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BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

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Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#111

Post by diggan »

ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

> If that claim about hand made items being better were true, there would be a market for hand made CPUs

Isn't a CPU kind of one of the most complex thing humanity has ever created in hardware terms? Like the scales involved are so different, compared to the examples of a guitar, chisel or knife. It requires so tiny tolerances and measurements, that I guess we're past it's even possible to "make a CPU by hand" that comes close to our current CPUs. Sure, you can always use old CPU designs from back in the day, but a knife today can be the same as it was 2000 years ago, it just has to be sharp and comfortable, so really hard to compare.

> I have seen this sentiment expressed, but I have yet to see any real evidence for it.

Have you gone searching for evidence? The examples being guitars, chisels, knifes, suit and shoes, sounds simple to search how the top-of-the-line stuff is made. I'd bet on that high quality things from those categories are in fact typically hand-made.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#112

Post by caconym_ »

ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

> I would rather have factory made versions since I know they are likely made precisely to a specification and deviations from that specification likely make things worse, rather than better.

For these items in particular, there is generally no extant factory automation that will get you a better result than a human craftsman. You'd be a fool to pick extant mass produced alternatives, all else being equal.

A CPU is a pretty poor analogy here, since it's not only precision that makes handmade examples of the above items superior, but it's essentially the only thing that matters for a CPU (or something like an iPhone, etc). You likely could design a superior factory for many of those items, taking into account materials variance, bespoke details for individual customers, etc., but it would not be economical in the markets where these items are sold.

edit: I also think these items are a bad analogy for medicine, where precision is paramount. So I probably agree with you there.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#113

Post by sergioisidoro »

"Everyone can do sterile work", I mean some people can't even boil an egg.

There is a big sample bias here. The community of hackers is generally intelligent and curious. The laws in place were not necessarily made with them in mind, but for people who will take homeopathic remedies, use energy crystals.

Maybe if you're smart enough to avoid detection and navigate the legal hurdles, that is the acid test (heh) for the competences and diligence these things require...

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#114

Post by [deleted] »

yinser wrote: post #99
ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

You are directionally correct but the top of the line chisels are in fact hand made in Japan and I suspect the same for knives. Lee Valley and some other higher end manufacturers make some damn fine chisels but chisels are hand tools and I would guess 9/10 woodworkers who use chisels will choose hand made Japanese chisels over any factory manufactured tools.

[deleted]

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#115

Post by ryao »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #110
ryao wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can avoid this kind of loss by getting a guitar made from a long running factory line such that you can get an identical replacement.

Guitars are manufactured from organic material. Even coming off of a factory line, no two guitars are identical because no two pieces of wood are identical.

Even without organic material, no two would be alike due to manufacturing tolerances. Good quality control keeps those tolerances low enough that the differences are not significant or noticeable.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#116

Post by ryao »

roughly wrote: post #108
ryao wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can avoid this kind of loss by getting a guitar made from a long running factory line such that you can get an identical replacement.

You can avoid a lot of joy that way, too.

I do not see how. A well made guitar from a factory would give the same joy as a hand made one as far as I am concerned. Perhaps even more upon realizing imperfections were avoided.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#117

Post by amluto »

caconym_ wrote: post #112
ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

> I would rather have factory made versions since I know they are likely made precisely to a specification and deviations from that specification likely make things worse, rather than better. For these items in particular, there is generally no extant factory automation that will get you a better result than a human craftsman. You'd be a fool to pick extant mass produced alternatives, all else being equal. A CPU is a…

There are plenty of factory made shoes that have fancy contoured uppers that have shapes that can’t really be achieved by hand.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#118

Post by ryao »

diggan wrote: post #111
ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

> If that claim about hand made items being better were true, there would be a market for hand made CPUs Isn't a CPU kind of one of the most complex thing humanity has ever created in hardware terms? Like the scales involved are so different, compared to the examples of a guitar, chisel or knife. It requires so tiny tolerances and measurements, that I guess we're past it's even possible to "make a CPU by hand" that c…

Nobody expressing the general sentiment of “hand made is intrinsically better than factory made” has been able to produce evidence of intrinsic superiority. The burden of proof is on those making such claims and evidence largely favors factories as producing superior products. There can be exceptions, but that is due to bad decisions rather than some intrinsic issue with the idea of a factory production line.

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#119

Post by ryao »

yinser wrote: post #99
ryao wrote: post #86

> We all know that custom, hand-made, artisan-crafted, boutique tools are always better than something factory made. A guitar, a wood chisel, a chef's knife, a built racing engine, a firearm, a suit, a pair of shoes. Given that this is so well-known, and so universally understood, it's peculiar at best that this is not seen by most people when it comes to medicine. It is however also true. I have seen this sentiment…

You are directionally correct but the top of the line chisels are in fact hand made in Japan and I suspect the same for knives. Lee Valley and some other higher end manufacturers make some damn fine chisels but chisels are hand tools and I would guess 9/10 woodworkers who use chisels will choose hand made Japanese chisels over any factory manufactured tools.

Isn’t the main thing that makes a chisel better or worse the material quality, such that regardless of whether it is hand made or factory made, the chisel made of superior material is better?

Re: BioTerrorism Will Save Your Life with the 4 Thieves Vinegar Collective [video]

#120

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

maeln wrote: post #107

Taken from the description: > Governments have criminalized the practice of managing your own health. Despite the fact that for most of human history bodily autonomy, and self-managed health was the norm, it is now required that most aspects of your health must be mediated by an institution deputized by the state. Taking those rights back for yourself is then labeled "BioTerrorism". So be it. Let's learn how. This is…

It's quite difficult to know if there's a good reason for a prohibition, vs whether it's just there to protect somebody's monopoly.

In a healthier society there'd be a smooth gradient between the layman and the professional such that B.S. prohibitions would be identified and removed by informed subsets of the population. But instead we have this very crisp boundary between the in-the-know and the clueless, and to be in-the-know is so expensive that one can't afford to be in-the-know while also not being on somebody's payroll--those tend to be the same somebody's who have a monopoly to protect, so the clueless stay clueless and the capable stay under control.

There's a lot of criticism in adjacent threads for these guys having cherry-picked the easy examples, but given the circumstances I think that that's precisely what we ought to be doing: Identify the cases where taking control of your drugs is relatively easy, teach people to do it, and level up gradually until that set of cases starts growing.

We may never get to the point where we're making everything at home, but if we don't at least take a shot at the easy ones then we'll never know where the reasonable equilibrium point lies (i.e. the point beyond which you should leave it to a corporation). As it stands we're letting that point be decided by people who have a conflict of interest in doing so.

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