zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC

Please tell me what your relatives have been up to, I am preparing your tattoo.

That's what I've been wondering ... will they ever try using "we need zero rating to prevent network overload" again if they'll demonstrate now that they don't?

Which doesn't make a Zagnut bar an agent that has power, does it?

That must be the cheapest attempt at shifting the burden of proof I've encountered yet.

> If you think logic is so powerful, why don't you use it to cure alcoholism instead if spending it in HN comments? :)

Where did I make the claim that logic could be used to cure alcoholism?

> The use of surrender is to admit you don't know how things work. At least not to the point to actually cure yourself of addiction.

Which doesn't make a Zagnut bar an agent that has power, does it?

> The point is, you find a power greater than yourself that you can surrender your will to.

So, you think that a candy bar is a power, in any way whatsoever?

> A lot of people let them selves get hung up on the higher power bit because they can't abstract the idea of surrendering to a non quantifiable or tangible thing

Because it's nonsense?

> (hence the Zagnut bar for those who can't surrender to the idea of love or the ideas of forces of nature)

Which makes it only more nonsensical?

> Believe me, I was one of those people for a long time. But my suffering got so great that I eventually had to admit to myself that I cannot do it on my own and I need to find something I hold sacred and dear.

... and then you did it yourself, thus demonstrating that you were simply wrong about not being able to do it yourself.

> It's better to believe a Zagnut bar could restore me to sanity, then to continue to kill myself with alcohol and drugs.

Only if that actually "restores you to sanity". And if it does, it was still you who "restored yourself to sanity".

> Again, the point is surrender. I am in no way saying the Zagnut bar is doing anything but inspiring hope in the alcoholic

Yes, you are. You are saying it's "a higher power". It's not. It's a candy bar. Possibly a candy bar that is inspiring hope in an alcoholic.

> And you are 100% correct that the work comes from inside, not a candy bar.

So, why all this dishonest mumbo-jumbo about a "higher power"? Mind you, this is not a therapeutic setting, this is a discussion about scientific evidence of efficacy.

> I doubt anyone earnestly surrenders themselves to a candy bar or fire extinguisher, but I'm certainly not knocking it if it helps someone.

No, of course, noone does, that's the point. Possibly, some people somehow think that they do (and even that seems a bit unlikely to me), but it just is a nonsense concept: You can, as a matter of semantics, not surrender to something that doesn't exercise power. You might as well be saying that you need to wash yourself, but you can also do so by looking at a horse. Looking at a horse makes you washed as much as following instructions of a candy bar makes you do anything, for lack of any washing effect in one case, for lack of any instructions in the other.

> I think the point is that you need some sort of mind hack to escape the paradigm of will vs. desire which has been a losing battle thus far for most addicts. it is ultimately your will that prevails, but you have to trick yourself otherwise for it to work.

That might well be the case, yep. And I see two big problems with not clearly stating that that is what's (likely) going on: In more than one place, it seems to cause harrassment of atheists, and I am not so sure it's actually helpful for mental health when people externalize the credit for the work that they have done themselves. And also, even if that's a hack that is needed in the "therapeutic context", a discussion about the scientific evidence of the efficacy certainly is not a place for such intentionally onfuscating language.

But THERE IS NO HIGHER POWER INVOLVED. There just isn't. Even if alcoholism is illogical, there still just isn't.

> What you have just done is criticize religious people as a group, and claim that they are abusive.

No, I have obviously not.

> Criticize ideas and policies; not groups of people.

Why? What, in your mind, is the problem with criticizing abusive religious people as a group?

So, other people are a Zagnut bar?

The point here is that there is no "higher power" involved. It's other people or you yourself, or possibly both, neither of which in any meaningful sense qualifies as a "higher power", and either of which has a completely unambiguous, non-confusing term to refer to it: "Other people" and "yourself". The point is that it is dishonest to then pretend that somehow a Zagnut bar could plausibly be an agent helping you instead of simply saying the obvious: It's most certainly not the Zagnut bar, so what's left is you yourself and/or other people.

> That power could be the love of your family, wife/husband, kids, the energy that moves the cosmos, or a fucking Zagnut bar.

So, either you actually believe that a Zagnut bar is an agent that can help you out of your desparate situation by using its special powers. Or you are intentionally obfuscating the rather obvious fact that indeed, people do not need to surrender to anything or anyone, because obviously it's not the Zagnut bar doing the work, but rather exclusively they themselves.

> But I honestly don't see how anyone wins with that outcome.

Then you presumably aren't aware of how abusive religious people can be towards atheists, and that includes in AA groups.

> So going "cold turkey" is not really an option

Ending an abusive relationship is always an option.

> I sell my car and the day after tomorrow I have $10,101.

That doesn't change your net worth, so it's a nonsensical example.

> I'm not saying your wrong, but can you provide a link to a reputable site such as CDC/WHO that supports your claim?

How does that need much of a "reputable site"?! It's an infectious disease with long incubation, infectiousness for a bit while not having symptoms, no vaccine and no cure ... what do you think would happen if we didn't do anything to prevent spreading?

Current R0 estimates seem to be around 3, so you would need 66% immunity to drop that below 1, currently the only likely way to get immunity is through infection and survival, so that's 200 million americans infected before infected cases shrink naturally.