New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 30 of 35
  1. - Top - End - #1
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Raleigh NC
    Gender
    Male

    Default By the power of placebo!

    Seen in Psychology today

    Quote Originally Posted by Psychology today

    Over the last several years evidence has been accumulating that placebo effects are becoming more powerful. Clinical trials on a range of medications used for treating both psychological and medical problems, are finding that differences in the magnitude of their impact relative to placebos are decreasing in size.
    For example, in the early 2002, Merck pharmaceuticals was on the verge of releasing a promising new antidepressant (codenamed MK-869). The development and preliminary testing of MK-869 had been exorbitantly expensive, but it was about to pay off. MK-869 had performed brilliantly in early clinical trials — better than several other popular antidepressants on the market. In what has become an increasingly common story, plans for releasing MK-869 ultimately came to a halt after evidence accumulated that the new medication failed to outperform placebo treatment. For pharmaceutical companies, the growing power of antidepressant placebos is a vexing problem, resulting in a substantially reduced investment in this area.

    The growing potency of placebos is not limited to psychiatric drugs. When researchers started looking closely at pain-drug clinical trials, they found that an average of 27 percent of patients in 1996 reported pain reduction from new pain medications being developed relative to placebo pills. By 2013 that difference had shrunk to just nine percent. In the last decade, more than 90 percent of painkillers developed in the United States have failed to show a significant improvement over placebos in the final stages of clinical trials.


    ...

    Interestingly, in the case of pain medications, the placebo effect has become stronger in the United States, but not in Europe. What might account for this difference? One possible factor, is that the United States allows direct advertising to consumers, while European countries do not. Thus Americans consumers are more primed to expect positive benefits from pain medications than Europeans. This explanation is particularly plausible given the fact that pain perception is strongly mediated by psychological factors.
    I added the bold font , because it is curious. Why are placebos more effective now than they were 20 years ago? And why is this happening in the US but not in Europe?

    ...

    Maybe we should start painting our vehicles red, to see if it makes them go faster?

    And maybe that's why Americans have so many more anti-science groups than Europe does. Hey, we bend reality to our will. We don't need no steekin' science.

    Tongue-in-cheek,

    Brian P.
    Last edited by pendell; 2018-03-22 at 07:37 AM.
    "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."

    -Valery Legasov in Chernobyl

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Aug 2014
    Location
    Ontario, Canada
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Obviously, Americans are just more gullible.

    More seriously, the placebo effect is first and foremost a psychological phenomenon, even if it may have a physiological effect.
    It doesn't seem that far-fetched to me that a person's individual psyche, mindset, or whatever you want to call it would change how strong their placebo effect is, and when they get it. If that's the case, then cultural differences may very well make a population more or less susceptible to the placebo effect.

    Edit: Upon reading the full quoted text, it strikes me that there may be another, simpler answer. Perhaps not for the American/European question, but it seems to me that we're constantly producing more effective medicines. If that's the case, then people will naturally have more faith in them; if people hear about a medicine that's, say, 35% effective, I expect they'll have a weaker placebo effect than people who hear about one that's 80% effective.
    Last edited by Strigon; 2018-03-22 at 08:48 AM.
    That's all I can think of, at any rate.

    Quote Originally Posted by remetagross View Post
    All hail the mighty Strigon! One only has to ask, and one shall receive.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Lord Torath's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Sharangar's Revenge
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Somewhat relevant: XKCD: Placebo Blocker
    Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
    My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
    Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Griffon

    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Location
    Bristol, UK

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    The placebo effect is real.
    The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Lord Torath's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Sharangar's Revenge
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    The placebo effect is real.
    I don't think anyone's contesting that here. At least as I read the various posts. It is interesting that they are more effective in the US than in the EU, though. ("Scientists! Investigate!" - "But we're playing Minecraft!")
    Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
    My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
    Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Grey_Wolf_c's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2007

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    The placebo effect is real.
    Yes? No-one is denying this.

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I added the bold font , because it is curious. Why are placebos more effective now than they were 20 years ago? And why is this happening in the US but not in Europe?
    This seems perfectly reasonable to me. People are far more medicated than 20 years ago, especially in the US. Did you know that two sugar pill placebos are more effective than a single sugar pill placebo? And that a placebo injection has a higher placebo effect than the pills? Quantity & method matters, for whatever reason (and let me be clear: I have no idea why placebo works). Heck, I suspect that, if we were to test it, more expensive placebo would work better than cheap one (I'd test it by having the trial participants see the "cost", but be told that the trial is covering it - half would see "$10 a pill" vs the other half would see "$100 a pill").

    Therefore, if we are in general taking more pills (and if my hypothesis is correct, in the US they are paying more for them), even if they are unrelated to the issue, placebo strength would have to be going up. Honestly, I don't see a downside* to this. Do we know if depression is currently being treated with placebos outside of clinical trials? I would hope it is - say, mid-level cases of depression, bad enough to need help but not so bad you want to break open the serious medicine?

    Grey Wolf

    *OK, I see a downside to giving pill makers a reason to jack up prices.
    Last edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2018-03-22 at 09:51 AM.
    Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.
    There is a world of imagination
    Deep in the corners of your mind
    Where reality is an intruder
    And myth and legend thrive
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
    Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Raleigh NC
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    Yes? No-one is denying this.
    Agreed. SO is the Nocebo effect, in which people can make themselves sick.

    *OK, I see a downside to giving pill makers a reason to jack up prices.
    That raises a question -- to what extent is price a component of belief, and thereby of the efficacy of placebo?

    For instance, if I put out SugarPill with a list price of $10 , and put out a second pill, identical in every respect, with a list price of $1000, I have to wonder whether placebo effect would be greater for the second group, the first group, or neither.

    :Goes off to write a grant proposal:

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."

    -Valery Legasov in Chernobyl

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Brother Oni's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Cippa's River Meadow
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I added the bold font , because it is curious. Why are placebos more effective now than they were 20 years ago? And why is this happening in the US but not in Europe?
    In the article you quote, it states that the two classes of medicines assessed, anti-depressants and pain medication, have a statistically non-significant effect when compared to placebo. Both of these types of medicines have a major psychological component - the pain scale is entirely subjective for example and how do you objectively measure how happy a person is?

    I would pretty much guaranteed that other types of medicines (antibiotics, COPD and asthma treatments, anti-cancer, etc) would have a statistically significant effect compared to placebo (a sugar pill won't cure your UTI; inhaling sugar won't stop your breathing problems; and a saline injection won't kill your tumour).

    Combined with that the large majority of current drug development is in 'quality of life' medication, which include pain medication and anti-depressants, it's no surprise that placebos are apparently becoming more effective.
    Last edited by Brother Oni; 2018-03-22 at 10:47 AM.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Mar 2007

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Brother Oni View Post
    In the article you quote, it states that the two classes of medicines assessed, anti-depressants and pain medication, have a statistically non-significant effect when compared to placebo. Both of these types of medicines have a major psychological component - the pain scale is entirely subjective for example and how do you objectively measure how happy a person is?

    I would pretty much guaranteed that other types of medicines (antibiotics, COPD and asthma treatments, anti-cancer, etc) would have a statistically significant effect compared to placebo (a sugar pill won't cure your UTI; inhaling sugar won't stop your breathing problems; and a saline injection won't kill your tumour).

    Combined with that the large majority of current drug development is in 'quality of life' medication, which include pain medication and anti-depressants, it's no surprise that placebos are apparently becoming more effective.
    Doesn't "statistically non-significant effect when compared to placebo" mean the drugs have basically no effect (the whole reason for double-blind trials). Of course, I assume that the placebos emulate at least some of the side effects.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Lord Torath's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Sharangar's Revenge
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Agreed. SO is the Nocebo effect, in which people can make themselves sick.



    That raises a question -- to what extent is price a component of belief, and thereby of the efficacy of placebo?

    For instance, if I put out SugarPill with a list price of $10 , and put out a second pill, identical in every respect, with a list price of $1000, I have to wonder whether placebo effect would be greater for the second group, the first group, or neither.

    :Goes off to write a grant proposal:

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    This effect is present in Wine Tasting as well. I heard on NPR about a study where professional tasters regularly preferred a cheap, $10 wine over more expensive bottles when misinformed about their relative costs.
    Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
    My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
    Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Banned
     
    Jormengand's Avatar

    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    In the Playground, duh.

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    This effect is present in Wine Tasting as well. I heard on NPR about a study where professional tasters regularly preferred a cheap, $10 wine over more expensive bottles when misinformed about their relative costs.
    I've also heard about a study where professional tasters preferred a cheap wine to itself when misinformed about it, so they're probably just faking it.

    (Adam Connover is far more amusing than me and provides sources: go check him out)

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Raleigh NC
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jormengand View Post
    I've also heard about a study where professional tasters preferred a cheap wine to itself when misinformed about it, so they're probably just faking it.

    (Adam Connover is far more amusing than me and provides sources: go check him out)
    My day has been made. Thank you.

    Tongue-in-cheek,

    Brian P.
    "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."

    -Valery Legasov in Chernobyl

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Grey_Wolf_c's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2007

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    This effect is present in Wine Tasting as well. I heard on NPR about a study where professional tasters regularly preferred a cheap, $10 wine over more expensive bottles when misinformed about their relative costs.
    Actually, it's not so much "as well" as "that's where I got the inspiration from". Wine tasting better when it's in a more expensive bottle is the most famous, but I'm sure there are other examples (fish, maybe?)

    GW
    Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.
    There is a world of imagination
    Deep in the corners of your mind
    Where reality is an intruder
    And myth and legend thrive
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
    Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Lizardfolk

    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Turns out sugar has mystical properties in pill form and the placebo effect doesn't exist.

    @fish like how white salmon is exactly the same as pink salmon in taste and health, but has been unpopular for a couple centuries? Both wild and domestic white salmon get pink dye thrown on to make it palatable despite the dye being expensive and unhealthy.
    Last edited by Tvtyrant; 2018-03-22 at 12:48 PM.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Troll in the Playground
     
    PaladinGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    UK
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by wumpus View Post
    Doesn't "statistically non-significant effect when compared to placebo" mean the drugs have basically no effect (the whole reason for double-blind trials). Of course, I assume that the placebos emulate at least some of the side effects.
    Oddly enough no it doesn't.

    For example, one of the early placebo trials found that distilled water was a better post-operation painkiller than morphine - because of the placebo effect. However, as I understand it, the distilled water either elimiated all of the pain or none; the morphine usually eliminated some pain if not all.

    OK, in the example does not have the treatement as statisitically non-significant (for one thing the water did better), but one should be able to see how a drug can fail against a placebo but still have an effect - it's just an effect on fewer people than can achieve it by state of mind.

    This is where targetted medicine starts getting complex - a drug that will cure 10% of the population may well fail general testing when compared to a placebo, but if we can work out which 10% it works on then as a targetted drug it suddenly becomes far better than a placebo.

  16. - Top - End - #16
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Grey_Wolf_c's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2007

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    @fish like how white salmon is exactly the same as pink salmon in taste and health, but has been unpopular for a couple centuries? Both wild and domestic white salmon get pink dye thrown on to make it palatable despite the dye being expensive and unhealthy.
    Yeah. I'd put it "people prefer the taste of white salmon dyed pink to undyed white salmon", but same idea. I buy a lot of farmed salmon, and I'm sure its dyed, but it's not like I have a choice - all salmon sold at my local fishmarket is pink.

    GW
    Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.
    There is a world of imagination
    Deep in the corners of your mind
    Where reality is an intruder
    And myth and legend thrive
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
    Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est

  17. - Top - End - #17
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Brother Oni's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Cippa's River Meadow
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by wumpus View Post
    Doesn't "statistically non-significant effect when compared to placebo" mean the drugs have basically no effect (the whole reason for double-blind trials).
    Actually no, it means that the drug has no real improvement over placebo, so it's hard to justify the cost and expense of further drug development and clinical trials when a far cheaper sugar pill does just as well as your product.

    A statistically significant effect compared to placebo is usually one of the goals of a successful clinical trial - if your product doesn't meet that, then it's either back to the drawing board or the whole programme gets canned.

    Note that it's not just patients you have to convince - you have to convince the regulatory authorities (FDA in the US, MHRA in the UK, etc) to grant a license to both manufacture and sell your product. They're unlikely to let you sell something that's not statistically better than placebo.

    Quote Originally Posted by wumpus View Post
    Of course, I assume that the placebos emulate at least some of the side effects.
    Again, no. Placebo typically are just the bulking agent with flavourings and colouring (known as excipients) as appropriate, so basically the final product just with no active ingredient. There should be no side effects from the placebo as a result of the excipients, although there may be some due to the dosing method (eg differentiating between the discomfort from a suppository itself, the excipients or the drug and excipients).
    Last edited by Brother Oni; 2018-03-22 at 06:45 PM.

  18. - Top - End - #18
    Barbarian in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Dijon, France

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    Turns out sugar has mystical properties in pill form and the placebo effect doesn't exist.

    @fish like how white salmon is exactly the same as pink salmon in taste and health, but has been unpopular for a couple centuries? Both wild and domestic white salmon get pink dye thrown on to make it palatable despite the dye being expensive and unhealthy.
    As someone that regularly catches his own salmon. No. It doesn't. Really.

    EDIT: OK, you do say 'white salmon' though there is not really a 'white salmon', there are white-ish fleshed salmon such as keta salmon (dog or chum salmon) -- you can dye that as pink as you want and it's quality is still vastly inferior to wild caught chinook/king or coho/silver. OK, getting off on a tangent here, but I get what you are saying. /EDIT

    But yes, I get what you are saying (in regards to mass produced meats)...the power of presentation and marketing is quite strong, thus the use of dyes in meat products, brine injection into poultry, use of sodium nitrates in short cure meats, etc... "A feast for the eyes, if not the stomach"
    Last edited by Maelstrom; 2018-03-23 at 05:36 AM.

  19. - Top - End - #19
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Brother Oni's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Cippa's River Meadow
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by warmachine View Post
    US pharmaceutical companies compete on patent expired drugs and stop marketing new and improved drugs?
    From personal experience, generics is a really tough market, both in terms of achieving an equivalent product and in terms of the competition from rival companies.

    Quote Originally Posted by warmachine View Post
    So they'll just lobby Congress to put clinical standards through the floor. I reckon such lobbyists will justify it with studies that deception is an essential part of the placebo effect. Then lying won't just be by the doctor prescribing a placebo or by not publishing negative trial results, it'll be part of the trials themselves by design and standard practice. Then it drifts into other drugs, such as cancer treatments.
    A couple things here - in a double blind study, nobody knows who is getting what. The only time that people would know (the study is unblinded) is at the end of the study, or if a volunteer or patient becomes critically ill and a doctor agrees that they should be unblinded.

    While it depends on the disease in question, I know you cannot use placebo in a study with cancer patients - such a study would never pass the ethics committee or gain FDA approval and thus fail to get off the ground in the first place. Typically for cancer, they normally compare the new product against the current best (gold standard) treatment, which makes proving a statistically significant improvement harder.

    Quote Originally Posted by warmachine View Post
    Of course, someone will notice and blow the whistle. He or she will describe the subtle, technical ways trial results are fudged. He or she will be up against pharmaceutical marketing budgets. Oh well.
    Or they blow the whistle to the FDA who can (and have) force a product recall and authority to revoke a companies' marketing license. Even if you believe the FDA are compromised, there are the equivalent government agencies in other countries.

    Trust me, there's plenty of ways that results can be fudged, which is why many FDA auditors are trained by the FBI in fraud detection. It's often easier to justify why those particular dodgy results are acceptable (either by comparison to other data, running additional experiments, or finding a reason to invalidate the original results and replace them with new data), than it is to falsify data.

  20. - Top - End - #20
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    georgie_leech's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Calgary, AB
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    SO! HOW ABOUT THOSE NOT AT ALL POLITICAL PLACEBOS MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLE, EH?
    Quote Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant View Post
    We should try to make that a thing; I think it might help civility. Hey, GitP, let's try to make this a thing: when you're arguing optimization strategies, RAW-logic, and similar such things that you'd never actually use in a game, tag your post [THEORETICAL] and/or use green text

  21. - Top - End - #21
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    warmachine's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Reading, England
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Oops. I forgot politics is banned here, even if scientific advancement affects politics. Posts scrapped.
    Matthew Greet
    My purpose in life is to play games.

  22. - Top - End - #22
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Joran's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    Yes? No-one is denying this.
    This seems perfectly reasonable to me. People are far more medicated than 20 years ago, especially in the US. Did you know that two sugar pill placebos are more effective than a single sugar pill placebo? And that a placebo injection has a higher placebo effect than the pills? Quantity & method matters, for whatever reason (and let me be clear: I have no idea why placebo works). Heck, I suspect that, if we were to test it, more expensive placebo would work better than cheap one (I'd test it by having the trial participants see the "cost", but be told that the trial is covering it - half would see "$10 a pill" vs the other half would see "$100 a pill").

    *OK, I see a downside to giving pill makers a reason to jack up prices.
    Yes, an expensive placebo is more effective than a cheaper placebo:

    http://www.latimes.com/science/scien...127-story.html

    Note: Small sample size, so I'm unsure if it's been replicated.

  23. - Top - End - #23
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Flumph

    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    England. Ish.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Perhaps as scientific knowledge has advanced, we just make better placebos now.
    Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.

    "The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud

    "Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee

  24. - Top - End - #24
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Raleigh NC
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    Perhaps as scientific knowledge has advanced, we just make better placebos now.
    How is that possible? A placebo is just a pill without any active ingredients; we've had the technology to make that for more than fifty years and I don't think there has been any great advances. Like the rifle, placebos are mature technology; I don't see how you could make a sugar pill better.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."

    -Valery Legasov in Chernobyl

  25. - Top - End - #25
    Banned
     
    Jormengand's Avatar

    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    In the Playground, duh.

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    How is that possible? A placebo is just a pill without any active ingredients; we've had the technology to make that for more than fifty years and I don't think there has been any great advances. Like the rifle, placebos are mature technology; I don't see how you could make a sugar pill better.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    On the other hand, as medicine gets better, the placebo gets better automatically because we understand that medicine is becoming more effective and therefore we assume we'll get a stronger effect when we take a placebo without knowing it's a placebo. Presumably, even though placebos are effective when we know they're placebos, they wouldn't get stronger as medicine improved if we knew they were placebos.

    (Disclaimer: the entire paragraph above is speculation by a specialist in an unrelated field about an effect we don't really understand; handle with care.)
    Last edited by Jormengand; 2018-03-23 at 03:33 PM.

  26. - Top - End - #26
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Lord Torath's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Sharangar's Revenge
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    Perhaps as scientific knowledge has advanced, we just make better placebos now.
    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    How is that possible? A placebo is just a pill without any active ingredients; we've had the technology to make that for more than fifty years and I don't think there has been any great advances. Like the rifle, placebos are mature technology; I don't see how you could make a sugar pill better.
    I think the relevant part of that post is contained in Manga Shoggoth's signature:

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth's Signature
    Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
    Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
    My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
    Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season

  27. - Top - End - #27
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Flumph

    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    England. Ish.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    ...
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    ...
    Alas, Lord Torath has it. I was committing humour again. It's been a long week.
    Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.

    "The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud

    "Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee

  28. - Top - End - #28
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Lizardfolk

    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jormengand View Post
    On the other hand, as medicine gets better, the placebo gets better automatically because we understand that medicine is becoming more effective and therefore we assume we'll get a stronger effect when we take a placebo without knowing it's a placebo. Presumably, even though placebos are effective when we know they're placebos, they wouldn't get stronger as medicine improved if we knew they were placebos.

    (Disclaimer: the entire paragraph above is speculation by a specialist in an unrelated field about an effect we don't really understand; handle with care.)
    By that argument though magic was real, and we did a great disservice to mankind by discrediting witch doctors and spiritual healers.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    Vibranium: If it was on the periodic table, its chemical symbol would be "Bs".

  29. - Top - End - #29
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Raleigh NC
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    Alas, Lord Torath has it. I was committing humour again. It's been a long week.
    Longer than 168 hours? Have you been travelling at relativistic speeds ?

    Tongue-in-cheek,

    Brian P.
    "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."

    -Valery Legasov in Chernobyl

  30. - Top - End - #30
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Flumph

    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    England. Ish.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: By the power of placebo!

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Longer than 168 hours? Have you been travelling at relativistic speeds ?
    Ah, you've met my relatives, then. No better incentive to go faster.
    Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.

    "The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud

    "Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •