Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop $120 'Bio-Frequency Healing' Sticker Packs Get Shot Down by NASA (fastcompany.com) 214
From a report: Goop had claimed the costly "Body Vibes" stickers were "made with the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line space suits so they can monitor an astronaut's vitals during wear" and because of that were able to "target imbalances" of the human body's energy frequencies when they get thrown out of whack, reports Gizmodo. The thing is, NASA confirmed to Gizmodo that they "do not have any conductive carbon material lining the spacesuits" of astronauts. Further reading: The unbearable wrongness of Gwyneth Paltrow - The Outline.
I think society could improve a lot (Score:3)
If you could sue on the basis of 'prove it!'.
Don't make it easy - if you fail to win the suit you'd have to cover reasonable legal costs or something - but when someone advertises a magic sticker that fixes your health problems, ANYONE ought to be able to sue the snake oil salesmen regardless of whether or not they have personally purchased the product.
I'm sure there are packs of hungry lawyers out there who would love to make a living reading ads searching for a payday, I say let's put them to good use.
Re: I think society could improve a lot (Score:2)
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But what about her claim of raw milk. Someone especially a baby could die from giardia. I remember backpacking decades ago and there was this new ceramic filter that was backpackable that could filter for giardia. I had one. And here she is recommending to get it thru raw milk consumption. I'll take a slightly slower computer over the shits for a month any day.
Re: I think society could improve a lot (Score:3)
Huh...
I am an aged hippie and I don't believe any of that. I wonder why that is? I've done enough drugs for dozens of people. Hell, I've done enough drugs to make Keith Richards blush. I sure as hell didn't vote for Trump and I get medical advice from qualified professionals.
I don't even think I know any aging hippies who voted for him, now that I think about it. Is your family inbred, or something?
Health Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Don't eat too much
2. Eat lots of different things
3. Eat mostly plants
4. Get enough exercise, ask your doctor how much
5. Go to your doctor regularly and do what he/she says
6. Unless your doctor says you need them, don't take vitamins, or supplements, or any pill or liquid that says "this product has not been evaluated by the FDA to treat any..."
There, that's all you need. Just saved you a bunch of money. You're welcome.
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Just saved you a bunch of money.
You are so sued! Let's see your license to practice medicine, psychology, voodoo, etc.
Re:Health Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
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7. Don't listen to anybody that has been paid by someone else to get you to do/eat/take something.
How do we know you weren't paid to tell us this?
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How do we know you weren't paid to tell us this?
To quote a famous scholarly owl, "the world may never know."
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This ain't no woodpecker [youtube.com].
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Don't forget:
7. Keep well hydrated (unless your doctor tells you otherwise!).
How do you know you're well hydrated? Check your urine. Urine should be clear or slight yellow tinge. Medium- or dark-yellow means you're dehydrated.
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Citation needed.
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Citation needed.
See chart at the very bottom of the article at the link below. Link also includes a table that has the recommended fluid per day based on body weight...
Note: The color may be influenced by vitamins (i.e. Vitamin B2 can add a yellow tinge) or other things that you eat.
http://www.navyfitness.org/nut... [navyfitness.org]
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Urine should be clear or slight yellow tinge. Medium- or dark-yellow means you're dehydrated.
You can't rely on that. If it's clear or pale, you're not dehydrated. The converse is not true.
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Urine should be clear or slight yellow tinge. Medium- or dark-yellow means you're dehydrated.
You can't rely on that. If it's clear or pale, you're not dehydrated. The converse is not true.
This is just one indication of dehydration but you are right in saying that it's not always true. From my understanding, what you eat can influence the color as can other health issues. For an otherwise healthy person it's a good indication. Plus, if it changes to clear after drinking a lot of water, chances are that you were dehydrated.
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True, but other stuff that discolors urine isn't all that common compared to dehydration. Isn't all that rare, either, but still, if your urine is medium or dark yellow, dehydration should be the first thing you think of, while keeping in mind it could be something else.
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B-vitamins in energy drinks are getting very common to see.
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Bright orange might mean you're on a drug I was on once. It was a real shock for a moment.
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Re:Health Advice (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget:
7. Keep well hydrated
This is a myth. There is no actual evidence of health benefits from drinking liquids in excess of your normal desire. There are exceptions for people prone to develop kidney stones, and a few other rare health disorders. But for most people, there is no benefit. If you are thirsty, drink water. Otherwise, don't worry about it.
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This is correct. Your brain (which controls thirst) is smarter than you are.
Trust your brain.
Re: Health Advice (Score:2)
Yeah, well look at what organ is telling you that! Sheesh.
Re: Health Advice (Score:4, Insightful)
"drinking water at your normal desire" is the definition of well hydrated.
Drinking shit that isn't water fucks this up, however.
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ad 4. Why would I go to the doctor regularly when I'm not feeling ill? And why do you think your doctor is all-knowing?
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5. Go to your doctor regularly and do what he/she says
There is very little evidence for a causative relationship between seeing a doctor regularly, and good health. In "pay per service" jurisdictions, such as the United States, there is some evidence that routine doctor visits are actually harmful, since they rarely find real problems but have financial incentives to order unnecessary tests and treatments that do more harm than good.
Re: Health Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
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Go placidly amidst the noise and waste, and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself; and heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss - and when. Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do. Wherever possible, put people on hold. Be comforted, that in the face of all irridity and disillusionment, and despite the
Re: Health Advice (ugh... awful!) (Score:3)
1. Do not take medical advice from the Internet.
There. That will save some time.
I'll be back in 6 months (Score:2)
I know; you'll miss me.
The fact she sells these at $120 (Score:3)
disproves the belief that being rich means you must be smart.
In fact, to all appearances the US has developed the kind of feckless hereditary aristocracy that P.G. Wodehouse used to satirize in his novels -- only American women are every bit the equal of men when it comes to inanity.
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She doesn't have to be smart enough to earn the money. She has to be smart enough to marry it.
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i think he meant the people buying it.
Re:The fact she sells these at $120 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The fact she sells these at $120 (Score:5, Interesting)
I think there's probably an awful lot of people for whom the $120 is extremely expensive, but they take it anyway because they think it's worth it in the long run. Maybe they even use that in place of proper medication/medical care.
That's because the proper medication/medical care is a lot more expensive than $120. Any port in a storm, as they say.
Now I grew up in a low-income neighborhood, and despite the stories you may hear, typical poor people don't spend a lot of their money on this kind of BS. But there are a lot of poor people, which means there's a lot of atypical poor people out there. The lower quintile of US households by income make less than 22,800/year; the Federal poverty level for a household of 4 is 24,600. There's about 47.5 million people living below the poverty line, and if you include people who are skating just above that conservatively I'd say that there are at least 75 million Americans for whom $120 is a lot of money. When you're dealing with populations that big, you absolutely have to go by statistics rather than anecdotes. You can find examples in a group that size to support any hypothesis you care to make about people.
In general, luxury bullshit is marketed to rich people. People don't market expensive French wines to people in the kind of zip codes, they market malt liquor, the main virtue of which is that it's a cheap way to get hammered.
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It looks like it's marketed to rich people, but the prices (at least for this Goop stuff) are clearly middle class.
Unless you're using a very, very loose definition of "rich people".
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It looks like it's marketed to rich people, but the prices (at least for this Goop stuff) are clearly middle class.
A fool and their money is soon parted applies to rich and poor alike".
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You're not wrong, but from a scammers economic perspective poor fools have way less money to part with, and rich fools aren't particularly abundant. Middle class fools hit the sweet spot.
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If the goofy snake oil body stickers don't actually poison the suckers that buy them, they might be better off.
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Example one [theguardian.com]
Example two [dailygrail.com]
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That's just intellectual arrogance, the special stupidity of the very smart.
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disproves the belief that being rich means you must be smart.
There has never been a link between intelligence and wealth. Most wealthy people are born into money and most of them would lose it if they ran the estate rather than allowing it to be managed by a competent employee.
The recent phenomena in paying megabucks for low skilled jobs has exacerbated this creating a class of cashed up bogans/chavs/rednecks.
However, their issue was not in selling a product that used vaugue promises based on disproved or incorrect science for an insane amount. Their problem wa
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I've done a lot of work for SMBs owned by families and I have yet to see one that survived the loss of the founder without serious professional management on hand.
Usually the ones that make it are the ones where the 2nd generation grows up in the business and the 1st generation sticks around for a decade or so after the 2nd takes over. Usually by then there is enough accumulated knowledge and accrued capital investment that the 3rd generation has to really try to fuck it up.
I can think of one in particular
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I've done a lot of work for SMBs owned by families and I have yet to see one that survived the loss of the founder without serious professional management on hand.
Depends on what kind of business. In order for a child to take over the family business, they have to have some interest in the business. This is why most of the success stories have been trades, I.E. son learns a trade off his dad, then takes over the (small) family business.
However I try to avoid "family run" white collar businesses because they're always corrupt, nepotistic and have unrealistic expectations of their workers (ergo end up with the least competent people or those too timid to seek better
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What I don't get is why people *want* to "run" their own business? If it's a stable business model, why not let a professional manage it? Why do you have to be "in charge"? Cash the fucking checks and have an auditor check up on it.
Assuming that you're talking only about people who own a business that's profitable enough to afford that fairly easily (instead of it being a giant hit to their personal income, as it would be in many small businesses), I'm sure it's because many people don't just want to be "id
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I worked for one not that long after the founder, um, left. One day he transferred stock to his wife so he controlled only 49.5% of the stock, and the next day he was involuntarily out the door.
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one of my classmates in an ivy league applied math ph.d. program had a weird sticker on his laptop, so i asked him what it meant.
he told me that it was there to disperse the harmful radiation, so i promptly asked him how the fuck he thought it worked. of course, his response was that his girlfriend had given it to him and that at least it wasn't doing any harm. then i told him that he had to get the ones with a hologram on them because they work better, lol.
anyway, don't underestimate the irrationalizing po
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disproves the belief that being rich means you must be smart.
Why do you think that "the rich" are buying this product? My experience is that it is the poor that are more likely to squander their money on stupid crap. That is a big part of why they are poor.
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I'm just curious what your personal experience is with poor people.
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I'm just curious what your personal experience is with poor people.
I grew up in Appalachia. My grandfather was a coal miner and died of black lung disease [wikipedia.org]. I got out when I enlisted in the Marines on my 18th birthday, which led to a chain of life events, and I currently work as an engineer in Silicon Valley. But I still have a lot of relatives living in trailer parks. They all have big screen TVs, but have saved nothing for their kids' education or even their own retirement. There are people that are poor because of bad health, or bad luck, but there are also many tha
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It's funny, but except for the military service I have a similar background having grown up in a poor urban neighborhood in the Northeast, and most people I know from the old neighborhood are doing pretty well. But that was also a different era with a lot more upward mobility.
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most people I know from the old neighborhood are doing pretty well. But that was also a different era with a lot more upward mobility.
Social mobility has declined in America, but there are huge variations. Social mobility is the worst in rural areas, especially in the Southeast and on Native American reservations. People born poor in those areas tend to stay poor. Mobility is much better in urban, northern, and coastal areas.
Of the friends and family I grew up with in Appalachia, the only people doing well are those that moved away.
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Social mobility has declined in America, but there are huge variations. Social mobility is the worst in rural areas, especially in the Southeast and on Native American reservations. People born poor in those areas tend to stay poor. Mobility is much better in urban, northern, and coastal areas.
That probably explains the differences in our experiences of what poor people are like.
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In my experience at least, the poor people are more likely to squander their money on stupid but *cheap* crap: junk food from 7-11 (which is way more expensive than the same junk food from the grocery store), chintzy junk from gift shops, cheap alcohol (but still relatively expensive when you buy it from some bar), etc.
They're not as likely to blow their money on expensive crap, because it's just too far out of their budget. Sure, they'll spend $600 on a TV, but that's considered a necessity by most of Ame
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I feel dumber for have read that (Score:3)
"Body Vibes" stickers were "made with the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line space suits so they can monitor an astronaut's vitals during wear" and because of that were able to "target imbalances" of the human body's energy frequencies when they get thrown out of whack
I feel dumber for having read that.
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Watch The Philip DeFranco Show... (Score:2)
Philip DeFranco had a video about that and Casey Neistat's latest video being a Samsung ad in disguise yesterday. Good episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhro-CO1QA4 [youtube.com]
Cool... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Are you Batman?
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As an actual scientist sometimes I wish I was shameless enough to get into this sort of business. You apparently don't have to even make it sound plausible!
No, but you do need to be good at sales/marketing, not science. Your skills are useless here.
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Do both.
Protip: Use different business names & addresses.
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Goop? (Score:2)
Who is Gwyneth Paltrow? (Score:2)
I could see someone who played a part in LOTR trying to work that into an entire career, but is there any other reason that "Gwyneth Paltrow" matters to nerds?
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You've got to be kidding.
1) Her stupid company made a claim about NASA, which NASA itself refuted. That alone makes it "news for nerds".
On top of that:
2) She was a lead actress in the Iron Man movies
3) She was the lead actress in the 2005 movie "Proof" where she played a brilliant mathematician.
Honestly, it's extremely disappointing that she's stooped to hawking snake-oil BS after a rather success acting career in some seriously good movies.
Remember these words of wisdom (Score:5, Funny)
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
- Posted from my iPhone.
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"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
It's not just Americans though, sadly. In Germany, for instance, homeopathy is extremely popular.
Mylar? (Score:2)
They mean Mylar, right?
There are carbon atoms in it, it's NON-conductive. But they didn't say it conducts electricity, so they could probably get away with that.
This reminds me of the marketing scam where some guy is trying to sell stocks relating to "oro blanco" (white gold) [snopes.com] as some new age super fuel that gets nearly infinite gas mileage. What is it? Lithium carbonate, like you'd use for rechargeable batteries.
False Advertising? (Score:2)
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You didn't read the terms of service on their web site:
Body Vibes, LLC assumes no responsibility regarding the accuracy of the information that is provided by Body Vibes, LLC and use of such information is at the recipient's own risk.
Clearly, that means it's OK.
What makes this funny (Score:2)
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I'm not sure Pepper comes off as a no-nonsense type, but she's presented as extremely competent. She's off running Stark Enterprises, and was busy off-screen throughout Age of Ultron.
Vagina Rocks (Score:3)
If you are dumb enough to stick a rock in your vagina, boy do you deserve what you get!
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Jeopardy question (Score:2)
I'll take "Things That Make My Brain Hurt" for $2000, Alex.
Maybe... (Score:2)
Maybe she should spend less time thinking with her Yoni and get an actual education.
Channel the gullability for the greater good (Score:2)
Combine two markets we already know are gullible and fact-averse. Re-market these as an anti-autism patch to use with vaccines.
Why people are so eager to believe this stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do urban legends propagate? They're always described in exciting but plausible ways and often contain just a grain of truth. Moreover, occasionally an urban legend is true, as you can see from a minority of entries on the Snopes database.
Interest in quack medicine stems from a variety of factors, different for different people, including:
- People with real health problems who were let down by real MDs. This happens a lot, because not every MD can diagnose every illness. Meanwhile, so many alternative practitioners claim to be willing to help in ways that MDs "won't."
- Various paranoid delusions about the government or "establishment" doctors trying to control or poison us.
- Actual instances of governments letting us down (e.g. Flint, Michigan).
- People with mental instability or who have been convinced they have some nebulous malady.
- People with very minor health problems (e.g. a mild dairy sensitivity) who self-diagnose as something much worse.
- People who read too much into what they got from 23andme and nutrihacker.
- People who fall victims to charlatans who want to make money from your real or perceived illnesses.
- On and on.
What keeps people sucked in is that what the charlatans are saying have a grain of plausibility and truth.
Take toxins for example. So many of these weirdos go on and on about toxins, but they're almost never specific about it. My MD (who has her degree from Yale) has a list of common ones. If someone telling you about toxins can't cough up something like that, you should tell them to fuck off.
However, there are indeed toxins in our environment. Plus, things you eat and byproducts of pathogens also bring toxins into or bodies. In fact, most plants produce toxins as an adaptation against predation, and as consumers of those organisms, we are also counter-adapted to efficiently denature those toxins. Aside from some of the nastier ones (e.g. like an arsenic overdose), a healthy liver does a good job of cleaning that up, and you excrete them as waste. I don't recommend exposing yourself to too many environmental toxins, and I would suggest avoiding certain conventionally grown foods that absorb higher amounts of pesticides, but pretty much, most people are going to be okay and should just focus on good exercise and a balanced diet (although there is plenty of confusion out there on what constitutes a balanced diet).
What's unfortunate is that there are indeed people who have problems with toxin build-up. But those people have some other underlying condition that scientifically explains why their livers aren't doing such a good job. An obvious one is alcoholics who have wrecked their livers over decades of overconsumption. Another example is people with untreated thyroid function, because there are aspects of detoxification that are regulated by thyroid hormones. I am highly skeptical of "detox programs," because toxin accumulation is never the root cause. If you fix the underlying condition, then your body will detoxify itself. So taking a bunch of crap meant to "stimulate" detox is likely to cause you more harm than good.
I actually have a bunch of symptoms that those people would associate with toxification problems. My MD figured out, for instance, that my thyroid function was not up to par and prescribed T3 supplementation. It is helping because there isn't anything broken about my liver itself.
I have encountered one detox protocol that I didn't think was utter shit. It's called ProtoClear, and all it is is vitamins and other nutrients you already need, but in their biologically active forms. For instance, instead of cyanocobalamin, it contains methylcobalamin. One ingredient I recall that fell short is that it contains folic acid instead of methylfolate. I actually have the MTHFR A1298C mutation, heterozygous, so my body's conversion may not be 100% efficient; it doesn't seem to be a big deal. Anyway, the idea is that if you take these chemicals that you need in their active forms, t
Better Alternative (Score:3)
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Ah it's you again*. While I find your fascination with male-on-male fisting a bit weird I have to reply as that such a text could very well be a novel, a pornographic** novel but still a novel.
(* I'm assuming you are the same dude(?) that have posted similar things earlier)
(** assuming it is written for pornographic purposes)
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Hey, in all fairness, Indiana Bones and the Temple of Fists had a pretty compelling underlying story.
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I'm not sure what you're talking about, but one of Goop's products is indeed vaginal. Colbert was talking about it Wednesday night. It's a small, strategically shaped stone that's used for exercises and claims to "improve vaginal muscle tone." It probably works better than balancing your body's energy frequencies with a sticker. Everyone knows that your can't balance your body's energy frequencies without magnets.
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Best line in TFA:
Where can I get a free taxidermied honey badger?
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Heck, where do I buy one?
Re: back to what sells best (Score:4, Funny)
I'd suggest starting with acquiring a vagina. The badger follows that step.
Re: back to what sells best (Score:5, Funny)
When all you have is a taxidermied honey badger, every hole is a vagina.
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I remain skeptical.
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If someone borrowed my honey badger and it came back with cervix squeezens all over it's face, I wouldn't ever loan them anything again. Might be upset.
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Re: Space Food Sticks (Score:2)
This stuff makes me giggle. There is no such thing as alternative medicine. If it worked, they'd just call it medicine. I have seen ostensibly smart people fall for the strangest things. I'm reluctant to even call some of them pseudoscience. They are just gibberish excuses to foist crap on people who are gullible and unable to use reason. If nothing else, it makes me giggle - which, coincidentally, does have known effects on your health.
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This revelation could set life as we know it forward decades!
But no one will believe it...
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Maybe we should get someone who is rich and famous to tell them?
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Maybe we should get someone who is rich and famous to tell them?
OK, Let's all say it together...
The Kardashians!
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No, that's medicine. You got an online dictionary.
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As long as it's stored under a pyramid and treated with toenail fungus lasers, it ain't woo-woo. At least that's what I read on the internet thing.
You can amplify light using toenail fungus?!?!
Myself and ten little piggies will be on this like stink in sneakers!
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She's Blonde, Hot, and makes shitloads of money in the movies.
Why is she into this shit?
Wait...she's Blonde, hot, and in the movies.
Never mind.