Martin Hash

PRay TeLL, Dr. Hash

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Politics & Philosophy by Dr. Martin D. Hash, Esq.

Author

Martin Hash

Episodes

325 Base Emotions 26.11.2017 2:12

The reason it's so hard to “fix” anything in America is because we have based our predictions of human behavior on a false set of assumptions. Americans are raised to be optimistic and forward-thinking, with a strong undercurrent of Judaeo-Christian values that stress honesty, integrity, loyalty & other altruistic feelings, but in fact, students o...

324 Medical Concepts 24.11.2017 3:26

Let's review several of the concepts around medicine: <ol> <li> The stricture against euthanasia is the fear that you are the one who will be euthanized. </li> <li> Eugenics is a good idea with a bad track record.&l...

323 Depression 22.11.2017 2:19

Depression is the most common mental illness, affecting over 16 million Americans, and those are the ones who report it; there are a lot of sufferers, especially men who, according to Thoreau, “lead lives of quiet desperation.” Depression is a natural aspect of biology: high insulin levels from eating to much sugar, low dopamine levels from not gettin...

322 Schizophrenia 20.11.2017 2:09

Like most mental illness, schizophrenia is a clinical diagnosis: 2 out of a gaggle of possible symptoms, or 1 if hearing voices telling you to hurt someone. Since schizophrenia without drug treatment is totally debilitating, it's a frightening disease, akin to dementia in its drag on society. Schizophrenic people can't do anything, except, and here's...

321 Autism 18.11.2017 1:55

What happened to autism? What used to be out-of-the-ordinary behavior has been turned into a mental illness. At the extreme edge, the barely functioning autistic has always evoked reactions of surprise, pity & yes, fear, in other people, but that is the far end of the spectrum. There's a large cohort of non-autistic people that used to get the spe...

320 OCD 16.11.2017 2:03

Obsessive Compulsive DISORDER, OCD, is a debilitating mental illness that is difficult to treat, but Obsessive Compulsive BEHAVIOR, OCB, can actually be a beneficial character trait. OCD leaves people standing in front of doors incessantly turning the knob, while OCB's impulse to recheck all the numbers in a report, keep your In Basket empty or your h...

319 The Food Police 14.11.2017 2:15

It's not the pretentious, self-indulgent so-called "foodies" that pose a Food Police threat, it's the sanctimonious, self-righteous paternalists that want to tell you what to put inside of your own body. Obesity is a problem but the solution isn't government regulation of what you're eating, most clearly demonstrated by the Soft Drink trolls...

318 Sugar 12.11.2017 2:25

Sugar is the biggest change to the human diet in 10,000 years. The epidemic of obesity in America can be laid at the feet of this one thing: not lack of exercise, not fast food, not gut fauna, no... SUGAR is ground zero. Fat comes from sugar. You eat fruit, that's sugar; you eat carbs, that's sugar. And it's not like science hasn't known what the prob...

317 Diabetes 10.11.2017 2:21

Justifying the hype, America really does have a Diabetes epidemic. The cost of diabetes to the nation is over a quarter trillion dollars, top of healthcare spending. Want to reduce the cost of healthcare, diabetes is first on the list. Fortunately, diabetes can almost always be cured with diet. Unfortunately, somebody somewhere called what fat people...

316 Special Diet 08.11.2017 1:57

Everyone is to one extent or another, a primadonna, wanting to make it about them, take control, give orders. The most common manifestation of this basic impulse is the fetish for special food, especially when accompanied by the “what I put in my body” sanctimony. Mostly this is harmless vanity, but if someone wants to be special by demanding special...

315 Organ Donations 06.11.2017 2:44

In several European countries, you have to opt-out of organ donation on your Driver's license, rather than opt-in like in America. In fact, Opt-in countries have a very low percentage of people willing to let their own misfortune be someone else's opportunity, even in the so-called egalitarian countries. It's understandable: if people want my organs,...

314 Medical Research 04.11.2017 2:31

The aura around medical research is one part greed, one part hope & one part charlatanism. Medicine is not a science and the people who become doctors are not scientists. Surgeons, in particular, are even less scientific than doctors. Medical researchers are often MDs but they don't have to be, probably just as many are PhDs,...

313 End-of-Life Care 02.11.2017 2:29

It's odd that no decision in your life is more important than dying yet that is an inevitability most of us intentionally ignore, especially the price. Nationally, End-of-Life care costs hover around 10% of total U.S. healthcare spending, which seems reasonable, but those are the physical costs, the mental costs are immeasurable, especially when the p...

312 Medical Liability 31.10.2017 2:04

Medicine is NOT a science, though it has science-like aspects. As proof, quack remedies like acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, massage-therapy & the like would not be part of the treatment regiment of a “science.” It's because many patients can simply be treated via placebo, which is totally mental, that encourages the reliance on mysticism,...

311 Defensive Medicine 29.10.2017 2:32

So-called, “defensive medicine” is speculation that high medical costs are a result of unneeded medical tests & procedures performed on patients to avoid lawsuits. The reality is that there are two perverse incentives for extraneous medical attention: first, since both insurance & Medicare pay the doctor based on what they do and not what they...

310 One-Child Policy 27.10.2017 2:39

In the hierarchy of Rights, where does bearing children come in? And when is there a State interest to intervene? Since society's imperative is to perpetuate itself, the Right to bear children hovers near the top, however, China's One Child policy was a main ingredient contributing to its emergence as a World Power, and arguably is leading to more ind...

309 Eugenics 25.10.2017 2:26

What is eugenics? It's often confused with evolution because breeding dogs or pigeons results in offspring with selected characteristics, but in the case of evolution, that leads to a new species, while when dogs are again allowed to randomly interbreed, they eventually turn back into wolves. And it's not just physical characteristics, there are breed...

308 Euthanasia 23.10.2017 2:26

No word strikes more fear into the hearts of Old People than “euthanasia,” mercy killing, which is why you rarely hear it discussed. Physician-assisted suicide, which is legal in six States, is often confused with euthanasia, but in cases of euthanasia the physician administe...