Battling Aids In Africa

[gwprod12]

Solaar: a very good reason not to help someone even if you can is that helping them goes against your interest. You CAN rescue people from the water, thus swamping your life raft and killing all of you, or you can let those not fortunate enough to be in the life raft drown and save yourself. Thats just an example, of course. Obviously it's callous to not help someone when that help costs you nothing in resources. But that's never ever true. No matter what you do for someone else, it inevitably transfers resources from you to them. One might trade one sort of resource for another. Such as cash for good feelings. Or work for cash. But no one gives away what they have without the intent of getting something in return. If someone holds the door for you, and you storm by and say "f you" to them, then, under your system of inherent goodness of motives, the person holding the door is perfectly happy to be kicked in the teeth, as they were not expecting anything back, such as gratitude or courtesy. Simply put, no one does anything for nothing. Grandmothers give grandchildren presents because it makes them feel good to do that. People hold the door for others because they like to be appreciated for their good manners. People work to get the resources to live. Etc and so forth.

 

Why something so self-evident is "debunked" or "nonsense" is beyond me.

 

PS. I'm still waiting for a clear cut example of someone giving their resources to someone else and expecting nothing whatsoever in return. (Not gratitude, not their own warm feelings of helping someone, not services, nor reputation...)

 

XTRAA: The herb you mention has already gone through studies in the united states. It, like a million other herbs, supposedly has a "immunological activator" or some other such wording. The human immune system is incapable of winning against HIV, that is what causes AIDS. HIV inevitably overwhelms the immune system by destroying more General (T-helper) cells than are created, thus leaving the rest of the immune system in disarray. There is a strong immune response to HIV. HIV is easily destroyed by the soldier cells. Boosting the immune system in this way will not alter the prognosis of the disease. Arresting the replication of the HIV virus is the only possible way of keeping it under control. This herb might supplement someone's HIV medicine, but by itself, it can only cause someone's immune system to weaken faster than on Antiretrovirals.

 

When someone finds an herb that naturally suppresses Reverse Transcriptase and has no side effects, then we'll have something interesting.

Edited March 8, 2007 by gwprod12

[solaar]

Why something so self-evident is "debunked" or "nonsense" is beyond me.

Just because your claims are 'self-evident' to you, as they reflect your personal view (and most likely the personal view of others), does not make them universally true. The truth is, nobody precisely knows how the human mind functions in all its details by individual and why there are different reactions in different people in a given situation. Each individual's motivation why they would or would not provide help in a large number of given situations depends on a variety of parametres. It is too simplistic to boil everything down to the 'feel-good' factor.

In interviews with people who pulled somebody out of the water or the fire, replying to the question what made them do it they often state 'it was instinctive, I didn't even think' or 'I just had to do it'. It's very hard to believe that in certain situations there is even room for considering (not even unconsciously) any purely personal advantage. Another point is that many attempts to help simply fail or worse, put the helper into legal, financial or health issues. Those things happen all the time and most people are aware of it beforehand. Not so good for the ego, is it?

 

Any generalised blanket statement about how the human mind supposedly functions, basically claiming 'that's how it is', without thoroughly backing it up, other than with another blanket claim, can be classified as pseudo-science - which can be debunked.

 

In light of how you described the 'self-evidence', I could as well dumb it down and categorically claim that people who don't offer help are just lazy cowards, but I won't.

[gwprod12]

Blah. I had a whole lot written, but I realized it was pointless, and I'm worn out. Blah.

 

I just thought of something I wanted to say. You're proceeding from a false assumption. No one ever claimed that the underlying motivation was conscious.

 

When someone doesnt care about something, they usually dont weigh their own interests against it. If they did, people would care about politics, aids in africa, global warming, etc.

 

People usually care about something because they want to help. Because they want to help, they're willing to pledge some sort of resource to it. Underlying this is their motivation.

 

If you believe in the transcendental soul and such things, you almost necessarily disregard the notion of biological forces. But assuming you believe in biology, what would any creature have to gain from an action that is detrimental to itself or it's genome? Because human beings have behavior that is complicated enough to anticipate future events and make leaps of reason towards goals that are unseen, the question of survival and growth become murky. All creatures have a desire to consume, grow and multiply. Human beings have the same desires, they just channel them in different ways.

 

Disregard. I'm tired.

Edited March 8, 2007 by gwprod12

[solaar]

But assuming you believe in biology, what would any creature have to gain from an action that is detrimental to itself or it's genome?

Now you're talking. We might get a bit closer to some sort of quantifiable conclusion here if we had the time and energy to elaborate.

It could in fact become potentially detrimental to a species if any of its potent and fertile members are in any sort of danger or distress. Help/support would be an answer in this case. I reckon, by today's knowledge from observations in nature, it is safe to assume that beyond the individual instinct of self-preservation there is an instinct of preservation of the own species as a whole in many organisms. I don't think it's an absurd concept that humans are one of those and that this collective instinct as a bottom line has been worn out by cultural and sociological influences. This old instinct may then rise to the surface in certain individuals in certain situations...

Edited March 8, 2007 by solaar

[quixos]

this threads original post and purpose has been self indulgently hijacked, senselessly diverted,

rudely interrupted, thoughtlessly ignored? for anyone just checking in, i'll quote the original post.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hey this is willy from raleigh NC and I am a highschool student at Enloe HS (recently my high school has been in the national news but im using that to just gain some familarity. any way today I went to a presentation by the famous invisible children and it was so inspirational. I am currently part of a small non profit organization called BAIA pronounced Bay-ah which stands for Battling Aids in Africa. I am sort of a designer so i'm helping make our website. I am an active member of the insanely mac community and I know that it is so easy to spend hours and hours doing cool stuff with your computer and learning about mac and windows and i find this a valuable thing to do, but i thought of an idea to help out the world and this is the first place I wanted to ask. I know that so many of you are designers and just creative individuals, so I would like to request (for now) if anyone could design a powerful logo that either just says BAIA or has a meaningful logo attached. I will work on expanding this idea to bigger design efforts, but for right now it is just for BAIA. I know that this isnt the ideal place to post this comment so also if anyone could tell me a highly viewed site that I can post this sort of thing on that I will get lots of sincere responces that would also be great. thank you just for reading this and if you can help that would be much appreciated by all.

[xtraa]

Yea

 

and just as I said, the herbal I mentioned wont heal anything. But it costs zero and will give people infected with HIV a normal life.

 

Nothing else does all the chemicals do, that are sold by the big medicine companies.

 

Same {censored}, different name - but - 4 free

[gwprod12]

I dont get it. HIV medicines dont do what you're claiming this herb does, and this herb doesnt do what HIV medicines do. So, while it's free, it actually doesnt do anything towards extending life.

 

Basicly what I'm saying is that it's analogous to having a broken leg. That hurts. You can go to the doctor and get a cast, or you can load up on painkillers.

 

If you get a cast and no painkillers, it's going to hurt a lot. If you take painkillers without a caste, you may end up with a horribly disjointed bone, or possibly even gangrene (and die).

 

The Herb might help people live without side effects, or possibly feel better, but it does nothing to address the underlying issue. When HIV has destroyed your body's ability to marshall it's defenses, no boost in the immune system will help. You cannot fight off disease. And you will inevitably die of one.

 

HIV is actually misunderstood. It doesnt really destroy your immune system itself, it destroys the marshalling cells. So, while you still have most of your immune system, without the ability to instruct the killer cells and other microbe-defeating defenders, they just roam around doing nothing. HIV needs to be kept in check with medicines that specifically target it's ability to reproduce, otherwise it inevitably overwhelms the immune system.

 

One of the problems with fighting AIDS in africa is that because HIV has no ability to spell-check it's genetic code, it mutates very rapidly. HIV medicines (such as protease inhibiters and reverse transcriptase inhibitors) must be administered a set number of times per day, every day, forever. If you miss doses for whatever reason, the drugs become worthless, as HIV mutates into a resistant strain. Poor people with bad access to clinics and no watches cannot effectively keep up with the regimen even if they could afford it.

[wonkajh]

TIA - That is Africa.

 

hell, if among the causes of the transmittal of such is culture - then let them rot with that culture, there is nothing we can do about it.

 

but if they are willing to change, then they may have a chance.

 

on the other hand....aids is kinda scary....although we have the intent to help, we dont know how anyway.

 

Did you not read my initial post?

 

All this talk and no help you guys are so smart but so easily distracted. the website is battlingaids.org if you want more information. im suprised thats all i have to say.

[xtraa]

I dont get it. HIV medicines dont do what you're claiming this herb does, and this herb doesnt do what HIV medicines do. So, while it's free, it actually doesnt do anything towards extending life.

...

 

The Herb might help people live without side effects, or possibly feel better, but it does nothing to address the underlying issue. When HIV has destroyed your body's ability to marshall it's defenses, no boost in the immune system will help. You cannot fight off disease. And you will inevitably die of one.

 

We had a documentary on the science channel here, and they were reporting about a young mother and her child, both hiv positive. The camera team was anttended to them for 24 month. At the beginning, they were very weak, not able to walk and very thin. Today they look like everybody else.

 

You know, I really don't care what this herbal does as long as it works. And I think Mbwege something and her child does not care, too

 

And because they anyway don't have an alternative through the lack of money, I think it is a good thing.

 

[gwprod12]

Granted, it's better than nothing to live healthy for a short time than live unhealthy for a short time.

 

Granted, it's better than nothing to live healthy for a short time than live unhealthy for a short time.