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Essential oils. Homeopathy. Chiropractic. Reiki. Juice cleanses. Perineum sunning. Internet accelerator software. Iridology. Faith healing. Organic food. Oil pulling. Gold plated digital audio cables.
Everything marketed audiophiles, not only gold plated cables, but also anything that uses vacuum tubes because “they sound better”
I was buying a toslink cable recently and I shit you not, there was a gold plated optical cable…
Fucking Toslink: one round optical fiber in the middle, but it plugs in in only one position out of four, and you can’t feel which way the female connector is. EU should fine the assholes responsible.
I remember buying some bits and pieces to setup my home theatre in a new house years ago, and the guy at the store tried to sell me a $100 TOSLINK cable. When I asked why a $12 cable was going for so much, he pointed out that it was the “premium” cable, to ensure the highest quality audio.
I couldn’t stop laughing. Like their special cable scrubbed the photons before sending them or something.
Organic food? Please let me take that out of your list. Organic produce has a huge lot of benefits over industrial, to both the consumer and the environment.
All it takes to qualify for the organic label is a payment to the right industry group.
That’s another thing. That’s organic certification.
It’s worth noting that gold plated connectors are not snake oil. Gold is a good conductor and doesn’t form a nonconductive oxide layer. That means it’s going to be more durable and won’t corrode together or apart like those old ass sheet metal tube sockets that all need to be cleaned.
Chiropractic
I dunno what shysters you’ve all been going to. My chiro, with his kinesiology degree and full physiotherapy ticket in addition to his nationally-recognized certification, seems to do a lot more “do these stretches and stop sitting stupidly” guidance and reeeeally isn’t interested in a “programme of wellness” grift that my friends in other regions worry about.
Downvotes? What, jealous my guy isn’t an overt shyster quack like the horror stories? I hope when you need them, there’s a good one out there for ya. I’m 30 years on a wicked back injury and I’m still limber so woo!
Chiropractic is literally based on the teachings of a ghost while haunting its founder.
No, really. Look it up.
Hi-resolution audio, especially for streaming. The general idea is that listening to digital audio files that have a greater bit depth and sample rate than CD (24-bit/192Khz vs 16-bit/44.1 KHz) translates to better-sounding audio, but in practice that isn’t the case.
For a detailed breakdown as to why, there’s a great explanation here. But in summary, the format for CDs was so chosen because it covers enough depth and range to cover the full spectrum of human hearing.
So while “hi-res” audio does contain a lot more information (which, incidentally, means it uses up significantly more data/storage space and costs more money), our ears aren’t capable of hearing it in the first place. Certain people may try to argue otherwise based on their own subjective experience, but to that I say “the placebo effect is a helluva drug.”
Conversely low res audio clearly sounds like trash.
Up to a certain point, yes. >192k AAC / OGG / Opus sounds just as good as FLAC in a blind test, though. Even with good equipment.
Anything sold as a “detox”
Cleanses. You don’t need a cleanse if you have a liver and kidneys, and if you don’t you need dialysis.
Majority of the “AI inside” software and solutions. It’s in a bubble and everyone is throwing crap to a wall hoping it sticks.
“AI” is the new “blockchain”. It’s a solution looking for a solid problem to tackle, with some niche applications
I mean, at least Ai has SOME useful applications, the blockchain was just wasting energy for some numbers.
Blockchain also has some useful applications. Most (but not all) of them are also possible with technology and such that existed when bitcoin was first created, at far lower cost for a minor tradeoff in accuracy. On top of that, almost none of them are related to speculative markets.
It’s a way to do distributed transaction logs in a non-refutable and independantly verifiable way. That’s useful and important, but it was a solution in search of a problem. Even for the highest security, most at risk transactions, the existing international fincancial systems are “good enough” to ensure reliability of transaction logs.
In the end, blockchain and now AI are just falling victim to con men trying to milk as much money as they can from things before people build a working understanding of them. They’ll just keep moving onto the next big thing as it comes.
My research was literally on AI back in college. Most AI solutions are just basic algorithms and don’t use real AI solutions. There’s a huge difference.
I just got a notification on my phone telling me that I can chat with my PDF documents. Why the fuck would I want to do that? Do these companies realize that literally no one is asking for this shit? I also saw an ad for a computer mouse that had AI inside it. Whatever that means.
I just got a notification on my phone telling me that I can chat with my PDF documents
I belive you got that notification but I honestly have no idea what it even means.
It’s from the Adobe Acrobat app. Basically you can ask it to give you a summary of whatever document you’re reading.
Anything sold by Gwyneth Paltrow in her online shop, which I will not name here so as not to promote it. In the best case, goods sold there will be harmless and entirely useless. In the worst case, they will cause serious harm.
Extra expensive digital hifi cables.
If you run a website: Paid SSL/TLS certificates. Free ones like Let’s Encrypt and ZeroSSL are just as good, and can be automatically renewed.
Blue light filter on glasses. When I got my glasses, the lady said they come with blue light filter for free, and I said, “I don’t want that, my job requires that I see colors accurately, so I can’t have any sort of color filter.” She said don’t worry, it doesn’t filter any colors. Ok, then what the fuck is it exactly?
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As a medical device engineer working in spine - absolutely chiropractors.
What about osteopaths?
I was not familiar with this term and had to look it up. From my brief search, it also seems like snake oil, and I don’t know why someone would not go to a real physical therapist instead.
Not saying anything about the source, but https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/osteopathic-medicine
I absolutely had a PT after a car accident that used spinal manipulation and it seemed to help. She also had me using elastic bands for stretching and hydrotherapy, so there’s that
Not all, but a lot of coaches. Like the 23-year old just out of school “executive coach”, or the “lifestyle coaches”, “energetic coaches” etc.
I was going to say something, till I realized you didn’t mean sports coaches
Carry on
I have a couple from the hip actually, because America has grifting baked into it’s soul. In no particular order:
- MMS (Drinkin’ bleach)
- Crystal healing (most sellers)
- WitchTok kits (TikTok influencers selling expensive spices)
- Brain pills
- Any product peddled by a megachurch (see the Baker bucket for a great example)
- Chiropractors
As more of these come to me, I’ll try to expand the list.
Update: I can’t believe I forgot chiros! They turned themselves into a religion at one point to try to dodge medical licensure laws.
Homeopathics, though sometimes even a placebo can have beneficial effects.
Dietary advice based on the food pyramid/MyPlate. Before the late '70s, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and mental illnesses were all rare in the general population.
We need to be eating fewer carbohydrates, not basing our diets around them. We need to be getting most of our calories from fat, not demonising it.
Thankfully, we have people like Dr. Ken Berry, Dr. Chris Palmer, Dr. Anthony Chaffee, Dr. Georgia Ede, Dr. Shawn Baker, Dr. Paul Mason, Dr. Tony Hampton, Dr. Jason Fung, and others spreading this message.
Saturated fats are bad. Unsaturated fats are better for you most fats should come from mono and polyunsaturated fats. Carbs are quick energy broken down into sugars, but raw sugars are bad for blood sugar, and gut bacteria diversity. There needs to be a relative balance of protein, carbs, and fats. Blood sugar shouldn’t go up and down in spikes. It should flow like slight rolling hills. Increase the diversity in diets for wide/diverse gut microbiome are super important not probiotic supplements but from actual food sources. Vitamins and minerals should be balanced in foods and drinks, almost all added sugars and salts should be cutout of consumption.
The American “food” industry, the American “health care” industry, American politics, the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, entertainment, right off the top of my head.
