Betsy DeVos' NeuroCore Quackery

[Cheerful Charlie]

http://www.alternet.org/education/l...ng-headset-betsy-devos-brain-training-company

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has invested millions in a brain-training company called NeuroCore, which claims its neuro-feedback treatments can help relieve serious illnesses such as ADHD, anxiety, autism, depression, memory loss, migraines, sleeplessness and stress. Ulrich Boser, an education policy expert, writer on learning processes and a fellow at the Center for American Progress, visited a NeuroCore office as a prospective patient and wrote a long piece for the Washington Post. AlterNet’s Steven Rosenfeld asked him what he found.

------

It just keeps getting worse. The woman supports outright quackery.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Takes a little bit to find the treatment. It is pretty simple.

1) Learn how to breath
2) Watch a movie while strapped to a machine (maybe, the image doesn't seem to show much strapping), and if your brain goes 'off-track', it'll pause the movie, so this will help you not go off track.

Well, if this doesn't cure shit, I don't know what will. What is brilliant is this treatment is absolutely harmless, so they can't be sued for harming people. Maybe wasting their money, but time will tell.

 

[Malintent]

...its neuro-feedback treatments can help relieve serious illnesses such as ADHD, anxiety, autism, depression, memory loss, migraines, sleeplessness and stress.

... and it also cures The Gay. That is the part she is interested in.


.. but seariously, though... this type of "brain training" is good for sharpening focus. There are some games out there you can buy that involve a headset that reads the electrical signals in your brain, and provides feedback to a remotely controlled toy. The object tis to train yourself to alter your mood / focus to operate the toy... the one I have seen personally is a helicopter that you can make rise or fall (but not yaw or bank)... just 1 axis.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

...its neuro-feedback treatments can help relieve serious illnesses such as ADHD, anxiety, autism, depression, memory loss, migraines, sleeplessness and stress.

... and it also cures The Gay. That is the part she is interested in.


.. but seariously, though... this type of "brain training" is good for sharpening focus.

Sharpen focus, as in some tangible sense? Not just sharpen your ability to make a toy operate?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Biofeedback has been around for ages. And has been oversold by the woo woo crowd. It has some uses, but you are not going to cure autism, depression et al with what they are peddling. You might as well be using a Scientology E-meter.

 

[LordKiran]

Anyone remember the 90s/early 2000s? Remember all those game sets that were all about manipulating some small object through hoops or something?

 

[braces_for_impact]

Actually, Rachel Maddow did a story on the neuro-quackery thing sometime before the election, as I recall. Devos is another dangerously stupid billionaire, and further proof one doesn't need to be smart, savvy, or special in any way to have wealth. Interesting further reading:

The Privatization Prophets

How Betsy Devos Used God And AMWAY To Take Over Michigan Politics

She essentially was only picked by Trump because her family contributes heavily to the Trump campaign.

[h=1][/h]

 

[DBT]

NeuroCore? They should have slipped something 'Quantum' into the brand name, NeuroQuantumCore, perhaps, making it much more impressive, they could have upped the fees and profit rate considerably, there being sucker born every minute, so they say.

 

[Malintent]

... and it also cures The Gay. That is the part she is interested in.


.. but seariously, though... this type of "brain training" is good for sharpening focus.

Sharpen focus, as in some tangible sense? Not just sharpen your ability to make a toy operate?

.. sharpen one's ability to focus on a task.. any cognitive task. Generally speaking, this is healthy and productive. There is no evidence that increased focus helps with the symptoms or cure for any of the mental diseases the article mentions... like a good diet and exercise is good, but it won't cure Alzheimer's.

 

[Malintent]

Biofeedback has been around for ages. And has been oversold by the woo woo crowd. It has some uses, but you are not going to cure autism, depression et al with what they are peddling. You might as well be using a Scientology E-meter.

This is different than biofeedback, which is a means to control otherwise autonomic systems, like heart rate. A scientology e-meter (a lie detector, essentially) could be used as a tool to exercise biofeedback, if you were so inclined... but this has little to do with the claims at hand.
This technique is about developing a kind of mental discipline that relates to focus. Not control over other bodily functions.

 

[untermensche]

Biofeedback has been around for ages. And has been oversold by the woo woo crowd. It has some uses, but you are not going to cure autism, depression et al with what they are peddling. You might as well be using a Scientology E-meter.

Depression is very treatable with placebo.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Biofeedback has been around for ages. And has been oversold by the woo woo crowd. It has some uses, but you are not going to cure autism, depression et al with what they are peddling. You might as well be using a Scientology E-meter.

Depression is very treatable with placebo.

And Schizophrenia.
Tell a depressed person or Schizophrenic a funny joke that works and that is a sort of relief even for a short while.

There again a plain tablet with nothing in it doesn't have side effects and cost a fortune.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Biofeedback has been around for ages. And has been oversold by the woo woo crowd. It has some uses, but you are not going to cure autism, depression et al with what they are peddling. You might as well be using a Scientology E-meter.

Depression is very treatable with placebo.

I would be hesitant to make such vague statements without any qualifications.

 

[untermensche]

Depression is very treatable with placebo.

I would be hesitant to make such vague statements without any qualifications.

In the studies looking at drugs that treat depression the placebo effect is very high. Sometimes as high as 30%.

Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/

- - - Updated - - -

Tell a depressed person or Schizophrenic a funny joke that works and that is a sort of relief even for a short while.

There again a plain tablet with nothing in it doesn't have side effects and cost a fortune.

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are not very treatable with placebo.

A joke is not a placebo.

 

[ronburgundy]

She likely doesn't actually believe the quackery. Far worse, she, like most Republicans and conservatives supports corporations profiting off of lying and engaging in fraud, and making sure the government doesn't allow the ripped-off and often seriously harmed and sometimes killed consumers have any legal recourse (yes killed: a person led to believe in a fraudulent cure for a dangerous ailment is less likely to seek real treatment and thus can die).

 

[Tinker Grey]

The problem with quantum neuro-core quakery ducks like crackers and honkies spew like an oil well and then use buckets to make baskets and weave a tale of a donkey donkey donkey Jimmy James was funny how that works and plays like hamlet and omelettes and bacon and lettuce pray no let us not prey on the weak and strong stereotypes like Bill Murray's character assassination of Billy the kid gloves on motorcycles are a good ideological epistemological ontology of why computer science believes in evolution of lizard people ruling class impinging on bells that tintinnabulate Poe's law of ...

I'm sorry what were we talking about?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

She likely doesn't actually believe the quackery. Far worse, she, like most Republicans and conservatives supports corporations profiting off of lying and engaging in fraud, and making sure the government doesn't allow the ripped-off and often seriously harmed and sometimes killed consumers have any legal recourse (yes killed: a person led to believe in a fraudulent cure for a dangerous ailment is less likely to seek real treatment and thus can die).

Actually, it is a wonderful setup. They can tell people who clearly need actual treatment to seek other options and just bilk marginal people, whom aren't harmed in the process (other than financially). How this can even be covered by insurers is incredibly hard to believe.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The problem with quantum neuro-core quakery ducks like crackers and honkies spew like an oil well and then use buckets to make baskets and weave a tale of a donkey donkey donkey Jimmy James was funny how that works and plays like hamlet and omelettes and bacon and lettuce pray no let us not prey on the weak and strong stereotypes like Bill Murray's character assassination of Billy the kid gloves on motorcycles are a good ideological epistemological ontology of why computer science believes in evolution of lizard people ruling class impinging on bells that tintinnabulate Poe's law of ...

I'm sorry what were we talking about?

How the super monkey tiger car will soon park in Jimmy's spot.

 

[fromderinside]

What her policy comes down to is "normal kids will educate themselves".

By the way I'm selling the price of tea in China.

 

[Malintent]

She likely doesn't actually believe the quackery. Far worse, she, like most Republicans and conservatives supports corporations profiting off of lying and engaging in fraud, and making sure the government doesn't allow the ripped-off and often seriously harmed and sometimes killed consumers have any legal recourse (yes killed: a person led to believe in a fraudulent cure for a dangerous ailment is less likely to seek real treatment and thus can die).

It reminds me of the McDonalds hot coffee suit that awarded $1 million to an old lady that spilled it on herself. It became the poster child for the tort-reform movement, meant to show the damage to business from frivolous lawsuits.

It ignored the fact that the settlement was on the grounds that:

1) That McDonalds location received multiple complaints over time that their coffee was far too hot for safety.
2) That Location was cited by the Corporate offices for failing to meet standards of keeping coffee... theirs was over 180 degrees - scalding hot. Your shower, with the cold water turned completely off, is around 120 degrees... just to illustrate how dangerous that is.
3) The person that spilled the coffee was not driving or engaging in any dangerous activity. She was parked, and the lid was not fully secured, so it dropped in her lap, causing 3rd degree burns within 3 seconds.
4) The award of 1 million dollars was punitive, based on the existence of multiple complaints, and failure to meet corporate standards for safety, even after being told.
5) The calculation of the award was based on what every other punitive damages amount is based on.. in this case, it was the revenue from all coffee sales for 1 day.
6) The damage the unreasonably hot coffee did to this person was ultimately responsible for her death, after multiple surgeries to repair the damage.

She fucking died from the wounds they created. the amount she got was 1 day worth of profit on coffee alone. yet, this somehow became the battle cry of the corporate supporters for over a decade.