Gyroscopic Investing

Pointedstick wrote: My own personal experience with dentists is that they can do more harm than good.

Pointedstick wrote:

dualstow wrote: Neither of them have been very good for my teeth.

My own personal experience with dentists is that they can do more harm than good. My previous dentist for example was crazy about fillings--she'd drill and fill everything. My current dentist has had to redo a few, and says that small areas sometimes heal themselves, so being overzealous is pointless and expensive. Doctors, too. I definitely prefer to take care of myself as long as nothing's overtly broken. It seems that when you have the attitude of "check me out and find anything wrong!" the pressure to find something wrong is intense. I've been to see a doctor precisely once in the last 8 years.

moda0306 wrote: Do you perhaps think you're taking the balance too far?  In my mind, there's nothing wrong with having a checkup so long as the doctor is someone whose opinion you respect and it's not simply an automatic pill popping solution.

Without much knowledge of medicine, I'd want to make sure that my "numbers" look good (including nutrient deficiencies, blood chemistry ratios, all that good stuff), as well as running diagnoses for certain potential illnesses that are much better to catch sooner than later.

Pointedstick wrote:

moda0306 wrote: Do you perhaps think you're taking the balance too far?  In my mind, there's nothing wrong with having a checkup so long as the doctor is someone whose opinion you respect and it's not simply an automatic pill popping solution.

Without much knowledge of medicine, I'd want to make sure that my "numbers" look good (including nutrient deficiencies, blood chemistry ratios, all that good stuff), as well as running diagnoses for certain potential illnesses that are much better to catch sooner than later.

That's exactly it: without having some domain knowledge myself, how can I evaluate whether or not my dentist is doing what's right? As we all know, there is a great deal of disagreement in all kinds of medical fields regarding what "numbers" are good or bad. If my dentist says, "ooh, this looks like it's a cavity. We'll have to drill it"--and that's what my previous dentist did. But how do I know that the decay is big enough that it's a reasonable interpretation? Maybe it'll heal itself over time. This has happened to areas that my current dentist has decided to watch instead of instantly drill. I'm glad that I've found someone who has a nice light touch, but I'm still made uncomfortable by the fact that I have to 100% take a professional's advice without having any knowledge of my own to verify whether or makes sense or not.

In every other professional field in which I have any domain knowledge, I would NEVER trust any relevant professional 100% on anything. Complicated fields allow for multiple interpretations of the same data, and multiple ways to do things, some of which may be appropriate for a given set of circumstances, and some of which may not. The idea of a disinterested expert who can be totally relied on so you can avoid learning anything about the subject yourself is a total myth--and I say this myself as someone who is himself an expert in his field whose judgement is relied upon by others. Don't instantly believe on what I say. Get a second opinion. Learn up on the subject yourself. Understand the details. I'm good, but I'm not infallible.

Pointedstick wrote: My own personal experience with dentists is that they can do more harm than good. My previous dentist for example was crazy about fillings--she'd drill and fill everything. My current dentist has had to redo a few, and says that small areas sometimes heal themselves, so being overzealous is pointless and expensive. Doctors, too. I definitely prefer to take care of myself as long as nothing's overtly broken. It seems that when you have the attitude of "check me out and find anything wrong!" the pressure to find something wrong is intense. I've been to see a doctor precisely once in the last 8 years.

TennPaGa wrote: A gold-plated hunting rifle with Cecil's image on it, for example, would be tacky.

LC475 wrote: Makes me want to go kill a lion.

The brother of slain Cecil the lion, named Jericho, was killed today in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, a senior park official told CNN.

Jericho was gunned down by a hunter operating illegally, said Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

(dualstow) Hah, wow. Very tacky.

(Tenn) Nah.  Just opportunistic.

A gold-plated hunting rifle with Cecil's image on it, for example, would be tacky.

dualstow wrote: Email from cnn:

The brother of slain Cecil the lion, named Jericho, was killed today in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, a senior park official told CNN.

Jericho was gunned down by a hunter operating illegally, said Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

{Eyes LC475 suspiciously... }

Simonjester wrote:

Ad Orientem wrote: Color me conflicted. On the one hand I do think some animals need legal protection and should not be hunted. On the other hand this guy seems to be a big game hunter with a long track record that suggests he has been careful to stay within the bounds of the law until now. I think we need to wait for his side of the story.

On a side note; I don't hunt but have no moral objections to the practice, provided you eat what you kill and you do it as humanely as possible. I am not however a big fan of killing purely for the sake of mounting a head on your living room wall.

just an FYi in case it hasn't been mentioned before.. trophy animals get eaten... sometimes by the shooter but often by the nearby local village, also the big money that gets payed to do one of these hunts gets put back into the local economy conservation and so on.. also culling a herd is often beneficial for it, and much thought and number crunching goes into figuring out the amount of tags given to hunters..

Simonjester wrote: i suppose a "quantity and quality may vary" caveat is justified depending on country in question and the political turmoil and corruption in the time period you are looking at..
still no matter how messed up they are i believe most of these countries understand that wildlife and conservation are important to their survival, future and ability to get legitimacy internationally... all but the feudal warlord, anarchist, war torn, utopias do anyway..

Simonjester wrote: .. also culling a herd is often beneficial for it, and much thought and number crunching goes into figuring out the amount of tags given to hunters..

dualstow wrote: At the same time, I don't feel too bad about the internet backlash he is currently receiving.