alt Hacker News> the strong aversion people have for things not being "proven" by western science
What does “western” have to do with anything? There is plenty of pseudoscience, snake oil and magical thinking in the west. I’d wish people were much more skeptical of anything not scientifically proven.
Or do you imply there is a racist component to it? That could certainly be true.
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cyberpunk • last Wednesday at 6:19 PM
Things that don’t get concrete results for people tend not to survive 2000+ years, like meditation, taichi/qigong/whatever; so i don’t think some things really need scientific proof. Even then, how do you scientifically prove if something makes you feel better who really cares if it’s x or y receptor or brainwave pattern or whatever?
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> There is plenty of pseudoscience, snake oil and magical thinking in the west
This is it exaclty. These folks always forget that it's not the only idea we've heard today. It's basic cost/benefit. This takes 45 minutes to an hour to try out. If it works you "feel better" where "better" is hard to define. Cost = 45 minutes. Benefit = Meh.
Since there are about 1 billion things in the world that claim to make me "feel better" at a cost of 45 minutes each I have to really narrow my focus. I can't spend 45 billion minutes for "Meh."
In my case this made enough sense that I tried it when I was young and liked it. A lot of folks spent those 45 minutes on something else that seemed more likely to succeed. It's perfectly rational.