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Re:"God help you. You're on dialysis." by Mz on Sunday November 21, 2010 @03:27PM (#1927801)
A) I wasn't arguing for or against any particular solution. I was only thinking out loud about what may be at the root of these persistent American patterns.

B) Having very successfully raised and homeschooled two special needs kids and largely resolved my supposedly unresolvable health issues, I have found that wondering why people do the seemingly "stupid" things they do is more valuable and productive than just condemning them for their stupidity and insisting they do...whatever my personal bias suggests is "the right thing" when I don't even know what is really causing the problem.

C) Our cultural attitudes may well be harming us as a nation and as individuals. That doesn't necessarily mean that what works for other nations will be our salvation.

If you want my opinion on some possible viable solutions: What I am finding is that a lot of people, regardless of intelligence level, are using the internet to do their own research and find solutions that work better than what doctors are generally telling them. I also toy with the idea of creating a simulation (aka "game") to teach other people who may not be as capable as I am of figuring it out from scratch how to achieve similar results anyway. There are substantial obstacles to me getting that done. I don't know if I can overcome them in addition to my daily battle to overcome my genetic disorder. I suppose time will tell.

Re:"God help you. You're on dialysis." by rdtsc on Sunday November 21, 2010 @03:50PM (#1927842)
> I also toy with the idea of creating a simulation (aka "game") to teach other people who may not be as capable as I am of figuring it out from scratch how to achieve similar results anyway.

That is interesting. I know the military is trying this. They have a limited amount of time to teach a larger and larger amount of things to new recruits. They are experimenting with VR environments.

But I can see how that could be applied to other things. Perhaps a sim environment that lets someone see how molecules interact.

Re:"God help you. You're on dialysis." by Mz on Sunday November 21, 2010 @04:01PM (#1927863)
My ex was career military, so I am familiar with the fact that they do this sort of thing. It is one reason I take it seriously as a potential educational medium: The military has some very solid practices, in part because lives are stake. Similarly, lives are stake with health issues.

I am not really thinking in terms of how molecules interact. I am thinking in terms of how to convey the means to avoid exposure to germs/toxins/etc and also how to convey the subtle cumulative impacts of dietary choices. I think many people prefer pills to dietary changes because the difference a pill makes is readily recognizable whereas dietary impacts are far subtler and easily overlooked, thus not really taken seriously by many people. I've made substantial changes in my body chemistry, in part by micromanaging my diet. This has (apparently -- by observation) made changes in things most people think can't be changed. They need a more explicit mental model and I need a more information dense means to convey my ideas and experiences. The written word on my website is just not adequate to the job.