Goop offers case study on how to sell snake oil (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Goop offers case study on how to sell snake oil (2017)

arstechnica.com

63 pointsfortran7731 comments

It is very strange to me that in an increasingly skeptical, atheist society, believing in astrology, and "energies," and "toxins," and "chemicals," and crystals, auras, etc...is essentially met with at most an eye roll. I mean that people with real jobs, in charge of real things, believe that eating "ancient grains" means something. You'd've thought that all of this would've been on the way out with the rest of organized religion, but it seems like it's on the rise.

There is a subreddit with a moderate amount of traction called "witches vs the patriarchy." My soon-to-be-mother-in-law was ecstatic to have been told by her psychic that she is, in fact, a witch.

Goop is not the problem, it is an outlet.

Agree with everything except the ancient grains bit. While it does not in itself mean anything (good or bad) in terms of personal nutrition, buying heritage or unusual food strains clearly helps improve biodiversity in our food supply (because there is an economic incentive to produce those strains) and is generally good for resilience - if the major commercial strains become susceptible to pests and diseases there are others to fall back on.

The lack of such diversity in certain food crops (eg bananas being one of the worst examples) is of concern as it makes our food supplies fragile.

From what I can see around me,yes 'religion is bad', but it filled a void that science can't fill. A lot of people need some kind of magic in their life and science is too rational for that. When science doesn't answer some of their feeling and they don't want medication to hide those feeling, a lot of people are going back to anyone with an answer that's not religious. "Use some essential oil when you're down" , "listen to the energy around you and you will feel better". And like with any religion, it gives them good and bad stuff. I can't understand what those people need and how some psychic could ever help me with anything in my life, but when you're looking for an answer and you get one that works for you, you will trust whoever gave you the answer. Do you remember the doctor in USA that told his patients that they had cancer just to sell them cancer treatment? Is Goop worse?

Goop is on to something important I think that it’s worth listening to, even if Goop and the wellness movement need to go away.

The way we have organised society, including the way we practice medicine, is not fantastic for human well-being.

When I am sick I want a doctor who I am confident will give most effective medical treatment we know of. Part of that need is to feel that the doctor has heard me, and cares about me.

I think we systemically fail at both actually giving the most effective treatment, and giving patients the feeling that they are getting effective treatment.

Doctors do intervene more than they need to with both drugs and surgery. That’s true, and well known.

This is only anecdotal from people I have talked to, but it seems to be common experience to have symptoms repeatedly dismissed by doctors, sometimes over years, that turn out to be pathological.

It is also both true and now common knowledge that there are systemic biases in research favouring the prescription of pharmaceuticals.

Doctors everywhere are under pressure to increase throughput of patients, so it’s also very difficult to give a full account of complex symptom clusters in the time available.

It is not at all surprising that people turn to “medicine” that is packaged in more caring terms.

Just pragmatically, the tone of these articles is not going to win these people back. It’s not that it’s not warranted, it’s that is actively leaning in to what’s causing people to seek medical answers in (what should be) the fringes.

Your belief is based around hatred or at least opposition to other's views and beliefs. I prefer the foolishness of people who think ancient oils give them super powers than to your arrogance fueled toxic belief. If you had your way only people who believe and think like you do will exist.

Not all atheists and agnostics are like this but you clearly think others differing belief is a problem in need of eradication. To me that's no different than any religious hatred where the "Muslims" or "Christians" have to be eradicated because they're a problem. In almost every communist country people have been persecuted for their belief and treated as less than human for it.Genocides exist even right now the atheist Chinese government is eradicating Uighur muslims. You have every right to hold and express a different belief, you can think your beliefs are right and others are wrong and you have the right to discuss your belief with others in an attempt to correct them. But what you don't have a right to is to consider other people or their beliefs a problem needing eradication. You don't get special treatment because you're secular, no mattet how correct you think you are you don't have the right to be intolerant, to me you're a much more dangerous person than a person who thinks oils give them powers and putting coffee in their butt heals them.

Please spend some time reflecting on your true motives. People can hold any belief they want so long as they don't hurt you directly. They can even be elected officials who make schools teach ancient oils give you powers because that's them excercising their belief. Your failure to convince others of your belief is not their fault and the whole point of any belief system is to excercise it and live by it.

I know this sort of a view might be shunned here but I must strongly stand against any such intolerance this time.

What? Where did I say that I hate anybody or their beliefs? I obviously believe anybody should be able to believe whatever they want. Literally all I said was that I was surprised that society is moving away from organized religion while simultaneously adopting other non-scientific alternative religious interests. That's literally all I said.

This somehow equates to me being intolerant, hateful, eradicating beliefs, and potentially genocidal.

No, you clearly framed any belief outside of yours as part of "the problem", I was responding to that. I don't think you're genocidal, if you don't consider people whose beliefs you don't agree with as part of a "problem" then I withdraw my response as a misunderstanding.

Large chain drug stores, pharmacies, sell homeopathic garbage mixed in on the shelf with the real medicines, with of course the homeopathic declarations well hidden to fool shoppers. They are hurting and possibly killed people. There's aren't just stores like GNC, they are licensed pharmacies with trained DPharms. A few pharmacists have protested, but overall they are silent about the malpractice occuring under their watch at their stores.

I was in CVS one day, and I think there or somewhere I saw signs making a big deal about not selling tobacco...and I was like, how is tobacco less appropriate than soda and homeopathic medicine in a drug store? After all nicotine is a drug and the other two aren't! Plus they are arguably pretty destructive.

I mean everyone should be contemptuous but none more so than feminists. What a shame Hollywood celebs like Gwen aren't using their marketing power to attract attention to say, effective and accurate sex education for teens. Or debunking this garbage that "you can't do math"

Gwen sees women as an opportunity to exploit ignorance for money. Hollywood.

Gwyneth Paltrow should be in prison. She found the perfect victims in women who are too wealthy to garner public sympathy. She found the perfect crime in one that is so obvious that one would be embarrassed to admit to having been a victim.

What's wrong with wealth transfer from rich, willfully ignorant people to GOOP staff?

Some of the GOOP products have been noted by health experts as harmful. For example, the jade eggs GOOP wants women to put in their vagina despite jade being porous enough to harbour bacteria.

Do you actually think she should be in prison?

Yes? When other scammers commit fraud that hurts the people who buy in to the fraudulent health claims of their products they can’t just excuse themselves with “but I was in the Ironman Movies”.

If only everyone read Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark[0], or at least the Baloney Detection Kit part.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Da...

Should be required reading in school. Someone recently asked me what's the most important book I've ever read, and I said this.

Every human should know about the potential fallacies of the mind, how to find truth, and how to be happy simply 'not believing' something (distinct from 'disbelieving') until you have evidence either way.

If there is any set of ideas that improved my life the most it's definitely these-- thanks to Sagan, Michael Shermer, James Randi and others, and no thanks to any of my high school or college professors.

I clicked on the link with alarm, because Amazing Goop is one of my favorite products, and really works:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Amazing-Goop-3-7-fl-oz-All-Purpo...

Same thought - Goop adhesive is pretty good in general. For those who didn't click through to the article, this is about the Goop online retail site/"lifestyle brand" that peddles a bunch of new-age garbage.

I had the same reaction. "The adhesive I've been using for years is snake oil?"

I thought this was worth re-examining given the Paltrow family connection to WeWork

Condé Nast invests in some weird stuff. Back in the 2000s I remember they were trying to buy an acquaintance's message board that was filled with vitriol and hate speech (the site owner was a good dude, not hateful at all), and I questioned what kind of strategy could possibly make that a smart purchase.

Was your acquaintance jedberg?

no, but that's not a bad guess.

Although not harmless, this stuff is unfortunately not harmful enough to allow Darwinism to happen, unlike some of the radiation quackery that was popular in the early 20th century...

I never cease to be amazed that people buy into obvious snake oil, it has been rife in tech since the beginning.

Never underestimate the ability of people to convince themselves that something they wish was true actually is.

So true. I remember as a 23 year old nerd when Pons and Fleischman announced cold fusion, I soooo wanted it to be true. I was literally drunk with the thought of the sci-fi possibilities it would bring. If the reality check hadn’t come so quickly and someone semi-reputable had offered a “Mr. Fusion” for the “low, low price of <some number I could just barely afford>“, I may well have been sucked in.

I just checked and apparently Pons and Fleischman was in 1989. Was cold fusion a thing in the 70s or very early 80s? Because I vaguely remember a story about a company that claimed to have done it some time before 1984.

This tech snake oil sucked me in for a while.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4

I remember being pretty amazed when I first seen that and followed it for a bit, kinda forgot about it only to look it up recently and find out they've been making a good living selling snake oil and empty promises ever since.

Because these are desperate people.

Look at the kinds of people who are part of the so called prosperity churches, they see mostly poor or lower middle class people who have no other means to raise their standard of living but to hope for god or some magical entity to just give to them.

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