Only if the medication doesn’t work. The evidence is that placebos don’t work. Mostly, the placebo effect is a statistical illusion.

It is plausible that the body will expend more energy to combat a disease if you are (sub-)consciously convinced that you are cared for and don’t need to stress. Stress hormones down-regulate the immune response. Cortisol, used for treatment of autoimmune disorders like asthma and allergies, is a stress hormone.

But a sham treatment could also have the opposite effect. If your subconscious understands that as a signal that you must get back into action, you may end up releasing stress hormones. These psychological effects are just too idiosyncratic and fickle to be used reliably.

Stuff like broken bones or cancer doesn’t respond to psychology at all. The body is already doing all it can.

ETA: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7156905/

It’s more like colds are incredibly good at responding to the human body. Following the evolution of corona was quite amazing, no?

War. War never changes.

Maybe a little, but it’s like spitting in the ocean. The SEO people are now targeting genAI; calling it GEO. They might be able to help you. Take other suggestions with a grain of salt. People who hate technology are generally not very good with it.

It’s a general rule.

West Bank-style occupation

How’s that working out?

Coined by Down himself, actually. I once looked up Down’s original writings because I wanted to know how much racism was in the expression. To my surprise, I came away with the impression that Down was actually a very humane and unprejudiced person.

Mostly, they can’t. Businesses like Walmart have margins of around 3-4% or so. If the cost goes up an extra 10% or more, that’s it.

Besides, I don’t see why they would prop up a guy who’s ruining them, anyway. Even if it didn’t require gifting billions to customers.

Yeah. I looked it up. That’s why I made the post with the credible numbers. The point about the crime rate is one of the criticisms of that Yale study, which I thought was neat.

I can see what she’s doing, but I don’t know off the top of my head if there is anyone actually claiming that figure.

Most estimates of “illegal aliens”, including by the Department of Homeland Security, are around ~11 million; a figure that has been stable since noughties. https://www.statista.com/statistics/646261/unauthorized-immigrant-population-in-the-us/

Based on that figure, undocumented immigrants have a much lower crime rate than average. If the figure was as high as she claims, they would have to be absolute saints.

In war, the economy does not slow down. It is turbocharged.

A nuclear war could counter global warming by triggering a nuclear winter but the actual effects are very uncertain. Basically, for a nuclear winter, a lot of “dust” needs to be lifted into the stratosphere. Those huge, multi-megaton bombs that they had back in the day caused a mushroom cloud that rose all the way to the stratosphere. Today, smaller, more precisely targeted bombs are preferred. It also depends on how combustible the targets are. No one is really quite sure what the climate effect of nuking a city is.

ETA: That was how climatologists saw nuclear winter ~15-20 years ago. No idea if anything has changed, but there probably wasn’t a lot of new data.

A substantial reduction in the human population would largely end the burning of fossil fuels and trigger reforestation; removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Ultimately, I would expect WW3 to greatly mitigate global warming.

Lemmy has various options to sort, eg by active. That surfaces posts that create engagement. It’s stuff that polarizes.

I find interesting stuff either by sorting by new in my subscribed communities. Or by looking for something that causes a stir. The last one creates exactly those problems that are often ascribed to “The Algorithm”.

Fair. It’s certainly an issue that someone like Musk could weaponize Twitter.

Being active on Lemmy, not this one incidence in particular. This is one example showing that the spread of misinformation does not require any sinister force pulling strings.

I have an interest in internet regulation and so read various takes. The spread of mis- and disinformation is a frequent complaint about social media. Often, “The Algorithm” is blamed, rather than human nature. The role of influencers and traditional media tends to be ignored.

The original news was posted twice. Right now these posts have a score of 80 and 456 upvotes.

Being active on Lemmy has pretty much convinced me that claims about some evil algorithm being responsible for all the ills of social media are baseless.

https://lemmy.world/post/31866458

https://lemmy.world/post/31865309

…expecting sex “in return”.

Just a joke. People rarely give away drugs without expecting something in return. Even on Halloween.

People are giving out free drugs to anyone? Oh no! Kudos to this brave person for speaking out with no regard for what that might do to their own business.

For a moment there, I thought the UK was splitting up.