this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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Science Memes

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Crystals (mander.xyz)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I forget the YouTube channel name now, but I recall someone testing some of the cleansing bracelets, with "energy" and "healing" powers...

It turned out that the energy was mostly in the form of radioactive materials, and the only thing you would be healed from by wearing it, was your continued life.

Crystals, on the other hand, are mostly just inert and harmless. So if someone wants to keep a "healing" crystal or whatever on them or put it in their office or something, okay sure. It won't do what it claims to, but it won't hurt you.

But if I see someone wearing a cleansing bracelet, I'm going to reach for my Hazmat suit (since I don't own one, I'm just going to keep a safe distance from the person willingly carrying around what is very likely to be radioactive material), and reevaluate my association with anyone willing to buy such nonsense with absolutely no understanding that it's probably harmful.

I forget the radioactive material used. From what I recall, it's not "drop and run" dangerous, but prolonged exposure is probably going to have some unpleasant side effects... Kind of like radon (it wasn't radon... Radon is a gas with an extremely short half life IIRC, but it can be dangerous to have long term exposure - many years, and it's in most homes.... Buy a radon sensor folks, they're not much more expensive than a good smoke detector).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Maybe it was "The Thought Emporium"? He made two vids on it, one being a follow-up

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I looked and that seems right. I watched two videos on it, IIRC, and it was interesting and concerning.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure how much sympathy I can muster for people who are so superstitious that they'll buy that snake oil, but at the same time, the manufacturer is being incredibly deceptive. So I'm a bit split on the issue. At the end of the day, one thing I'm not uncertain about is that consumer protection should be stronger for such things.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Crystals maybe help in the same way placebos do. That's the most I would admit about such stuff.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Where it gets dangerous, is giving up actual real working medication in place of a placebo.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/02/woman-died-slapping-therapy-healer-sent-by-god-court-told

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

slapping...

therapy...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I agree. Placebos can help too.

Fact is, for it to work as a placebo, you need to believe it will work.

I've had a few coworkers who had stuff like crystals on their desk because their partner believed in it. I understand why that stuff happens, the believer who (supposedly) cares about your well-being, gets benefit from it, and wants you to have the same or similar benefits from the same. But since they're doing it to placate their partner and don't personally believe, it's just a rock on their desk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Fact is, for it to work as a placebo, you need to believe it will work.

What's even wilder is you don't have to consciously believe it, you can unconsciously believe it and it will still work! Doctors will routinely prescribe placebos and be very open about the fact that it's just a placebo, that there is no chemical compound in the medication.

And yet, the act of taking a pill from a bottle seems to trigger something. Recent research has actually identified part of this mechanism in rat brains. There really is a part of the brain that can be tricked into releasing a set of chemicals that relieve pain, reduce inflammation and create better moods. Someday we might have a placebo pill that actually has medication in it. Wildly convoluted how the brain works.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Placebos is measurement error, not effectiveness. People that believe something works are more likely to report improvements when taking that medication irrespective of its effectiveness. Placebo effect is just misreporting, noise or unaccounted phenomena. It’s literally how we define something doesn’t work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

And its been proven that placebos work.

So as long as you define life changing energy as a subtle psychological buff…

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Allowing the crystal myths to continue only leads to more harmful behavior down the road. Sure, it can work as a placebo, but so can other things that don't tend to leave someone trusting unproven methods in lieu of proven ones.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Placebos don’t work. It’s a common misconception. Placebo effect is the error in measuring not any actual effect. It’s literally the barrier we use to define effective and non effective.

Anyone claiming they have something that provides a placebo effect to help is fraudulent or ignorant.

In the UK it is illegal to proscribe placebos. Because they don’t work.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

the only thing you would be healed from by wearing it

not actually definitely true! look up 'radiation hormesis'

I mean, it's not what they're advertising, and I don't think we know for sure that it's a thing, but it might be, and this would make it fucking hilarious.