Getting brainwashed

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    In the old forum we had a discussion on how Amway relies on anchor bias to rope people in with, brainwashes its distributors and is run as a cult. In the meantime I have been thinking that life insurance companies are also run as a cults. They brainwash their staff and customers. Life insurance present themselves as altruistic organisations, when they are just running large scale betting shops.

    Recently a local library assistant retired at the age of 76. In all that time she has had life insurance deducted out of her superannuation, because,

    "Just in case something happened to me."

    She is walking away with far less superannuation than she would otherwise have. not just for the life insurance deductions but also for smaller compound interest than she would otherwise have.

    I don't know how anyone can be so dogmatic. Why don't people think for themselves?

    Thing to remember is none of these big insurance/pension/etc companies are run for your benefit. They all run to make money, which they can only do by taking it away from you, the customer. If they didn't take your money they wouldn't make a profit & if no profit, they wouldn't be in business....

    Life insurance, a more traditional scam. Playing on your fear of uncertainty and giving you a false sense of peace that things will be good. They have all these algorithms that with just a few pieces of information they can guess when you are most likely going to snuff it, and how much money they can get from you.


    In the race towards the finish line of death, it is the last Horse over the line is the most profitable. :D

    Scam,fraud,cult or not i dont understand your total ongoing fixation with insurance, pension schemes and food manufacturers marketing methods.I dont happen to agree with some of their methods myself either.


    You clearly arent interested in ascribing to any of them yourself and thats perfectly fine. What other people do with THEIR OWN money and how they choose to spend it or the food they eat is entirely their business.. Is it not.?


    Regardless of lifestyle or subject youll find hidden agendas and propaganda both for or against.


    People -mostly -have free access to all the information they need to make informed decisions on any aspect affecting their lives.


    If people want to pay for insurance or pensions or eat margarine or palm oil or burn fossil fuels or eat animals or not eat animals,isnt that a matter for them not you?


    The benefit of a democracy is freedom of opinion and choice. Coercion and shaming of people who dont acquiesce to your own views is no different to the propaganda dished out by corporates marketing.

    Well providing a person fulfills their financial obligations then indeed it is their choice what they spend their money on. There is one man in town who is sneered at for being a regular user of prostitutes. As long as he pays his bills, I could not care less.

    It was not until I was 43 that I found out the truth about margarine.I would have liked it if I had found out the truth about margarine sooner. In retrospect, the margarine years I had the symptoms of bi-polar. There is a fair amount of corporate propaganda out there for the promotion of margarine. Someone has to fight back. Currently we seem to be winning.

    The Heart Foundation in Australia is an advertizing agency for the margarine and vegetable oil industry, but masquerades as a charitable institute dispensing expert, unbiased, disinterested information. The most sincere thing they can do is to liquidize their assets, pay off all outstanding bills and donate any surplus money to a worthwhile charity that is not in the business of advertizing margarine.

    Some years my old man was sent a bit of junk mail for a solar hot water system. Without any further consideration or shopping around he got out his cheque book and ordered one. Although it had a vacuum tubes in the collector panel that made it a bit more efficient, the installer positioned the collector panel facing east . It should face south for the UK. Some people have no idea.My old man had been brainwashed about how Planet Earth was going into meltdown.

    Back in 2002 this older couple bought the lease of a local pub that was doing pretty good business. The business broker was also the freeholder. What Dawn did not seem to realise is a business broker just like an estate agent might seem like a nice person but s/he is working for the vendor, not the purchaser. I was sent for an interview with her and she only asked one question why I had not stayed anywhere all that long. I replied the previous job I had been in for 3½ years. I did not get the job.She obviously received some unsolicited references about me. She seemed to think the business was bullet proof.Less than 12 months later this couple had completely done their dough. Because of unpaid bills to suppliers the business ground to a halt and this couple had to do a midnight flit. I guess some people cannot think for themselves and just regurgitate dogma.

    In my family we all have low default blood pressure. When I was in Wales earlier on this year one of my sisters was alarmed at how much salt I was consuming. I have in the past had bad attacks of Menieres. One time I was hospitalized and connected to an intravenous machine as my electrolyte levels were way too low. Since I have increased my salt intake, I have only had attacks of Menieres that have lasted one night. Now 9% of the population does have high blood pressure and does indeed need to watch their salt intake, not the entire population. Does it make sense to anyone here for me or anyone else with low blood pressure to minimise salt intake? My other two sisters did not think so.

    One of the management protocols of Menieres is reducing salt (sodium) intake as high sodium levels may provoke attacks.


    Using sodium intake as a method of managing blood pressure isnt very scientific or logical as there are many factors besides sodium that have an influence on blood pressure,some physiological,some psychological ie stress.


    Sodium is essential for normal body function,primarily at cellular level and critical at cardiac cellular level.

    Cardiac cells require a finite balance between sodium and potassium for their correct function,the contraction of cardiac muscle and the electrical activity that stimulates the heart muscle contraction.

    Too much sodium or potassium or too little sodium or potassium can induce cardiac arythmia's,fibrillation or cardiac arrest.


    Familial hereditary low blood pressure isnt normally a problem if the person with the problem lives a normal life and unaffected by it. Persistent low blood pressure that is sudden onset needs investigating urgently as it normally leads to poor tissue perfusion and oxygenation and insufficient kidney function and may be of cardiac origin ie insufficient cardiac output or a hormonal problem.


    Unless someone has proven sodium deficiency from regular blood tests there should be no need to introduce sodium into the diet.There is already sodium in most natural food ingredients. Adding salt to diet to unnecessary levels comes from Victorian era. Its been routinely added by manufacturers to improve flavour and extend processed food life.


    Sodium has been used for centuries for food preservation but prior to use the preserved food was always thoroughly soaked to remove it.

    Its become normal food industry practice to add salt (and sugar)to everything so no surprise theres been an epidemic in high blood pressure and systemic illness.


    Menieres may be a very debilitating condition at times and incurable but you should be careful about managing it and your low blood pressure by taking additional salt especially when its contrary to the normal management of Menieres.


    I have Menieres too but its not normally a major or regular problem.

    I am aware of the protocols for Menieres. A basic principle of the scientific method is that correlation can be but not necessarily causation. The protocols are based on research showing the part of the middle ear having high salt concentration. Maybe this is the body's way of dealing with the infection.

    In retrospect I had four attacks of Menieres before I was 20. They all went undiagnosed and I think it would have been helpful to have known these were attacks of Menieres. In my teenage years I had all the symptoms of low blood pressure such as inability to concentrate ( no wonder I did not do that well at school), nauseous and irritable.

    2003 was the year I cleaned up my diet. I switched from margarine to butter, from vegetable oil to dripping and increased my salt intake. I also stopped consuming soy and went for real food. It was also the year I quit smoking, Since I have increased my salt intake my blood pressure tests have shown normal blood pressure. Just because 9% of the population dies have high blood pressure, to recommend everyone should reduce their salt intake especially the 10% of us with naturally low blood pressure, is a false dichotomy. What is yout blood presure like Cris?

    The salt I buy is unrefined salt crystals intended for livestock . I buy a 25kg bag for $9 from a farm supplies shop.

    I think medical science has a massive tendency to generalise results and to treat everyone as identical and needing the same remedies. This isnt really the case,there may be many similarities between groups of people,that doesn't make them the same and peoples bodies all respond differently to identical stimuli. We see this often in research studies where one may find something beneficial and another study less beneficial or detrimental.

    I think we also need to bear in mind there are often hidden agendas behind results. I well remember the mass of advice telling people they should eat margarine not butter as this was far better than animal fats.Now theyve found that margarine does incredible damage to the body and animal fats arent actually harmful as originally asserted.

    Because my father died of a coronary in his 40's i was advised to go on a low cholesterol diet even though i had normal cholesterol. Within a week or two i had awful awful joint pains which persisted for weeks so abandoned the low cholesterol diet and the pains disappeared virtually overnight.


    As for my own blood pressure ive never had high (or low) pressure. My BP and at rest heart rate is the same now it was in my late teens and early 20's. I have an extremely slow heart rate which ive had all my life,even caused great alarm in hospital until doctors realised its normal for me..I have however been extremely fit and doing extreme sport all my life until i broke my back a few years ago.

    At one point my liver function has been severely compromised by long term use of prescription opiates.I no longer take them. I have high creatine levels,cause unknown despite no end of tests.I also have menieres episodes occasionally.No one has managed to isolate a cause. I also have severe migraine attacks and no one has given me a cause or whether theyre related to menieres.

    I dont have high or low sodium. I dont take additional salt nor restrict my intake. I use organic himalayan rock salt I eat butter and normal dairy product consumption.I dont use any hydrogenated oil products.In fact everything i consume is organically produced,if it isnt i dint eat it.I gave up smoking 19 years ago.


    Menieres is not really something i take much notice of after having broke my back and recovered from that. I dont take a whole lot of notice of so called scientific nutritional advice published in media. Almost always its contradicted years later. Eat what suits you best. No matter what you do non of us getting out of here alive.

    Seems like you both are avoiding and resisting getting brainwashed....


    In other news resistance towards brainwashing doesn't go so well.


    If only it were possible to identify a correlation between the control of power and the misdemeanours of the less empowered then surely brainwashing would cease to happen???!


    :eek::reddevil:<3

    Quote from NomadicRT

    Cynicism is very underrated.

    I think it is better to be a sceptic than a cynic. I have had it suggested that the difference between the two is that a sceptic asks questions and cynic has all the answers. But I would say these answers are wrong. I would also say that a sceptic can see a topic being controversial but a cynic is dogmatic on the issue.

    I am also a fan of evidence based medicine. However, I will not be totally convinced by just one single study .A good case in point is Ancel Keys' 6 Countries Study that fooled millions including the medical establishment. In recent years there has been a slow reconsideration especially given that the Atkins diet works. You only have to look at the epidemiological evidence to see Ancel Keys was wrong. Certain interest groups appropriated his findings as it suited their agenda.

    Quote from Duckman

    I think it is better to be a sceptic than a cynic. I have had it suggested that the difference between the two is that a sceptic asks questions and cynic has all the answers. But I would say these answers are wrong. I would also say that a sceptic can see a topic being controversial but a cynic is dogmatic on the issue.

    I dont believe theres any dogmatic intent in being cynical,its no different to being skeptical of facts or assertions. You can be cynical of fact and have a general distrust of the facts or integrity of the fact propagator,it doesnt make a cynic any less questioning. Skeptical or cynical you still require being convinced by evidence.

    Quote from Duckman

    Hey Cris, you might like this documentary on why statins are not a good idea for most people.

    The part one of this doco is why Ancel Keys was wrong about saturated fat.

    I havent watched those clips yet but ive been interested in the cholesterol arguement since the early eighties when i joined the NHS. I know there's been considerable evidence since way back that the true enemy is triglycerides (sugars) in diet and not cholesterol or saturated fats.American cardiologists have been arguing this fact for decades but its a fact thats only now being creepingly accepted.


    I think the problem with the medical profession is its not flexible enough to accept alternative evidence based opinion and anyone who doesnt follow the status quo or the politically motivated protocols of Government Chief Medical office advice faces ridicule and professional isolation or exclusion.

    Its also too slow to react to proven evidence based research.


    The doctors who years ago were convincing everyone to use margarine and refined veg oils and ditch butter and animal fats and which has since caused a catastrophic increase in cardiac deaths, are all retired or dead now and not having to face the music.

    They do have to operate within the guidelines. The guidelines are maintained by the Government Chief medical advisors office and theyre too slow and reluctant to change to reflect current research and proven evidence.Theyve also got vested interests of the pharmaceutical industry pulling their strings.

    All this is true. I have heard it times from a retired NHS medical doctor, a friend of many years. Doctors today are under far more pressure from big pharmaceuticals today than they were 30 or even 20 years ago, especially those who practice under severe time constraints.

    Quote from NomadicRT

    No idea what youre referring to.


    Personally,cotton seed oil is not something id use as its got its own issues, namely its a genetically modified product and also causes allergy response in some users.

    From Merriam Webster,

    weasel word noun

    Definition of weasel word

    : a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position.

    Quote from Duckman

    In this essay Dr Malcolm Kendrick astutely points that once you are over 50, the lower your cholesterol levels, the greater your chance of dying. Therefore if you would want to take any medication, you would want to take a medication that pushes up your cholesterol levels not one that pushes them down.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/…e-great-cholesterol-myth/

    Cholesterol is an essential part of human physiology. Its an essential component of cell construction and cellular membrane stability.Its an essential component of the nervouse system along with many other workings of the body.

    The human body manufacturers approximately a third of its cholesterol needs itself. If there is an excess of ingested dietary cholesterol the body reins back its own production of cholesterol.It also excretes excess cholesterol via the digestive process.

    Its a logical conclusion to draw that cutting back cholesterol severely is likely to cause issues with normal body function.


    I know myself that when i went on a severe cholesterol limited diet i immediately ran into a wall of joint pain and limited joint mobility. When i ended the diet restrictions i returned to normal.


    From all the research ive read i personally dont believe the bogey man is cholesterol at all but that excess triglycerides are the damaging issue. Triglycerides are sugars not lipids(fats). Cholesterols are lipids not sugars.


    One of my elderly friends who has never suffered from arthritic joint pain has been placed on statins because of a slightly elevated cholesterol level and has since then been suffering from arthritic joint pain and digestive tract pain and malfunction and diarrhoea.

    I dont think thats a coincidence but her doctors just say 'its your age' you have to expect things like this'


    Ive seen all the studies concerning statin ability to reduce cholesterol,im not convinced in any way that this is actually the right way of treating the right problem or that its safe or that it should be the default treatment for everyone in the cardiac event risk zone.

    Maybe statims help some patients but they dont help everyone,in fact some patients are resistant to statin therapy. There are considerable risks to statin therapy and even patients who are put on them specifically to prevent cardiac events still suffer cardiac events.


    My GP told me I should start them purely because my father died of a coronary,totally ignoring the fact that i dont suffer from high blood pressure or high cholesterol. I told him what he could do with them.