An Inhuman World

Things are made for the benefit and convenience of businesses rather than for humans. This seems odd, as it is people that business, achievement, progress, or innovation is meant to serve—not the other way around. A small example is food, something seemingly obvious that it should be of use and benefit for people. However, food is not processed, packaged, or produced in the most nutritious manner. Instead, the focus is on convenience, yield, and longevity. Most foodstuffs will degrade and rot fairly quickly, from fruits and vegetables to prepared dishes; even with refrigeration, a week is a long time to expect food to last. In the distant past (more than 200 years ago), when people grew their own foods and had to store them, they developed a number of methods for preservation. Salting, dehydrating, fermenting, and cooling (think root cellar rather than ice box) are all long-standing practices. Because food is no longer produced locally, it is just a matter of logistics. We have food that needs to travel from production sites to some sort of store where it sits out on shelves for days before the consumer finally takes it home. This is true even of "unprocessed" foods, like whole fruits or grains. While this is where one reaches the borders of the argument about "genetically modified organisms" (GMOs), we do not need to enter that territory, but recognize that many such plants are quite different than in previous centuries. Most often, even these changes have been to make these crops more marketable (even if just more pest-resistant or larger). While this is a simple example, you may recognize other areas where the trend holds true: technology, clothing, or automobiles, for example.

There is an argument that the very existence of large population centers (cities of 5000 or more) exist as an expedient for business. One version is to get localized group of workers, ready to replace one another in whatever job is required, with infrastructure to most easily transport them to various destinations about the city while minimally supporting their biological needs. Beyond this, there are also ways societal expectations have been shaped by the needs of businesses for space, employees, materials, computers, etc.

Contrast that with a more traditional style, consisting of smaller groups (100-1000) who grow their own foods and make their own clothing, having time to pursue other interests and congregate for various events. For decades, people have been decrying the loss of "third spaces", meaning those places outside the home and workplace where they can gather and socialize. The only places that seem to exist are businesses which allow people to congregate as long as they spend money to do so: coffee house, public house, or event space. Recently, there has been much news about "offices standing empty" and "return-to-office (RTO) mandates" following the pandemic. This is not about people wanting to go back to commuting and being watched over by supervisors—it is driven by businesses wanting to re-establish control over and extract maximal value from employees.

This can only last as long as people allow it to, and that seems dependent upon recognizing how dystopian it actually is already.

A Nation of Placebo Addicts

Essentially, it strikes me as dis-empowering and potentially opening people up to exploitation that we do not address the role of placebos. Many, if not most are aware of their existence, but the ramifications seem to make no difference in how we approach healthcare, as well as other areas.

The power of the placebo effect is essentially to "trick" a person into feeling better. That is, by applying a neutral intervention (therapy, pill, or other treatment), the person is able to heal or to speed recovery. This improvement is often attributed to the "natural power of the body to heal itself", but there seem to be a couple components that make it more than just wishful thinking. First, of course, the 'patient' believes that the intervention will work. This is crucial, and the part that leads to mis-attribution to super-natural causes. The second is the setting and/or provider, which lends credence to the intervention. Think about the difference between getting a prescription from a respectable, older-looking person wearing a white lab coat in a clean and modern clinic versus being tossed a bottle by a ratty, greasy guy in torn jeans outside the local mini-mart. Similarly, the difference between listening to your favorite music on a quality sound system at home versus sitting quietly in the audience of demure sophisticates at an intimate performance versus being in a raucous crowd of drugged-up hippies at a standing-room-only event. The setting influences your experience, for better or worse. These two factors, personal expectations of and the setting around an intervention, lead to how successful a placebo is. Being explicit, or telling a patient, about a placebo can actually have little impact on the outcome.

How much better would it be to use this power intentionally? Properly asserting that the power lies with me, rather than outside myself, we could build a more whole society of confident people. Of course, it would be vital to acknowledge the limitations of placebos, and continue to rely on appropriate treatment for medical conditions. However, adding in that it is important how we perceive our own treatment—the positive or negative attitude we hold—could improve our odds of success. At the very least, it highlights how treatment is a joint effort between provider and patient, rather than a supplicant begging for healing from a god-like Doctor, as it has historically been portrayed. This is where the dis-empowerment comes in.

Additionally, there is potential in utilizing this tendency in order to dismiss quackery and scams. By assuming that a positive belief will tend to improve chances of success, we can analyze failure more critically. Recognizing the tendency to 'fall for' something we want to work, but that does not perform, could be important. When something succeeds, we may be more likely to examine whether it was due to sheer placebo effect. From media to "alternative medicine", knowing that we are improving conditions for ourselves just through our approach. Because we believe in the TV personality (the 'setting' of the 'treatment'), we could question whether it was the placebo effect all along. Rather than relying on "experts" we could get better at spotting quacks and fraudsters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect

Mental Illnesses and How to Treat Them

First, because litigation has replaced dialogue as a form of communication, this is not medical or legal advice. This remains the blog of a layperson who expresses a perspective in order to challenge and support others to explore various topics which concern us all.

I will propose that we are still in a Dark Age of understanding mental health; even though we have gone from chaining patients in cells to giving them pills, it is only a first step. Let's briefly review some history of medical knowledge to draw some analogies. Even though intricate knowledge of the human body has been available since ancient Egypt, how to treat diseases was subject to debate and misapprehension. Most people know that prayer, bleeding, and trepanning were all considered actual medical treatment at various times in history (and many discredited 'treatments' still have adherents, sadly). Only in the last 200 years have necessary items like antiseptics, anesthetics, and antibiotics been understood and used generally. Out of thousands of years of recorded history, only the last couple centuries have contained advancements we now consider fundamental to restoring physical health. We still cannot regrow limbs, treat genetic diseases by altering DNA, nor even repair nerves to correct paralysis. Our medical knowledge has finally reached an adequate level; most people, most of the time, can be treated and restored to a physically functional level.

Similarly, our understanding of mental health has advanced. Whereas what has been seen as insanity (or aberrant behavior) must depend upon the surrounding culture, history does have records of various conditions. What we call schizophrenia, for example, shows up reliably; it may be supposed that religious figures who heard, saw, and/or felt things no one else did could have had it. This actually leads to my point: what is a mental illness? In the history of modern psychology, sexuality was grouped in with mental illnesses. Until about 50 years ago, anything other than heterosexuality was considered a mental disorder. Again, some still hold this absurd, dangerous, and disproven idea. PTSD was recognized by the mid-1900s, and has only seen significant treatment in the past 20 years. This, I think demonstrates that we are subject to the ongoing discovery of how our minds work and how to treat disease and injury of the mind. This is not to denigrate the advancements or profession of healthcare, just to recognize the limitations.

Now, I will suggest that some things we do not currently consider mental health issues could be, such as prejudice, conspiracy theories, and procrastination. Even if it turns out to be inaccurate, possibly using the model as laypersons could be helpful in our everyday lives. For example, rather than thinking of someone who is racist as a 'bad person', just think of them as struggling with a mental illness. Just as we can have compassion and sadness for someone with an anxiety disorder, we could think of the conspiracy theorist as deserving empathy. Additionally, this allows us to separate ourselves from those peoples' conditions. Just as I can acknowledge a persons' cancer, lupus, or other self-sustaining pathology, I can put aggression in its proper place. It is something that they suffer from and I can only see the outward signs of, but it is not contagious and I can take precautions to prevent being harmed by their disease.

Safer Sex

I was struck by a difference of focus, and that there are various levels, much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. What I mean is that we talk about and pay attention to particular aspects, but leave others unaddressed. This is potentially due to the reluctance to discuss such "personal" matters in any detail.

When it comes to talking about sex, there have been advances made in providing information about condoms, gender and sexuality, and protecting against physical attacks. All important topics, and they should be part of every young person's education. Yet these are just basics, and we still struggle to have accurate, rational discussions about them. There are so many more parts, deeper and more intimate than just which fleshy bits go where.

The emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects of sex, and relationships in general, are so much more fundamental as well as essential. I have found that these latter points have an under-recognized (or at least under-discussed) importance, and I want to bring them into the fore. It has been through exposure to many influences that I recognize this, but I want to especially recognize Dr. David Schnarch. I highly recommend his books for everyone.

Speaking for myself, when I don't feel safe to be emotionally vulnerable to my partner, I don't want to be intimate. It has taken me a long time to realize this basic, simple correlation. I am less able to be open, to express my wants, or be willing to fulfill my partner's wishes when I am feeling distant to them. Bluntly: when I'm feeling psychically closed off, I want to keep my legs closed.

Beyond physical safety (a barrier and/or consent), there are considerations for long-term relationships. This is what I mean by "safer". After people have established their power dynamics and safewords, then what? That's where the real relationship of sex begins, I think. That is where not doing the dishes or staying out late begins to influence how attracted I am to my partner. When them getting what they want outside the bedroom begins to influence how receptive I can be inside it.

So, instead of thinking, "I'm not as attracted to them lately, it must be [their hair, weight, or paycheck]." It could be, "I really don't like when they [call me 'fat' or 'crazy', disrespect me in front of others, or dismiss my opinions on meaningful topics." Sex is not merely physical, and neither are sexual "problems".

Today I called my senator, here's what I said.

I'm calling to urge my senator to stop this healthcare travesty. We need real reform, not more compromise. I know that it's people like myself who end up dying and suffering over proposals like this one. For too long, necessary steps have been blocked by the vested interests who have grown rich off the labor of common, hard-working folks. At the same time these same individuals continuously promise us more than they ever deliver: in workplace safety, in food safety, in living wages, affordable housing-any housing!-yes, healthcare, or automobile safety, and on and on. More compromise in this case means more illness, more unnecessary pain and anguish, more death for people like myself. Our only offense is that we are forced by this system to work more than is needed to get less than is deserved. How can you honestly tell someone with two or three jobs that we don't deserve to have healthcare? That we are unworthy, just because we weren't born with a certain skin color or the "right background"? This, as with so many other things in our country, is a problem we are too long in finding an ethical, decent solution for. Instead we are forced to listen to more talk and excuses about "economic interests", about how "businesses can't survive", or "it's unfair to insurance companies". These entities are not alive, they don't matter when measured against the death of a mother or father whose disease was not treated in time, of one more child who goes hungry to pay the insurance, or one more brother or sister who slides into poverty under mounting medical bills. It's time to stop this insane practice of "we can't", it's time to say not only "we should", or even, "we can". It's time to say, "we will."