In Cara Santa Maria's Talk Nerdy 's latest episode she talks with Helen Pitcher about her latest book this book may cause side effects. They talk about the "nocebo effect" (which is the exact same thing as the "placebo effect" except for bad things instead of good things; idk why they have different names). And I must say I am really disappointed in the episode and Santa Maria's apparent willingness to accept whatever Pitcher tells her. Comparing the episode to this review of the same book on skeptic (including the postscript) you get a completely different view of the book and its validity.

I think Santa Maria got played by an author who knows very well how to sound like someone who appreciates scientific skeptism but doesn't actually apply it. But that now a Talk Nerdy episode came out about something I happen to have read something about before, and I happend to be able to catch the pseudoscience this time, I am left wondering if there is pseudoscience in the other episodes as well? I'm genuinely not sure how much I can continue to trust Santa Maria now, because she fell for something as simple as "open label placebo works".

Brandon Gill lies to win votes in Texas. How far down the path of death and misery is the USAID story?

Fewer and Fewer countries are self sufficient in Oil.

Denmark used to be a major exporter producing some 400 000 Barrels/day back in 2004. Now down to just 70 000 Barrels a day and it needs 150 000 Barrels/day - so it has to import oil now.

Romania down from 300 000 Barrels/day in the 70s to 50 000 now.

The UK - also a major exporter until two decades ago - down from 2.8 Million Barrels/day to 600 000/day between 1998 and 2026.

Indonesia another previous major exporter went down from 1.7 Million Barrels in 1977 to 600 000 Barrels in 2026. Bali is now experiencing oil shortages while it used to export oil half a century ago.

During the last half century, several dozen countries have reached Peak Oil and produce only a fraction of their peak production.

Yet when we talk about Peak Oil globally, many people claim that we can never reach it because we will find always new oil.

Seems like denial to me.

Many countries have used up most of the oil they have and have not found any additional reserves.

Many others are projected to run out within the next 10-15 years.

Oil is getting harder to extract because we have used up the easiest to get oil.

To claim that we will always find new reserves (that are worth/economical to extract) and therefore Oil can run out in individual countries but never globally seems like delusion to me.

Recent non-carbon-dating analyses—such as Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS) performed by Italian researchers—estimate the age of the Shroud of Turin to be around 2,000 years old (roughly 55–74 AD), challenging the famous 1988 medieval radiocarbon results.

This always blows my mind. It’s been 500 years since Paracelsus established the principle of ‘the dose makes the poison’. And yet, health media always presents ingredients and chemicals as ‘healthy’ or ‘toxins’ without even mentioning dosage. And it’s leading otherwise smart people to make dumb decisions.

I was reading about a 57-year-old woman from New Jersey who was hospitalised with liver damage. She’d heard that turmeric was good for inflammation and joint pain, so she started taking 2,250mg of it per day. (More than 10x the sensible dose.) She clearly thought “turmeric = good, ergo lots of turmeric = lots of good”. Result: almost total liver failure.

While researching this topic, I also found a video where loads of people were convinced to sign a petition to ban Di-hydrogen Monoxide (water) from all foods. Some people actually thought about it and got the joke, but most people just thought “chemical-sounding words are scary” and signed immediately. 

Imagine most people’s horror when they learn that potatoes contain formaldehyde and some chemicals that are used to make napalm (all in harmlessly low doses).

The media’s binary framing of ‘good thing or bad thing’ goes beyond health too. When they talk about political issues like industry regulation or immigration, they get one expert to say it’s a good thing, and another expert to disagree and call the other a grifter. Surely the questions should be: How much immigration is healthy? How much regulation is healthy? What kind of dose is harmfully high or harmfully low? 

Am I the only one thinking we can’t solve societal problems when the media can’t understand dosage response curves and just lumps everything into two boxes labelled ‘healthy’ and ‘toxic’?

Thought people could use some good news, and for as much as the US scientific and medical establishment is pulling itself apart into a bizarre mix of religious fundamentalism and crazed conspiracy theories, we can look at this as a sign that the rest of the world keeps plodding along as best as we can.

As much as we hope you guys are able to pull yourself back together soon, 'science' is resilient, it's not going away and it doesn't really care if it's progressed by American, European, Australia, Japanese, Indian or Chinese scientists.

To quote Asimov

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere

I know they don't know the actual mechanism for how "energy healing" works, but I'm curious if there's anything wrong with the science leading to these results. Anything that would mean that the results should not be considered reliable in suggesting that further investigation should be done.

To be clear, I understand that Bengston only has a combination of some preclinical trials and human anecdotes and that that is not considered as good as a clinical trial.

EDIT: got a lot more comments than expected so will take time to read the new ones that provided specific info and look into them more thoroughly. Thank you to the people who wrote specific examples of what they think is wrong with the study! And sorry if I came off as insincere as some people have stated. I will take more time to respond going forward so hopefully I don't come off that way.

Edit: because it's unclear, I do not believe that women are more likely to be irrational than men.

American culture.

I'm talking to a woman on the dating apps and she's great except she is into things like crystals and tarot and so on. I don't know how deep she is in this. Like I don't think she does tarot readings for friends. I think it's just for fun.

But this is one of those things that I just have to let go. If you want to date women in America and you are a critical thinking sort of person you just have to put that "I would like to date somebody who is rational" wayyyy down on the list of preferences.

And I have a friend who thinks that geo-grounding might actually improve your health. I got irritated and asked her if the post that she shared was satire and she said I don't think so and I said well you should look into this grounding thing more.

To me, this all stems from a desire for the world to have some sort of hidden information (same with conspiracy theories). Like the world is so much more exciting if you can cure cancer by walking around barefoot more often.

But it's not real.

Recently I got excited because I heard that Buddhism has this concept called sammā dithi*, that can be summarized as if you want to reduce suffering you should strive to have an accurate view of how the world works. I thought that was pretty great. And then I asked how Buddhism sees things like astrology and so on. The answer was yeah it's pretty much tolerated and in fact they use it for certain things.

So Buddhism is no better than any other religion.

I would like to say that I would only associate with people that are good critical thinkers, but then I would have like two friends.

I think it's especially tough because I was raised without religion by someone who respected science and had little tolerance for woo woo garbage (because she had a family member that was heavily into that stuff and kind of scammed people with it).

So how do y'all manage to deal with the amount of nonsense beliefs in the world?

Edit: and don't get me started about the "Law of Attraction"

* probably misspelled

Apart from being a wild story, I thought it might be of interest to skeptics. Without spoiling everything, it involves forgery, accusations of plagiarism, and brings up questions about expertise, the extent to which authorities can be trusted, and likely mental illness.

BTW the Guardian has a popup that encourages you to support them, but it's not a paywall.

Hi, I post here because no better idea about an appropriate sub.

So I have a strange and a bit unsettling thing happening in my apartment and I can't explain it.

In my kitchen spontaneous small explosions happen, midair or close to ceiling. It's a really bright flash with a loud bang. the few times it was in my view the flash source was no bigger than a basketball ball. For now there is no damage or trace left. Maybe a slight burnt odor, but nothing specific. Last strange thing, a few seconds before it happens I noticed several times a slight gargling sound coming from the place where the explosio will be, there is no appliances there, and none make this kind of noise. It always happens in a definite area but not exactly in the same place.

First time was something like 6 months ago, midair close to a wall. At the time it was strange and I tried to find the cause without success. Anyway after a few days I thought it was a once time thing, but it happened again two days ago, and now four times in a short while today (obviously when I'm not at home I have no idea).

There is a gas stove and boiler in the kitchen, but it occur on opposite side and there is no utility gas odor at all. additionally the explosion look different, usually when gas is present but doesn't fill a complete enclosed space it produce more of a rapide flame than a real explosion. here it's really a small and loud flash.

I thought about some kind of high voltage/static discharge but it's completely unlikely. There is no high voltage or constantly moving object anywhere near, it doesn't look like an electric discharge, no ozone odor or trace of charring anywhere.

The only idea I have would be an accumulation of hydrogen or methane from an unknown source igniting spontaneously. But it doesn't explain the gargling sound near explosion, it doesn't happen near kitchen sink or any other potential source of gas, and what would ignite it close to wall or ceiling, always to a similar size.

And obviously I'm concerned it could start a fire.

edit: obviously if someone has a suggestion or any original idea I'm all ears

edit2:

for everyone being alarmed and insisting that I call fire department, alarm the whole building and such kind of things. There is absolutely no sign it's an utility gas leak. I have already been in situation to have to call technician from gas company to check some kind of potential leak in the past, here most likely it won't help (and it didn't help in the past either because similarly it was an discontinuous problem and when the guy came there was nothing happening). same for fire department, there is no fire, not any sign of anything, no smell, nothing except for one second two times in six months until now (and now it's not happening anymore at all).

additionally it's 3am now here.

it's normal to be concerned by gas leak and potential explosions, but the gas piping are inspected regularly and there is absolutely no smell. which suggest another source, probably fermentation somewhere.

final edit:

found what was happening. Not utility gas, nor sewer gas.

Slight water infiltration through the concrete roof is going inside the ceiling light fixture. The water on the screw terminal inside it get electrolyzed and randomly explode afterwards because of the heat generated.

without removing the glass cover of the fixture nothing was visible. No ground fault because the current is going between live and neutral, no tripped breaker because the amount of water is very tiny so the current should be well below the rating of the breaker.

strange thing is I never saw the explosion happen in the light fixture, and sometimes it was one or two meters away.

Funniest thing is, I exchanged the old incandescent light bulb by a LED one in the spring, not long before it happened the first time now that I think about it. Probably the heat from a 100w light bulb was far enough to dry this tiny amount of water and nothing was happening. Then the summer was exceptionally dry, and just this week serious rain is coming back.

For now I will stop to use this light until I check the cable and roof.

friend keeps pushing it on me, wondering if it is actually different from other ionized water or just expensive branding

Were scientists of the time specifically working to test its hypotheses, and found them to be false? Or was it just debunked by default as we slowly learned how the brain really worked? But there's a lot of people who still believe in it today, although they usually call it "physiognomy" or "phenotype." How do they think it came to be discredited despite being fundamentally sound? Especially during a time when there was such a massive sociopolitical incentive to believe in it.

Hi everyone

I’m 19 years old, I’m from Brazil, and I’m writing this because I honestly don’t know where else to talk about this.

Before all of this, I was a happy person. I was cheerful, affectionate, friendly, and socially normal. I was baptized Catholic, but over time I became more of a deist. Religion wasn’t something that controlled my life. I wasn’t obsessed with politics, fear, or the end of the world.

That changed around 2020 - and by 2022, things completely spiraled.

Out of nowhere, I became deeply paranoid and mentally overwhelmed by Christian conspiracy theories, especially QAnon-style narratives, far-right content, and end-times prophecies. What scares me is how fast it happened. It really felt like a kind of mental hijacking.

It started at school. My sociology teacher, who also happened to be a neopentecostal evangelical pastor, began casually talking about the end times, Ragnarok, and societal collapse. Around the same time, a friend told me that the apocalypse would likely start between 2023 and 2025 — or, if not, then between 2026 and 2027 — because 2033–2034 would mark exactly 2000 years since Jesus’ death.

That idea got stuck in my head.

I went to YouTube looking for answers and immediately fell into a massive rabbit hole. I found countless evangelical channels claiming that we are already living in the final moments of human history. Many of them confidently say that by 2030 the world will end, Jesus will physically return, and only a very specific group of neopentecostal or Pentecostal evangelical Christians will be saved.

According to them, salvation is limited to those whose names are written in the “Book of Life.” Everyone else — including people from other religions, LGBTQ+ people, non-believers, or even Christians who “aren’t strict enough” — will be thrown into the lake of fire along with the Antichrist and the False Prophet. God will destroy the universe, and only the chosen will live in the New Jerusalem.

They constantly pressure people to repent, insisting that Satan is real, sin is everywhere, and that even questioning these ideas is rebellion against God — despite none of this being scientifically demonstrable.

They preach strict rules: no short clothes, no jeans, no tattoos or piercings, no pork, no homosexuality, no teenage dating, no real free will. Everything is forbidden. Everything is dangerous.

They also say we’re living in the greatest apostasy in history — that humanity is abandoning God, becoming more “sinful,” colder, more violent. They point to crime, family violence, and tragic events as proof that we are living “like the days before the Flood,” when Noah warned everyone and was mocked until catastrophe suddenly wiped out the world, killing everyone.

Even when historians and scientists show that a global flood like that never happened, they insist science is wrong and that science itself is an abomination against God.

They describe God as loving — but also furious, cruel, and ready to punish anyone who doesn’t obey perfectly. They even portray Jesus in a very literal, almost mythologized way, as if his physical appearance (tall, white, blond, blue-eyed) were historically proven fact.

I watched an overwhelming amount of content from Brazilian pastors, missionaries, YouTubers, and so-called prophets and visionaries. Many of them claimed their prophecies never failed — that everything they predicted “came true.” Even figures who were once more moderate before the covid pandemic shifted completely and started preaching that the end is imminent.

They also obsess over morality and sexuality, saying prostitution is becoming normalized, pointing to platforms like OnlyFans, claiming incest is widespread, and framing all of it as undeniable proof of collapse.

Geopolitics became another obsession. They say global tensions are spiraling toward World War III — pointing to conflicts involving Israel, Iran, Venezuela, and others. Now with USA threatening to invade iran by land by sending troops, and chechnya also threatening to aid iran if this happens, They claim billionaires are building bunkers, selling assets, and preparing for the ultimate collapse, it's no wonder that the release of Epstein-related files early this year is framed as proof that the world is secretly ruled by a satanic elite.

Also they bring up an old letter supposedly written by Albert Pike in 1871, claiming it predicted the first two world wars and now accurately predicts the third, beginning in the Middle East. They connect current conflicts to biblical prophecies like Gog and Magog.

They say an unprecedented global economic collapse is coming — worse than the Great Depression — leading to massive famine worse than anything in medieval history.

From there, it gets even darker.

They claim that organizations like the UN, WEF, and the Bilderberg Group are planning a massive EMP attack to shut down global electricity, followed by worldwide martial law. They say immigrants are already being secretly detained and placed into camps, that conservatives and white Christians will be targeted, enslaved by black or arab slave masters (yes, you read that right, they literally said that), executed, and buried in FEMA coffins.

They talk about a “New World Order,” depopulation, the Great Reset, Agenda 2030, the end of physical cash, biometric digital currency, fingerprint-based payments, global digital IDs, forced lab-grown food, insect-based diets, identical clothing, people being renamed as numbers, and even surveillance cameras inside private homes.

All of this, they say, leads to the rise of the Antichrist — a single global leader who unites all governments. People will worship him. The “mark of the beast” will be implanted, and anyone who refuses won’t be allowed to buy or sell and will be killed. Cities will become death traps, and only those who flee to rural areas or mountains will survive.

They encourage people to stockpile water, canned food, batteries, radios, and medications — especially ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I saw countless testimonials claiming these drugs cured COVID and pulled people out of ICUs.

They predict another pandemic, supposedly 30 times deadlier, killing about 30% of world population. They say this will coincide with a seven-year peace treaty between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, involving the sacrifice of a red heifer and the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of The Rock to build the Third Temple — where the Antichrist will rule for the final three and a half years.

They deny climate change entirely, claiming disasters like earthquakes, floods, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes are artificially created by globalists using HAARP or satellite lasers. Fact-checkers and media outlets such as BBC, CNN, reuters and snopes are dismissed as controlled by figures like Soros or the Rothschilds.

On top of that, I became terrified of my own health. I constantly fear getting cancer or dying of a heart attack in my early 20s. They claim young people are suddenly dying because of covid vaccines, which they say contain aborted fetal cells, microchips, graphene, and long-term lethal effects — with a supposed 99% risk, because they were made too quickly.

They also obsess over “woke ideology,” claiming movies, games, and TV shows are used to corrupt children. They say character changes, LGBTQ+ representation, feminism, and racial diversity are deliberate psychological warfare. They point to Disney as proof and claim abortion rates are exploding as part of a moral collapse.

One of my deepest fears became “predictive programming” — the idea that elites know future events and reveal them in movies to make people subconsciously accept them. They cite films like White Noise (which predicted the ohio train crash in 2023), Leave the World Behind (which predicted famous recent blackout in the last years such as crowdstrike and the spain-portugal digital blackout last year), The Matrix (which predicted the perilous advance of technology), Black Mirror, The Simpsons (famous for predicting world events such as 9/11 attacks, trump elections win in 2016), 1984, Denver Airport paintings predicted the future, Sammy Hagar's song Crack in the World (which predicted that after 2025 the world will enter it's final stages of humanity) and the Georgia Guidestones goals such as 'maintaining world population beneath 500 million' as evidence that the future is already planned.

I became obsessed with supposed “fulfilled prophecies”:

– The moon having rust-like pigments (Joel 2:31)

– Sunspots interpreted as the sun going dark (Luke 21:25)

– The Euphrates River drying (Revelations 16:12)

– Rivers turning red (Revelations 16:4-3)

– Claims that days are getting shorter (Matthew 24:22)

– Numerology linking pandemics to the number 666 (for example, 2019 started the covid pandemic, and black death ended in 1353, thus, 2019-1353-666), and the word CORONA as a code where the alphabet is corresponding to its letter in ascending order (for example a = 1, b = 2), it would give the numbers 3, 15, 18, 15, 14, 1 will also give the number of the beast is correct if we multiply these numbers.

- Sahara desert being flooded (Isaiah 35:1)

At some point, I couldn’t tell coincidence from meaning anymore.

The psychological effects were devastating.

I developed severe anxiety, paranoia, and hypervigilance. Loud tranoises made me think the rapture had started. Car horns, crashes, or sudden sounds triggered panic. I felt like death was always around the corner.

Since last year I've been switching day for night, sleeping excessively, because I live far from my family. bc my friends are rarely available to do something cool, like going to a mall or a barbecue, etc.

I tried to warn my parents and friends, begging them to repent. I pushed so hard that they eventually stopped listening altogether. That isolation made everything worse.

My psychologist and occupational therapist are even suggesting I check into a CAPS (it's like a CHMC, but from my home country).

Due to the ongoing war on middle east and the recent news about the noah's ark being supposedly discovered officially, the economist covers releasing each november detailing the rothschild's agenda every year, and also the brazilian donald trump, flavio bolsonaro, winning the elections on my country, at my lowest point, I'm considering writing a goodbye letter and jumping from the top floor of my apartment building or shot at myself because I couldn’t imagine living through mass chaos, war, or global destruction at my age.

What finally made me start questioning all of this was realizing how much fear these channels rely on. Fear never ends. Dates shift. Prophecies change. Contradictions are explained away. Anyone who disagrees is labeled deceived or evil.

I also realized how trapped I became by algorithms. Once I searched these topics, they followed me everywhere.

Now, I’m trying to escape this mindset and reclaim my life. I want peace, not constant terror. I want to think clearly again.

If anyone here has gone through something similar — especially religious or apocalyptic conspiracy thinking — I would really appreciate advice on how to fully recover and let go of this fear-based worldview.

Thank you for reading.

In a discussion in [r/civilwar](r/civilwar) about a YouTube content creator. Someone is claiming a satirical character the producer created is a straw man. The character starts by repeating a comment left on a video, or a common lost cause/confederate sympathizer talking point and the discussion goes from there.

I guess my question is what is your line between satire and a straw man.

(The videos are titled Checkmate Lincolnites if anyone is interested. Highly recommended!)

Edit: I understand what a straw man and satire are. Not asking for definitions.

I always thought OJ didn't act alone. The timeline was too tight for him to have successfully disposed of the Murder Weapon.

Just because an ancient text accurately references real cities, kings, and landmarks doesn't mean its supernatural claims are true much like future archaeologists finding a Spider-Man comic shouldn't conclude Peter Parker existed just because New York City is real. Put together a short breakdown examining how this psychological bias works in religious apologetics:

Watch here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfiTBzBrpIc

Curious how you approach this distinction when debating historical grounding vs. miraculous claims?

Jay Van Bavel is professor of psychology at NYU.

Excerpt:

“I find myself in a third camp of people who harbour sincere concerns about the problems facing humanity, but worry that feelings of dread will immobilise people. Inaction is a sensible response if you are led to believe that we are past the point of no return, or that the scope of the problem is so immense that anything you do won’t make a difference.
The problem with doomerism isn’t necessarily that the risks are exaggerated, but that it may create a self-fulfilling prophecy – by engendering helplessness, rather than galvanising people.

“This aspect of human psychology has been well known for many years by experts on persuasion. When people hear messages designed to appeal to our fears, they can be moved to take action. But this only tends to work as a one-off, and only then when the messages convey a sense of efficacy – a belief that it’s still possible to make a difference. By contrast, if people are inundated with scary and overwhelming stories about the climate or AI, they tune out. Like the boy who cried wolf, those bearing these messages can quickly find themselves ignored.

“A big problem for us now, then, is that the modern information ecosystem tends to reinforce negativity. For decades, a core principle in the news business has been “if it bleeds, it leads”. This came from an understanding among journalists that humans are drawn to bad news. This principle now dominates what you see online.” Ibid.