How To Become A Charlatan, Step By Step

[HuckleB]

http://edzardernst.com/2012/12/how-to-become-a-charlatan/

"1. Find an attractive therapy and give it a fantastic name

Did I just say “straight forward”? Well, the first step isn’t that easy, after all. Most of the really loony ideas turn out to be taken: ear candles, homeopathy, aura massage, energy healing, urine-therapy, chiropractic etc. As a true charlatan, you want your very own quackery. So you will have to think of a new concept.

...

8. Score points with Big Pharma

You must be aware who your (future) customers are (will be): they are affluent, had a decent education (evidently without much success), and are middle-aged, gullible and deeply alternative. Think of Prince Charles! Once you have empathised with this mind-set, it is obvious that you can profitably plug into the persecution complex which haunts these people.

An easy way of achieving this is to claim that Big Pharma has got wind of your innovation, is positively frightened of losing millions, and is thus doing all they can to supress it. Not only will this give you street cred with the lunatic fringe of society, it also provides a perfect explanation why your ground-breaking discovery has not been published it the top journals of medicine: the editors are all in the pocket of Big Pharma, of course.

...

(The list is quite fun to read.)

...

Now you are all set. However, to prevent you from stumbling at the first hurdle, here are some handy answers to the questions you inevitably will receive from sceptics, this nasty breed that is never happy. The answers are not designed to convince them but, if voiced in public, they will ensure that the general opinion is on your side – and that’s what is paramount in the realm of quackery.

Q: Your treatment can cause considerable harm; do you find that responsible?

A: Harm? Do you know what you are talking about? Obviously not! Every year, hundreds of thousands die because of the medicine they received from mainstream doctors. This is what I call harm!

Q: Experts say that your treatment is not biologically plausible, what is your response?

A: There are many things science does not yet understand and many things that it will never understand. In any case, there are other ways of knowing, and science is but one of them.

..."

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It's interesting how very accurate this piece is, even though it is tongue in cheek. It is exactly what we see being done every done online and elsewhere.

[salin]

1. Sounds like L Ron Hubbard and Scientology

right down to the demonize Pharma and Psychiatry.

[HuckleB]

4. Indeed.

[Major Nikon]

2. That's been the formula for snake oil salesmen for centuries

The funny part is the snake oil promoters on DU want you to believe in a vast "Big Pharma" conspiracy theory, driven completely by profit, when the exact same profit motive exists for the snake oil salesmen except with far less regulation and oversight.

[HuckleB]

5. Sadly, it works, all too often. -eom-

[PasadenaTrudy]

7. I am so sick

and tired of the "Big Pharma" garbage. My dad was a pharmacist, guess he was in cahoots, lol! Sorry, but meds and psychiatry have been life savers for me and millions of others

[Major Nikon]

8. The biggest "Big Pharma" crank on DU also thinks chemtrails are a thing

So go figure.

[LanternWaste]

11. I imagine 'biggest' is relative to the interpreter's own, unrecognized bias.

I imagine 'biggest' is relative to the interpreter's own, unrecognized bias.

[Major Nikon]

13. Perhaps we should use your metric instead then

Care to share what that might be?

[HuckleB]

26. Apparently there is no metric in that world.

Hmm.

[PasadenaTrudy]

16. Oy.... n/t

[hunter]

3. Coca Cola...

... that's one of the biggest.

Confederate Colonel John Pemberton who was wounded in the American Civil War, became addicted to morphine, and began a quest to find a substitute for the dangerous opiate. The prototype Coca-Cola recipe was formulated at Pemberton's Eagle Drug and Chemical House, a drugstore in Columbus, Georgia, originally as a coca wine. He may have been inspired by the formidable success of Vin Mariani, a European coca wine.

In 1885, Pemberton registered his French Wine Coca nerve tonic. In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed prohibition legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, essentially a nonalcoholic version of French Wine Coca. The first sales were at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in the United States at the time due to the belief that carbonated water was good for the health. Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured many diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. Pemberton ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 of the same year in the Atlanta Journal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola

[HuckleB]

10. Fun stuff.

[yellowcanine]

19. Coca-Cola will also clean up a greasy windshield. Don't get it on the finish though.

[HuckleB]

6. .

[Orrex]

9. My conscience is the only thing keeping me from making a fortune

k/r

[HuckleB]

24. Dang conscience!

It's a task master, and it likes to say, "No!"

[yellowcanine]

12. I would add, Get at least one MD, DO, or DVM to endorse your product.

Preferably one of each. If all else fails, get at least a DVM to endorse it. People will shell out more for quackery when it comes to their pets than for themselves.

[HuckleB]

25. My vet is great, but I can't stand the alt med crap they sell at reception, and the prices!

WOW!

[ananda]

14. Many psychiatrists are simply pill pushers ...

... in league with Big Pharma and do so much harm.

[Major Nikon]

17. Take two coffee enemas and call me in the morning

[Humanist_Activist]

20. That doesn't validate quackery, and I'm not sure why...

the alternatives are more trusted when they push supplements, minerals and other unsupported(and expensive) crap of their own, along with quack treatments, in league with Big Supplement.

[whatthehey]

15. My favorite is still the pads to draw poison from your feet

My dad fell for those and spent ten minutes telling me how it was impossible to be faked because no matter how much I told him about toxins and permeability it absolutely must be extracting something nasty from him or the pads wouldn't turn brown.

I then told him that some latent dies turn brown with added moisture from sweat.

To give him some credit, that one did need some lateral thinking, basic though it was. People who fall for water-memory just can't even manage linear logic.

[HuckleB]

23. WOW!

[yellowcanine]

18. Lots of opportunity for quackery in the field of septic systems.

The worst ones sell you a potion one is to apply once a month so that you don't have to pump out the septic tank as often. But the problem is if you use it the way the say it costs about $25 a month. So in 8 months you are up to $200, which is about the cost of having the tank pumped out. Thing is, no one has to pump a septic tank every 8 months unless you have a really tiny tank and about 10 people using it. And of course, the stuff really doesn't do anything, because the process is anaerobic digestion and solids accumulate no matter what you are dumping in there. Then there are the folks who try to sell you stuff to "fix" a failing drain field - more quackery and more money wasted. Bacteria to put in the tank after it is pumped - more quackery - there are plenty of bacteria in poop, no need to add more.

[HuckleB]

21. Yikes. I suspect there are many such products around.

[yellowcanine]

22. Lots of money in magic bracelets, etc.

Magnets, copper, etc. Draw out the negative energy! Cure all sorts of shit. Only $19.95! Two for $30 if you buy within the next 5 minutes!

[HuckleB]

27. +1