TIL: Baby, did you forget to take your meds?
“Real” is what happens, not how it happened. - Seth Godin
Image Credit
The merits of the above statement may be debatable, but what is not is the uncomfortable truth that it requires us to examine.
Mainly, what is "real".
For more on this I would suggest the following place to start:
“Truth is what corresponds to its referent. Truth about reality is what corresponds to the way things really are. Truth is “telling it like it is.” This correspondence applies to abstract realities as well as actual ones. There are mathematical truths. There are also truths about ideas. In each case there is a reality, and truth accurately expresses it.” - Source
Absent a lengthy discussion on truth, we will proceed to the impetus of our post, that being placebos.
Source
A few days ago, I awoke to find this post from Seth Godin in my inbox.
Again with the truth thing, Seth says: “Truth is real, it's measurable and it happened. Truth is not in the eye of the beholder.”
Yet, Seth says: “Placebos work.”
And there he links to this article: Thinking about placebos (a new ebooklet).
Once there you can download a super short, about 25 page, PDF article that explains what caused me to include this in the TIL category.
A brief aside, I am not sure “Today I Learned” is the best description, because sometimes it was “yesterday” that I learned, or “today I re-learned” or better yet, “today I was reminded about…”
Anyways, it didn’t take long to read about the placebo effect (again) and be reminded of its powers.
This familiar graphic has an interesting finding by Seth accompanying it:
Source
“The thing is, as we move up the pyramid, as things like access to air and water and health become less urgent, the placebo becomes ever more effective. Source
There you have it, I learned something useful about placebos and hope you did too.
As I like to end all my TIL post, I try to connect it back to steemit in some way, today my questions are:
Did you know this already or are you just learning about placebos?
How can we or should we use placebos to market Steemit as a better alternative to other social media websites or STEEM as a better cryptocurrency?
Follow me @strangerarray and donate because I can provide a placebo effect for you if you ask.
We give our children real meds and tell them they are placebo, that way they get all the benefits without the guilt
Although placebos work, Seth's PDF suggest useful guidance for their ethical implementation.