They take our money, but it's not enough, so they want our freedom. I'm sick of the "creative industry" - It's time to OCCUPY HOLLYWOOD

arvadillo · 4 months

"And as far as the Movie industry; they spend a few hundred million on making a movie, why not give them $10 if you like it? Why is it so important to have everything for free?"

Because unlike other industries you can't choose a cheaper option. If a significant portion of people don't want to spend £100 on a camera, but would spend £75, then another company will fill that niche and produce a £75 camera which might not be as swanky but does the job. If I want to watch a good film with less famous actors and pay just £5 instead of £10 I can't, because a cinema ticket is the same price for all movies (excluding novelties like 3D and IMAX obviously). In this way the price for all movies is set by the big budget, high earning films at the expense of other films, and at the expense of consumers not interested in those films

arvadillo · 4 months

I agree with your point, but my post isn't about them making it harder to pirate (which is fine, because piracy is illegal), it's about them going too far in restricting internet freedoms (like in SOPA) in pursuit of reducing piracy. The point is that they are monopolistic and put pressure on our governments to try to push through ill thought legislation which have a wider impact, and have copyright laws that stifle rather than encourage creativity. I don't believe I have the right to piracy, but I don't want to lose our right to internet freedom

arvadillo · 4 months

apologies, didn't know that subreddit existed otherwise would have posted there. glad there's a movement going already!

arvadillo · 4 months

not to mention the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of copyright laws (explained well here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4)

arvadillo · 8 months

The sad thing is that the Wakefield MMR story was always terrible science, aside from his terrible research ethics and fraud. His paper simply had 12 children whose parents claimed their children started showing signs of autism soon after getting an MMR vaccine (conveniently, at the time almost every child in the UK received the MMR, so no surprise that those kids had it). No one with an ounce of critical thinking would take that as particularly strong evidence that MMR causes autism, but nonetheless clearly the scientific community had to investigate it. There's two easy ways to do so - either you see whether there is any difference in rates of MMR vaccination between autistic or non-autistic children, or you see if there's any difference in rates of autism between vaccinated and non-vaccinated children. Surprise surprise, the scientific method showed that vaccines do not cause autism, and yet such a basic concept has been poorly grasped by the public and the media. I think the problem is that people just have such little grounding in basic science concepts like clinical trials and evidence, and instead find anecdotes like I have a friend whose baby got autism and had MMR more convincing that statistics that show with absolute certainty that MMR doesn't cause autism. If anyone is interested in reading further about Wakefield's fraud, I'd recommend reading Brian Deer's stuff for the Sunday Times and BMJ (he was a bit of a hero in investigating and exposing Wakefield)

Muter · 9 months

I'm an Oxford medical student with a bachelor's in Neuroscience and these results really do need to be taken with caution.

Firstly, amazing as these case reports sound, a few case reports isn't good evidence and the original studies were funded by ReGen, a pharmaceutical company trying to patent the drug and yet they haven't come up with any data convincing enough to change clinical practice 5 years on (I don't have time to review the studies now, but doctors/scientists whose job it is to do so clearly haven't thought it appropriate). The BMJ article quoted by someone earlier is also written by someone with shares in ReGen. The fact that this has never been mentioned in lectures (and Oxford Uni and John Radcliffe Hospital have pretty excellent Neuro research) also suggests that it is not yet widely accepted in the scientific community to be the wonder drug people claim.

Finally, the guy in the video is not in persistent vegetative state, defined as 4 weeks of vegetative state, which means not responding to external stimuli (which he did before he was given the drug).

I'm not saying it doesn't work; it may well do, but I'd need more than a few case reports and anecdotes to convince me that it does.

arvadillo

TROPHY CASE

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