Conspiracy theories

cim

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There are conspiracies around food too. Bisphenol A is one such chemical, which is a byproduct of the plastics industry. This substance is found in the lining of food cans, in baby plastics and many other places. This substance is not chemically inert like glass however, and has been proven to leak into the food. Bisphenol A has been linked to impotence and cancer, and there are now calls for it to be removed from packaging and baby products - in fact, several countries are doing so or are making moves to do so.
Fun fact: Studies have shown no link to this chemical and cancer or any other health defects.

One of the things about conspiracies are that they raise confirmation bias to an art form.
 
Major governments have always done horrible things to people. American citizens, British, ect, all profit off of other people's pain. America paints this picture of itself as something noble and virtuous, but hardly has ever lived up to those ideals. We called ourselves the "land of the free" but had slaves. Many Americans feel indignation towards illegal immigrants and spout that they are criminals and seek justice for them coming here, yet ignore that their ancestors came over here uninvited, destroyed and raped the natives, and took over. Then you have the retort that they should not be held accountable for what their ancestor's did, but will still burn Korans and offend a group of people because of what a small minority of their religion did on 9/11.


I mean, that's just it right, we're hypocrites?
 
I mean, that's just it right, we're hypocrites?
Some MEDC Governments do adopt hypocritical policies, but it's not hypocritical for the reasons you posted. Veedrock pretty much found the logical flaw already.

The better aspects to focus on are topics like; waste; smoking; pointless public service jobs; discriminative immigration; what toothache touched upon in his last post. Governments try to define their policies and actions in relevance to "what's best for the country", but usually that's morphed into "what's best for the country...'s economy and/or our jobs as politicians". That's where conspiracies originate and hypocracy reigns, where Government's are sincere enough in their explanation or policies on face value, but never carry it through. I'd much rather have a politician say "look, I can't fix the bridge, I can't lower taxes, but I can do my best to try and change X, and to keep my own job I'm going to say I'd like to adopt Y, except that is unrealistic. I can't magically fix the economy with any of my plans". The problem is no politician will ever say that, because they wouldn't be a politician, they'd be unemployed. The heart of the problem is the system we brought in ourselves. The slight deceptiveness, fallacies and ambiguity of politics is what gives it a bad name, and it's why conspiracy theories have some evidence that the Government does not like and cannot explain away. Politicians will altercate about almost everything, but funnily enough what they will normally agree on is “the politics system works fine at the moment”, “the government in general is doing a great job, the Government works”. The brilliance of the deception is that there is no voice in politics that says otherwise, leaving a huge majority of the population in ignorance. And the Government controls the media, which controls the people. If there is any conspiracy you want to try, try that one. I’d like to add that personally, America and Britain mostly are fine politically, it’s just there is the potential for such a problem, which is what I inherently have a problem with.
 

Toothache

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Fun fact: Studies have shown no link to this chemical and cancer or any other health defects.

One of the things about conspiracies are that they raise confirmation bias to an art form.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bpa-study-plastic-chemica

New research shows that a controversial chemical in plastic baby and water bottles, cups and food containers may be linked to heart disease and diabetes, prompting new fears about the ingredient.

Bisphenol A (BPA), the subject of much scientific debate this year over its potential health effects, was associated with type 2 diabetes, angina, coronary heart disease and heart attack in adults with elevated levels of the chemical. The results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are based on urine samples from 1,455 participants in a government health survey.

"The findings … challenge the safety of BPA," says an editorial that accompanies the study. The authors, biologists Frederick vom Saal and John Peterson Myers, blast the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for deeming the chemical as "safe" and write that federal regulators should follow the lead of Canada, which has banned baby bottles made with BPA.

The FDA said in a draft report last month that BPA is safe at current levels of exposure — a call that contrasted with an April report by the National Toxicology Program citing "some concern" about the chemical. An FDA panel reviewed the agency's draft report today, and Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley asked Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to explain the criteria FDA is using to determine which studies it's taking into account in its safety ruling.

"A margin of safety exists that is adequate to protect consumers, including infants and children, at the current levels of exposure," FDA scientist Laura Tarantino told the panel, according to the Associated Press.

An FDA spokeswoman had no immediate response to how the agency would address Grassley's request.

An industry group dismissed the new findings, insisting that the study "is not capable of establishing a cause and effect relationship between bisphenol A and these health effects" because the onset of the diseases would have occurred before the urine samples were taken.

“This new study cannot support a conclusion that bisphenol A causes any disease,” Steven Hentges of the American Chemistry Council said in a statement. “The weight of scientific evidence continues to support the conclusion of governments worldwide that bisphenol A is not a significant health concern at the trace levels present in some consumer products.”

Most Americans are likely exposed to more than the 50 micrograms-per-kilogram daily dose of BPA that federal environmental regulators consider safe, according to the JAMA study. Previous animal studies have associated BPA with obesity, liver problems and thyroid dysfunction, and human and animal research has shown that the chemical mimics estrogens. Some parents started feeding their babies with glass bottles this year after word spread about BPA's possible health effects.

States including California, Maryland, Minnesota and Michigan may bar the chemical in children's products.
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/...sion-wants-ban-on-bisphenol-A-in-baby-bottles

Sure, if there's no health risk, why is the jury out? Why are several countries banning it for children's products? I'm glad they are pushing to get this banned in the entire EC. I'm not being an alarmist, but surely the fact that this stuff is leaking into the food is cause for concern?
 
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bpa-study-plastic-chemica



http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/...sion-wants-ban-on-bisphenol-A-in-baby-bottles

Sure, if there's no health risk, why is the jury out? Why are several countries banning it for children's products? I'm glad they are pushing to get this banned in the entire EC. I'm not being an alarmist, but surely the fact that this stuff is leaking into the food is cause for concern?

The "jury is out" rarely means that much; the reason they're taking it out of baby products is not the result of conclusive evidence. They do that on even slight correlation evidence, because babies tend to be more vulnerable to problem chemicals, and because even if it's not actually true, the risk of it is enough to act upon.
 
However, there is a new push for babies to drink water with flouride added, even though it does not help babies, and in fact, the ADA advice is to not give flouridated water in formula to babies under 12 months. Get em while they are young?
Over-fluoridisation of the water causes stains to the teeth, but doesn't actually cause a problem in terms of function, and makes them stronger in the long-term.

However, despite the use of fluorided water supplies these days, tooth decay in children is still on the rise due to the huge consumption of energy drinks like Red Bull, V, Mother and so on by children under 16.
 
9/11 and JFK soak up a lot of press, but you get something fairly tangible and not much attention gets paid.

The Franklin Scandal

Here's a documentary on the subject covering an Omaha-based child prostitution and drug trafficking ring, the powerful officials involved, and the lengths to which they worked to cover it up.

Alleged of course, but it's worth the watch.
 

Toothache

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One thing many people have been guilty of, including myself, is that they did not do the research. But then, with hundreds of scientific papers to wade through, that is sometimes understandable. The media cannot be relied upon to report scientific debate since they put their own spin on things. As such, it is hard to know what to trust.

Let's take climate change as an example. I'll refrain from playing devil's advocate this time, and try to inject some scientific debate here. And there is a debate happening, which is a natural part of any science. There are sceptics and proponents of all sorts of theories, climate change included.

Here are some videos from a real scientist, who uses peer-reviewed papers and journals to put together real evidence about climate change, and present them in a way that is easy to understand for the general public. There's a lot of them, but its a complex issue (like most scientific debate tbh) and therefore cannot be understood by erroneous conclusions, hype and spin:

http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#grid/user/A4F0994AFB057BB8

Having watched all of these, its good to hear a voice of common sense in a sea of lies, spin and speculation.
 
Personally, I think climate change is really happening, however not the extreme parts of it (one guy told me that if we increase the rate we increase, apparently in 2050 water will be as precious as gold).
I do think people need to be more environmentally friendly and stuff like that. I think its the government's job to take the first steps, then the rest of us continue
 

Toothache

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(one guy told me that if we increase the rate we increase, apparently in 2050 water will be as precious as gold).
This is a classic example of listening to the hype rather than the facts or the science. I'd wager this guy isn't a scientist, or an expert in any field related to climate, or even a full-time employee. But seriously, don't take my word for it, or some guy's word. Do your own research. See what you can find for yourself, trace it back to its scientific source, and see if the peer-reviewed papers match up with the media propaganda.
 
Something I noticed about conspiracy theories is how far people will go to attempt to prove them. I've actually seen a few where it's quite obvious people proved themselves wrong but continue to spew "facts" out their ass to make it seem like the conspiracy still has a cause. Those are the funniest, in my opinion :)
 

Toothache

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Yeah that is a common problem - people will go any length to make even the most tenuous of links in a conspiracy theory. The way I see it is that, while there is real corruption and real conspiracy in government, they are generally too incompetent or too concerned with their own self-interest to actually organise elaborate stuff like 9/11.
 

Firestorm

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Personally, I think climate change is really happening, however not the extreme parts of it (one guy told me that if we increase the rate we increase, apparently in 2050 water will be as precious as gold).
I do think people need to be more environmentally friendly and stuff like that. I think its the government's job to take the first steps, then the rest of us continue
I'm not sure what's extreme about this. Water is more precious than gold to people in many parts of the world. Gold is not essential to life. Water is. Clean drinking water is something we take for granted in developed countries but undeveloped countries cherish dearly. It's already a problem, but the ones it's a problem for have no voice.

Water is a renewable resource though and hopefully we develop ways of not only maintaining the level of access we have to it here, but also increasing the access of it elsewhere.

Otherwise, the wars for oil will eventually turn to something much more essential to our species. And that will affect many of us personally because Canada holds a majority of the world's clean drinking water and shares the longest undefended border in the world with a country that has more than enough power to take it by force - a country that is also projected to have water shortages within a decade in a very densely populated region.
 
Yeah that is a common problem - people will go any length to make even the most tenuous of links in a conspiracy theory. The way I see it is that, while there is real corruption and real conspiracy in government, they are generally too incompetent or too concerned with their own self-interest to actually organise elaborate stuff like 9/11.
I agree, it's just plain annoying to hear them spew out bull shit that people just pull right out of their asses to make sure they don't contradict themselves when they know that they are wrong.
 
I'm not sure what's extreme about this. Water is more precious than gold to people in many parts of the world. Gold is not essential to life. Water is. Clean drinking water is something we take for granted in developed countries but undeveloped countries cherish dearly. It's already a problem, but the ones it's a problem for have no voice.

Water is a renewable resource though and hopefully we develop ways of not only maintaining the level of access we have to it here, but also increasing the access of it elsewhere.

Otherwise, the wars for oil will eventually turn to something much more essential to our species. And that will affect many of us personally because Canada holds a majority of the world's clean drinking water and shares the longest undefended border in the world with a country that has more than enough power to take it by force - a country that is also projected to have water shortages within a decade in a very densely populated region.
I should restate it, I meant water would be as rare as gold, or as precious as gold in more developed countries, like the US and Australia.
Sorry
 

Nastyjungle

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I doubt people (of advanced nations) will ever run out of water. As stated before, water is renewable- and a good percentage of the earth is made of water.

It's already quite possible to turn sea water into drinkable water, I think that if we ever got to the point that we even thought we were close to running out of water, the technology used to to convert it now would be expanded on at a rapid pace.

I'd be much more concerned about food running out before water did (not that I think that will happen any time soon, either.)
 

Firestorm

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Less than 3% of the water on Earth is drinkable and 2/3 of that are locked as ice. Currently, conversion is very expensive. Hopefully we improve the technology to be efficient enough so that neither the first world nor the third world has people dying from causes related to lack of water. In 2006, lack of access to clean drinking water was directly related to the death of a child every 20 seconds on average.
 

Bad Ass

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Less than 3% of the water on Earth is drinkable and 2/3 of that are locked as ice. Currently, conversion is very expensive. Hopefully we improve the technology to be efficient enough so that neither the first world nor the third world has people dying from causes related to lack of water. In 2006, lack of access to clean drinking water was directly related to the death of a child every 20 seconds on average.
Source on the child death thing. That's ~38,000,000 dead children a year.
 
Your maths is wrong. It's about 1.5 million. With 8.1 million children under 5 dying in total in 2009, the figure Firestorm gave is believable.
 
Clean water, or lack of the former, is not the sole reason for deaths in what is mostly the developing countries. Yes many millions died - but remember that the majority didn't die due to a direct dehydration impact, most will have died due to secondary effects of the water, such as Cholera. The death toll is not completely due to lack of clean water, but more the fact that developing countries can't cope with the diseases it brings. That's why hardly anyone in developed countries dies of diarrhoea. Admittedly, there is no problem if the water is already clean. But the real killer is not the water; it's the medical capabilities of the countries. I'm not going to say those 1.5 million people would have died in another way anyway, but I'm certainly implying it. It's terrible that people die, but unless charities help or the country improves, people are going to die anyway.

I agree that water is a big upcoming issue, although I have a certain amount of faith that water treatment methods and costs will improve; and be more widely spread in the future. But it's uncertain, so water is a "uh oh", but more so than water for me is the land issue. The human population is increasing, as the land available to us decreases (due to rising sea levels, global warming). It's too late to stop Global warming by now, and it's hypocritical for MEDCs to say to NICs like china "you're polluting the environment with your industrial revolution", when we ourselves had one. Even if we did force restrictions, they would either be ignored or be bought out with money. So that leaves the world with an increasing population, with basic food, water, employment needs, with a decreasing amount of lands. Even an optimist would be worried about that. As I see it, this will cause an even greater difference between MEDCs and LEDCs. I definitely see big, rich countries threatening and buying out land, even wars starting over land. Even without all of that, there is the basic population problem that the human population has to start eventually falling, and when it does I see billions dying every year. There's not much that can be done to prevent this now, and for me it kind of puts water problems in perspective. Although I'm not saying that lack of clean water is not a terrible, horrific situation. There’s just a general feeling of a very dim future: we are lucky to be alive in what is probably the best time for human life yet, and will be for a few centuries. Although if you look at the situation: we are not only mainly disregarding poorer people now, but we are ruining the lives of future generations. Perhaps I make it sound worse than it will be, but it’s still a problem that Governments do not even recognise, let alone tackle.
 

Toothache

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Clean water, or lack of the former, is not the sole reason for deaths in what is mostly the developing countries. Yes many millions died - but remember that the majority didn't die due to a direct dehydration impact, most will have died due to secondary effects of the water, such as Cholera. The death toll is not completely due to lack of clean water, but more the fact that developing countries can't cope with the diseases it brings. That's why hardly anyone in developed countries dies of diarrhoea. Admittedly, there is no problem if the water is already clean. But the real killer is not the water; it's the medical capabilities of the countries. I'm not going to say those 1.5 million people would have died in another way anyway, but I'm certainly implying it. It's terrible that people die, but unless charities help or the country improves, people are going to die anyway.

I agree that water is a big upcoming issue, although I have a certain amount of faith that water treatment methods and costs will improve; and be more widely spread in the future. But it's uncertain, so water is a "uh oh", but more so than water for me is the land issue. The human population is increasing, as the land available to us decreases (due to rising sea levels, global warming). It's too late to stop Global warming by now, and it's hypocritical for MEDCs to say to NICs like china "you're polluting the environment with your industrial revolution", when we ourselves had one. Even if we did force restrictions, they would either be ignored or be bought out with money. So that leaves the world with an increasing population, with basic food, water, employment needs, with a decreasing amount of lands. Even an optimist would be worried about that. As I see it, this will cause an even greater difference between MEDCs and LEDCs. I definitely see big, rich countries threatening and buying out land, even wars starting over land. Even without all of that, there is the basic population problem that the human population has to start eventually falling, and when it does I see billions dying every year. There's not much that can be done to prevent this now, and for me it kind of puts water problems in perspective. Although I'm not saying that lack of clean water is not a terrible, horrific situation. There’s just a general feeling of a very dim future: we are lucky to be alive in what is probably the best time for human life yet, and will be for a few centuries. Although if you look at the situation: we are not only mainly disregarding poorer people now, but we are ruining the lives of future generations. Perhaps I make it sound worse than it will be, but it’s still a problem that Governments do not even recognise, let alone tackle.
I don't think you can trust the water supply tbh:

http://open.salon.com/blog/stuartbramhall/2010/12/02/the_best_research_corporate_money_can_buy

Although fluoride is added to municipal water supplies as a “drug” – that allegedly improves dental health – it has never been approved by the FDA. In fact most communities source their fluoride from the phosphate fertilizer industry, as hydrofluorosilicic acid. This is an extremely toxic, hazardous waste, and the EPA requires phosphate manufacturers to capture it via “wet scrubbers” in their chimneys (to prevent toxic fluoride gas from being released into the air). The resulting liquid is then loaded, unpurified, into tanker trucks and sold to cities to be added to their public water supply. In addition to fluoride, it also contains a number of heavy metals and radionucleotides (radioactive elements – mainly uranium-238, uranium-234, thorium-230, radium-226, radon-222, lead-210, and polonium-210).
This paragraph is the most interesting. Not only does it point out that flouride is not and never was approved by the FDA, there's a lot more than just one chemical in the water supply - in fact there are a huge amount of heavy metals and radioactive isotopes along with it. I agree that water is an immediate concern for any nation, and those countries who wish to develop need to adequately invest in water services. As for the developed nations, there really is no need to add flouride to the water supply - it doesn't stay on your teeth long enough to have any effect, and there's the risk of dental flourosis, especially in children. If I didn't know better, I'd say this was added deliberately to dumb the population down. Then again, that might be the real reason flouride is being added.
 
EVERYTHING you eat or drink contains some heavy metals and some radioisotopes. And a large number of medicines are extremely toxic if you overdose. That paragraph is scaremongering.
 

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