Althouse: "Munchausen by internet can be bad for your health forum."

November 25, 2012

"Munchausen by internet can be bad for your health forum."

So how do you smoke these fakers out?

Via Metafilter, where they are "the hipsters of detecting false Internet illness claims. We did it before it was cool."

32 comments:

Farmer said...: Makes me think of Segway Jeremy.

He posted a "Farewell, I'm dying" message on his blog, but he seems to still be updating his Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/jeremyjryan; 11/25/12, 4:57 PM
Farmer said...: I'd like to see Meade smoke that faker out.; 11/25/12, 4:58 PM
rhhardin said...: If you were born with five limbs, you could be a quintiplegic, and one-up the guy.; 11/25/12, 5:00 PM
Ann Althouse said...: @ The Farmer

Then what you want is this Isthmus forum thread. 250 posts long, but well worth it, especially for Meade fans who want to see what happens when he sojourns where his style and pithiness are not appreciated.; 11/25/12, 5:02 PM
caplight45 said...: So Segway boy is still with us. Where he wasn't smart was in giving himself a soon-to-be-fatal prognosis. Should have chosen a more indeterminate condition so he could play it for years to come.

By the way did I tell you that I am slowly dying? I could use all the financial help I can get for me and for my family. It's been a real struggle. They think I only have thirty or forty years left.

Tragic. Can you help?; 11/25/12, 5:05 PM
Peter Hoh said...: The Stranger just published a long piece on this, The Lying Disease.; 11/25/12, 5:06 PM
McTriumph said...: First day of cellular biology you learn that every living thing begins to die the moment it is born.; 11/25/12, 5:24 PM
Baron Zemo said...: Yeah that is what happened to the Crack Emcee.

He has the boogie woogie fever!; 11/25/12, 5:26 PM
David said...: That's ok. The docs are about to make fakery a disease in dsm-v. Better reimbursement profile.; 11/25/12, 5:27 PM
McTriumph said...: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, along with Time Bandits are great Gilliam movies to watch with kids, Brazil with older kids.

I also recommend the Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit series of shorts. Kids love them, adult will like the detail.; 11/25/12, 5:36 PM
Unknown said...: People have been "enjoying" ill health since at least the time of Shakespere.; 11/25/12, 5:51 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: There sure are a lot of real health issues out there I notice.

People whose everyday lives are certain struggles. I find I am received when I address them directly, "Hey, your sock fell off," to the guy whose leg is missing and negotiating the elevator door. "That's quite a wheelchair you've got there," to the only handicapped person at a party, and that opened up a whole space of conversation that other people entered. And then at the store, "I'd be happy to reach that for you," to the lady with the grabby thing in another motorized wheelchair, and "Mind the gap," to the klutz clanging on crutches. Oh, and "Help! Help! Somebody help me, I've been captured! Help! Help! I can't get free. Help. Help. Pretty please with sugar on top, help, help help," to the retarded kid who clamped onto my sleeve in passing and held tight to it. I almost forgot about that, his mother was appalled at that but her kid laughed his little ass off. I could have yanked free but it was fun. I have this knack for dropping right into Learninghandicappedville, like that, *snap*. It's a gift.; 11/25/12, 5:56 PM
Anonymous said...: That Stranger article is pretty appalling. I've only seen a lesser version of this on support boards for a specific illness, where people who have never been to a doctor are "convinced" that they have that illness. It's an odd, odd phenomenon.; 11/25/12, 6:02 PM
Farmer said...: Ha! I was just screwing around, I had no idea Meade had actually smoked the faker out. Nice work!

I've had the misfortune of being friends with two different drama queens who were always about to drop dead. One of them has been dying for over twenty years of various undisclosed medical vagaries. The other one grew out of it. I'm no longer friends with either of them. The line I heard from both of them all the time was "I'm probably not going to be around much longer."

Needless to say, they're both still around. They'll probably outlive me.; 11/25/12, 6:05 PM
edutcher said...: As Texas Ranger Joe Riley told his son, Omega Sector agent Harry Tasker, "Trust none but steel. Trust no man, trust no woman. Trust only steel"; 11/25/12, 6:23 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: So how do you smoke these fakers out?

I dont know?

You offer them some pot?; 11/25/12, 8:50 PM
Michael K said...: Munchausen by proxy is far worse. I have seen a couple of these and the kids are the parent's key to attention.; 11/25/12, 9:10 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 11/25/12, 10:32 PM
cheddar said...: I was a long time poster on an infertility site. Women who eventually did have children would stay to discuss their parenting after infertility issues. There were multiple fakers. One woman faked an entire full term twin pregnancy. Another woman had children and then claimed that an Amber alert had just been issued because her daughter was missing. Problem is that Amber alerts can be easily verified -- you can't pretend that there is one in effect when there isn't.; 11/25/12, 10:47 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @cheddar,

There were multiple fakers..

Do you remember what it was about these "fakers" that led you or your fellow blog-members to suspect that they were lying?; 11/25/12, 11:26 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Yeah that is what happened to the Crack Emcee."

The Crack flounce-off coincided with our lack of response to his attacks on Mormons.; 11/26/12, 4:37 AM
McTriumph said...: Speaking of Mormons, I note that Instapundit linked an article mentioning that Japanese domestic sales of adult diapers surpassed those for infants.; 11/26/12, 5:17 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Do you remember what it was about these "fakers" that led you or your fellow blog-members to suspect that they were lying?"

The linked article has a list of factors to use to detect fakers.; 11/26/12, 5:19 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Faker factors.; 11/26/12, 5:19 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Speaking of Mormons, I note that Instapundit linked an article mentioning that Japanese domestic sales of adult diapers surpassed those for infants."

Yes, that's the real problem. If people become too rational, they won't have children. If the group had a rational mind, it would encourage irrationality in its members. The group doesn't have a mind, but it's as if it does. Hence, lots of Mormons!; 11/26/12, 6:34 AM
Aridog said...: Ann Althouse ... reference Isthmus thread:

Hilarious comment string. Meade wins early when the ad hominem unconscionable dickwad is flung his way. That is just so much more fulfilling than "asshole" or whatever.

It seems the rest of the thread is more about silencing Meade than anything else. Why do these self anointed progressive thinkers, who once upon a time in the 60's, demanded the right to dissent and now seek to silence any dissent.; 11/26/12, 7:58 AM
Aridog said...: Pretty sure others have already seen this, but here is SJ's 13 Oct 2012 "update" onm his blog:

Update: 10/13/12: Just am update! I am doing OK, was in much pain so I tripled my muscle relaxers first four days were great, fifth landed me in a 3 day coma… Recovering now but have almost no internet… While in coma they did tons of lung treatments and my one lung is now at 60% other at 80% and no sign of decline… Docs said I would be dead or brain dead, once again they were wrong thankfully… Looks like I will once again beat the odds ...

An average 70% of lung capacity working is not at death's door, folks. You usually don't even require supplemental oxygen until 40%.; 11/26/12, 8:10 AM
Farmer said...: Aridog, you're assuming he's telling the truth. Don't play the game. I'd bet just about anything he's never had anything worse than a bad cold.

Re: Crack - he's crazy. I'll bet he's a swell guy IRL (in fact I think I met him back in the 80s, if he was in the Beatnigs at that time) but he's still crazy. Batshit, foaming-at-the-mouth, off-his-fucking-rocker crazy. If you disagree with him, you're his enemy or, at very least, one of the brain-dead masses who voluntarily dopes themselves up, rendering pure comprehension of the Gospel According To Crack Emcee incomprehensible.

Crazy.; 11/26/12, 8:43 AM
Aridog said...: The Farmer said...

Aridog, you're assuming he's telling the truth. Don't play the game.

Trust me, I'm not playing any of SJ's games...merely noting that his statement vis a vis his lungs is bullcrap in a clinical sense...just like most of everything else he says. Even a half-wit would use Google to get some clinical facts correct in their otherwise fabricated story. In other words, SJ has reached that pinnacle where he believes his own BS.

My clinical knowledge vis a vis lungs and capacity is real event based, personal, and part of the decision process I had to use in determining what form of treatment I wanted. I am in fact surviving quite nicely with 40% lung capacity.

I'd never entertain him by responding...Meade does it so much better than I could anyway.; 11/26/12, 9:34 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Ann Althouse,

The Crack flounce-off coincided with our lack of response to his attacks on Mormons.

That's a lie.

I clearly stating why I left - and it had nothing to do with Mormons or your reactions to my statements about them. It had to do with you and what you're even doing now:

Attempting to change reality - and not giving me my due when correctly sticking by it.

But whatever - you guys don't need my vote, remember?

As I said in my last post, on my blog, before the last election, "Save your own damned selves."

You're losers,...; 11/26/12, 5:08 PM
McTriumph said...: The Crack Emcee

I'm already back in Missouri, have been for about thirteen years.

Good to hear from you. I missed ya. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and have a merry Christmas.

Don't be a stranger.; 11/26/12, 5:27 PM
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