Has PBS really come to this? Deepak Chopra infomercials

[jollyreaper2112]

I tend not to watch PBS much. Saw them doing a fundraiser the other day, the usual pledge drive stuff. But this time it was different. Usually they're just going on about arts and news and their programming and offering tote bags and DVD's of the shows for pledges. Well, this time they had on Deepak in the studio and were banging on about how wonderful it was to have him involved and would keep cutting to canned infomercials about his line of woo products. $150 value, plus membership on his woo website. They'd cut back to him and blather on a bit more, then cut to the infomercial.

I'm already offended that PBS is airing full-length, standard commercials in their primetime segments but this really takes the cake for me. This is a step far, far beyond where they've been before.

Anyone else miffed or has this become so common it doesn't even register?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra

"As Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum physics means anything can happen at any time for no reason!"
—Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth

Deepak Chopra is the most visible public proponent of "mind-body" woo and alternative medicine. He is also a writer of New Age/self-help spiritual books, that say things like "Look around you at the beauty of the Earth...Wooooo!" and "Look into the beauty of yourself...Wooooo!" Chopra sells something called ayurvedic medicine, which is apparently traditional Indian medicine filtered through the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and mixed with bad "physics" in order to treat the dangerously low levels of money in Chopra's wallet.
Chopra is a favored contributor at the Huffington Post, and was one of Michael Jackson's sketchy friends.[1]
Almost anything can be cured if you rub enough woo on it, especially if you likes you some quantum woo. If woo alone won't do the trick, it means you've forgotten to put on the Yanni CD.

[Berlum]

1. Has DU really come to this?

Another OP flinging poo at woo? It's kind of an industry around here.

[longship]

3. The world doesn't have enough poo.

And that's just for Deepak Chopra.

And woo has no place on a political forum (or anywhere else, for that matter). Unfortunately, people apparently like their ignorance of the real universe. Meanwhile people like Chopra get rich pitching their moonshine to the deluded, who probably think he really understands quantum field theory.

[jollyreaper2112]

9. agreed

The thing that's poisonous about woo is it occupies the place that could be taken by better, more factual ideas. Same problem I have with religion.

Someone believes in Positivology and says you should do mental happiness exercises to treat cancer alongside chemo and surgery? That's fine. It's not hurting anything. Happiness exercises in place of medical treatment? That's dangerous.

There's an Asimov quote I like. "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

That's not to say the established position is always right. We see old paradigms torn down all the time and replaced with better ones. But the new ideas are backed by facts and are irrefutable. They win because they are right. Einstein trumps Newton trumps Aristotle and in each case the theories were more correct, verifiable by observation and experiment. A dictator might say his physics trumps Einstein and with a gun he might get his professors to teach it but nobody outside his country will adopt it because it isn't right. The Soviets promoted Lamarckian genetics and eventually had to go back to using evil, capitalist genetics because, god damn it, that's the one that worked.

[jollyreaper2112]

8. be thankful

Be thankful this has nothing to do with the mra/feminist fight for christ's sake.

[on point]

2. Yes, PBS has become close to useless in my area. Record infomercials, repeats of Sally Orman. Awful

And counter productive. I used to subscribe on a regular basis but will not give them a dime until they return to old programming models where one could figure out what was on and wasn't constantly being suckered into to watching infomercials planted in the middle of a series time slot without warning.

[jollyreaper2112]

10. sadly

Voting with your feet doesn't work. When assholes destroy PBS, it's not really practical to try and find a replacement. We're basically doing it with the Internet but it's not going to be via a public broadcasting over the airwaves method. You can't get this back after the business greedheads ruin it. And that's what the GOP's been trying to do for years, get rid of Big Bird. You want kid's programming, you can pay for cable like God intended.

[kelliekat44]

13. Infomercials, and Orman do not make PBS "woo." PBS has much valuable programming and we must

learn to choose what is valuable, factual, and helpful, and healing for ourselves. This applies to every media outlet I can think of, including our most favored outlets. In addition, some people either have been or believe that they have been healed by what others call "woo." At the same time a wide range of "scientifically researched and proved" medical information has turned out to be false, misleading, and sometimes fraudulent. Even the renown National Institutes of Health has had to recant much researched information on salt, cholesterol, hormone therapy, etc.
One person's "woo" might be another person's "woopie!"

[SidDithers]

4. Woo sells...

There are millions of scientifically illiterate. I'll-believe-anything types out there with more money than good sense. One need only see the ratings that Dr. Oz gets for evidence.

The woo-peddlers even have a huge anti-science contingent right here at DU. Watch for the chemtrail believers spouting off about "scientific materialism".

Sid

[KittyWampus]

16. what is pathetic are the philosophically illiterate, frankly. And materialists should learn

to try and defend their world view rather than spout crap about "woo" any time someone discusses something their closed minds can't grasp.

[csziggy]

5. PBS uses garbage like that for their fund raisers

Both here in Tallahassee and in Tampa, they've been doing that for a number of years. They used to run specials from their wonderful science and nature programs. Now they run self help crap and woo.

It's no wonder I watch less and less PBS. Years ago they re-ran their evening programming in the afternoons, which was great to watch when I did paperwork on bad weather days. Then they went to all kiddie programs all day. During fund raisers, they would bring back the best of their specials. Now their specials are re-run to fill the time because they are not making as much new programming.

Maybe they don't have as much money to work with - but they won't get any more of my money as long as self help garbage and outright woo is any part of their programming, even if it is only four times a year for fund raising.

[MattBaggins]

6. There is woo and then there is choprawoo

There was at some point a generator on the net that would take random physics and medicine concepts and string them to together. It was indistinguishable from Chopra's writing. He just takes fancy words and strings them together. His followers have no idea how silly his ideas really are.

[edhopper]

7. Deprak Chopra

Who understands neither quantum physics or modern medicine, and yet...

[jollyreaper2112]

11. understanding

He understands making money and he's crazy good at it, the fucker.

[edhopper]

12. As H L Menkin said

nobody ever went broke...

[pokerfan]

21. It's not that Chopra is stupid

it's that he's completely full of shit.

Look at it this way: Think of how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that. And it doesn't take you very long to spot one of them does it? Takes you about eight seconds. You'll be listening to some guy and you say, "This guy is fucking stupid!" Then there are some people, they're not stupid; they're full of shit. Huh? That doesn't take very long to spot either, does it? Take you about the same amount of time. You'll be listening to some guy..and saying, "Well, he's fairly intelligent...... ahh, he's full of shit!" Then there are some people, they're not stupid, they're not full of shit...they're fucking nuts! Dan Quayle is all three!
George Carlin

Chopra is probably two out of three.

[Berlum]

14. Bad science and the catastrophic health problems it causes

Far worse than than the complementary health practices that Heath Industry, Inc. advocates like to denigrate and kiss off as "woo" is the epidemic of health problems caused by the profiteers of Medical Science.

How come no one on DU has made a campaign of attacking these far greater and far more serious threats to health? What some denigrate as "woo" is a convenient punching bag -- an intentional distraction that FOGS the atmosphere so real serious problems in the Health Care Industry, Inc. are given less attention that they merit. To me it seems like a lot of the Benghazi and Birfer distrations the Republicons religiously toss out, so that the real rot and corruption they embody gets less attention.

http://www.depletedcranium.com/shame/

[SidDithers]

20. More from Depleted Cranium...

http://depletedcranium.com/how-to-kill-chemyrails-with-vinegar-yeah-people-believe-this/

How to Kill Chemtrails… With Vinegar (yeah people believe this)

So you’ve come to believe that aircraft are spraying dangerous substances above your heads and you want to get rid of them?�� So, how about using some vinegar?

Um…

Well… it is a weak acid so it could possibly react with chemicals that are either alkaline in nature or are just prone to breaking down in acid.� But those “chemicals” are rather high up in altitude, and aside from that obvious problem, one might think that if the chemicals were potent enough to be dangerous even after drifting down and surviving the harsh conditions of the upper atmosphere than vinegar probably would not do much.

Really, do I need to explain the flaws in the logic here?

Apparently so.

I know chemtrails are a subject near and dear to your heart, so I'm glad you've come around to the pro-science point of view.

Sid

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Where have you been? The self-help hucksters have been on pledge drives

(along with washed-up pop stars) for years.

In fact, I can look at my local PBS station's monthly listings and tell exactly when they're going to have a pledge drive.

In Oregon, PBS and NPR operate out of the same studios, and a radio announcer of my acquaintance told me that the money people control everything. They have it in their heads that bad programming raises more money, so that's what they demand. They won't even listen to other ideas.

[JVS]

22. "They have it in their heads that bad programming raises more money"

This is probably something that they have absolute proof of. Seriously, bet the house on it.

[PasadenaTrudy]

17. I stood very close to him once

at an event at Caltech. Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins were debating him on stage, and I was lucky enough to score a ticket. Chopra is a slimeball, complete with rhinestone encrusted sun glasses. Ick! The debate really made him sound like a fool, it was quite entertaining.

[Archae]

18. I've been rather critical of many forms of woo here.

So I get compared to the Antichrist, Hitler, and the Grinch.

The funny thing is, if a Birther started posted here, I doubt anyone would believe him or her.
And the Birther would get tombstoned rather quickly.

Creationists too.

Yet pet beliefs that have just as much actual evidence are considered to be sacred.

"GMO's is poison!"

"Chiropractors are wonderful healers!"

"Lee Harvey Oswald is a hero!"
(That comment never was answered)

I have one particular "fringe" interest, I like cryptozoobiology.
(Nessie, Bigfoot, etc.)

I do know, however, that evidence is needed, and as yet, is still very thin. If it exists at all.
But every year biologists find new species of animals, usually in remote places.
So who knows?

Deepak Chopra is a con man pushing possibly dangerous woo.

[Jazzgirl]

19. You are not the only one miffed.

I miss all kinds of programming they used to have. I used to love watching Saturday afternoon cooking shows. Now everything is one big infomercial. It's really not PBS anymore. It is terrible.

[L0oniX]

23. I was really hoping for a gift card from the Koch brothers who regularly contribute to PBS...

instead all I got was woo.