Lurkers, Whores and Dunces

A few observations. Down through history writing has been a solitary activity. Occasionally you will see a book with two authors. Probably, for every one of these that makes it to print, a dozen fail to make it as far as chapter three.

I have done a certain amount of ghost writing and editing of the works of others over the decades. I have never allowed my name to be coupled to the originator of the work; not on the book jacket, not in the preface, introduction or the acknowledgement. The credit or blame for the work belong to the author. I have done nothing more than landscape the intellectual garden.

I don’t often pair up with the author and help hammer out the lines as they form. It is not because I don’t like the idea of writing cooperatively. I like it very much. It just doesn’t usually turn out to be a painless experience.

When I first started looking at the internet forums I had considerable hope that some dialogues and multi-logues would develop in which the various participants would contribute meaningfully to further understanding. I had not anticipated so much jibber and jabber, so little real structure and meaning.

That is not to say that on a health related forum for example, you can not get useful and practical information. You are just going to have to search through a great deal of material of no value whatsoever. Social chat. Illogic of substantial proportions. And things that are just patently irrefutably wrong.

Of the forums I visited, only one prompted me to stick around for more than a few weeks. Skin Cell Forum. In the past 600 days, I have posted on a wide variety of different subjects in some depth. Close to 1300 posts so far, mostly on general health , treatment and nutrition. Few of my posts were just chat.

Then early this year I thought that maybe if I put up Eureka Ideas Unlimited as a blog, I would increase the scope of the previously local think-tank of collegiate level intellectuals and innovators discussing pressing problems and potential solutions. Almost a year has gone by. Not a single meaningful extended dialogue has developed.

My early notion that forums and blogs might to some extent remedy the solitary element of writing did not pan out. That is probably in part due to my lack of internet skills with tags, meta-tags, attracting search engine spiders, and so on.

Another thing may contribute to the lack of participation, and this is my fault for sure. Although I deal with ideas, problems needing solution, invention or innovation and creativity, and other notions for which the facts are still not entirely known, my opinions are sometimes strongly held, and rather sharply expressed.

I am not always successful in toning this down. For me, a certain amount of debate sharpens the wits and keeps us on our toes. I will sometimes even defend a working hypothesis almost as if it were an entirely self-evident proven fact. My opponent/colleague should go for the throat anytime I do this.

On the good side, the blog is a good place for me to further polish some of the ideas I am currently working on , and is also a convenient place for me to expose the ideas and discoveries that no longer seem speculative, in which the potential for harm is nil. One such solution is the prevention of airborne viral infections like colds and flu, and the reduction of allergic symptoms of exposure to airborne allergens. I could just put the link to it right here. It has a thread on Skin Cell and an essay here as well. But if you are not motivated to look through my archives here, or find the thread in the General Health section on Skin Cell Forum, you would not actually engage in the two minutes or less per day that it would take to protect yourself.

My most active work these days is in less well developed and long standing form. My ideas on alternatives to surgical intervention for cataracts, and in the alternative treatment of periodontal disease and other issues such as immunology and ageing are still in development.

In cataracts, my ideas show early indicators of success. My enthusiasm has grown with these subtle improvements, but not to the point that I am ready to shout from the rooftops that I have the answer. I am simply very encouraged about how things are going.

In immunology and ageing, my ideas also seem to be working well, but my activities in this field have only accelerated recently. The results I have already experienced seem quite favorable. But it is easy to jump to conclusions. I might conceivably have been just as robustly healthy at the age of 66 without the variety of interventions I have been employing. No way to know. Could be just placebo effect or the power of positive thinking. I have deep suspicion and caution about the medical/pharmaceutical/governmental structures which damage our health as often as they enhance it. These things all muddy up the water.

I will only talk about these working solutions to problems when I am confident that their value is unambiguous, and have considered the unexpected social consequences of their use on a large scale.

Almost half a century ago President Eisenhower gave a dire warning about the “military-industrial complex.” (This speech is in my archives here.) It was a notably prescient warning And considering his political party, even though Eisenhower was leaving the Presidency and seemingly had nothing more to lose, considering those volatile political times, the speech was a very courageous one, and deserves another look, particularly in view of present events.

But I would like to paraphrase that one term, military-industrial complex, broadening it to encompass the real scope of the enemy. It should be called the Regulatory-Industrial Complex. The evils go well beyond the military.

The tentacles of this cancer are strangling us just as effectively in the fields of medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, and the insurance business as well. Our legislators pay “lip service” to these industries and are paid for their efforts far better than our ladies of the evening get for oral ministrations to their clients.