mythness

5 Depressing Realities Behind Popular Reality TV Shows Show this article to anyone you know who is hooked on reality TV shows. Maybe a little revelation will change their viewing habits. I'm sure this list would be a hundred times longer if they included every televised reality show, but these five are enough to make a point. While the shows may tug at the heart strings for many people and make an impact, the viewers are not aware of what goes on behind the scenes and after the cameras are done filming. Use this article as a wake-up call for others. I'm sure the people of the FDR community won't be surprised, so this post is not a surprise to you guys; I just figure it might help you convince someone else to quit fooling themselves and wasting their time with reality TV shows on the deceptive premise of witnessing good things happen to other people. The one about Oprah's free-car giveaways is basically legal IRS mumbo-jumbo and word-play.

Your opening post read "conflict and violence" which is why I implied that "aggresive conflicts will be a thing of the past." Sure, conflicts may still exist in one form or another, but they will likely be dealt peacefully with negotiation and cooperation. As for "everyone parenting the same way" by "same way" I mean with the same principles of unconditional parenting. Take school as an analogy. My problem with school is not so much the teaching methods or the text books or even the teachers themselves. My problem with school, in general, is that it is involuntary. Completely voluntary education is the only possibility that would respect individual liberty and property rights. How each school or institution in such a society "educates" the young is anyone's guess, and it doesn't really matter. What matters is that it is voluntary. Going back to parenting, the different styles and methods are not as important, as long as they share a principle in common: the same (or greater) respect for the child as for any fellow adult; a respect for the child's developing mind and body; unconditional love. As Stef mentioned before, how we raise our kids is the most important application of the non-aggression principle. I hate to use the "slavery" argument again, but it's the best way to illustrate this point. "If the slaves are freed, how will we pick the cotton or harvest the crops?" "It doesn't matter. The point is that slavery is immoral. How will the cotton be picked? I don't know how, but I do know how it won't be picked: using slaves." I don't accept that kids must be exposed to some violence or aggression or shame or anything punitive in order to "vaccinate" them for the "real world". There is no justification for it. It is wrong, on principle. If it becomes such a problem (unlikely) for a child raised peacefully/unconditionally, he can always choose to sign up for self-defense classes; just like I can always choose to learn a new language if it's really worth it to me.

Such problems become a non-issue when nearly all the people are raised the same way. If nearly an entire population of people are raised in the same manner (peaceful parenting, unconditional parenting, whatever you want to call it), then the issue of dealing with violent, aggressive conflicts will be a thing of the past. Besides, no one would use the argument that a young girl should be sexually and physically abused, just a little bit, in order to prepare her for an abusive relationship in her adult life, even if the odds of her falling victim to an abusive husband is significantly high.

I highly, highly, recommend Alfie Kohn's book, Unconditional Parenting. It's short, rich in content, backed by studies, and gets straight to the point with no holds barred! (Pun intended?) Seriously. Grab this book from Amazon.com or get it on your e-book reader or whatever. To just focus on whether or not a child is spanked is narrow sighted. Kohn makes the argument against any form of conditional parenting, including: spanking timeouts or leaving the room any punitive measures ignoring your child material rewards psychological rewards presenting limited choices et al Not exactly a libertarian or anarchist, he doesn't come to the logical conclusion against the state or welfare services; however, his ideas on parenting can be used to understand why any form of conditional parenting is less than ideal. So, in short, just because a kid wasn't spanked doesn't mean much. I agree that it's better (for moral and practical reasons) not to spank a child, but it's not the only thing that must be changed in the way people parent the young.

If you don't want to download the PDF, you can read the entire book in your browser here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/52782418/Good-Teeth-Birth-To-Death-How-To-Remineralize-Teeth-Dr-Gerard-Judd-Nc001

I'm out after this, but I wanted to throw out another book about fluoride. It was written by the chemist Gerard Judd, who explains that fluoride ruptures the hydrogen bonds of enzymes and proteins, as well as competes with calcium in forming tooth enamel. (Fluoride does "harden" the enamel, at the cost of making it more brittle, due to its size.) Fluoride being put into the water supply does have quite an odd history, which you are probably familiar with. It started with the fertilizer industry (as well as other industries) that needed to find a way to get rid of this toxic byproduct. Dumping it into the sea or local rivers and lakes was not an option (and would have been extremely hazardous). The best part is, this book (PDF) is free and has no copyright: Good Teeth, Birth to Death It's filled with studies and statistics that destroy the myth how fluoride is essential for tooth health.

Not a biochemist myself, either, but I realized (as with many other things) I was either not being told the whole truth or being outright lied to. Reminds me of my conversion to anarchism and voluntarism. What you said above is pretty much on the money. Free amino acids are not the same as proteins. Those in industry and government will repeat the mantra "a protein is a protein is a protein", just like they used to say (and sometimes still say) "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" or "a carb is a carb is a carb." Just ask a diabetic's opinion about carbohydrates and the glycemic index. He won't tell you "it's all the same." In fact, the concept behind a food's GI value, whether you find it important or not, is not about the total amount of carbs, but rather how quickly they are absorbed from the gut. Whole proteins from real food take longer to digest and they almost always contain a mixture of amino acids. (They differ in three-dimensional structure as well.) I've never eaten a cut of meat that was made of only one or two specific amino acids. Much less important than the early "spikes" you get from aspartame or MSG (monosodium glutamate) is the ratio of certain amino acids to each other: Muscle meats have a lower ratio of glycine compared to gelatinous parts, such as gelatin, collagen, skin, and bone broths, which not only have much glycine compared to the other amino acids, but they also contain no tryptophan. So it's a good idea to eat gelatin here and there if you eat a lot of muscle meats. Or take dairy for example. Certain cheeses contain no whey protein, and hence have a lower ratio of tryptophan compared to milk, and especially compared to whey protein powders. Like I said, this is not nearly as important as the more obvious, unnatural spikes you get from aspartame and MSG. Aspartame is an even more interesting case, since it also releases methanol, not bound by fruit pectin. This may even be the darker side of the sweetener. It is also the same reason why certain supplements might want to be avoided, such as amino acid chelates or 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan). In the case of the former, you are essentially ingesting free amino acids. Makers of 5-HTP will even warn that some or most of the 5-HTP will convert to serotonin in the gut before reaching the brain. They may have special "blends" to overcome this. Instead of amino acid chelates, it's probably wiser to just get calcium and other minerals in salt forms, such as calcium carbonate, calcium gluconate, calcium citrate; or even in food-like supplements, like algae. Of course, the best "form"of minerals is... food. Don't forget that a population's tolerance to toxins is usually in a bell curve. Most people are somewhat tolerant, some people are very resiliant, and some people are more sensitive. Those on the fart left of the curve can't be ignored. Here is another angle from an endocrinologist you might enjoy reading: http://raypeat.com/articles/aging/tryptophan-serotonin-aging.shtml His articles can be long and dry, but they are worth reading. Another favorite by food inustry and government is that many food additives are safe because they come from "natural sources" and are "too large to absorb": http://raypeat.com/articles/nutrition/carrageenan.shtml Have fun.

At this point I give up. I don't know if you're being serious or not.

It's not that complicated, and the onus is one the person (or group) introducing a synthetic food additive to demonstrate its safety; especially longterm safety, which is very hard to establish. Aspartame contains aspartic acid (excitatory) and methanol (easily released into the blood and the cells.) In fruits and alcoholic drinks, methanol is bound with pectin or countered by ethanol. Not so with aspartame. In whole foods, proteins (large and complex) are slowly digested, with steady absorption of individual amino acids into the blood. Not so with aspartame. You get a spike of aspartic acid, unlike with whole foods; especially on an empty stomach (e.g., drinking a Diet Coke at home.) Like glutamic acid, this amino acid is excitatory, causing your neurons to fire with greater frequency. In fact, even whole foods are not that safe, such as when consuming too much muscle meat, since the amino acid profile is unhealthy in of itself. Aspartame is a quick shot of aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and free methanol. One drink isn't going to kill you, but drinking it regularly... well, you get the idea. The same harm applies to longterm consumption of great amounts of muscle meats. The difference is that while muscle meats contain a harmful amino acid profile, they are released together steadily into the blood, unlike aspartame. This doesn't even take into consideration the possible synergestic affect of aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. No thanks, I won't be drinking any aspartame any time soon. Not missing on much, if you ask me.