Institutionalized Quackery in the Social Imagination...

dishonest practices and claims and or to have special knowledge and skill in some field, typically medicine

 Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in The BMJ, surpasses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) third leading cause of death — respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year [before cv one niner].

The Johns Hopkins team says the CDC’s way of collecting national health statistics fails to classify medical errors separately on the death certificate. The researchers are advocating for updated criteria for classifying deaths on death certificates.

“Incidence rates for deaths directly attributable to medical care gone awry haven’t been recognized in any standardized method for collecting national statistics,” says Martin Makary, M.D., M.P.H., professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and an authority on health reform. “The medical coding system was designed to maximize billing for physician services, not to collect national health statistics, as it is currently being used.”

Again, coming from another source, according to a recent study by Johns Hopkins, more than 250,000 people in the United States die every year because of medical mistakes, making it the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.

Other studies report much higher figures, claiming the number of deaths from medical error to be as high as 440,000. The reason for the discrepancy is that physicians, funeral directors, coroners and medical examiners rarely note on death certificates the human errors and system failures involved. Yet death certificates are what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rely on to post statistics for deaths nationwide.

The authors of the Johns Hopkins study, led by Dr. Martin Makary of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, have appealed to the CDC to change the way in which it collects data from death certificates. To date, no changes have been made, Makary said.

Makary defines a death due to medical error as one that is caused by inadequately skilled staff, error in judgment or care, a system defect or a preventable adverse effect. This includes computer breakdowns, mix-ups with the doses or types of medications administered to patients and surgical complications that go undiagnosed.

“Currently the CDC uses a deaths collection system that only tallies causes of death occurring from diseases, morbid conditions, and injuries,” Makary stated in a letter urging the CDC to change the way it collects the nation’s vital health statistics.

“It’s the system more than the individuals that is to blame,” Makary said. The U.S. patient-care study, which was released in 2016, explored death-rate data for eight consecutive years. The researchers discovered that based on a total of 35,416,020 hospitalizations, there was a pooled incidence rate of 251,454 deaths per year — or about 9.5 percent of all deaths — that stemmed from medical error. So, just maybe cv one niner data is mixed up in that somewhere... right? 

What does this all mean or have to do with the social imagination? Everything! It has everything do with the social imagination because therein/at we must find agreement or what Charles H. Cooley would call - common among us. Agreement in the social imagination is the essence of social reality. It is essential in the social imagination; even, if it means agreeing to disagree or agreeing because without agreement there is nothing to go on... and if going on is the goal, could we be going on misinformation producing agreement that has no basis for reality? Yes.

 

*Online Sources ~  https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third and https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html

Public Health in the 21st Century in the Social Imagination...

The below excerpt(cut and paste) is from ... "The National Center for Biotechnology Information" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221224/

Mass media plays a central role in people's lives. Its importance is evident in the amount of time people spend watching television, surfing the World Wide Web, listening to music, and reading newspapers and magazines. The delivery of information through mass media is instant and available around the clock. The proliferation of communication technologies— miniature TVs, handheld radios, and personal computer companions such as Blackberry and Palm Pilot—contribute to the omnipresence of the media in daily life. More and more, a growing proportion of “life experience” is mediated through communication technologies instead of being directly experienced or witnessed. The public health community and policy makers often do not appreciate the importance and power of the media in shaping the health of the public. More importantly, media outlets or organizations do not see themselves as a part of, or contributing to the public health system. As this chapter discusses, however, the media plays a number of roles in educating the public about health issues and has a responsibility to report accurate health and science information to the public.

Scientists and public health professionals believe that journalists, in writing attention-grabbing stories, VIOLATE the traditional norms that guide scientific communication. Nelkin (1996, 1998) notes that media constraints of time, brevity, and simplicity, for example, impede the careful documentation, nuanced positions, and caveats that scientists believe are necessary to discuss and present their work. Journalists, on the other hand, often see the use of caveats or qualifications as information that can be dismissed to improve the readability of a story. Furthermore, journalistic efforts to enhance audience interest violate other traditional scientific norms. For example, to create a human interest angle, journalists may look for personal stories and individual cases, although this may distort research findings that have meaning only in a broader statistical context.

Scientific journals may also contribute to the distortion of research findings. Scientific journals often prepare press releases for the news media to assist them in getting the story right. These attempts to translate research into news can be misleading. Woloshin and Schwartz (2002) reviewed the content of journal press releases and interviewed press officers at nine prominent medical journals. The study found that press releases do not routinely highlight study limitations or the role of industry funding. Formats for presenting data were also found to exaggerate the perceived importance of findings.

Fueling these tensions is the fact that scientists, health care professionals, and policy experts rarely receive training in public communication, and reporters are NOT well trained in science, medicine, and statistics. Both groups are generally untrained in risk communication.

A recent study (Voss, 2002) highlights reporters' self-perceptions about their own ability to report health news. The study surveyed reporters and newspapers in five Midwestern states. In response to questions about reporting ability, 49.7 percent of respondents reported it was sometimes easy and sometimes difficult to understand key health issues, and 31 percent found it often or nearly always (2.7 percent) difficult to do. Also, 51.3 percent of respondents reported that it was sometimes easy or sometimes difficult to interpret statistical data, whereas 27.4 percent found it often or nearly always (6.2 percent) difficult. More than three-quarters of respondents (83 percent) reported that they had no training to cover health topics. Similarly, a national survey of journalists and news executives found that only 12 percent of reporters covering health care are viewed as “extremely prepared” and 43 percent are viewed as “prepared” to cover health care issues (Foundation for American Communications, 2002).

To help ease these tensions and to improve the quality of the information delivered to the public, scientists and public health officials as well as journalists and editors should seek opportunities for training. The need for media training is acknowledged in the statement of Al Cross, President of the Society of Professional Journalists, who notes that “training is a good way to meet your public responsibilities” (quoted in Kees, 2002) and in the words of Melinda Voss, executive director of the Association of Health Care Journalists:

It seems to me that it is more important than ever that we as journalists really know how to do our jobs right, because so many critical policy decisions are being made that affect everyone. The ability to properly report medical studies and survey research and the ability to interpret statistics are all a part of doing the job right. We owe it to our audiences. (quoted in Kees, 2002).

The public is and should be concerned with health issues; yet, they are being fed misinformation by mainstream news. No wonder, there is a growing youtube/instagram platform for truth seekers which includes medical professionals trying to get the truth out there... trying to decipher (for you) the facts and truth from lies!

"Oh the Humanity!"... What does that mean in the Social Imagination?

When radio reporter Herb Morrison saw the airship Hindenburg burst into flames in 1937, he blurted “Oh, the humanity!” meaning something like “what terrible human suffering!” Writers who use this phrase today—usually jokingly—are referring back to this famous incident.

What does that mean for us in the social imagination? Does it mean the same then as it does now? Obviously not if this phrase today is used jokingly. And, if it is used 'usually' in that way today, why is that? 

Firstly, what does 'humanity' mean and or stand for in the social imagination? For the sociologist, it is used to represent humankind at its best and even worst depending on the intonation. 

We can read the general definition as being the quality of the state of being human.  Now, even that needs defining... the state of being human. To be in a state of something is nearly the same as saying being in a certain condition or situation. This house is in a state of ruin. The current economy and government is in a state of chaos i.e. 

Interestingly, humanity is thought of as being sympathetic and generous. I agree with that because as a Christian... I believe that all people have a conscience and can understand what it means to have and exhibit sympathy and to have/exhibit acts of generosity and mercy. 

Some have more of those attributes accessible within them than others. Nonetheless, I agree that all mankind is human and the amount of humanity in them is usually and or typically associated with being humane... being sympathetic i.e. Given that, I must consider that such a state of being was once more vivid, more the overall norm and eternal ideal.

Today's 'humanity' is escaping us. Its not completely lost but heading in that direction. It is being usurped by artificial events with their kings and or would be saviors. All of which appears to be put forward by a nearly alien intelligence that has little humanity in it. 

Implying the worst using a certain intonation that stresses a lack of sympathy let alone mercy. We seem to be spiraling in a downward motion running here and there trying to prop it up with this or that. And actually, that has been ongoing since the fall of mankind ... 

Will our humanity save us? No. Why? Because mixed up with the good is the bad and the ugly but moreover because its been handed over. Will it come to an end? Will we find ourselves inhumane more and more becoming in fact inhuman? Looking at the rate and level of technology, I would have to answer yes.  Man, now rather beast, has become obsessed with controlling humanity and there in lies the greatest danger. 

The battle for Ai is upon us... upon our humanity. It is coming to steal, kill and destroy our humanity. The irony is that we so doubted our humanity we created its own destruction.  

Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. See, I have delivered into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set up an ambush behind the city.” So, Joshua and the whole army set out to attack Ai. Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them out at night with these orders: “Pay attention. You are to lie in ambush behind the city, not too far from it. All of you must be ready. ~ Joshua 8: 1-4. 

So Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolation to this day. He hung the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and at sunset Joshua commanded that they take down the body from the tree and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And over it they raised a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. ~ Joshua 8:28-29. 

When we read of this treatment of the enemies of Joshua, we cannot but be reminded of the greater Joshua, who fulfilled the curse of God (curse of sin and death which entered into  humanity) in His own person, and made a show of the “principalities and powers” by triumphing over them in His cross.  

Allegory is a human tool in the social imagination. We see it used over and over in the exchange of information in the social reality, both true and untrue. Given that, the Creator of all absolute truth must cry out as a trumpet blast ~ "Oh, the humanity!" And, that is not a joke.

 

Subliminal Messaging and Neuromarketing in the Social Imagination...

 

“Neuromarketing” loosely refers to the measurement of physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers' motivations, preferences, and decisions, which can help inform creative advertising, product development, pricing, and other marketing areas. 

Where or in what field of knowledge/science did neuromarketing get its start? In psychology of course;... it was originally communicated as the principles of subliminal messaging. The director of Yale Psychology laboratory Ph.D. E. W. Scripture published The New Psychology in 1897 (The Walter Scott Ltd, London), which described the basic principles of subliminal messages. 

In 1900, Knight Dunlap, an American professor of psychology, flashed an "imperceptible shadow" to subjects while showing them a Müller-Lyer illusion containing two lines with pointed arrows at both ends which create an illusion of different lengths. Dunlap claimed that the shadow influenced his subjects subliminally in their judgment of the lengths of the lines.

Although these results were not verified in a scientific study, American psychologist Harry Levi Hollingworth reported in an advertising textbook that such subliminal messages could be used by advertisers.

During World War II, the tachistoscope, an instrument which projects pictures for an extremely brief period, was used to train soldiers to recognize enemy airplanes. Today the tachistoscope is used to increase reading speed or to test sight. 

After the war, in 1957, market researcher James Vicary claimed that quickly flashing messages on a movie screen, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, had influenced people to purchase more food and drinks. Vicary coined the term subliminal advertising and formed the Subliminal Projection Company based on a six-week test. 

Vicary claimed that during the presentation of the movie Picnic he used a tachistoscope to project the words "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Hungry? Eat popcorn" for 1/3000 of a second at five-second intervals. Vicary asserted that during the test, sales of popcorn and Coke in that New Jersey theater increased 57.8 percent and 18.1 percent respectively.  

However, in 1962 Vicary admitted to lying about the experiment and falsifying the results, the story itself being a marketing ploy. An identical experiment conducted by Dr. Henry Link showed no increase in cola or popcorn sales. [https://psychology.wikia.or/wiki/History_of_subliminal_perception_research]

Now, as I stated at the very top, neuromarketing got its start in psychology. It is a tool used largely in advertising. It is rooted in subliminal messaging. Why do psychologist give people the Rorschach test? They give this psychological test because subjects' perceptions of inkblots reveal a lot of information. Those perceptions are thus recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning. 

Indeed, that is the basis of neuromarketing and it is effective. Symbols, images, colors, sayings, gestures, and simple words are all considered relevant data that feed and shape our identity and when used in ways to motivate us do sway us to think and behavior one way over. another. This is true for all human societies. But, more recently also in other areas including political science and even in health care...namely by big pharmaceuticals. 

Neuromarketing is a tool for commercial marketing communication as it readily applies neuropsychology to market research. It is used to study what makes people think or tik...and that most certainly translates as consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and effective response to marketing stimuli. 

The potential benefits is enormous to marketers include more efficient and effective marketing campaigns and strategies which means fewer product and campaign failures, and ultimately the manipulation of the real needs and wants of people to suit the needs and wants of marketing interests.

Sure, neuromarketing is an expensive approach as it requires advanced equipment and technology such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), motion capture for eye-tracking, and the electroencephalogram. A lot of things can be expensive the first time.

Remember, once a rat follows the cheese through a maze, it will always follow the cheese. Hence, given the amount of new learning from neuroscience and marketing research, marketers have begun applying neuromarketing best practices without needing to engage in expensive testing.

This pseudoscience as some refer to it does have real applications and is being employed daily. In some respects, after years and years of this, one might not even be able to tell good from evil, right from wrong information... and that makes one wonder if reality, the social imagination of it, will be changed entirely to suit an agenda that will control the what was once a free-willing social imagination generating a common among us 'free' society. 

Even in saying that, one could already make the argument that we never really had a free will... Emile Durkheim called our experience of society a sui generis existence... According to Durkheim, it would be a social imagination controlled from the top down. And, because of that, the wider social imagination becomes a strict collective that grows like a mushroom until the source of truth is lost in the ever expanding of growth of misinformation. 

 

Social Engineering and its Wordage in the Social imagination...

Here is a list of everyday words that are being employed everywhere today... words used for/in the piecemeal strategy. Words being wielded by expert people in places of power and authority.

• alarming
• bulling
• coerced
• frightened
• intimidating
• oppressive
• scary
• shocking
• terrified
• browbeaten
• bulldozed
• cowered
• spooked
• startled
• strong-armed
• scare to death
• pushed back
  

The question is... are you being terrorized by wordage? Who/what is terrorizing you? Is it the media, a politician, a meme, an email, a text message or phone call, a school or office memo, travel restrictions, regulations, mandates, bans, signs, lock-downs, quarantines etc.?

Intimidation is a tool for the piecemeal engineer as it is for the radical top-down strategist. Needless to say, in context of piecemeal engineering, the preferred strategy by experts, the frog in the pot doesn't recognize it. He thinks its a Jacuzzi. Are you that frog? He should... but he thinks the heated wordage is for the other frog (s) in the pot next to him.