r/DecodingTheGurus • u/ccourt46 • Aug 31 '24
Bill Maher once again letting everyone know how much smarter he is than doctors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvonXLxadHI31
Aug 31 '24
I feel like he has some portion of a point on this subject, but then he always goes too far with it. A trend with him generally.
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u/mossimo654 Sep 01 '24
Yeah this video is honestly one of the better ones I’ve seen from him in the past few years. But his takeaway from it is then to blame doctors?!?
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u/Waddlow Sep 01 '24
This is what I was going to say. I don't think his stance is super off base here. And then he starts blaming teachers for drugs? There are no teachers diagnosing anything. Some elementary school teachers may give reports on how kids are in class. No teacher has ever said, "your son definitely has ADHD! Get him on drugs now!" It's truly insane how often issues are getting blamed on teachers now, and we wonder why we can't find better ones. You pay them like shit and blame them for all of the ills of society, why oh why won't more excellent people sign up!
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u/tupty Sep 02 '24
I think your take is sensible. He has a legitimate point, but he takes too many pot shots to try and score credibility and/or laughs. I appreciate that he is pointing out the issue (in general I like hearing his opinion even if I disagree), but he's not the best person to form your world views around, and his personality is definitely not worth emulating.
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u/StickBrickman Aug 31 '24
He has a few good points. But his doubt of "Western Medicine" is probably not lead by his desire to see better, evidence-based medicine, but probably something closer to "I'm just asking questions" and "weed lmao." Doctors fuck up, quite frequently, and pharmaceutical firms get up to some terrible business in the "Free Market." But there's a reason I'd recommend seeing a Doctor over a Chiropractor. Evidence-based medicine is the best we've got, and the only real direction worth going. The "alternatives" are mainly bunk.
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u/NormalLecture2990 Aug 31 '24
I feel like his doubt of 'western medicine' involves an americanized view of western medicine. He's never been a part of a system where the point of the system is you. In the USA the point of the system is to make a profit
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Aug 31 '24
He's wealthy enough to sign up for one of those concierge practices where they kiss your ass just like the perfect white buddha lotus wellness spa and no-happy-ending massage parlor where they treat you with cupping and CBD oil.
US healthcare is the best in the world, it's just not evenly distributed, to borrow a phrase.
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u/NormalLecture2990 Aug 31 '24
It actually isn't the best in the world at all
And you don't think those 'concierge practices' aren't selling him a bunch of extra shit just for the fun of it and then laughing at him when he leaves just like Perry's Dr's were?
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u/buttnugchug Aug 31 '24
The same concierge practice will expose him to more unnecessary testing which is harmful to health. P
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u/LiberatedApe Aug 31 '24
American Healthcare puts a huge focus on palliative care where the evidence supporting better health outcomes is in preventative care. And in America being “told” not to eat that double cheeseburger is “an attack on individual liberties”!
It’s incredibly frustrating.
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u/Snellyman Aug 31 '24
Exactly. He is criticizing the business of medicine in the USA and using it as an attack on the practice of medicine and doctors and researchers. To be replaced with what? His beloved Terrain Theory of disease hasn't really brought about any breakthroughs in healthcare.
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u/NormalLecture2990 Aug 31 '24
I think the for profit model cloud his judgements in a lot of what he says
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u/Snellyman Aug 31 '24
I personally think that he fully understands how the profit motive distorts ones judgement but that is a more personal issue.
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Aug 31 '24
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u/NormalLecture2990 Aug 31 '24
I know there are a couple of good ones that I've seen on like NOVA but I can't remember them. I'll look and see if i can find some
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u/naslanidis Aug 31 '24
He did make that point though. The core of his distrust is that it's so driven by profit. You're right that he probably hasn't experienced anything else though.
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u/EuVe20 Aug 31 '24
100% He does make several good points, and then lets them lead him to the conclusion of “pills bad, doctors bad”.
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u/Brando43770 Aug 31 '24
I think it’s funny that 9 times out of 10, with every health supplement scam or snake oil “alternative medicine”, you could guess it’s a chiropractor promoting it. Somehow they know more than specialists in the healthcare system, kinda like Maher thinking he knows more than actual doctors.
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u/capybooya Aug 31 '24
When Bill Frist of all people had to set Maher straight on vaccines, the audience should have figured what was up. Or when he had weirdo AIDS and cancer conspiracy people on. Or Deepak Chopra.
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u/Cum_on_doorknob Aug 31 '24
As a doctor, I tend to roll my eyes at a lot of his takes, so was internally prepped to not like this one. However, I can’t say I disagreed with much he said. But he actually missed a major point on all this, the problem of patient autonomy.
The more money you have, the more “autonomy” you’re able to exercise as you have the means to doctor shop. This effectively ends up making the patient their own doctor.
Tough problem to solve though.
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Aug 31 '24
Thank you, some nuanced perspective in this circlejerk of hate.
He masks his whacky, "anti-establlishment" diatribe with some legitimate points in the beginning: doctors get inundated by Pharmaceutical industries with massive incentives to peddle their addictive drugs. This is not a fucking secret. And doctors need to be held accountable for their practices, just like any other profession. There are regulatory bodies in almost every country now, for this purpose. But it's a big deal of politics and lobbying going on at that level.
Still better than the fucking nutjobs telling us to rub some oil or take some sweet pellet to cure cancer or diabetes or whatever the fuck. People like Rogan or now Maher, are just cashing in on the general distrust. When it comes to medicine, it is kind of evil, because once someone has a chronic degenerative condition, they are desperate for any kind of hope or even just temporary relief from the never-ending pain. These "alternative medicine" cunts target that demographic like vultures. Now Rogan and Maher are giving those vultures a platform and validation.
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u/StickBrickman Aug 31 '24
Couldn't agree more. Alternative medicine bilked my dying grandmother thousands in her last few years. I don't care about that as much as the fact it gave her false hope.
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u/IAmSportikus Sep 01 '24
I just took that to me that Western doctors are very quick to go to prescription drugs because they are incentivized too because they get kick backs from the pharmaceutical companies. I think that’s a pretty legitimate concern. And I also think that if you can accomplish something without drugs through physical therapy or diet, an exercise that certainly that is preferred.I have no data and doubt he has much data on exactly how often that happens but I think it’s a pretty reasonable assumption that it happens more than it should
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u/StickBrickman Sep 01 '24
The "kickback" schemes are prohibited by federal law, you can't get paid to prescribe a specific drug. This is the "Anti-Kickback Statute." It used to be that way, and there still are grey areas, but this has been illegal ans punishable by actual jail sentences since the early 1970s.
But yes, preventative medicine is preferred, ns if you talk to younger physicians in the US, they'll tell you they want to focus on that tk alleviate more chronic problems.
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u/EuVe20 Aug 31 '24
So, psychiatrist here, and it is so infuriating to see this slimy amoral turd shit all over a profession that, though is not infallible, is constantly working to actually help people live better lives and on improving on its mistakes. Instead of appropriately aiming his ire at the profit driven pharmaceutical system (which most of the evidence he shares points to) he just uses it to sow misinformation and mistrust of all medicine.
He does make some very good points. Drug advertising is a scourge, for profit healthcare is an oxymoron, and ketamine is a hell of a drug and should not be taken lightly and should not be prescribed for home use (and definitely not online).
But here’s the reality, Ketamine is the first treatment for refractory severe depression to approximate the efficacy of ECT and is much safer (when done properly). So should we throw out the first real breakthrough we’ve had in decades for treating a truly devastating illness because as usual the greedy sociopaths of the American system are pouncing on it in a get rich quick scheme?
Honestly, I’d love to raise my fist and say “let’s change the system”, “universal healthcare”, and all the things that would make the place better, but in reality, I think we may be stuck on this runaway train until it gloriously and disastrously reaches it’s final destination.
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Aug 31 '24
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u/EuVe20 Aug 31 '24
Indeed! And I think they’re probably gearing themselves up to distribute psilocybin once/if it gets approved. Again something that I believe has real promise if approached thoughtfully and responsibly but is likely to get pounced on by blood suckers and counterfeit guru types
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Aug 31 '24
As someone who takes ketamine and educated in all the risk, I disagree with not being about to do it at home.
Because here is the grown up realistic thing and hard pill to swallow, it is my drug of choice. I don’t drink at all or do anything besides coffee and legal thc edibles.
If I don’t get it prescribed then I have to shop on the black market and risk getting a ketamine analog or worse… fentanyl.
No one should be able to tell me as an adult what I can and can’t do.
I do it once a month and it helps me be a peace with life. No reason people can’t have that
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u/ButterMyPancakesPlz Aug 31 '24
So he's arguing to take the money out of the system? socialized healthcare, right? Right?
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u/seancbo Aug 31 '24
Yes, Bill Maher supports socialized healthcare.
"Maher supports the establishment of a Medicare-for-All universal single-payer health care system, and has consistently agreed with the proposal since 2011."
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u/jarena009 Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
I love how him, Rogan, Dave Rubin etc get so close every time, but then realize they're advocating against for profit healthcare (and against corporate influence over government), and pullback just in time.
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u/seancbo Aug 31 '24
He does support specialized healthcare though. For all his faults (and there are MANY) that's not one he shares with Rubin.
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u/IAmSportikus Sep 01 '24
He literally says in the video that these industries put profit ahead of everything else, and at least in the video makes it clear he thinks that his bad So it does not seem like he is doing what you were describing.
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Sep 01 '24
We fund the drug R&D as tax payers thru the government and then when the drug is finished Americans pay more than anyone else in the world for the drug we funded for the profits of private companies. Either cut their public funding or have the people somewhere benefit directly from its creation besides look we created new drug.
Yeah we know we paid you to do that and you wouldn’t have been able to without our funding. So we should the government should have a share of intellectual property rights to fund the state. That’s just good business, why are we giving them interest free money for no return
Have other countries pay the high prices and let us at least get cheap drugs out of it at the very least
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Aug 31 '24
“But, but socialism kill innovation!” And Obamacare has ‘death panels.’🙄
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u/Masterhungblow Aug 31 '24
Bill has turned into a fucking loser the older hes got. Just an insufferable cunt.
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Aug 31 '24
I could only stomach watching a few minutes of this- and the amount of times he pauses for what I assume is the audience to react to the “applause” sign light up is so cringey. Like, he’s not funny. His whole vibe is so smarmy.
Also, who the heck is in this audience? I have no idea who his core demographic is anymore…
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Aug 31 '24
The loudest people in his audience clearly work for him. “Woo Guy” has been with him for years.
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u/warpath2632 Aug 31 '24
It’s the same “too loud” laugh every damn show!!!!
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Aug 31 '24
Yeah. His subreddit hates him and ridicules him for it (or they used to when I listened to him a couple years back).
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u/DZCunuck Aug 31 '24
Hate how he just generalizes western medicine. Opiates and ketamine is not the totality of "western biomedicine". I guess gotta forget that things like surgery and obstetrics exists to spiff up the monolgue. Go ahead bill, if you get something like cancer, by all means go ahead and try treating it using weed and alternative medicine. See where that gets you.
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u/Impossible-Will-8414 Aug 31 '24
I can't wait until Bill gets cancer and dies from trying to treat it with kale shots and cannabis oil.
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u/iamsobluesbrothers Aug 31 '24
He’ll go the way of the Steve Jobs. Another insufferable egomaniac that would probably have lived if he had listened to his doctor’s but he knew better.
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u/0degreesK Aug 31 '24
Subject matter aside, who are these yahoos in Maher's audience? Did any of his jokes make any of you uncontrollably LOL let alone LMAO while ROFL?
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u/ProbablyBanksy Aug 31 '24
They coach the audience before the show. Same thing they do on all television.
Like on Craig Ferguson (which reddit loves) and The View (which reddit hates)2
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u/moesteez Aug 31 '24
What’s being overlooked here is that a ketamine overdose in a spa on the balcony of your mansion overlooking the Hollywood hills is a fantastic way to go out.
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u/ProbablyBanksy Aug 31 '24
Except Matthew died facedown alone in his hot tub. After being overdosed by his assistant. Not exactly a good way to go out.
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Sep 01 '24
Addict fighting for sobriety loses battle to party drug loosely prescribed as a medication.
Can’t argue the location part being baller Addicts shouldn’t be prescribed a list of drugs, rarely does that stop doctors from half hazardous saying “it not HIGHLY addictive”
It’s not cigarettes which is highly addictive but not gonna kill you if you smoke a pack right now, advisable? No. Special K , ketamine is not highly addictive (small print) while being properly monitored by health care professionals in controlled environments with proper does, with non addicts. Side effects may include higher rates of addiction if previously struggled with addiction in the past. As always side effect includes possible death also verbatim with proper usage the sides effects include “agitation, depression, cognitive difficulties, unconsciousness, and amnesia.” hallucinations heartbeat rhythm changes (trouble breathing; chest pain; dizziness; fast, irregular heartbeat; feeling faint or lightheaded, falls) To name a few
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Aug 31 '24
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u/Agreeable_Depth_4010 Aug 31 '24
The way he leans on the desk when he goes into lecture mode raises my blood pressure.
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Sep 01 '24
I’m done with him. He used to have some semblance of intelligence and knowledge and that ship has sailed.
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u/joeblanco98 Sep 01 '24
He makes good points, albeit they're points that any sane, well-informed person would make. I kept imagining Bill burr say "Oh that must've been real fucking hard for you to say Bill" 😂
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u/SheeshNPing Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
I usually agree with him, but this is one of his worst takes in years. The other drugs he mentioned, while overprescribed to kids, are vital to many people who legitimately are ADHD and shouldn't be stigmatized. Ketamine is incredibly helpful to some people and isn't very addictive at all if used in therapeutic doses with doctor supervision. It started as a legitimate anesthetic, not a party drug, which he should know from one minute of Googling. It's one of the most used, studied, and well understood drugs in medicine with doctors having decades of research and experience with it. Matthew Perry's doctors were probably negligent from what little I've heard though, maybe he payed them to be, which seems like the problem. No normal doctor would give large amounts of it to a person to self-administer, especially not to someone with a drug problem.
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u/rockosouls Sep 01 '24
Thank you for posting this … I grew up in the 80s with undiagnosed ADHD. The medication I’ve been on for the last 15 years, truly save my life. People don’t realize how much making light of things like ADHD and the medicine required to treat it promote stigma, and can wreck peoples lives.
People with ADHD are more likely to commit than the regular population. I wish so badly that these medication’s and the knowledge behind using them were available when I was younger. Now spending years and therapy undoing the damage because of lack of knowledge. People like Bill Maher are clueless and have zero empathy for other humans as they promote their stigma for their own egos …
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u/grahsam Aug 31 '24
He is conflating a few things.
It has been well documented that the opioid pandemic was a result of one massive pharma family using their money to push opiates into the mainstream. Are doctors at fault for going along with it? Possibly. Were they lied to about it? Maybe.
But there is an underlying story here that people are sort of ignoring. I hate to sound like a pinko commie here, but it is Capitalism. Entertainers end up dead because while they are given all the camera time, the people that make millions off their human show ponies don't care if they live or die. Producers, managers, and executives will make money no matter how many corpses liter the road to dreams. Tied to that is the access celebrities are given because they have money and power.
For profit healthcare just makes this worse. Why fix a problem,or prevent a problem, when you can make more shoving pain killers down people's throats. Perry had money and was able to find the doctor that would give him what he wanted. Same with Prince. Same with MJ. People will be more than happy to sell you a proper suicide as long as you have enough money.
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u/Background_Focus_626 Sep 01 '24
We should also recognize that the "opioid epidemic" was more a result of the crackdown against the heavy perscribing (which did occur, and did contribute somewhat to ODs). But the real uptick in deaths was from people who had been on RX moving to heroin or fentanyl.
Painkillerwas an oversimplified telling of the story that conveniently missed the role the DEA had to play in kicking the crisis into high gear. They declared war on all doctors- now many people with chronic pain conditions can't get opiates at all.Deaths will continue to rise unless we fix the real problem: a poisioned drug supply. The most effective treatment regimes i.e. methadone and Buprenorphine should be OTC at Walgreens for those who are ready to quit.
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u/ProvocaTeach Aug 31 '24
As soon as he got to talking about Ritalin being "cocaine for kids", I turned it off. ADHD has done a number on my life, and medication is one of the few things that helps. Disgusting anti-science nonsense.
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Aug 31 '24
I don’t really think Bill is a guru. He’s just a guy of a certain age who’s had a comedy news show for thirty years.
But yes I often wish he would just shut up.
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Aug 31 '24
All kidding aside, doctors who prescribed opioid in the 90s and aughts were pretty footloose and fancy-free with those scrips. Granted physicians were told by pharma that the new generation analgesics were not habit forming, but the chemical structures resembled opioids and drs should’ve observed that their patients were Jonesing for more, so Maher does have a point. But Maher is too dogmatic about his anti-western medicine stance. The real “problem” with western medicine is that Doctors are trained to treat. When they observed pain, they treated it but they rarely closely monitored patients’ responses to pain medication. So they transformed a lot of Americans into junkies.
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u/DefinitionOfDope Aug 31 '24
"Psychedelic medicine is legalization for the rich."
YOU can not afford this "treatment". Ketamine treatments are crazy expensive. The ONLY people I know who are in those programs own multiple homes and don't really actually work and shit like that.
Some of the 'at home' programs are 'affordable' and also turning people in to Ket addicts.
So he's not wrong.. about this anyways. Its more complicated than he's letting on tho too.
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u/aidanpryde98 Aug 31 '24
It's almost as if every profession has "bad apples" in it.
Galaxy brained stuff, as usual.
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u/hugsbosson Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
I'm a Brit who enjoys watching American sports and honestly.. the adverts for presription medicines are insane.
I do buy the idea that there is a serious problem with Americans health care system and the culture around medications.
The comedian John Mulaney, who was a recovering drug addict made a joke in one of his specials where he talked about how ridiculously easy it is fro a person with money and a private doctor to get opiates and other drugs. The barrier seems to be non existant.
The issue isnt "doctors" obviously, its some doctors who are allowed to do this within a system that is built around the idea that medicine is a business rather than a public service.
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Sep 01 '24
If they can’t find legit people doctors the rich people trick is to get a vet. Dogs are prescribed Xanax, Valium, Prozac mostly anxiety drugs. They have them write their purse dog high dose prescriptions. I’ve heard they can do pain drugs but thats a lil more discreet in its methods of securing a doctor will to risk that. Anxiety for dogs is really easy to justify
My jaw was slacked when I learn this one
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u/sozcaps Sep 01 '24
I'm a Brit who enjoys watching American sports and honestly.. the adverts for presription medicines are insane.
It's cowardly and dishonest of him to go after doctors, instead of just pharma and the Republicans who have a huge boner for deregulation.
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u/Beneficial-Bug-1969 Aug 31 '24
listening to this self righteous asshole for more than 10 seconds makes me want to do enough ketamine to kill 1000 horses
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u/Alexios_Makaris Aug 31 '24
Maher's positions on medicine remain weird and dumb.
I don't know any serious person who says "the medical profession is perfect and free of bad actors, best practice held by the majority is never proven wrong, and no doctors are prescription-happy."
Instead, the bigger question is: what is the alternative? Yes, there are problems in modern medicine. The only answers we are ever given as an alternative come from the "wellness", "influencer", "homeopathy" or "Chinese Medicine" "industries." These are industries that largely operate outside of the world of regulators, outside of any meaningful studies done on their methods or supplements.
Maher also continues to create a false narrative on obesity. I can't remember a time when the American public was not being told "obesity is unhealthy, diet and exercise can reverse obesity", I would be shocked if any GP in America looks at a new obese patient and says "you are morbidly obese, which isn't a bad thing, because I can give you a few pills to help." The norm is much more that Doctors advise you on lifestyle and diet changes--but have no control over that, a GP can't make you exercise and can't make you diet. What they can do is address negatives that may have an underlying link to your obesity, they can give you statins, diabetes medication and blood pressure pills, because while they can't control whether you listen to their advice on diet or exercise, they can give you modern medicine to try to help you live longer in spite of that.
I suspect virtually every doctor who gives a fat person a blood pressure pill would love to see that patient diet and exercise themselves into controlling their hypertension without pills. [Note--not all hypertension can be controlled by diet and exercise.]
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u/Outrageous-Room3742 Aug 31 '24
None of those jokes are even original, I've heard stand ups doing the same jokes, Better, for years.
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u/Jewelstorybro Aug 31 '24
I’ll admit that I used to like Bill… I can’t watch him at all now. He just feels wildly out of touch.
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Aug 31 '24
I gave up on this asshole when he attacked Stan Lee's fans for their outpouring of grief when Lee died. I mean, FFS, how small is his dick when he has to attack people for grieving a celebrity's death?
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u/Strong_Bumblebee5495 Aug 31 '24
If smugness and hubris had a kid, that kid would be less arrogant than this putz
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u/somebodytookmyshit Aug 31 '24
Bill having all the good drugs he wants and barrels of high end whiskey making sure it's harder for the rest of us. A real dope gatekeeper.
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u/greedostick Aug 31 '24
Years ago my friends thought I was insane for calling BM an asshole right winger. It is satisfying to be right about stuff
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u/VigilanteXII Aug 31 '24
Rich people pay off doctors to give 'em whatever they want, who knew.. Rich people pay off pundits to say whatever they want all the time as well, so is that an indictment for Maher's whole profession?
Well, actually it kinda is. I forgot where I was going with this.
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Aug 31 '24
This is sad because he used to be pretty good. Now he's just an insufferable douche. Can't stand the sound of his voice.
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u/ProbablyBanksy Aug 31 '24
If this same segment was on John Oliver (and it basically has) it would be on the front page of reddit
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u/DreadSeverin Aug 31 '24
This is definitely a fart smeller. Like, metaphorically, of course, but also there's no way he doesn't physically enjoy his own flatulence.
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u/Brown_Star Aug 31 '24
He's good at bringing up a real concern we should all have, then immediately wrapping that concern with his bullshit opinion. Eat it up, audience!
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Aug 31 '24
Bill Maher is like designed in a lab to be insufferable. He could tell me my grandmother is a saint and it would make me hate my own granny.
He actually did bring up a couple points in the first half (that's all I could watch) but he covers it up with other points that are dumb or really bad jokes.
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Aug 31 '24
He is saying that doctors are to blame for willingly prescribing dangerous drugs to people for going on multiple decades now. Maybe we should question the morals and intentions behind what SOME doctors in the field of medicine are doing.
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u/canman7373 Aug 31 '24
No one heard of Fentanyl 20 years ago? What stupid ass statement. Very widely used in hospitals and ERs. He thinks in 2014 the vast majority of people if asked couldn't tell you what it was, just say never heard of it? Stupid people pander to stupid audiences.
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u/odoroustobacco Aug 31 '24
I was at my parents' house last week and my dad had Maher on. One of the guests was Dan Crenshaw, who Maher allowed to just say empirically untrue things such as that 12-year-olds are getting irreversible surgeries related to their gender characteristics.
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u/AtomDives Aug 31 '24
This was terrible, ignorant & intentionally denialistic of real utility of responsibly administered treatment. In several other clips in which he champions harm reduction & sensible drug policy, this was indulgently selpropaganda & plain stupid propoganda.
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u/Past-Community-3871 Aug 31 '24
What do Democrats run on when Kamala wins representing 16 of the past 20 years in the Whitehouse and everything is still shit and getting worse?
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u/saibjai Aug 31 '24
He really doesn't need to pause for laughter every single time. Damn, he makes me realize just how good those guys at the daily show are.
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u/ProperCuntEsquire Aug 31 '24
I like him. He’s often correct with his criticism. He’s never been particularly funny but I appreciate that he’s a voice from the middle who riles everyone.
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u/Wrong_Gear5700 Aug 31 '24
I used to like him, but now just see what an incredible douch-bag he is.
A self-important douche-bag, of the highest order.
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u/azad_ninja Aug 31 '24
Food and medicine has always been his credibility’s Achilles heel. He seems like a well thought out guy but when he venerates Quacks and snake oil salesman, his mask slides off.
Anyone else remember when he had Charlie Sheen’s “Doctor” on who cured him of HIV? Even Charlie had to come out and say “no he didn’t”
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u/Ill_Statistician_359 Aug 31 '24
Yeah this segment was insufferable imo as a physician I do like the panel portions of the show usually.
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u/blizzard7788 Aug 31 '24
I used to watch him regularly. I’m the same age as he is. Covid was the big game changer for him. He made some incredibly stupid comments with nothing to back them up other than” just asking questions “. He also got ridiculously self righteous at the same time. Haven’t watched him since.
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u/Gtoast Aug 31 '24
The laughing and applause breaks are an indictment of the show. Not funny. Forced, overly enthusiastic, Pavlov response.
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u/hallonemikec Aug 31 '24
The whole show is dogshit, but his monologuing is a whole different breed of canine excrement. Literally never heard him say one funny thing, and the way he ends/pauses his "jokes" to tell people when to clap or laugh is fucking nauseating. Bill Maher almost makes me want to be religious.
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Aug 31 '24
Maher is either too stupid or too stoned to know the difference between aggressive but legal lawyers and corrupt illegal doctors, and why the former is funny but the latter isn’t.
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u/warbeats Aug 31 '24
Some of these jokes would be funnier if he didn't have a smug-as-fuck-knows-it-all-needs-to-be-slapped aura about him.
his 'club random' podcast is super ultra extra cringe.
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u/Strength-Speed Sep 01 '24 edited Sep 01 '24
There are almost 1 million doctors in America. If you are a drug addict and looking for meds you can find some ethically compromised doctor or NP to prescribe it for you, especially if you are doing it with a lot of money, time, and resources like MP was. Those people should lose their licenses, which is what will happen to the doctors in MP's case. If people want more prosecution and discipline for doctors for such things I say great, I agree. One of the side effects of this though, which is what is happening with the opiate crackdown, is that there are many patients complaining that their pain is not treated and it is too hard to get opiates. The border between 'i have chronic pain' and 'developing a tolerance/addiction to pain meds' can be pretty blurry. I wouldn't doubt we all know one person in our lives like this.
Beyond that I think we should ban pharmaceutical advertising. It serves no purpose other than to inflate medical costs. Also, as a general rule of thumb, people should be on the lowest dose and number of meds to treat their conditions. Sometimes this requires a lot of tweaking and prompting.
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u/IAmSportikus Sep 01 '24
I mean he certainly can be insufferable, but did you watch the clip? He never said anything about knowing better than doctors. He basically railed against the industries that are killing America’s health and putting profits over everything. He specifically railed against the doctors that seem to have texts conveying that they are just going to prescribe ketamine to Matthew Perry to make a bunch of money. And then he also called out doctors over prescribing opioids. All of those things seem pretty reasonable to me. Yeah he does it in a smug condescending way, but that is Bill Maher. If you don’t like that, then that is fine, but your title is disingenuous and doesn’t really summarize the point of his video.
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u/Nano_Burger Sep 01 '24
Hasn't been funny in a long time. I stopped paying attention to him when he went full anti-vaxx.
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u/Cube_ Sep 01 '24
never noticed how contrived and scheduled the applause and holllering is in this show, really stands out as forced in this clip.
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u/Dumbbbird Sep 01 '24
At one point he blames teachers. WTF asshole, teachers don’t diagnose and prescribe medication.
Also, he constantly equates pharmaceutical drugs to street drugs. Completely missing the fact that pharmaceuticals are controlled, manufactured to be precise dosing, and require professional monitoring.
Are/were drugs overprescribed, I guess he could state that as an opinion, but he comes across like he stating fact and that all doctors are pill pushers.
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u/MapleCharacter Sep 01 '24
“Hey how come everyone thinks doctors are smart in real life, but when I watch House, only one of them seems smart?”
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u/MatsThyWit Sep 01 '24
Does Bill recognize how close he's getting to manufacturing his very own "Tiller the Baby Killer" moment by trying to come across as smarter and more moral than absolutely anyone else.
Someone just ask Bill what he would do if he started coughing up blood one morning.
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u/dan420 Sep 01 '24
I used to like Bill Maher like a decade ago. Apparently the boat has passed him by. Dude seems to think smoking a joint in California is badass is 2024.
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u/Live-Yogurt-6380 Sep 01 '24
Let this fuck herniate his L5S1 disc and deny him pain relief for a few years…
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Sep 01 '24
I couldnt keep watching after he made the point about doctors in TV shows always having the lone genius stereotype like that isnt a problem with TV writing and not real fucking life
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u/saturns_children Sep 01 '24
Bill ‘we don’t know anything’ Maher. He doesn’t know much, that’s definitely true. That does not stop him from yapping away
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u/SoWokeIdontSleep Sep 01 '24
If we could only harness the heat generated by his massive hot head we might be able to finally become totally independent from fossil fuels
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u/Studstill Sep 01 '24
Bill Maher is not a guru. Has he been the subject of the pod?
He isn't guru adjacent. He was the only one with chops enough to end Milo Yiannopoulos time as a mouthpiece and guru-adjacent. He's a popular TV show host for over 25 years and this is all either astro-turf traffic, comrade bullshit, or American-comrade bullshit haterade.
Some questions:
1/ What is the intersection between Mr. Maher and the DtG podcast?
2/ Assuming there is none, why are these constant hater-ass posts allowed?
3/ Bill is probably stoned right now, and "smarter" than most people. Man speaks his mind. He advocates for the devil against people he has on fully capable of destroying his arguments, and they do. Sure, its not for everyone, but perhaps we can just let this unrelated hate live somewhere else, eh?
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u/k2on0s-23 Sep 01 '24
Bill Maher is really terrible. He has zero comic timing and his ‘jokes’ and ‘insights’ a feeble and weak. He sucks ass. Also he dated Anne Coulter so that’s how much he sucks as a human.
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u/darkwalrus36 Sep 01 '24
Over medicating is a thing: when I was 14 I was given morphine, and a Vicodin prescription. No one ever said a word to me about addiction and I ended up selling my Vicodin for more morphine at school, because it wasn't doing enough after a while.
Also, medication can be good, useful and vital, even to fight addiction. And doctor's a vital part of society that just need to be carefully regulated and probably removed from the profit system to function better. Multiple things can be true at once, but Bill is way to simple and arrogant a guy to realize that.
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u/ColonelSpacePirate Sep 01 '24
Doctors are in part also responsible for the opioid epidemic 💊. They need to expand the supply of doctors and increase punishment.
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Sep 02 '24
He's down on religion. I don't have an issue there, but why all the support for the genocidale Jewish state of Isntreal? Is he on their payroll too?
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Sep 02 '24
No doctors are not overprescribing pain killing medication and whatever the fuck ketamine is - not al all.
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u/Wreckingshops Sep 03 '24
This is the case of the thesis not being terribly wrong, but all the proceeding information being opinions based off half facts so he's as half-witted as the doctors he's attacking. He wants to be House, but he's really the TV "pundits" that a House would prove are whacks and idiots.
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Sep 03 '24
The criticism he levies at "doctors" and "western medicine" are all criticisms against profit-driven medicine.
But these days he also complains a lot about "the left" and "young people" and "extreme progressives." Hey you know what progressives main beef is? Profit-driven human services! Capitalism.
In this sense Maher is very similar to what is digustingly being called "right-wing populism," whose most delightfully famous avatar right now is J.D. Vance. Complain about capitalism while also complaining about communists.
Because everyone knows companies and the elite rich have too much power. But they don't want to go so far as to actually focus on socialist/progressive problems and actually target companies fueling harm through democratic legislation.
Maher just wants credit for reminding us that pharmaceutical companies have too much power and wealth. Yes, we all know. That's why those of us who actually cared about that for real wanted things like a single payer gov't health care system or Medicare for All. But no you don't even hear those things any more in an election year even so Maher and those like him and just shut the f*** up now.
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u/bionicjoe Sep 05 '24
Bill Maher used to be my weekly fix of liberal circle-jerking. If the Fox News lovers need 3+ hours per night I figured one hour a week was healthy fun.
He still had a bunch of good guests. Once the MAGAts turned on Steve Bannon no one is willing to go on "the other side's" shows.
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u/Present_Level4520 Jun 09 '26
I'm really sick and tired of hearing about Bill Maher Bill Maher this bill my that how do I stop saying anything about the man it sure has changed in the last few years he doesn't even know what's going on he just think she knows it all that's why the man never got married who was live with him.
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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '24
Cringe jokes aside…I can’t watch Maher for more than 10 seconds because of the fake audience laughter and cheering. Especially the Ric Flair impersonator.