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Comment by Overtonwindow | Hacker News Reader

I use to work in legislative affairs for the natural health industry. It's all one big scam. I try to explain it like this:

Company A sells natural remedies, etc. Company B is a news organization which reports on natural health remedies, and also advertises for those companies, et. Nonprofit C is a consumer watchdog organization that investigates and promotes natural health. They are supported by the natural health industry, and community. Trade Association D is a group of natural health corporations that lobby the government, and fight bad press.

The trick is, A, B, C, and D are all working together, in collusion, with the same investors, same backers, and each supports the other. It's so pervasive it's astounding, and extremely difficult for consumers to see through to factual information.

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I used to consult for a couple of mortgage brokers back in the go-go 2000s before the crash, and it wasn't too different. Companies A, B and C arrange mortgages. Company D is a trade organization closely associated with A, B and C which awards annual prizes for "excellence" in the mortgage broking industry. By strange coincidence companies A, B and C are awarded the prizes every year (usually with slightly different names each year, or rotated from last years winners).

extremely difficult for consumers to see through to factual information.

This is why I like consumerlab.org. They summarize the medical research and test to see how much of the active ingredient it actually has.

I think the most valuable sources of information right now are independent non-profits.

Do you have any other recommendations along this line?

It's impossible to determine which nonprofits are independent. So many nonprofits are industry backed, and depend on the industries they report on for most, if not all, of their funding. Your best bet are those that have been around along time, with clear 990's that show where money comes in, where it goes out, etc. There's an organization called Charity Navigator that tries to evaluate nonprofits, and score them based on transparency, etc. Another factor that I found in my experience is when a nonprofit goes after it's own industry. For example: Find a nonprofit that attacks MLM's and dietary supplements. Just because an organization says it's an independent nonprofit does not mean it is.

Seems like a sure thing to short the piss out of an enterprise like this and wage a comprehensive campaign of activism and consumer education against it. With rationality on your side, how could you lose?

> with rationality on your side, how could you lose?

Look at south Africa, multi vitamins, and hiv/aids denialism. It's pretty fascinating, human toll aside.

South Africa is hardly the only country where multivitamins are common. If rationality were the only metric for decision making, I would expect homeopathy to be far less common globally than it is today.

As for Aids denialism, South Africa suffers from a case of cultural antiestablishmentism, particularly in the context of Western medicine. Thankfully our government has stepped up in recent years, and actively promotes HIV/Aids education these days.

Homeopathy is the beloved little black sheep of natural health. I would say half of natural health industry people don't believe in it, know it doesn't work, but they have to go along with it. Otherwise, to admit (as countless studies, and the federal government have done) that homeopathy is completely without merit, would threaten the entire house of cards that natural health is built upon. I remember last year when the FTC announced their enforcement action on homeopathic OTC drugs, there was an unusual silence from the natural health community. Almost a shrug. From the inside it was laughable at the lack of concern for homeopathy's future.

>With rationality on your side, how could you lose?

Hahahhaha. Great joke. Sadly, there are and probably always will be a lot of ignorant/gullible people. As PT Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute."

Given global population growth and birth trends, I wonder if we've reached a sucker every second yet...

Given the current birth rate of over 4 births per second, and considering that almost every newborn will consume nutrients by sucking milk, I'd say that we have reached that milestone a long time ago.

Actually, there is no evidence that he ever said this.

In this instance, I'd say it's an even better quote, then.

"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"

-Keynes

Don't believe all quotes on the internet - Benjamin Franklin

> With rationality on your side, how could you lose?

You could lose because the rational choice model does not accurately model human behavior in the real world; people don't act based on perfect information, in part because even when presented with correct information, they are likely to reject it if it doesn't fit their pre-existing world view.

That has very little to do with the rational choice model. Rational choice agrees that people don't act on perfect information. It also agrees that even when given good information, individuals don't necessarily believe it. All RCT really boils down to is the fairly uncontroversial statement that people act in accordance with their actual preferences (even if their preferences should be different, the actions are not well-calculated to achieve their goals, or they say they have different preferences).

So 'rational choice theory' should be called 'fleeting whim choice theory.'

> Rational choice agrees that people don't act on perfect information

No, full rational choice theory posits that people do behave in a way which maximizes actual (not expected) net utility, or, in more detail, as if:

(1) They have a coherent “utility function” mapping each potential path through time that might be taken to a unidimensional, real-number utility value.

(2) They have perfect knowledge of the outcome (path through time), or at least resulting utility value, produced by every possible option with every decision they make,

(3) They consistently choose the option that maximizes utility.

There are more limited modifications of rational choice theory that attempt, with varying degrees of success, to close the predictive gap between full rational choice theory and actual behavior resulting from the fact that humans do not behave “rationally” in the sense of rational choice theory, but they aren't what is involved with the question “how can you lose when rationality is on your side?” asked upthread.

> With rationality on your side, how could you lose?

Do you think rationality can win when the President of the United States says that global warming is a Chinese hoax.

France? Maybe we've come full circle, and it's time for it to lead a second Enlightenment.

And to be accurate, I believe Trump's current position is "global warming is happening, caused by humans, but Paris unfairly advantages other nations over the US."

Which is how all climate agreements look when you're trying to get buy in from developing economies... but at least it's better than hoaxism.

Aristotle realised the rational argument does not always win a long time, and then wrote Poetics.

I always thought there should be a "Being an Adult" mandatory course in US grade school, and one section should be "defense against rhetoric."

Isn't that exactly what Ackman did?

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