12 Jun 10 Evolutionary Health vs State-Sponsored Science
Proponents of evolutionary health are in a frustrating position. On one hand, our position follows directly from evolutionary theory (one of the most well established scientific facts around). On the other hand, our position stands in direct contradiction to the mainstream state-sponsored position on nutrition and health (although that’s slowly changing for the better). Obviously, a theory contradicting evolution is in all likelihood wrong. I don’t think anybody doubts that all other living organisms are healthy when living under the conditions to which they have adapted via evolution (that’s why zoos try to recreate their natural habitat). Humans, members of the same family of DNA-based organisms, should also be healthy under the conditions of the evolutionary environment.
The scientific research in the field of nutrition and health has been deeply muddled, as Gary Taubes has forcefully argued. This is because they haven’t adopted the guiding paradigm of evolution, the theory underpinning all of biology (and this due to government distortion of science). Without a theory to interpret the data, they’re adrift at sea without a rudder, facing a bewildering array of disconnected facts with no way of relating them. Only evolution can make sense of the facts, but if they accept that, they’ll have to admit that they were wrong and that the evolutionary health proponents were right. I look forward to the day.
In this excerpt from The Protein Debate (HT Robb Wolf), Loren Cordain beautifully makes this point:
Although humanity has been interested in diet and health for thousands of years, the organized, scientific study of nutrition has a relatively recent past. For instance, the world’s first scientific journal devoted entirely to diet and nutrition, The Journal of Nutrition only began publication in 1928. Other well known nutrition journals have a more recent history still: The British Journal of Nutrition (1947), The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1954), and The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1988). The first vitamin was “discovered” in 1912 and the last vitamin (B12) was identified in 1948 (1). The scientific notion that omega 3 fatty acids have beneficial health effects dates back only to the late 1970’s (2), and the characterization of the glycemic index of foods only began in 1981 (3).
Nutritional science is not only a newly established discipline, but it is also a highly fractionated, contentious field with constantly changing viewpoints on both major and minor issues that impact public health. For example, in 1996 a task force of experts from the American Society for Clinical Nutrition (ASCN) and the American Institute of Nutrition (AIN) came out with an official position paper on trans fatty acids stating,
“We cannot conclude that the intake of trans fatty acids is a risk factor for coronary heart disease” (4).
Fast forward 6 short years to 2002 and the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine’s report on trans fatty acids (5) stating,
“Because there is a positive linear trend between trans fatty acid intake and total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol concentration, and therefore increased risk of cardiovascular heart disease, the Food and Nutrition Board recommends that trans fatty acid consumption be as low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet”.
These kinds of complete turnabouts and divergence of opinion regarding diet and health are commonplace in the scientific, governmental and medical communities. The official U.S. governmental recommendations for healthy eating are outlined in the “My Pyramid” program (6) which recently replaced the “Food Pyramid”, both of which have been loudly condemned for nutritional shortcomings by scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health (7). Dietary advice by the American Heart Association (AHA) to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) is to limit total fat intake to 30% of total energy, to limit saturated fat to <10% of energy and cholesterol to <300 mg/day while eating at least 2 servings of fish per week (8). Although similar recommendations are proffered in the USDA “My Pyramid”, weekly fish consumption is not recommended because the authors of these guidelines feel there is only “limited” information regarding the role of omega 3 fatty acids in preventing cardiovascular disease (6). Surprisingly, the personnel makeup of both scientific advisory boards is almost identical. At least 30 million Americans have followed Dr. Atkins advice to eat more fat and meat to lose weight (9). In utter contrast, Dean Ornish tells us fat and meat cause cancer, heart disease and obesity, and that we would all would be a lot healthier if we were strict vegetarians (10). Who’s right and who’s wrong? How in the world can anyone make any sense out of this apparent disarray of conflicting facts, opinions and ideas?
In mature and well-developed scientific disciplines there are universal paradigms that guide scientists to fruitful end points as they design their experiments and hypotheses. For instance, in cosmology (the study of the universe) the guiding paradigm is the “Big Bang” concept showing that the universe began with an enormous explosion and has been expanding ever since. In geology, the “Continental Drift” model established that all of the current continents at one time formed a continuous landmass that eventually drifted apart to form the present-day continents. These central concepts are not theories for each discipline, but rather are indisputable facts that serve as orientation points for all other inquiry within each discipline. Scientists do not know everything about the nature of the universe, but it is absolutely unquestionable that it has been and is expanding. This central knowledge then serves as a guiding template that allows scientists to make much more accurate and informed hypotheses about factors yet to be discovered.
The study of human nutrition remains an immature science because it lacks a universally acknowledged unifying paradigm (11). Without an overarching and guiding template, it is not surprising that there is such seeming chaos, disagreement and confusion in the discipline. The renowned Russian geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975) said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (12). Indeed, nothing in nutrition seems to make sense because most nutritionists have little or no formal training in evolutionary theory, much less human evolution. Nutritionists face the same problem as anyone who is not using an evolutionary model to evaluate biology: fragmented information and no coherent way to interpret the data.
All human nutritional requirements like those of all living organisms are ultimately genetically determined. Most nutritionists are aware of this basic concept; what they have little appreciation for is the process (natural selection) which uniquely shaped our species’ nutritional requirements. By carefully examining the ancient environment under which our genome arose, it is possible to gain insight into our present day nutritional requirements and the range of foods and diets to which we are genetically adapted via natural selection (13-16). This insight can then be employed as a template to organize and make sense out of experimental and epidemiological studies of human biology and nutrition (11).
09 Jun 10 The Paleo-Libertarian Connection on LRC
My article, The Paleo-Libertarian Connection, was published today on LewRockwell.com. Here’s a quick overview: I show that the paleo community is strongly libertarian, and why it is. Then I discuss the parallels between the ideologies. I end by making the case for paleo-libertarian integration. It’s somewhat of a paleo-libertarian manifesto, a flagship article for the Paleo-libertarian group.
20 May 10 Religion: a virus of the mind
There is a striking parallel between belief in a personal god and belief in Santa. As Richard Dawkins argues, these beliefs (or memes) are viruses of the mind. The two beliefs are of the same type, differing only in particulars:
- Both beliefs infect young minds incapable of critical thought and lacking the knowledge to properly judge the validity of those beliefs.
- The disinfection process is identical for most people: critical thinking develops and knowledge about reality increases until the superstition is seen for what it is.
- Both depend on mass support: children believe in Santa because everyone else appears to. But when the appearance of mass support vanishes as children get older, the belief gets wiped out. If someone maintained the belief into adulthood, he would be considered mentally immature. Likewise, religions get their strength from mass support. The religion of culture A is considered ridiculous by those of culture B—culture B is highly resistant to religion A simply because mass support is missing. Religious belief is considered childish and ridiculous where it is rare.
Growing up involves learning about reality and discarding falsehoods. Everybody drops the superstitions that don’t have mass support among adults. But many who were infected by religion as young children aren’t able to shake the virus as adults—because the mass support among adults prevents it from being exposed as a superstition. They go on to spread the virus to their children—that’s how the virus propagates itself.
It’s telling that nearly all religious people were indoctrinated into their particular religion as children. Those who are infected as adults are usually of questionable psychological integrity, or are simply unaware of the scientific evidence. After all, atheism correlates with intelligence and education. Consider this: a person may have complete faith in religion A, but had they grown up in a different culture they would have complete faith in religion B, even though the two are mutually contradictory. It comes down to sheer luck whether one is born at the right time and place to be infected with the ‘correct’ religion, although such a person will always believe that his is the ‘correct’ religion, while the other is false. Take a moment and think through the implications of this.
Now, religious people are not all stupid. In fact, many are very smart. For example, several Mises Institute scholars are religious, despite being very sharp thinkers in economics. This strikes me as a huge disconnect, a double standard—intellectual dishonesty, but probably not intentional. It’s as though religious belief is kept in its own compartment in the mind, sealed off from the rigors of evidence and logic that rule everywhere else. I find it absurd that one can be committed to the high standards of logic and evidence while also believing the superstitions of Bronze Age tribesmen.
Belief in a personal god is childish, just like belief in Santa. Both beliefs have zero scientific evidence to support them, and are opposed by overwhelming evidence
Religion is an affront to reason and human dignity. It represents a complete rejection of reason and it lowers humans to the level of pawns in some divine game. Religion spreads by infecting innocent children, before they can critically assess what they’re being taught. Leave the children alone and let them decide what they’ll believe when they grow up. But if that were done, I reckon that religion would completely evaporate in a few generations.
06 May 10 Evolutionary Psychology vs The Blank Slate
I just finished reading Steven Pinker’s book, The Blank Slate
Pinker invokes evolutionary psychology and the other sciences of human nature to systematically pick apart the Blank Slate. The Blank Slate is the empiricist position that the mind enters the world empty and acquires all traits from the environment—hence, the mind can be shaped into whatever we desire simply by controlling the environment; there is no such thing as human nature. In the nature/nurture debate, it is known as the extreme nurture position. Pinker decisively shows that this position is false. The mind comes with many innate features such as emotions, a moral sense, and a highly specialized ability to learn language (but not to read/write), just to name a few. The existence of cultural universals seals the fate of the Blank Slate.
While all of this is quite evident to most people, many intellectuals (especially in the social sciences) have bitterly resisted the discoveries of innate features. They fear that a scientific basis for differences among people, the sexes, and races will legitimize discrimination. Their error was to base their morality on the assumption that humans are born blank slates. As such, their moral opposition to discrimination is deeply undermined by the discovery of facts about human nature. In fact, the Blank Slate position could just as easily be invoked to argue that people should just be socialized to accept discrimination. A proper moral theory holds that people have equal rights by the fact that they are humans, regardless of their innate features. Likewise, the recognition of human nature fatally undermines such garbage philosophies as relativism, constructionism, and romanticism.
He explores the implications of various innate features of the mind, such as our intuitive moral sense or our intuitive theory of mind. His analysis of our innate theory of economics explains why economic fallacies are so common among non-economists (and even among some economists). Paul Rubin has written an excellent paper about this and draws heavily on Pinker’s book. I highly recommend it.
To his credit, Pinker takes a mature classical liberal position on social issues. In the chapter on politics, he rejects the Utopian (i.e., Marxist) position for its naive view that human nature can be fundamentally changed. He sides instead with the classical liberals, who recognize the flaws of human nature and the need for institutions that can deal with them (e.g., limited democratic government, low taxation, free markets). On the topic of feminism, he sides with the equity feminists (those who advocate political equality between men and women) in rejecting gender feminism (which he calls the “lunatic fringe” of feminism).
One of the interesting topics he discusses is child development. Contrary to common belief, parents have virtually no influence on how their children turn out (personality, intelligence). This is explained by the evolutionary theory of parent-child conflict—children only carry 50% of a parent’s genes so their interests are not fully consonant; children evolved resistance to parental influence to prevent parental exploitation. Scientists have found that about 50% of what shapes a person is genetic. The other 50% is attributable to interaction with peers and chance. For example, the children of immigrants seamlessly learn the language and adopt the culture, but they don’t acquire their parents’ accents. This explains why children don’t turn out as their parents worked so hard to ensure. It also entails that most parenting advice is trash that wastes parents’ time and makes them feel guilty for not investing all their efforts in raising their children.
Pinker’s discussion of the arts is great. He shows that humans are hardwired to enjoy specific features in art (form, beauty, melody, etc). But in the 20th century, modernism and post-modernism explicitly rejected beauty and deliberately created appalling and disgusting art in attempt to change human nature. Hence the sorry state of modern art, and the superiority of classical art.
All in all, it’s a fascinating book with broad implications. Pinker’s analyses are careful and intelligent, brimming with good sense. The book is well worth reading, and you will learn a lot in a variety of fields.
25 Apr 10 Stand up desk and other ergonomics hacks
I bought a stand up desk a half year ago for ergonomics. I was fed up with sitting (for many of the reasons that Mark Sisson recently wrote about) so I hired a handyman (through the online classifieds) to build me a standup workstation. It was pretty expensive ($450), but it’s top quality and I plan to use it extensively for many years to come. It’s gigantic: 3′ deep and 5′ wide, giving me plenty of room to do both computer work and paperwork. It’s height adjustable within a few inches for fine tuning (via a screw mechanism between the legs and the tabletop).
I find that standing is nice but as Mark pointed out, static standing has its drawbacks. But since you’re not locked in a chair, it’s easy to move around or stretch once in a while—I like to drop into a grok squat once in a while. Foot soreness can be extreme at the beginning if you’re unaccustomed to standing for long periods. But your feet will adapt in a week or two, and will become even better adapted over longer periods. I use an anti-fatigue mat
Stand up workstation
My workstation also features dual monitors (24″ and 19″), which is a big productivity booster. I keep them below eye level and angle them upwards to reduce eyestrain—when you look down, your eyelids close more and your eyes don’t get as dry.
I also use the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 which I can’t recommend highly enough. The split keyboard keeps your wrists in natural alignment and the front is raised, creating a slight negative angle which also does wonders for the wrists. I can’t stand regular keyboards anymore, it feels like typing handcuffed. I can type much faster and much more comfortably on my ergonomic keyboard.
Rather than using wussy computer speakers, I hooked up my 500W 5.1 surround sound system. I can only send it a stereo signal, but it’s still awesome.
I recommend a standing workstation if you put in a lot of time at your desk. Otherwise, you might want to try some of the cheap alternatives that Mark suggests.
08 Feb 10 Cognitive Dissonance: Why Mass Delusions Persist
I recently read Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
A good example is the Milgram Experiment: the volunteers proceeded to deliver more and more powerful “shocks” (up to what they believed were dangerous levels) because they justified it one shock at a time. Once they had delivered the first shock, it wasn’t a big leap to justify giving the second shock, nor the third, and so on. But if they stopped for fear of harming the person, they would have to justify the previous few shocks, which weren’t much weaker. They faced the dissonance of admitting that they were wrong to be giving the shocks in the first place, which is why many people rationalized the shocks and continued as instructed. (Interestingly, this suggests that it was the incremental nature of the process that led so many to deliver dangerous shocks, and not just obedience to an authority figure, as commonly believed. Had the authority figure ordered the volunteers to deliver a dangerous shock right from the start, a lot more of them would have refused because they wouldn’t have had any dissonance to resolve.)
Confirmation bias plays an important role in rationalizing our beliefs, allowing us to discount or ignore disconfirming evidence and focus on the confirming evidence. People can become entrenched in the craziest beliefs via this process of step-by-step justification with confirmation bias, e.g., flat-earthers, vegetarians, and religious people. Take vegetarianism: let’s say you object to the cruel treatment of animals on factory farms. From there, it’s only a small step to the belief that killing animals is wrong. And from there, it’s a small step to the belief that eating meat is wrong. Confirmation bias smooths each step: you ignore or discount the counter-arguments and convince yourself with all the supporting arguments. Step-by-step, you slide further and further. By the end of the process, you’ve gone from the reasonable belief that animals shouldn’t be treated cruelly to the absurd belief that eating animals is unhealthy. The lesson here is that once we become committed to a belief, we become motivated to justify it. Confirmation bias helps smooth the process, and step-by-step we can end up strongly believing something that we previously would have considered ridiculous.
Cognitive dissonance theory offers some interesting practical advice. For instance, if you’re considering making a big purchase, don’t base your decision on the opinion of somebody who just made that purchase. They’ll be motivated to rationalize the purchase and you’ll tend to get biased advice. Another tip: if you want to win somebody’s friendship, get them to do a favor for you. They’ll be motivated to justify the favor by telling themselves that you’re a good person and you deserved it. Conversely, if you harm someone, you’ll be motivated to justify the harm by convincing yourself that the person deserved it. So venting your anger at someone is counter-productive: you’ll come to hate that person even more.
Cognitive dissonance theory has much to say about the mass delusions, which have the veneer of legitimacy because of their sheer number of believers. The main three are religion, statism, and mainstream health (or god, government, and grains.) To non-believers, these are completely loony beliefs that only persist because of cultural momentum. Because of this, a believer faces great dissonance in admitting that such beliefs are foolish. It would be very difficult for them to admit that their religion is nothing but a fairy tale; they would experience strong dissonance between “I’m intelligent and rational” and “I strongly believed in a fairy tale”. The dissonance would be even worse for intellectuals, who play a crucial role maintaining the legitimacy of widespread beliefs. To admit error is to admit that they misled countless people—a terrible thing to do—so there’s a strong motivation to rationalize the belief and convince themselves that they’re right. The dissonance becomes extreme in fields where the ideas have horrible real-world consequences, such as mainstream health or the social sciences. It would be extremely difficult to accept that “I promoted ideas that caused misery and deaths for countless people.” In these cases, the motivation to rationalize is tremendously powerful, which explains why conversions among these intellectuals are practically non-existent.
It’s important to understand this when working to explode mass delusions. Erroneous beliefs are rarely dropped right away—if they are at all, it’s often through a step-by-step reversal of the process that led there in the first place. One important conclusion we can draw is that if we want to convince someone of their error, we should respectfully and humbly point out their error. If we viciously attack their position as though only an idiot would believe it, then they face the dissonance of admitting that they strongly held an idiotic position and will be motivated to further entrench themselves in their position. Of course, we don’t always aim to convert the other person, in which case vicious attacks on their position can motivate other critics and win over undecided people. But when we really do want them to change their position, we would be wise to recognize that it will take time for them to correct their beliefs and that respectful criticism will go much further than head-on assault.
Perhaps most importantly, understanding cognitive dissonance theory can help us overcome our own biases and avoid the dangers of rationalization. The motivation to rationalize is quite difficult to escape, even for the authors of the book. We may always be susceptible, but we can protect ourselves by being aware of when we rationalize and stopping the process before it goes too far. It can be difficult and even humiliating to admit error, but a strong commitment to truth can provide the motivation. In the long run, a cultural shift in our attitudes towards mistakes would solve the bulk of the problem. If mistakes were considered normal and admission of error honorable, it would be much easier to admit error from the start, before rationalizing our way into delusion.
07 Jan 10 Good Calories, Bad Calories summarized in point form!
***Note: I checked with Knopf about copyright and they informed me that I can keep the notes up for a limited time until they withdraw the permission. Please download your own copy of the PDF while it’s still available.***
Gary Taubes’s masterpiece—Good Calories, Bad Calories
- Complete Notes to Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
- Or, save or print a copy of the PDF version.
- New: EPUB version
If you’re unacquainted with Taubes’s work, his obesity lecture is a good place to start.
14 May 09 Paleo (Bare) Footwear
Our feet have evolved for going barefoot-our hunter—gatherer ancestors didn’t have footwear. According to evolutionary logic, going barefoot is the healthiest option for our bodies. Unfortunately, barefooting is often impractical. Physical constraints, i.e., sharp objects or cold weather, as well as cultural constraints (“no shirt no shoes no service”) prevent us from going barefoot most of the time. Fortunately, there are some high-quality and affordable products that allow us to have the best of both worlds.
Vibram FiveFingers
Vibram FiveFingers "Sport" model
The Vibram FiveFingers are the shoe or sandal equivalent of toe socks. Designed to give you the barefoot experience with the benefits of underfoot protection, they’ll make your feet come alive! There’s nothing better except actually going barefoot. They’re great for outdoor or fitness activities. I like to use them for doing sprints on the grass at the park. You can immediately run faster because the power of your toes and feet are fully unleashed and because your running mechanics improve (no more heel strikes). They also make amazing sandals or watershoes as they’re incredibly grippy (the soles have sipes cut into them, just like snow tires). Very fun to wear!
As Tim Ferriss explains, traditional shoes can be quite harmful to foot health and posture, while barefooting in FiveFingers can bring amazing relief. In his case, it eliminated 10 years of lower-back pain in 2 weeks. Primal living blogger Mark Sisson is also a big fan of the FiveFingers as primal footwear and likes to use them for playing ultimate and doing beach sprints.
Order them online from the Vibram website but be sure to measure carefully as accurate sizing is very important. Canadians can get them from Mountain Equipment Co-op for an even lower price!
Unfortunately, you can’t wear them all the time, either because of cold weather or public reasons like your job. And that’s where the Wysong Ergonomic Insoles come in handy, providing barefoot benefits all in the privacy of your normal shoes.
Wysong Ergonomic Insoles
Wysong Ergonomic Insoles
The Wysong Ergonomic Insoles are designed to emulate the natural foot support of walking in sand. The heel of the insole is missing so that your heel “floats”, relieving the pressure on it. This promotes proper posture and discourages heel strikes in your step. The toes are also cut out to create “toe-grips” which actually makes a big impact by engaging your toes for even more propulsion.
They’re the perfect solution for day-to-day use, where going barefoot or wearing FiveFingers wouldn’t be feasible. They take some getting used to and adjustment to find the right position, but they definitely put out results. Not only are they super-comfortable to wear for standing and walking, they also unleash the power of your feet in athletic activity. You can immediately feel the difference while running or jumping, a feeling of power and swiftness. You’ll feel a new bounce in your step and an urge to go bounding away! Best of all, you can put them in any shoe you want, so you can wear them all the time. I’ve been wearing the Wysong Ergonomic Insoles for almost four years and can honestly say they’re the best health product I’ve ever come across.
Available online from the Wysong website.
Verdict
I was extremely impressed with both of these products and highly recommend them—for health, comfort and athletics. Both are definitely worth a try and are affordable enough to warrant it.
08 Apr 09 Become A Power User: Get The Best Software
Most people fall far short of tapping the full potential of their computing because they don’t take advantage of the best free software programs. Using the right tools is the most effective thing a person can do to become a more effective computer user. To help people accomplish this, I’ve assembled a list of the best free software programs (many are open source), and I will be updating it regularly to keep it current. By using the best tools, not only does computer work become more efficient, it often becomes enjoyable. For example, most people find email infinitely more pleasant when using Gmail, and likewise with Firefox and web browsing. While you probably won’t need them all, you should at least try out the ones labeled [Must have!]. So give them a try; I think you’ll be impressed!
I’ll update the list as needed to keep it current. That way, it won’t get old and out of date. Leave your comments and suggestions on this post (comments disabled on the article).
Check it out: The Best Free Software
05 Mar 09 How To Set Up A Website
After my thrashing of the all-in-one website tool Site Build It, I figured it would be a good idea to show how easy it is to set up a great-looking website with conventional hosting.
Even in this age of user-friendliness and online how-to guides, it can still be a bit overwhelming to set up your first website. It can be daunting just shopping for hosting, where you’re bombarded with all sorts of foreign terminology (eg. cPanel, mySQL, FTP, etc.) Admittedly, there is a fairly steep learning curve. But with the right guide, you can easily get a website set up and start publishing your content right away. Here are the four steps to set up a website:
- Register a domain name: The first thing to do is claim your name. Domain name registration costs around $10/year. It doesn’t really matter where you register, so just find the best price. I recommend Moniker based on their great prices ($8/year for .com).
- Find a web host: You’ll want to make sure you find a good host. Hosting is very important and is your main expense. I recommend HostGator—they’re a solid company and their hosting has all the features you’ll need at great prices for both single and unlimited domain accounts (in case you ever decide to create more websites). Once you have an account set up for your domain, move on to step 3.
- Point the domain at your host: Your host will give you at least 2 nameserver addresses (e.g., ns1.hostname.com and ns2.hostname.com). Log in at your domain registrar and paste the nameservers from your host into the nameserver (DNS) records. This points your domain name to your host where your website will be. It can take as long as 72 hours for domain propagation, so don’t panic if your domain name doesn’t take you to your host right away.
- Build your site: Now that the groundwork is complete, you can start building your site. To begin, briefly familiarize yourself with the basics of cPanel (the video tutorials and help pages are excellent). There are a lot of things to play with, but you really might only use a handful: Softaculous/Fantastico, File Manager, Backups, FTP accounts, and MX records (for using Google Apps). When you’re ready to create the actual public website, open an installer such as Softaculous or Fantastico. If you want a blog or a content site, go with WordPress; for forums, try phpBB. (You can even test drive applications to get a feel for them.) By using an application, you’ll never have to write any HTML source code! Fill out the required information and let Fantastico work it’s magic. That’s it: your site is now live. Log in to the application and start creating your content.
With these four simple steps, you can create a website within hours. From here on out, the going is much easier. Popular applications like WordPress are very easy to use and learn, with a wealth of documentation to help you with anything you can’t figure out on your own. By using themes and plugins, you can create an amazing website—customized to your preferences—with minimal effort and without any experience (or extra costs)!
Publishing your ideas on the web is easy, cheap and rewarding. There are still countless opportunities on the web—for profit, fame or disseminating information. I often have trouble finding information on the web and find myself thinking, “here’s a niche website opportunity.” And as you know, the web evolves at a breakneck pace—who knows what new opportunities will open up? More and more people are using the internet each year. Better to be ahead of the game than to be a latecomer and miss out. If you can’t justify spending any money yet, check out Blogger or WordPress.com to start a free blog—you even buy a domain and have them host it for a small fee. There are no good excuses not to own a website. So get started right now—I could use some help challenging the mass delusions of our time!
Updated: Feb 17, 2010
24 Feb 09 A Negative Review of Site Build It (SBI)
Site Build It! (SBI) is an all-in-one website creation, hosting and marketing tool from Ken Evoy’s SiteSell Inc. It makes it simple for someone to create and market their own income-producing website. I ordered SBI in March of 2008. Ultimately, I came away disappointed.
The Hype
There’s a lot of hype about SBI on the internet. A Google search turns up an avalanche of positive reviews, mostly from affiliates. It’s hard to even find a negative review! Add to this that other non-affiliates say good things about it. Even blogging king Steve Pavlina strongly recommends it (and probably makes a fortune doing so).
I think the affiliates generate most of the hype—there are swarms of them out there. SiteSell relies 100% on affiliate marketing for its sales. The affiliate program offers a $75 commission per referral, lifetime renewal commissions and 2 tier income. This motivates lot of people to become affiliates and push SBI as a miracle product for creating content-based income websites. All these sales websites effectively drown out any negative reviews in the search engine results.
After my experience with SBI, I was shocked that there weren’t more negative reviews out there. This motivated me to make my own contribution.
A rare negative review
I don’t think SBI is a scam, but it’s not for everyone. The actual value in SBI is the education, not the technology. It could be useful for someone who doesn’t know much about computers or the web. But for someone capable of installing software like WordPress at their own host (which is really easy), SBI would be more of a hindrance than a help.
Here’s my point-by-point review:
Appearance
I’m not sure if it’s a conscious effort on their part, but everything from SBI looks like it’s from the infancy of the web. The main SiteSell website sports a design that I would date back to the late ’90s. The administrator interface is the worst—it looks ancient (early ’90s) and it’s terribly ugly. Fortunately, these are unimportant cosmetic issues that have no bearing on the success of your website. Unfortunately, the SBI themes are no better. Unless you can make or find your own HTML/CSS design and add in the special SBI tags, you’re stuck with choosing from less than a dozen really lame and outdated themes (mid ’90s). This is a big problem, because first impressions are so important on the web.
My rating: 3/25
Educational resources
SBI’s strength is in education. Someone who knows nothing about creating and marketing a website may find their Action Guide handy. Then again, with a bit of patience you could find all the information you need for free online (in fact, the Action Guide is free). SBI just boils it down and explains it in simple terms so you don’t have to do the research. The weekly email newsletter contains informative articles and links to good forum threads. The forums have a great reputation: there is a very helpful and supportive online community. You can even get free forum access (read-only) by signing up for the affiliate program. Yet I can’t fully endorse the educational resources: they’re often simplistic and fluffy, aimed at very novice webmasters. Personally, I would just do my own research at a few different sources. So, while there is some value in the educational resources, you can access them for free or do the research yourself.
My rating: 18/25
Technology
For market research, SBI has a useful brainstorming tool for doing keyword analysis. It uses Wordtracker‘s keyword research service (SBI users get 25 queries per year). If keyword research is important to you, you could just use Wordtracker’s free trial or subscribe for one month. Or try a free alternative like Keyword Discovery.
The built-in blogging functionality is downright awful, but you can get around it by installing whatever blogging software you want on a subdomain (eg. blog.domain.com). However, there’s a catch: SBI won’t host it, so you have to buy separate hosting.
There are some handy tools like a Google Sitemap generator and automatic search engine pinging, but these features are free (and better) with software like WordPress or Joomla.
The control panel (Site Central) is pretty basic, without many features. It does make things simple, but it’s terribly limiting for more advanced users. File management is also pretty cumbersome—you can’t create any directories, so all of your pages have to sit in the root folder. I would avoid SBI due to these constraints alone.
My rating: 8/25
Price
In my opinion, SBI is outrageously priced at $300 per website per year. And if you want a blog or forum, you have to pay for 3rd party hosting on top of that. In comparison, domains only cost $8 per year. Hosting for a single domain costs $60 per year, or $100 for unlimited domains. Throw in a free software tool like WordPress and you have a way better setup for a fraction of the cost.
My rating: 1/25
Summary
If you find yourself lured by the sales talk, don’t bite. The SBI features and tools may sound impressive, but you have to compare them to the alternatives. I’ve found free alternatives that are much better than SBI’s offerings. The only thing of value that they offer is education, but they put that out for free. There’s no reason to buy the product. If you’re still undeterred, at least try WordPress so you can compare them and see the difference.
With a score of 30%, SBI gets a big red FAIL:
Appearance: 3/25
Education: 18/25
Technology: 8/25
Price: 1/25
Total: 30/100
A better way: Open source over proprietary technology
Being disappointed with SBI, I tried out some free open-source content management systems (CMS). The top three are Joomla, Drupal and WordPress. Joomla was pretty good, but I found it a bit hard to learn and too bulky for my needs. I haven’t tried Drupal yet; it’s the most fully featured, but the hardest to learn. WordPress was just perfect—easy to install, very intuitive, and a great selection of themes and plugins to make it do just about anything. I was very impressed—WordPress blows SBI out of the water!
Open source is better—Firefox is one of the best examples. In addition to the CMSes I mentioned above, there are plenty of high-quality open-source web applications, such as phpBB, MediaWiki, Movable Type, etc. If you’re worried about support, the free forum support usually suffices. If that’s not good enough, you can hire someone from Elance. Open source software is constantly being improved and bugs are fixed almost immediately. Best of all, you don’t pay a cent. It’s simply a smart idea to use flexible open-source technology as opposed to restrictive proprietary technology.
Final verdict
If you’re computer or web illiterate, your best bet is to skip SBI and hire someone to make a website for you. If you have the skills (or the potential to learn the skills) to set up WordPress or another CMS at your own host, then do it. It’s easier than ever to set up a great looking website for under $75/year. In this age of free software and cheap hosting, I foresee a dark future for SBI.
My experience with SBI was one big letdown. I transferred my domain out well before my subscription expired. I strongly discourage using Site Build It, no matter how good the affiliates make it sound. SBI is so bad, you couldn’t even pay me to use it!
Further reading
- WordPress Vs SiteBuildIt for Making Money Online
- SBI (Site Build It) versus WordPress: How to Structure a Website
- Site Build it – Don’t Buy It
- Site Build It Review Bazooka
- The Great Site Build It SCAM
- Site Build It Review Site
Update (March 25, 2009): there has been an explosion of negative reviews of SBI after Lis Sowerbutts’ negative review triggered a massive comment war which saw Ken Evoy and his minions battling Lis and her internet marketing friends. I’ve added a few of the new links to the ‘Further reading’ section above.
23 Jan 09 The Evolutionary Lifestyle II: Radical Implications
What are the implications of the evolutionary lifestyle? To find out, we must first figure out what the evolutionary lifestyle consisted of. The timeline of human evolution indicates that evolutionary change takes place over hundreds of thousands of years. To put that into perspective, the complete timeline—from the earliest lifeforms to modern humans—spans 4 billion years.
We are the heirs of inherited characteristics accrued over millions of years; the vast majority of our biochemistry and physiology are tuned to life conditions that existed prior to the advent of agriculture some 10,000 years ago. Genetically our bodies are virtually the same as they were at the end of the Paleolithic era some 20,000 years ago.
The Paleolithic era, otherwise known as the Stone Age, spans from 2.5 million years ago, with the introduction of stone tools, until the advent of agriculture 8,000-12,000 years ago. During this era, humans lived as hunter-gatherers. Anatomically modern humans—people with the same physical appearance and intelligence as ourselves—appeared in Africa at least 130,000 years ago.
Since our bodies have evolved to thrive under Paleolithic conditions, mimicking the Paleolithic lifestyle is the key to optimum health. We can immediately see that the implications of this approach are at odds with much of the conventional wisdom. The basic premises carry radical implications. A few examples:
- Diet: primarily meat, fish, shellfish, leafy vegetables, fruit, nuts and insects.
- Eating meat is the foundation of a good diet.
- Fat is good for you. Good quality fats (they ate the entire animal) are essential for good health.
- Grains and dairy have no evolutionary precedent in the human diet. We should therefore expect them to be lousy sources of nutrition and possibly even harmful.
- Water: drink when you feel thirsty, there’s no evolutionary precedent for forcing down 8 glasses of water per day. Nor is there any precedent for drinking fluoride-medicated water.
- Skin health: our ancestors lived for millions of years under the sun, without sunscreen (or clothes). We should expect sunlight to be healthy, but excessive exposure (sunburn) to be unhealthy. There’s no precedent for using moisturizing lotions, or other skin products, either.
- Exercise: Paleolithic exercise consisted of lots of low-intensity walking, coupled with occasional short bursts of high-intensity work (hunting, fleeing from predators, etc). Regular cardio exercise (jogging, cycling) has no evolutionary precedent. High-intensity, low-duration strength exercise is optimal.
- Rest: contrary to popular perception, hunter-gatherers enjoyed an abundance of leisure time. Laziness is natural.
Given that these ideas are extremely dangerous to some powerful special interests, it is perfectly obvious why the Paleolithic lifestyle is marginalized in mainstream health. In both the USA and Canada, the government publishes nutritional and health guidelines. And sure enough, they line up pretty nicely with the interests of some big lobbies. For example, both recommend eating a lot of grain and dairy, and using plenty of sunscreen.
If the bureaucrats and special interests are somehow right, we would be asked to accept a mind-boggling coincidence of stupendous proportions: that there is another type of lifestyle that by chance happens to be better suited for our bodies. Remember, our bodies have become highly specialized, through millions of years of evolutionary adaptation, to thrive under a specific set of conditions; it would be next to impossible for a different lifestyle to suit our bodies better than the one our bodies have literally grown into. The evolutionary lifestyle fits like a glove. There’s no alternative that could suit us any better.
For a neutral opinion:
From the advocates of the Paleolithic lifestyle:
- Mark’s Daily Apple – my favorite site about the Paleolithic lifestyle (he calls it the Primal Blueprint). I recommend starting with his Definitive Guide to the Primal Blueprint.
- PaNu – Dr. Kurt Harris is my new favorite paleo writer. He gives a rigorous scientific analysis of paleolithic nutrition. Check out his 12 steps.
- The Protein Power Lifeplan
– this book draws upon both evolutionary theory and empirical evidence and offers a comprehensive Paleolithic lifestyle plan.
15 Jan 09 The Evolutionary Lifestyle: A Logical Theory of Health
Unlike other lifestyles, diets and exercise plans; the evolutionary lifestyle is based on theory, not on empirical evidence. We know it’s a healthy lifestyle without even looking at any studies. This is crucially important for two major reasons. First, the conclusions of research studies seem to be constantly changing. There is still wide controversy in the field of health (unlike in chemistry or physics), which brings me to the second reason: government tainted science. Governments (tax-funded monopolies) have horrible incentives, so their involvement in the field of health is sure to spread misinformation and lies. In most countries, the government publishes recommendations for diet, exercise and other health-related topics. Given the perverse incentives of governments, it’s extremely important to question such nutritional guidelines. Fortunately, we can sidestep the empirical research by using evolutionary theory, which actually turns out to be a much more reliable and accurate way to discover the healthiest lifestyle.
The theory can be stated as follows:
Given that humans are the product of evolution, the lifestyle that the human body has adapted to through evolutionary natural selection will tend to be optimally healthy.
If we accept the assumption that humans evolved through Darwinian adaptation, then we can conclude that our bodies have become specialized in a certain lifestyle (diet, exercise, etc.) and this lifestyle will be optimal for good health. If we want to be healthy, all we need to do is read up on our evolutionary history. No research studies required.
Evolution is the process by which random mutations of the genes (DNA) that happen to confer an advantage to the organism survive and outcompete the old genes (and vice versa for bad genetic mutations). This positive feedback system, over thousands of generations, improves the genetic blueprint of the species. But evolution is not perfect; it is a process of continual improvement. The length of time (or the number of generations) that a species exists under certain conditions determines how much adaptation will occur. That is why the theory states that the evolutionary lifestyle will tend to be optimally healthy.
Unless critics can somehow disprove the theory, then all the research studies in the world wouldn’t be able to invalidate the thesis. Ultimately, however, if the theory is correct, the empirical research must illustrate it, by definition. I believe that it already does, but I won’t get into the empirical side here.
The evolutionary lifestyle is highest standard in the field of health, because the theory is logically, not empirically, derived. (Technically, it’s logically derived from the theory of evolution, which is empirically derived—but that’s a pretty solid empirical theory!) No longer are we to remain at the mercy of the ever changing nutritional advice of the empiricists. We now have a theory that will enable us to cut through the controversy and get straight to the facts.
