When I was 11 or 12 I was put on anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medications (some off label). Several years later, it's discovered the company had illegally marketed one of the drugs to minors and it had developed into negative side effects in some patients, for which there was a class action lawsuit. Luckily, I never developed said side effects personally, but it did leave a level of distrust with pharma companies and to an extant the medical field
I mean big pharma creates mistrust time after time. Look up Bayer selling HIV infected blood products in Africa after removing it from the North American market.
Opiates were marketed as sleeping aid for babies.
Synthetic opiates, such as tramadol were marketed not to be addictive that turned out to be a lie.
Many medications were taken of the market due to side effects, and often the pharmaceutical company knew and downplayed the side effects.
Anti-depressants were also supposed to be safe and non addicting, but withdrawals are actually insane.
I have been nearly crippled by an antibiotic and again side effects are downplayed, and FDA is updating the label year after year adding more and more side effects and not recommending the medication as first line treatment anymore.
It's also an issue that sometimes statistically insignificant adverse side effects can be successfully used to litigate against pharma companies.
For example as a teenager, I desperately needed accutane. Other solutions weren't working and some had actually more severe side effects than accutane; one tetracycline gave me heartburn so severe I basically couldn't eat anything, whereas the most accutane did was dry out my skin.
But because of studies that found a link to increased rates of depression/suicide among people taking accutane, it took years for me to work my way up to taking it, with very bad damage to my self esteem over that time. And if you look up the studies that promote this link, they are obviously not properly controlled, because they compare accutane users to the general population, and not to a subpopulation that has acne bad enough to need accutane. Which is dumb because lots of people (like me) who were taking accutane already had depression not because of the medicine, but in part due to very low self esteem and social ostracization due to the acne that was bad enough to warrant taking that drug.
So the symptom they were trying to prevent was something I already had, and withholding the drug because of concerns about that symptom contributed to making the symptom even worse for me.
To contrast your experience, I was prescribed an oral retinoid as a teenager. As someone who was already depressed, what followed was one of the worst depressive episodes of my life.
There's definitely a fine line to walk between effective treatment and harm reduction when it comes to that class of medication.
Sorry to hear about your experience. I hope things are better now.
Do you think you got any benefit from the aforementioned medications? If you did then maybe it was luck that you did not incur the negative side effects and yes, any profit generating device is to be a a bit distrusted and treated with somewhat skepticism.
> any profit generating device is to be a a bit distrusted and treated with somewhat skepticism.
Yes, but I feel that these days, at least on the internet, speaking with skepticism about medicine and pharma companies will have people equating you with anti-vaxxers, given the arguments are often similar
Conspiracists are not skeptics. Skeptics question commonly accepted beliefs to arrive at a deeper understanding of those beliefs, while conspiracy theorists replace commonly accepted beliefs with less commonly accepted alternatives with only superficial scrutiny of either. The conspiracists takes a dogmatic stance of opposition while the skeptic sees adherence to dogma as a pitfall to be avoided.
How about, instead of putting derogatory labels on people to belittle their efforts to understand truth, we all simply strive for truth?
> The conspiracists takes a dogmatic stance
What, all of them? And who are the "conspiracists"? Those who disbelieve the 9/11 myth, who question the long-term health effects of drugging water systems, who question the safety of wireless transmitters installed in every cubic inch of the world, who see through war propaganda and manufactured history? There are a thousand more "trigger topics".
All of these people are the same, huh? Dogmatic dolts who can't do research? Dummies who don't accept official narratives simply because they're trouble-makers?
The power system maintains its stranglehold over the population because our implicit slavery has been normalized. Is there any earthly reason why we should have billionaires next to people starving to death? We accept this because it has been normalized. There has always been a war on information, but we finally have the means to take back control. But in order to do so, we have to want it.
I've found that individuals in physical or psychological pain tend to have limited capacities for criticality while also searching for solutions to their pain. 9/11 and anti-vax conspiracies can be attributed to this. Having two skyscrapers fall on your neighborhood has to be traumatizing and finding out your child is not what you expected her to be is no walk in the park.
The largest source of trauma in the country right now is school gun violence. The gun control movement being led by the traumatized victims of gun violence, regardless of it's ultimate effectiveness, is the healthiest response to trauma I've seen in the US.
It took suburban middle class children access to therapists, to start moving that conversation towards a place of sanity. If their pain never subsists, what kind of adults do you think they'll be?
lol I went to a local music venue a few weeks back and tried this. After inquiring about one guys shirt, he started at me for a few seconds like I was insane and turned around
I'm from the south and visited Boston earlier this year and I feel like people really overdo the whole "southerners are overly nice and in your business" and "northerners are cold, uninterested and busy". People we're equally nice in both places and we had some nice, brief conversations with strangers. A friend of mine who I was with is German and he seemed to think people were exceedingly friendly
The article is basically talking about the economic advantages enjoyed by better educated people. It does go into the factors that influence who gets to have easier or harder access to better education.
I'll believe it, the problem is I'm rarely in a situation where I'm near people and have the time to chat. The only times I've talked to strangers, have been, for example, when a crosswalk signal is taking an unusually long time to change. I'm normally at work or at home, and when I'm out, it's normally to quickly grab something to return to one of the two.
Also it's so much easier to strike up a conversation with one stranger rather than a group (which is what I usually encounter going out leisurely. Oddly I found the opposite with established friends / acquaintances. I can talk and converse with a group of my now friends much better than a single friend
I've never taken Amtrak, but from what I understand, it's not that great outside the northeast megalopolis. Every time I've looked at their site, it's always been only barely cheaper than flying and often has no trains to a destination I search. Especially if that destination is not a huge city
Outside the Northeast Corridor, you're absolutely right, it's not great.
Acela runs inside the Northeast Corridor, however, and for that market even the current version is pretty compelling. I take it periodically to travel between DC and NYC; it costs approximately the same as flying, but offers wide seats with built-in power sockets, lets you get up and stretch your legs if you want to, and doesn't require you to run the ridiculous security gauntlet that's mandatory at airports. Plus it drops you right in midtown Manhattan, so if you're there on business getting to where you probably want to go is easier and cheaper than it would be from an airport.
The main downsides are that it's a little slower than flying (though if you include time spent dealing with airport security the difference narrows), the trains are starting to show their age a little, and in NYC they drop you at Penn Station, which is a structure straight out of Dante's Inferno. New, faster trains would help ameliorate two of these three problems. (I'm not sure anything could be done to improve Penn Station, except maybe burning it to the ground and salting the earth it stood on.)
I took the NE Regional last weekend and I was honestly really impressed. The WiFi was fast enough, seat was comfortable and it was remarkably on time.
I'm planning a trip to NYC in a few weeks and I realized that LGA to midtown Manhattan costs about $50 via UberX each way the Acela ends up being as expensive or cheaper while still being faster!
Yeah, the Northeast Regional is a little slower than Acela, and the train cabins are a little dowdier, but other than that it's not bad either. And it can be significantly cheaper than Acela, so if you're not tightly scheduled it can be very attractive.
> Former Delta Airlines CEO, Richard Anderson, now runs Amtrak. He said the new Acela is "incredibly important" to the future of the company.
> "It really lays out a clear vision for what short haul, inter-city passenger rail transportation can do for this country. And this country is going to need it in more and more corridors because millennials don't want to drive and you cannot add enough lane miles for 100 million more people," Anderson said.
I was in a bind the other day and needed to travel ~30 miles between two midwest cities (on the Texas Eagle train). Grandmother drove to hospital, I drove her and her car home, and then grabbed an Amtrak ticket (on Amtrak.com, excellent purchase UX) back to the hospital to get my car; total cost was $8.50 and I didn't even need to present my ticket to the conductor at boarding, just my last name. National treasure.
Do trains have an uphill battle in car and air travel centric America? Most definitely. But the value is there, and this article explains why that value should be nurtured and grown.
"Cheaper" isn't a huge component of Amtrak's value proposition. It's usually slightly cheaper than flying, but not much.
The reason to take the train (for me) is that it tends to be much more comfortable and lower-stress than flying or driving. Sometimes it's faster than flying (over short distances).
There are many factors that can spoil this value prop - delays, crowded cars, lack of connectors requiring bus transfers, all of which happen with regularity. Even so, I'll always prefer taking a train over flying and driving as long as it's convenient to do so.
The Cascades line in the PNW is top notch. Taking the train from Vancouver to Seattle/Portland is a far better experience than flying or driving. Wifi, big seats with lots of legroom, easy customs, dining car, train leaves and arrives downtown - I highly recommend it.
The one advantage I've heard about taking the train is that prices are usually flat. If you need to book a trip the next day you will pay through the nose for most airfare. Train trips on the other hand will mostly be the same price no matter when you book. Aside from that small exception, air travel is MUCH faster/cheaper/convenient.
I have taken probably 15 Acela rounds trips in the last 3 years between Boston and NYC for work and I personally find it more convenient than flight travel.
In my case, it's easier for me to get to South Station in Boston than to get to Logan Airport. The seats and accommodations are much better on a train, much less stressful and easier boarding process (and I have precheck). I have never had an issue finding overheard space. Once in NYC, it's also easier to get to the part of Manhattan that I need to than any NYC airport. Flying is still a little faster, but my employer encourages we travel during work hours, so I don't mind the extra time for the better experience.
Obviously if I was going all the way to DC from Boston, it would't make as much sense, but since NYC is close enough, speed is basically a wash.
Next-day train tickets do increase in price, particularly on these Acela lines. However you do escape the aggressively hyperoptimized pricing for airlines, and fares become flat once you're booking about a week ahead.
It isn't for everyone. If you are traveling with a bicycle or other heavy luggage it makes sense. For the same price as a plane ticket + bicycle charges you could get a room on Amtrak. This makes even more sense if you are a bicycling couple.
You can sit in your private compartment and drink your own bottle. When you arrive you are already downtown with your own bicycle.
Amtrak between LA and San Diego (and even Santa Barbara) is very convenient if your destination is within walking/biking/bus/trolley range of downtown.
> I feel the same way. I went straight into the workforce with 17. Now 5 years later I feel like I absolutely need that degree to advance my career or to simply avoid my resume being thrown out.
> However, I bet the end result will be that I will work on the same trivial web applications as I am doing right now but with a pay bump and more opportunities during the job hunt.
I started working in the field professionally around 18 or 19, and I'm begging to fear this same thing. If I do decide to go back to school, it'd be in hopes that I can escape subfields that bore me to death, but I feel the reality is that there just really isn't any real job market for the things I'm interested in.
That's why I don't mention being self taught anywhere in a resume. If it comes up in a phone screen or interview I'll explain, but other that, I hope "out of site, out of mind" will come into play
