Germ versus Terrain; Evil versus Education - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15259661
Should a doctor KILL THE GERM or should a doctor HELP THE HOST and the TERRAIN?

wiki wrote:The germ theory of disease is the currently accepted scientific theory for many diseases. It states that microorganisms known as pathogens or "germs" can lead to disease. These small organisms, too small to be seen without magnification, invade humans, other animals, and other living hosts. Their growth and reproduction within their hosts can cause disease. "Germ" refers to not just a bacterium but to any type of microorganism, such as protists or fungi, or even non-living pathogens that can cause disease, such as viruses, prions, or viroids...

Basic forms of germ theory were proposed by Girolamo Fracastoro in 1546...


This is an important argument in modern medicine, from the time of Machiavelli. Should doctors seek out "evil germs" and kill them, in order to encourage public health? Or should doctors work on making the patient healthy so that he can fend off these germs?

Starting in the 1500s, the Roman Empire adapts "germ theory" and Modern Science is a race to find products that kill germs, viruses, bacteria, etc.

If you walk into a doctor's office looking green and scaley, he gives you a pill which will kills some germs. He doesn't go to your house to see how you are living, he doesn't imagine that you just need to change your habits to become healthier. He simply isolates a "bad guy" germ or virus, and provides a chemical compound to eradicate it.

Image

Understanding the Germ-vs-Terrain argument is important because it spills over into other domains.

* Killing germs to find health... also leads to "killing evil" to find holiness or salvation.

* Killing bad guys to find harmony.

* Killing wrinkles on your face in order to find youth.

All of these "killings" make money for the institutions selling the chemical product or physical weapon that does the killing.

***

Darwin told us that we don't know what characteristics humans will need to survive, and one can argue that we should have stopped killing "bad guys" and "bad traits" a long time ago (through economic inequality, competition, hegemony, etc.)... because we don't know which traits are survial-enhancing in the long-run. We are killing things that we might need to survive at some point. Amputating appendages that someone labels "evil" or "dirty" or "yucky."

Darwin suggests that we need to work on the terrain.... to create a world where many different types of humans and societies can co-exist. And that only by doing this can we maximize human existence over the long term.
Keep 'em all alive and let Survial sort 'em out!


COVID-19 Fear Comes Down to Belief: the Germ VS Host Battle

Germ Theory Versus Terrain: The Wrong Side Won the Day

Germ Theory denialism

Pasteur vs. Béchamp

***

The fact that "Terrain Theory" is labeled "Germ Theory Denialism" on wikipedia... demonstrates how our understanding of the world has been reduced by censorship. Censorship being another manifestation of "germ theory" being applied to information.
#15259692
It’s about balance. I’m all for striking bargains with my terrain and when things go awry it’s usually because of something I’ve done. It’s not about negating ‘germ theory’, that’s just silly; of course if left unchecked they will overcome you, but declaring war is just as bad.

We’ll never become a space faring civilization if we don’t actually become civilized towards all creatures - great and small.

*shrugs*
#15259696
QatzelOk wrote:Should a doctor KILL THE GERM or should a doctor HELP THE HOST and the TERRAIN?



This is an important argument in modern medicine, from the time of Machiavelli. Should doctors seek out "evil germs" and kill them, in order to encourage public health? Or should doctors work on making the patient healthy so that he can fend off these germs?

Starting in the 1500s, the Roman Empire adapts "germ theory" and Modern Science is a race to find products that kill germs, viruses, bacteria, etc.

If you walk into a doctor's office looking green and scaley, he gives you a pill which will kills some germs. He doesn't go to your house to see how you are living, he doesn't imagine that you just need to change your habits to become healthier. He simply isolates a "bad guy" germ or virus, and provides a chemical compound to eradicate it.

Image

Understanding the Germ-vs-Terrain argument is important because it spills over into other domains.

* Killing germs to find health... also leads to "killing evil" to find holiness or salvation.

* Killing bad guys to find harmony.

* Killing wrinkles on your face in order to find youth.

All of these "killings" make money for the institutions selling the chemical product or physical weapon that does the killing.

***

Darwin told us that we don't know what characteristics humans will need to survive, and one can argue that we should have stopped killing "bad guys" and "bad traits" a long time ago (through economic inequality, competition, hegemony, etc.)... because we don't know which traits are survial-enhancing in the long-run. We are killing things that we might need to survive at some point. Amputating appendages that someone labels "evil" or "dirty" or "yucky."

Darwin suggests that we need to work on the terrain.... to create a world where many different types of humans and societies can co-exist. And that only by doing this can we maximize human existence over the long term.
Keep 'em all alive and let Survial sort 'em out!


COVID-19 Fear Comes Down to Belief: the Germ VS Host Battle

Germ Theory Versus Terrain: The Wrong Side Won the Day

Germ Theory denialism

Pasteur vs. Béchamp

***

The fact that "Terrain Theory" is labeled "Germ Theory Denialism" on wikipedia... demonstrates how our understanding of the world has been reduced by censorship. Censorship being another manifestation of "germ theory" being applied to information.


Yeah there are only two types of people, those who break down people into two types and those that do not.
#15259699
QatzelOk wrote:
Darwin told us that we don't know what characteristics humans will need to survive, and one can argue that we should have stopped killing "bad guys" and "bad traits" a long time ago (through economic inequality, competition, hegemony, etc.)... because we don't know which traits are survial-enhancing in the long-run. We are killing things that we might need to survive at some point.



Qatzel, I think you're *already* yielding too much ground to the right-wing in even *entertaining* a *biology*-based paradigm.

Does society function well by being 'biologically harmonious' -- as you're implying -- ?

You've definitely gone down the wrong path because you're virtually implying that everyone is nakedly braving-the-elements every day, and some just fall by the wayside (apologies) due to a contrived lack-of-individual-suitability.

You're falling right into socio-biological 'survival-of-the-fittest' biological theorizing over the unit of the *individual* -- which is flat-out *inappropriate*, by scale.
#15259707
('Germ theory', 'terrain theory' together allude to the ubiquitous physical dynamic of *internal-external*, which also applies to the individual, as with the two diagrams, respectively, and also to in-group-out-group dynamics empirically in politics.)


Worldview Diagram

Spoiler: show
Image



[6] Worldview Diagram

Spoiler: show
Image
#15259728
The Brits have the best preventative medicine. They could do more on the lifestyle end, but that does point out that health care systems vary and that this is hardly binary.

Brits, because they were in the EU, are a lot stricter than Americans when it comes to exposure to chemicals.

But again, doing more there doesn't imply a damn thing about the rest of medicine. It also means that Docs can hardly be expected to force a country to change. You have to do the work to get the government to create new regs and procedures.
#15259735
late wrote:
The Brits have the best preventative medicine. They could do more on the lifestyle end, but that does point out that health care systems vary and that this is hardly binary.

Brits, because they were in the EU, are a lot stricter than Americans when it comes to exposure to chemicals.

But again, doing more there doesn't imply a damn thing about the rest of medicine. It also means that Docs can hardly be expected to force a country to change. You have to do the work to get the government to create new regs and procedures.



*Who* has to 'do the work' -- ?
#15259739
ckaihatsu wrote:
Is *class* a real dichotomy, or not -- ?



Torus34 wrote:
Hi, ckaihatsu.

Your question is unclear. Could you elaborate?

Regards, stay safe 'n well.



Sure. Hi.

I'm asking if you consider 'class', or the class divide, to be an empirically real dichotomy.

Some on the Left use the term 'classist', instead of 'class', because they don't consider the class dichotomy to be the fundamental divide, or social-ill, in society. They see it as a regular-type *oppression*, along with racism and sexism, but not in *political economy* terms (a real dichotomy).
#15259746
ckaihatsu wrote:Sure. Hi.

I'm asking if you consider 'class', or the class divide, to be an empirically real dichotomy.

Some on the Left use the term 'classist', instead of 'class', because they don't consider the class dichotomy to be the fundamental divide, or social-ill, in society. They see it as a regular-type *oppression*, along with racism and sexism, but not in *political economy* terms (a real dichotomy).


Hi again, ckaihatsu.

Thank you for the clarification.

I have no idea why you asked me that question. I do not speak for the left, nor am I privy to what the left believes class to mean. I use class as it's defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. When I communicate with someone, I try to speak and/or write with precision. That means that both I and the reader/hearer agree upon the meanings of words. A widely-available dictionary is the best Baedeker.

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”


Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.
#15259748
Torus34 wrote:
Hi again, ckaihatsu.

Thank you for the clarification.

I have no idea why you asked me that question. I do not speak for the left, nor am I privy to what the left believes class to mean. I use class as it's defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. When I communicate with someone, I try to speak and/or write with precision. That means that both I and the reader/hearer agree upon the meanings of words. A widely-available dictionary is the best Baedeker.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.



I ask because the *reality* is that there *is* a class dichotomy in the world.


labor and capital, side-by-side

Spoiler: show
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#15259762
Torus34 wrote:Beware dichotomies. They tend to block thinking about using both possibilities. They also forestall thinking about alternate possibilities.


Another example of "germ theory" applied to sociology and law (because germ theory is modern man's primary narrative)... would be witch burning.

I would argue that burning witches (social germs) is never going to cure social programs.

Torus34 is arguing that we should burn a few witches so as not to be overly ideological. But I disagree.

The burning of witches did NOT lead to a more harmonius human civilization or social order. The presence of witches among us ...was just one of the background fears that kept the colonists genociding the First Nations. Scapegoating.

Every genocide looked like a victory to the colonists. Every genocide looked like germ-eradication. For germ-targetting colonists, the First Nations were just another evil germ.

According to Torus, they should have been "a little bit" genocided... so as not to be too ideological.

Thing is, Germ Theory is much bigger than an ideology. It's one of our most important modern narratives. And it has been maintained for the last few centuries... by denying the logical conclusions of Darwin's work and much else that has been discovered ever since.

ckaihatsu wrote:You are here

I don't find the maps you provided very helpful in this thread so far. Think Grand Narratives.

(ie. Should mankind continue to target EVIL for irradication, or should mankind try to understand other people better so that we can cooperate with them? (this is the more generalist interpretation of germ theory that shows what a Grand Narrative it is))
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