Interesting Links for 19-11-2013

[andrewducker]

• The ethics of live-tweeting a break-up
  (tags: relationships privacy twitter )
• The first commercial tDCS headset that lets you safely overclock your brain
  (tags: cybernetics transhumanism electricity brains )
• Edinburgh University Feminist Society reject whorephobia.
  (tags: edinburgh feminism sexwork )
• One of the wisest, and most human things ever

Comments

[atreic]

But match people with the same cancer for age, class, health, socioeconomic status, and, in general, those with positive attitudes, with a strong will and purpose for living, with commitment to struggle, with an active response to aiding their own treatment and not just a passive acceptance of anything doctors say, tend to live longer

Lots of people believe this. Hey, even I have a tendency to believe this. And the author is clearly very well educated. But every nerve in my body is screaming 'citation needed'.

[danieldwilliam]

I recall seeing some evidence that one's mental state made no significant difference to outcomes but I can't recall where or when.

[andrewducker]

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/emotionalsideeffects/attitudes-and-cancer

[danieldwilliam]

Thanks

[andrewducker]

Sorry for the terseness of the reply - I was in-between buildings at the time.

I do think it's good that they actually bother to bring the answers together there, and do so in a nice clear way.

[danieldwilliam]

It's a good article. Helpful.

[atreic]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/10/24/does-a-positive-attitude-prolong-cancer/ is helpful too

But it does look like the answer is the original comment is bollocks (or at least entirely unproven), even if deceptively easy to believe bollocks, at which point I twitch a lot at people calling it 'one of the wisest things written about cancer and statistics'