Difference between revisions of "971: Alternative Literature"

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{{w|Homeopathy}} is based on the idea that a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure that disease in sick people. This axiom is known as "the law of similars" or "like cures like". In practice this is more akin to in every lie there is a grain of truth. Because there is sometimes a smallest trace of something helpful, but has been so watered down to be considered mostly a placebo. In theory this is exactly what you want, if the problem is not truly a medical problem, you simply need to trick the mind into believing it is better and it will make itself better. The problem becomes visible when proponents of homeopathy believe that drinking tea with special herbs in it helps to fix a broken bone and other rubbish and what-not.
 
{{w|Homeopathy}} is based on the idea that a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure that disease in sick people. This axiom is known as "the law of similars" or "like cures like". In practice this is more akin to in every lie there is a grain of truth. Because there is sometimes a smallest trace of something helpful, but has been so watered down to be considered mostly a placebo. In theory this is exactly what you want, if the problem is not truly a medical problem, you simply need to trick the mind into believing it is better and it will make itself better. The problem becomes visible when proponents of homeopathy believe that drinking tea with special herbs in it helps to fix a broken bone and other rubbish and what-not.
  
In this comic, the money quotes in the actual comic that is "Holding a book prompts the mind to enrich itself" which is the placebo effect. The other quote is "I refuse to be a sucker." followed by "Who sold you all these blank books?"
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In this comic, the problem is homeopathic books. Someone has sold Person Two a bunch of blank books, convincing him that these are better than real books. Despite what he says in the last panel, he is in fact a sucker because you cannot enrich your mind without reading real books, and even if he didn't want to read, he wouldn't need empty books to do so.
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==

Revision as of 17:42, 18 October 2012

Alternative Literature
I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with--and labeled similarly to--their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying--it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong.
Title text: I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with--and labeled similarly to--their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying--it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong.

Explanation

While the comic is funny on its own in a "Wake Up, Sheeple" kind of way. The full joke requires the title text, so make sure you read it. The comic title is a play on Alternative medicine.

Homeopathy is based on the idea that a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure that disease in sick people. This axiom is known as "the law of similars" or "like cures like". In practice this is more akin to in every lie there is a grain of truth. Because there is sometimes a smallest trace of something helpful, but has been so watered down to be considered mostly a placebo. In theory this is exactly what you want, if the problem is not truly a medical problem, you simply need to trick the mind into believing it is better and it will make itself better. The problem becomes visible when proponents of homeopathy believe that drinking tea with special herbs in it helps to fix a broken bone and other rubbish and what-not.

In this comic, the problem is homeopathic books. Someone has sold Person Two a bunch of blank books, convincing him that these are better than real books. Despite what he says in the last panel, he is in fact a sucker because you cannot enrich your mind without reading real books, and even if he didn't want to read, he wouldn't need empty books to do so.

Transcript

[Person 1 and 2 stand in front of Person 2's bookcase. Person 1 flips through a number of them]
Person 1: All your books are full of blank pages.
Person 2: Not true. That one has some ink on page 78.
[Person 1 looks at page 78]
Person 1: A smudge.
Person 2: So?


Person 1: There are no words. You're not reading. There's no story there.
Person 2: Maybe not for you. When I look at those books, I think about all kinds of stories.


Person 2: Reading is about more than what's on the page. Holding a book prompts my mind to enrich itself. Frankly, I suspect the book isn't even necessary.


Person 2: The whole industry is evil. Greedy publishers and rich authors try to convince us our brains need their words. But I refuse to be a sucker.
Person 1: Who sold you all these blank books?


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Discussion

I would totally buy a blank book. I could hollow them out to make boxes, or wire up the insides to build a revolving door, or hire an artist to draw wonderful images in them to put on display for anyone who comes over to my home. Davidy²²[talk] 08:21, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, this is exactly the argument used to explain why reading books is better than watching TV: TV gives too much of the ready context, while a book allows the reader to fill in the blanks with his own imagination. The empty books just go one step further. 108.162.246.11 22:15, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I dunno, I mean, there's plenty of space in TV to work in stuff, exercise your imagination. In my view a book is for having stuff in it. A story in a book gives you a structure to build on, a framework that lets you build higher than you would go on your own. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 04:19, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

I write short stories all the time but nobody reads them. Maybe I should get a printer?

"Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know you're not, because you want their money, isn't just lying--it's like an example you'd make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong."

I think it is worse when vets do it to cattle and sheep. You never get to hear the farmer saying "Bah!" though. Odd, that. I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 19:10, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Anybody else reminded of "The Library of Babel" by Borges? 108.162.238.113 16:32, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Going way back to the 2013 comment (writing in 2021): there are excellent reasons to buy blank books. As you say, writing in them is a really good reason. Buying them to read is not, for my non-hallucinatory self, a good reason. Nitpicking (talk) 13:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Everybody here going on about the benefits of buying blank books to write and draw stuff. You guys know those are called notebooks, right? 172.70.254.27 19:06, 21 July 2023 (UTC)