MLM scams, work from home scams, and a company called 4life research.
Offline I like taking down pseudo scientific claims especially when they hit this close to home. My mom is very naive and gullible and joined this company called 4life. They make all sorts of "natural" products that are supposed to boost your immune system and provide better health and weight loss. Some go as far as to claim to prevent cancer and have "anti" cancer treatments. To make things worse they require sign up fees and they go by a point system where the morons who sign up have to find other morons to try and sell there placebo products. My mother is religious and I believe because of this she is particularly susceptible to stupid pyramid schemes. This is probably the 3rd or 4th company she joins where they claim you will be rich in a year. I'm tired of people taking advantage of ignorance and making all sorts of ridiculous promises. This is almost as bad as scientology and it needs to stop, what do you guys think? I went to one of there meetings just to see how indoctrinated these people really where. That shit was like a Hitler youth rally, they promised the world to everyone there and the "top" people where relentless in their attempts to convince everyone. Most of the people there where over 30 and probably very religious, they also seemed very ignorant in terms of understanding science. I just took some medicine for my back pain and it's making me really dizzy excuse my poor grammar and punctuation, I'm usually a decent writer. Check out the website
Here is there main claim to fame. "Memory molecules." Never heard of that in biology class, although i'm no scientist.
Transfer factors are molecules found within the immune systems of all mammals and birds. Dubbed “the memory molecules,” transfer factors serve as important components of the immune system throughout your entire life.
In 1998, 4Life licensed the patent to extract transfer factors from cow colostrum. In the years that followed, 4Life launched new products, stabilized transfer factors in liquid form, patented the extraction of transfer factors from chicken egg yolks, and combined our two sources for a truly synergistic formula.
And believe that if the claims are assertive enough, and sound authoritative, well goshdarnit--why not? In absence of knowlege, why not think you can take vitamins, and sell vitamins, and not be merely healthy--but super-healthy?
I dislike this con most of all because it preys on the "timor mortis". People don't want to die, and fearing death, they will do stupid stuff. Even blow a few hundge a month on capsules that make your pee convincingly greener. I think older people are especially susceptible because of that.
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
--Ben Franklin
What? Appendix is one of places, where immunity cells gets some sort of "training" so they can better distinguish enemy bacteries. After all, it's connected to the bodily region full of shit. I never heard about any "memory molecules". If our immunity system would have "memory molecules", then why would we need the appendix, spleen, and system of lymphatic nodes?
These "pyramid games" must be ended, the only who gets ever rich, is a person on the top. It's really worse than scientology, scientologists didn't spread much here, (only 4 churches totally, in 4 greater cities) but these companies are like plague. This scheme is on everything, specially on various healthy stuff, and since revolution, they ripped off many people and created several scandals. Dunno why people didn't understand it yet, whatever the company is, when it has this pyramid structure, then everyone on the bottom (read: you) will be victims.
For example, the accurst David Wagner and his company brainwashing people into buying "tachyonized" junk, which gets untachyonized (whatever it is) soon enough after a sale, so people must go and buy another. It's similar con like european cars, which are precisely designed to break apart after a time period good for market.
Our civil association, among many other activities, ocassionally sells some ecologic inland-made highly efficient washing and cleaning liquids and other sorts of stuff, (on very small scale) but we're not limited by this pyramid scheme of the mentioned companies, we can sell where and what we want. Scammers, on the other side, has their massive brainwashing campaigns and they make someone rich.
Reiki technique is distributed, taught and sold in a similar way. I don't say it's bad or it doesn't work, it works, it's just not the greatest wonder in the world, it's actually relatively low energy, good for beginners who wants to try some spiritual healing and have the money.
I believe with the advent of acid, we discovered new ways to think and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts of mind. Why is it that people are so afraid of it ? What is it about it that scares people so deeply? Because they are afraid that there is more to reality than they have ever confronted. That there are doors that they are afraid to go in and they don't want us to go in there either because if we go in, there we might learn something that they don't know. And that makes us a little out of their control."
Anything with the word "synergy", "synergistic" or any variant thereof usually translates to BULLSHIT.
Idiocracy was not a documentary; Can we please keep it that way?
Not necessarily. The term transcriptional synergy is very common in genetics. But it has a real meaning. If we take an activator gene-regulatory protein and its associated gene control region, and artificially attach more of the same modules under the same gene control region, then the transcription rate of that particular gene will rise, but the increase in rate of transcription is greater than the sum increase in transcription rate generated by each activator protein. This holds true for any combinatorial control pattern that activates genes, and is therefore called transcriptional synergy.
Thus we encounter books that use quantum mechanics as a justification for an array of metaphysical and spiritual beliefs written by people who would be unable to interpret a Feynman diagram or recognize, much less solve, a simple work function problem, articles smugly asserting that certain structures and organisms could not possibly have evolved, whose authors would be unable to draw a Punnett Square, brazen proclamations that evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics from people who would be unable to calculate enthalpy changes, use the combined gas law or solve a simple problem of dynamic equilibrium
-Me
Notice I said usually. Synergy is often used as a buzzword by motivational corporate speakers, PR people, and marketing droids.
Idiocracy was not a documentary; Can we please keep it that way?
Amway, SMC, and all the "realty" scams are designed for one thing, to make the producers of such rich. If you read the fine print "Results may vary".
They are in good company though, the father of all scams is "Indulgences" cooked up by the church in the dark ages.
It wasn't wishful thinking that that dragged humanity out of the caves, it was brave questioning and introspection.
One of the places where the group of 4life people gather to brainwash each other is actually in church. Pretty funny, it's amazing that they can't see the connection. Some of them claim to have expensive cars, boats , take vacations. They seem to repeat exactly what the recruiters tell them.
Yea, when someone is trying to direct market to you, sell a direct marketing "opportunity", or make a "once in a lifetime offer" run like hell. If they use the word "synergy" or a variant, run like hell and don't stop.
The best thing about owning an MLM, is if you have someone in your life you are looking to get rid of...
I have a reccuring nightmare where I am stuck in an elevator with a Jehovah's Witness, and Insurance Salesman, and an Amway representative.
www.unlearnnow.com
My mum was into get-rich-quick schemes like Amway and Omegatrend (I think that was it). I went to one of their promotional things with her, it was very evangelical, hype you right up so that you feel the energy of the crowd and sign up type stuff. She kept trying to sign me up. Last time I told her I would sign up after she got rich...
Zen-atheist wielding Occam's katana.
Jesus said, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." - Luke 12:51