Editing 971: Alternative Literature
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| title = Alternative Literature | | title = Alternative Literature | ||
| image = alternative_literature.png | | image = alternative_literature.png | ||
− | | titletext = I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with--and labeled similarly to--their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know | + | | imagesize = |
+ | | titletext = I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with--and labeled similarly to--their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying--it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong. | ||
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | While the comic is funny on its own in a " | + | While the comic is funny on its own in a "[[:Category:Sheeple|Wake Up, Sheeple]]" kind of way, the full joke requires the title text, so make sure you read it. The comic title is a play on {{w|Alternative medicine}}. |
− | In the comic, it is implied that [[Cueball]] has been scammed into buying blank books, though he attempts to defend it as a valid choice | + | In the comic, it is implied that [[Cueball]] has been scammed into buying blank books, though he attempts to defend it as a valid choice. The title text likens this to the {{w|CVS Pharmacy}} selling homeopathic pills using methods that does not clearly distinguish them from traditional pharmaceuticals. {{w|Homeopathy}}, widely considered a pseudoscience, is based on the idea that a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure that disease in sick people, if administered in sufficiently small doses. |
− | Homeopathic remedies are prepared by | + | Homeopathic remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a substance with alcohol or water. Somewhat counter-intuitively, homeopathy considers the weakest dilutions to have the most powerful healing effect. Frequently, in fact, the dilutions are repeated past the point where any molecules of the active ingredient can remain. |
− | Selling a homeopathic remedy as actual medicine when it is just water is | + | Selling a homeopathic remedy as actual medicine when it is just water is analagous to selling blank books. The smudge of ink Cueball mentions in the comic may be referencing the fact that some of the less diluted homeopathic remedies can contain a tiny amount of the original substance. |
− | + | Homeopathy is ridiculed in other xkcd comics and in the what-if blog (http://what-if.xkcd.com/79/). | |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
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:Friend: All your books are full of blank pages. | :Friend: All your books are full of blank pages. | ||
:Cueball: Not true. That one has some ink on page 78. | :Cueball: Not true. That one has some ink on page 78. | ||
+ | :[The Friend looks at page 78.] | ||
:Friend: A smudge. | :Friend: A smudge. | ||
:Cueball: So? | :Cueball: So? | ||
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:Friend: Who sold you all these blank books? | :Friend: Who sold you all these blank books? | ||
− | {{comic discussion}} | + | {{comic discussion}} |
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] | [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] | ||
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