Tobacco health warnings and the nocebo effect

I'm not saying that tobacco is good for you. In fact I think it is very bad for you, but not quite in the ways commonly advertised.

And that making it one hundred times more damaging than it could be, may not be a good idea.

Lung cancer incidence in industrialised countries is around 0.06% of the population, whether tobacco-enhanced or not (1).

The placebo effect in nowaday's pharmaceutical tests is around 25% (and rising, it seems)(2).

So one may argue that if the nocebo effect affects 25% of the smokers' population in a country where smokers are a quarter of the population, it will affect 1 in 16 people, or six and a quarter percent. That's over 100 times the 0.06% of current lung cancer deaths.

And the industrialised nations average of smokers is well above 25% anyway.

I'm not saying these are accurate figures, or careful calculations. As a ballpark figure, however rough, it should give an idea of the size of the playing field. After careful consideration, I believe it does.

I may also add that there is a 68.9% chance that it is just as accurate as in 82.3% of Serious Scientific Studies, the accuracy of the figures and exactness of calculation of which I have come progressively and inexorably to doubt. So I guess I'm in good company.

Anyway, let's say I'm only half right. Then, putting health warning on tobacco products, and especially reinforcing the nocebo effect with subtle undertaker sneakiness and (as has been suggested) colourful graphical scariness, is killing 50 times more people (or 5000% more), than tobacco may do on its own.

And that's allowing that tobacco was a deciding factor in 100% of the lung cancer deaths.

So I also guess that those responsible for the law requiring to write "SMOKING CAUSES CANCER" on tobacco health warnings are also responsible for increasing lung cancer deaths 5000%.

Not a bad accomplishment for the Power of Stupidity, however monumental that may be.

(1) http://www.kidon.com/smoke/percentages.htm

(2) http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect

On top of that you could add:
- Why do people smoke?
- Cause it's addictive.
- Ok, but why do they start?
- Well, I guess a lot of them do because the warnings are so ludicrous that a fuck-you attitude becomes almost unavoidable...
-  Hmm...

Notas sobre la tauromaquia

A ver. Personalmente, no me gusta la tauromaquia. Pero menos aún la hipocresía.

Si no comes carne, te doy toda la razón, esto no es para ti.

Pero si la comes, considera:

Menos de la mitad del 1% de la población española es vegetariana o vegana.

Lo que quiere decir que más del 99% come carne.

En España se sacrifican más de dos millones de cabezas de vacuno al año (2.3 millones en 2011).

Unos 10'000 toros al año mueren en las corridas en vez que en el matadero. Menos de la mitad del 1%.

Se comen igual que los otros, pero llegan a vivir de promedio unos dos años más, ya que en matadero se matan por lo general con menos de dos años y en las corridas con cuatro. Y ni les cortan los huevos hasta después de morir, ni viven toda la vida entre rejas.

Si piensas que la corrida es particularmente fea, probablemente no tienes ni idea de lo que es un matadero, o una granja de ganado.

Son más feos aún. Y mucho. Y ya que van de más del 99% de las muertes, porque preocuparse tanto del 0.5%, digo yo...

Yo creo (de verdad) que si fuera un toro y me dieran la elección, elegiría morir en la plaza.

Lo mismo creo que la mayoría de la gente, a la pregunta "preferirías morir en batalla o en campo de exterminio?" elegiría lo primero. Aún sin considerar las condiciones de vida antes de morir, ni la duración.

Si comes carne de vacuno, el vacuno tiene que morir.

Tu eres cómplice de la muerte, porque pagas a alguien para matarle.

La corrida es simplemente un ritual de la muerte, si no quieres saber como muere lo que comes, bien (hasta un punto, pero vale) pero no hagas de tu ignorancia un pretexto para juzgar a los que a lo mejor sí lo saben, y se responsabilizan de ella.

Notes on AGW

Just a little list of my points on Anthropgenic Global Warming
(under construction)

Purpose of post: Just having some notes here so that I can refer people to them.

Disclaimer: I am not an industry plant. I have lived more than half my life on batteries, solar, wind, and all sorts of self-produced energy. I collect rainwater. I produce almost no waste. I don't like money. I don't like being played for a fool.

'You have to admit, Holmes, that a supernatural explanation to this case is
 theoretically possible.' 

No. Agreed. But, it is a huge mistake to theorize before one has data.
Inevitably, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. 

---  Guy Ritchie, Sherlock Holmes, 2009.

Preface:
I'm not disputing there has been a warming trend to climate for the last 200 years or so.
It is well within any "normal" climate fluctuations that we know of, though.
What I'm disputing is that it's caused by human activity.

1) 100 years of (dubious) measurements do not a climate trend make.
See, climate is, well, it's as complicated as it gets. Astronomy is dead simple. So are nuclear physics (up to a point, for both, but really, compared to climate, they are).
Climate is the ultimate chaotic system. The butterfly effect actually refers to it.
We don't understand "chaos theory". We don't understand climate.

We can define "taurocoprography" as "the writing of bullshit" :·)

2) We are smack in the middle of an ice age.
Interglacial period, still an ice age.
Take this graph: 

and this: 

No, just to put things in perspective a bit, I mean.
There's a million graphs that could widen the perspective, but unless I'm challenged here (I can always change my mind, mind you) I'll stand by my previous statement, 100 years of (dubious) measurements do not a climate trend make.

Also, can anyone please explain to me, from the above graphs, we are obviously at one of the coolest points in the planet's history. Sometimes it's been cooler, but mostly, it's been warmer (yes, it's an ice age), and it's still here.
So why is a minimal temperature increase a "catastrophe"? It can, and will, get a lot warmer. And slightly colder. Repeatedly.

3) The atmosphere.
What's air made of?
Short story, nitrogen (80%), oxygen (20%), everything else, next-to-nothing%
Carbon dioxide has increased from some 300 to just less than 400 parts per million in the last couple hundred years or so. It has been close to 100'000 parts per million in other ages, and the planet hardly burned down.

Not only that though.

How much of that (less than) 0.04% is of "anthropic" - as in "caused by humans" - origin? 3.2 per cent of the 0.04.
Which comes down to 0.00128 per cent of recent changes in CO2.

Not only that though.
Now, think about this. I mean, actually think, don't read the "news" and say, ah but it's in the news, it must be true:

There is not
a shred of scientific evidence anywhere
that these amounts of CO2 can possibly cause any "greenhouse effects".
Honestly, there isn't. 
It's a theory. Hardly proven. Go on. Show me the proof.
Oops. You can't. But that nice lady on TV said, it's settled science....

So. It looks like there has been a slight warming trend to climate for the last 200 years or so. It is well within any "normal" climate fluctuations that we know of, though.
Considering... all of the above.

Now, is it caused by human activity? 
All scientific evidence points to... no.
Is it well within naturally-occurring climate parameters? 
All scientific evidence points to... yes.

Ah, but it's settled science (the wrong way around), and we must act now because otherwise the planet is doomed climate quacks will be out of a job.

4) The "scientists".
This is the bad bit. I don't particularly like distrusting people. Call it more of a survival trait.
There is a bit of a problem with subsidized science.
Let's have a possible scenario: I got a theory (that may or not work out to be plausible if studied) about, say, beans.
I do my work, at the end of the year... it's still dubious.
Now, I have two choices. One, I publish findings saying it's dubious (that won't get me much funding) or, I publish findings that say, beans, man, biggest threat to the planet ever (that may get me a fat funding).
I'm an honest scientist, I don't have a mortgage to pay, no girls/boys, no kids, no life, I just may go for the first option. As life goes chances are, most people (scientists are people you know) will go for the second... but hey. We're not exactly talking peanuts, either. 

4b) "Consensus"
So we (reportedly) have "consensus" on the unproven theories. We have even more consensus on the resurrection of Jesus for that matter (by the "experts" on the matter), which doesn't quite prove much does it. And I wouldn't count consensus by interested parties for much anyway.

5) "But it's a good thing anyway, isn't it".
We are spending more on carbon conferences - and pseudo-scientists - than on containing Fukushima leaks (and all the rest of serious pollution actually going on).
And kill more trees to print newspapers that warn us of deforestation... and use more electricity on FB posts about saving electricity... than, well you get the point ;·)
Meanwhile, while everyone is out chasing carbon dioxide, which is not, until proven, a pollutant, everybody else feels free to actually pollute the earth to unacceptable levels, and does it out of the spotlight. Not a good deal.
More about that... but maybe you get the idea already.

6) What do you call a deer with no eyes?
(ʇsıʇuǝıɔs ǝʇɐɯıןɔ ɐ)