find some way to make an analogy between the Nazis and the Girl Scouts, e.g. they can both be pushy when they come calling at your house. But this is still nothing more than an appeal to emotion, specifically reductio ad hitlerum. But if you really want to make a good genuine Nazi analogy with whatever group you want to demonize, said group needs to at lest advocate mass murder of one or more ethnic groups.

This is why people like underlankers(for one example) can sometimes get around Godwin. 'lankers has mad Nazi analogies before but he chooses them very carefully. Chief among them being his comparison between the United States Cavalry and settlers over what they did to the native americans with the holocaust. He gets away with it because there was a systematic attempt to wipe the natives out.

I hope this explains things.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It is not my intent to "demonize" psychiatry, merely to shed light on its shortfalls. The documentation of its atrocities resides elsewhere. One of the big differences between Nazis and psychiatry is that the former dispatched their victims with great haste but the latter like to keep their victims alive as long as possible to milk them for the insurance money.

I hope this helps.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"One of the big differences between Nazis and psychiatry is that the former dispatched their victims with great haste but the latter like to keep their victims alive as long as possible to milk them for the insurance money."

Even if true, this still doesn't make psychiatrists into mass murderers who base their depredations on ethnicity, kick in the doors of jews and forcibly round them up, etc. In fact, unless a person demonstrates behavior indicative that they are a clear and present danger to himself or others, the hands of psychiatrists are pretty much tied thanks to the ACLU. In such a case, treatment must be voluntary.

There was nothing voluntary about the holocaust.

I'm sorry but your attempt at a corollary isn't working. Godwin reigns over this thread, sophia.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

You make a good point in pointing out that the power of psychiatry has been curtailed by civil rights legislation. That does not stop psychiatrists from treating people abysmally. Godwin rules in your mind, but atrocities still occur in locked wards.