The Placebo Effect Not Just On Drugs

dvdme writes "It seems the placebo effect isn't just valid on drugs. It's also a fact on elevators, offices and traffic lights. An article by Greg Ross says: 'In most elevators installed since the early 1990s, the 'close door' button has no effect. Otis Elevator engineers confirmed the fact to the Wall Street Journal in 2003. Similarly, many office thermostats are dummies, designed to give workers the illusion of control. "You just get tired of dealing with them and you screw in a cheap thermostat," said Illinois HVAC specialist Richard Dawson. "Guess what? They quit calling you." In 2004 the New York Times reported that more than 2,500 of the 3,250 "walk" buttons in New York intersections do nothing. "The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on."'"

Comments

This explains the political process

[Cornwallis]

I keep voting and nothing new happens.

Re:This explains the political process

[alen]

what do you expect to happen? i've lived in the US almost 30 years and everyone wants a government check and free health care but they don't want to pay for it.

after 30 years i like the US, A LOT

Re:This explains the political process

[ChefInnocent]

Oh for a mod point. I've come to look at the election process as voting for Coke or Pepsi when all I want is a glass of water. Transparent and no artificial additives.

Re:This explains the political process

[TheLink]

Vote for a glass of water then.

If enough people do that, instead of voting for Coke or Pepsi when they really wanted water, they'd get their glass of water eventually.

Right now seems like >98% vote for Coke/Pepsi.

Re:This explains the political process

[aardwolf64]

And you still get either Coke or Pepsi...

Re:This explains the political process

[Smidge204]

More specifically, people want free health care but don't want "them" to have it, because "they" are moochers or lazy and are just taking advantage of the system. "If I get free handouts from the government, that's okay because I'm just getting my tax money back. God forbid someone else gets assistance, because that's my money, dammit!"

I know several people who have stated this point of view explicitly. The cognitive dissonance is tear-my-hair-out infuriating.
=Smidge=

Re:This explains the political process

[RandomFactor]

Even if you are afraid of the worse of the Coke/Pepsi candidates getting in, and therefore vote for the lesser or greater Hamiltonian parties we have today, you should still vote third party some of the time.

Specifically, if the race is polling such that the outcome is not in doubt (either for or against your candidate) then your vote becomes meaningless in deciding the outcome. At that point VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE, (e.g. if you want Libertarian ideals, vote L)

It is a small thing, but every little scratch we can put in the prison walls of the two party system helps.

Re:This explains the political process

[Schadrach]

I've known someone who was ranting about those "damn liberals and their socialist programs, trying to push socialist health care on us now" *while* filling out forms to apply for Medicare.

Re:This explains the political process

[publiclurker]

And it's especially infuriating when even they know that the money they are getting back is far more than they ever put in in the first place.

Re:This explains the political process

[blair1q]

I don't want a government check; and the "free" health care I do want will be paid for out of the taxes I pay gladly that now go to put Blackwater mercenaries ($1k/day) on the ground in diplomatically touchy situations instead of trained, accountable soldiers ($50-200/day) who are fighting for something more than the money and a chance to "empty an HK into a raghead".

Posting that here on /. made me feel better. But intellectually I know I'm still not going to like what happens in the next Congress.

Re:This explains the political process

[nitehawk214]

Water isn't even on the ballot. There is, however, Mellow Yellow...yeah, no thanks.

Quite right, slick.

Re:This explains the political process

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Interesting take on the matter but I don't tend to have the faith you do that the enormous money sink that socialized medicine would create would be made up by newly created startups. It's a hell of a lot better argument than "we deserve free shit" though.

Re:This explains the political process

[Myopic]

My guess is that it's because you haven't thought about it very hard, but it's difficult to say based only on your brief misstatement of tired myths.

Re:This explains the political process

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

We want free healthcare.

There's no such thing as free healthcare. Someone has to pay somewhere along the line...

It's the insurance companies that pays for astroturfing that gives the appearance that we really don't want universal healthcare. What was really amazing was the number of medicare recipients protesting against universal healthcare.

Medicare... you mean the insurance that people were force to pay into for maybe 50 years prior to receiving it? I can't possibly see why people would want what they had already paid for, especially since, after paying those premiums, they couldn't have invested that money for their future needs, like health insurance, themselves. I'm young enough to know that I'll never get my Social Security or Medicare premiums back, so I'll gladly forgo my future entitlements if the government will let me opt out now.

Social Security is $14.7 trillion in debt (and already in the red despite the projections we wouldn't be for another 7 years), Medicare is $77.1 trillion in arrears and likewise Medicare D is $19.4 trillion in the hole. We don't have the money for the entitlements we already have (and the "lock box" is a box full of promissory notes that, one day, Congress will pay back the money from the general fund that they've been stealing since 1967 to hide the deficits created by the Great Society and Vietnam). The CBO scoring of Obamacare was deliberately skewed by the assumptions they had to abide by written into the law and it ignores that the Doctor Fix alone was enough to obliterate the fake "savings."

The other amazing thing is how people believe that if we give tax cuts to the wealthy then jobs will magically appear. Never mind that we are talking about making Bush-era tax cuts permanent and not introducing new tax cuts. If the tax cuts were a panacea then why haven't they created new jobs in the past 3 years?

They weren't tax cuts, they were pre-bates. You save a couple bucks every paycheck, but you're still liable for the same tax amounts come April. Further, the pre-bates were so miniscule, they never created any emotional sense of tax savings. Stability is what produces jobs more than anything, and the Democrats decided to make healthcare their "one true issue" over the last two years, all while wavering on direct economic issues. They still have yet to pass a budget for the fiscal year that started a month+ ago, much less decide what the tax rate is going to be in 50ish days. Further, people STILL don't know everything that is in the healthcare law and that is STILL creating future uncertainty. It's pointless to hire and train new people today if you don't know if you'll be able to afford them in 6 months or a year.

Mainstream media creates perceptions. Perceptions don't always reflect reality.

Yes, like the notion that free health care can exist. Nothing the government does is for free, someone always is forced to pay one way or another.

Also the US government always seem to do what is good for corporations and hardly anything good for consumers. They try to make it appear it was good for consumers. Take the current "Health Care Reforms" that the Democrats passed last year. It doesn't come close to making health care free, in fact it forces us to purchase health insurance. So on the surface it looks like the consumers are finally getting affordable healthcare, in reality the insurance corporations are getting customers who are forced to purchase insurance.

Next thing you'll see is the government promising more jobs from exports by initiating free trade with a country whose growing economy is based on jobs being outsourced from the US. Oh wait it looks like Obama wants to announce something....

Wait, is this the same government that you expect to be your sugar daddy savior? They'll sell you out left and right, but you're going to trust them THIS time, right? Further

Re:This explains the political process

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Like which ones? I can't think of any agencies that don't do what they are supposed to.

TSA for one. Unless you think their stated purpose to "protect the nation's transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce" is not its real purpose.

And, if you think the TSA really is performing its stated purpose - note that not one single person "caught" by the TSA has been convicted, or even prosecuted, for being a terrorist threat to the flight they were prevented from boarding.

So no direct successes. Nor is the evidence for deterrence very strong either - if they were turning terrorists away from air planes they would just attack other targets, but the number of terrorist attacks on other targets has been something less than 1 per year and even those were smaller scale than thousands of drug-related violent crimes during the same period.

Re:This explains the political process

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I was actually wondering last night why governments in places like myanmar bother with voter intimidation when they only need to do a bit of number magic for vote counting (which happens away from the eye of [most] members of the public).

Iran tried that recently and it ended up being the closest they've come to losing control in the last 30 years. You might argue they just weren't slick enough, but that's a risk in and of itself too.

Re:This explains the political process

[Totenglocke]

Exactly - they act as if it's a "there's only solution" type of problem.

Here's a possible solution that I came up with (is it perfect, probably not, but no solution is).

1) Get the government out of healthcare. Currently, there are many laws preventing insurance companies from operating in all 50 states. This reduces competition and drives prices up. There should be made a federal law that explicitly bans the limitation of states or any other government institution on preventing insurance companies from operating on all 50 states (or any potential future states). There should also be a law that prevents you from being dropped from your insurance as well as requiring you to pay up to a certain percent of your income (as a maximum limit) for any prexisting conditions. Then, one more law that prevents employers from purchasing health care for employees and instead restricts them to reimbursing employees for insurance costs instead (thus ending the "if you lose your job, you lose your insurance" problem). Other than those laws and federal standards for medical training for doctors and nurses / acceptable procedures and sanitation requirements for medical facilities, the government should get out and lets people and businesses decide what they want best.

2) End businesses paying for health insurance. Yes, I know I mentioned the law regarding this in the previous post, but I want to elaborate on it. With businesses only being allowed to reimburse you for insurance costs, then when you negotiate pay at a job, you can negotiate how much they'll pay. Also, since everyone will be purchasing insurance on their own now and can shop around, you can choose the type of plan you want - if you want, you can take a low cost plan that is entirely covered by how much the company will reimburse you or you can choose a higher cost plan and pay for part of it out of your own pocket (which you currently do anyways with employer provided health insurance). The point is that it's up to you. Once you combine this with the law removing restrictions on insurance company competition, you will have a massive number of options to choose from and if an insurance company doesn't please you, you can easily change companies, so insurance companies will be pressured to lower costs and provide better customer service, just like any other competitive business. Then insurance companies won't just compete on price, but also on what extras they offer - how long you can keep your children on insurance while they're in college / grad school / medical school would be one factor that they would compete over as well as insurance companies pressuring medical institutions to lower costs so that they can lower their insurance costs and pass those savings on to consumers.

3) Tort reform. One of the biggest problems in the US today is the massive number of bogus lawsuits. Everyone wants to sue everyone because it's easy money if you win. Malpractice insurance (paid for out of doctors own pockets) is incredibly expensive and with the increase in lawsuits, costs have gone up because you're more likely to be sued and need to take money out from the malpractice insurance company. As long as a doctor did not do anything criminal or negligent, you should not be able to sue. If a doctor tells you that there's a risk of something bad happening during an operation and you consent to the operation and that bad thing happens, you do not have the right to sue - he did nothing wrong and you were made aware that this was a possibility. With this gone, doctors won't need to do all of the unnecessary tests they're forced to do for fear of being sued and malpractice insurance will go down, which means that doctors salaries can go down to compensate for the lower cost of malpractice insurance (their after-tax and after-malpractice insurance income will be the same).

Re:This explains the political process

[The Mighty Buzzard]

There is but people tend to get all panicky and arresty if you point out that that's why we have the second amendment.

Re:This explains the political process

[T Murphy]

If you have the short-sighted strategy of trying to get the best viable candidate into office this term for whatever small change he will do, yes you can waste your vote on third party candidates. If your strategy (like mine) is to break the two-party system in the long run, any vote that isn't third party is a waste of a vote.

Re:This explains the political process

[ArsonSmith]

Using != Dependent on.

Just because I partake in teh vendor supplied free lunch doesn't mean I depend on it for sustenance. With our strategic reserve as well as maximum production capacity we could run the country for quite some time with no foreign oil. It would be more expensive of course, so why wouldn't we purchase cheaper foreign oil while it's available?

Re:This explains the political process

[netsavior]

Medicare is SOOO different, see evil social medicine is for non-voters and medicare is for the voters with the best turn-out: the elderly. Totally different.

Re:This explains the political process

[AK Marc]

The government can give $10 to educational charities or $100 to prisons. I want the smallest government possible, so I'm for Head Start. That program causes a reduction in other services that, overall, saves me money.

But then, there are those that would rather spend $1000 on prisons than give one "needy" person $1 because they are anti-charity, not for an effective expenditure of money.

Re:This explains the political process

[Myopic]

All of those agencies do what they are supposed to. Are you complaining because they aren't 100% absolutely perfect in every way? If that's your standard, then I concede the point.

But it's not my standard. The EPA has successfully helped the environment by a huge margin since it started. Social Security in fact helps millions of people every day. As a child I received medical care through Medicare (or was it Medicaid? whichever, the point stands).

That's what I'm saying. Hey, if you (the general "you", not necessarily you specifically, Mr Mouse) oppose health care for the needy, then it's fine to oppose Medicare, but it's plainly WRONG to say that it doesn't do what it is supposed to. Same with the other things you have mentioned.

NCLB isn't a program or an agency, and I also don't support it, but it has had the intended effect of putting pressure on schools, rearranging funding, and blah blah whatever other details. I oppose it, but not because it hasn't been effective.

Re:This explains the political process

[diamondmagic]

Problem with that analysis is that workers in India have no use for dollars. People don't have a direct use for money period, that's why it's called money! If money leaves the country, then it becomes more valuable here, and it will have to come back in. It's not a one-way street you know. Even if we do have a perpetual trade imbalance, that's not a bad thing either. If more dollars are leaving then entering due to China's monetary policy, we're basically getting free goods from their work force. What you are espousing is mercantilism and it's been obsoleted in almost all the schools of economics since 1776.

Re:This explains the political process

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

I appreciate the distinction but every time I hear this it feels insulting. I'm sure most people who say the phrase "free healthcare" are aware it's not free.

As I've said elsewhere, I used to manage restaurants for a long time and we hire a lot of kids (teenagers through college). I find kids tend to belong to one of two groups: A) "I can't believe they take taxes out of my pay! I worked hard for that money!" and B) "It's just beer/party/gas money anyway... my rent, tuition, etc are already taken care of (parents, loan, scholarships, whatever)" The latter group really doesn't care how much gets taken as long as they've got some spending cash because, at this point in their lives, everything IS pretty much free to them. Along with the permanent welfare class (and yes, there is a large permanent welfare class), they do see such things as free because they aren't thinking about where the money comes from since it has little to no immediate effect on themselves.

I think the real point of the issue was that these people were claiming that universal healthcare is inherently bad because of socialism, all the while telling others not to touch their medicare or social security. That's where the ignorance and hypocrisy lies.

I'm not sure you were really listening... everyday people were complaining because it puts the government in charge of their healthcare, removing choices from themselves (yes, there are regulatory boards which will tell you whether or not you can have a procedure ala NICE in Britain), because it meant government controlling their most sensitive personal information, because it meant higher taxes, because it meant lower quality care for the majority of Americans that DO have decent insurance already, because it meant losing plans people already had (and despite the promises, people are already being told their plans will end because of it), because the problems could be solved in far less invasive ways, etc. You equate all of those things together, and yes, the problem is essentially socialism, but it wasn't the kneejerk "omg socialism" that lefties want to proclaim it was. People were informed and they didn't like what they saw and what we ended up with was probably the worst of all outcomes, with government interference benefiting crony capitalism.

As to your points about our shitty government and it's politicians, I won't argue. But that's an argument against this system and it's participants, not universal healthcare or social safety nets. There are nations in this world who have figured these things out to a degree that makes those systems functional.

And those nations that have figured it out have small, relatively homogenous populations with relatively high local population densities. The proper place for such activity, from a Constitutional perspective, from a quality perspective and from a responsible government perspective is to let the states implement their own policies if they want to. However, that isn't good enough for the statists since they want to bludgeon everyone with the same one size fits all club because it concentrates power into one place and allows them to abuse it. That's not to say your every day lefty who dreams of warm fuzzies expects the government to be abusive, it just means that they're naive about the ultimate outcome of what they advocate for.

I think his point is that instead of doing those terrible things, it could be doing these good things. How do we fix it? How do we move forward and make government do what we feel it should.

Let the people govern themselves... that's not to say let anarchy reign supreme, but construct a government where, at the highest levels, it protects your most fundamental rights while staying out of your life as much as possible, and at the lower levels allow more involvement in day to day life because the smaller the government, the more responsive it is to its citizens. You know, kinda like what the Constitution says America is. Imagine that, a government actually of, by and for the people since it is kept close to those it is actually of, by and for.

Re:This explains the political process

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

I love this fallacy... America spent more on just bailouts than they did on all of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the "stimulus" package, QE2 or the fact that ObamaCare "breaks even" by paying 6 years worth of bills with 10 years worth of revenue and ignores the costs of the Doc Fix, which was deliberately excluded to try to hide the costs.

Here are the cumulative numbers for 2001-2010 (2010 estimated) from the OMB:

Military + Veterans benefits: $5,508,591
Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Income Security, Social Security: $16,041,184
Interest on Debt: $1,965,513

Now, I agree, there is a lot of room for cuts in the military and the wars hurt us financially... but it's laughable to pretend that the military is the primary source of our economic downfall. By the end of the decade, the amount of interest on the debt we pay annually will exceed the military budget (current White House estimate for 2015, farthest they list, shows a military budget of $685 billion compared to interest payments of $571 billion). Further, that is only federal spending - states spend almost nothing on their military (minor National Guard costs) and spend the vast majority of their budgets on social spending.

there would be enough money to save America from the greatest economic crisis since the second world war.

Where does the military budget go exactly? A good chunk goes to soldiers - many of whom spend their money in the US and the biggest chunk goes to defense contractors - many of whom employ primarily US workforces. Hey, isn't military spending just another form of stimulus? To quote Obama himself, "This is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point. No, seriously. That’s the point."

So were you for or against stimulus, I can't remember... I do know that with the current deficits making GWB look sane and a projection of interest payments growing out of control, we're in for some pretty deep problems down the road if we don't STOP recklessly spending across the board.

Re:This explains the political process

[blackraven14250]

Another flaw in your logic: CEOs haven't gotten more productive relative to the workers. If anything, workers have gotten more productive relative to CEOs. What has happened, however, is that CEOs and their upper management friends have worked to take a larger share of the money coming in to the organization - at the expense of the average worker.

CEOs would still do just fine with 40x an average worker wage. If you estimate an average worker at 25k [high for WalMart, low for average company], the CEO is making a million a year - damn substantial income. They just won't take that as a legitimate answer, since they want more money, no matter what the cost to other people in the organization.

Re:This explains the political process

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

So? Let's call it government provided healthcare insurance with no deductible and no copay for hospitalization. Does that make you feel any better? I much rather have MY tax go toward universal health care than to defense contractors, farm subsidies, or corporate subsidies.

You may want your tax money to go there, but what about those who don't? The federal government forcing it on everyone forces them to do it against their will exactly the same way that you're forced to pay for defense contractors, farm subsidies and corporate subsidies. Want to guess why we're so polarized as a nation? It's because we're using government to divide us. Everyone wants to use the government to impose their will on everyone else else... how about letting everyone have freedom and liberty instead?

At least with universal health care, I would actually receive benefits for the taxes I pay unlike social security which you admitted may not be around when I need it.

That universal health care may or may not be around when you need it as well. Maybe you're outright denied - good luck appealing. Maybe you're put on a waiting list where things get worse and you become terminal or the proper fix becomes too expensive so they go for the quick and easy fix instead. Look at how the US government has managed the VA hospitals (Walter Reed anyone?) or the hospitals run through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

What does irritate me is that people assume that I want socialized medicine.Do I agree with the current health care legislation? Not all of it. Do I want health care reform? Hell yes. Why? Because despite all the rhetoric coming from conservatives, our health care system is collapsing.

Conservatives agree that our health care system needs fixing... what we don't agree with, is that the government is the solution to those problems. Allow people to buy across state lines, drop all the mandates that force people to buy cadillac plans or nothing, bring patients closer to the cost of their care (people will go to the doctor for a sniffle since it only costs them a $5 or 15 copay or they'll demand every test in the book since they don't even have to pay a copay to the lab), etc.

* The current situation we're in is BECAUSE of the constant interference of government. 100 years ago, if you got sick, the local doctor would make a house call and, for a small amount of money, maybe even a simple barter exchange, he would diagnose and treat you.
* As part of FDR's economic reforms, the NRA fixed wages. In an effort to retain good workers, businesses started offering health insurance as a means of skirting the wage freezes
* In 1963, as part of the Great Society, LBJ and the gang decided it wasn't fair that the working people got health insurance but the poor and elderly didn't, so Medicare and Medicaid were created
* In 1973, a freshman Teddy Kennedy realized that costs were growing out of control (in fact, Medicare and Medicaid far exceeded their cost projections) and that regular workers were getting left behind, so he wrote the Health Maintenance Organization Act, creating HMOs that were deeply regulated by the government, to encourage people to seek routine care to try to prevent future expenses
* In 2003, Bush and company created Medicare D because prescription drugs were getting too expensive for elderly without insurance after being driven up by HMOs used their clout to lower prices for themselves
* In 2010, Obama and friends gave us the clusterfuck that forces us to buy insurance, that we don't necessarily want, likely from a giant conglomerate that doesn't care about us, or be forced to pay a monetary penalty (hey, if I don't have insurance, maybe it's because I can't afford it in the first place, hence, where does the money for the penalty come from?). It's going to bring down costs by allowing people to not pay premiums until they need coverage, will give us universal healthcare by encouraging employers to dro

Re:This explains the political process

[diamondmagic]

Productivity has nothing to do with it, wages and prices in general are about a related but distinct concept called cost. The time of a CEOs literally costs more, their time is valuable, the job is incredibly demanding and very hard to get right. It doesn't mean they are literally out on the floor assembling goods, it means that (1) the time of a CEO is valuable (by definition, as previously stated); and (2) the cost of not having one (as assessed by the company, like the board of directors, owner/co-owners, shareholders, etc), in terms of the next best alternative (the opportunity cost) is far more costly than the wages being paid, therefore it's a mutually beneficial (profitable) exchange to pay the wages, regardless of what you think about them.

Re:This explains the political process

[Chapter80]

Currently, there are many laws preventing insurance companies from operating in all 50 states.

Name a state without a Blue Cross Blue Shield office. If you can't, then your premise is wrong. Given incorrect statements in the start of the first premise, then I'll assume all your other premises, logic, and obviously conclusions are all wrong and based on your flawed and grossly biased opinion.

That's like saying "name a state that doesn't have a 'Christ Hospital'" in it.

There are 155 different companies with the name Blue Cross Blue Shield, and they are just that - different companies.

Given the obvious flawed logic in your first premise, then I'll assume all your other premises, logic, and obvious conclusions are all wrong and based on your flawed and grossly biased opinion.

Re:This explains the political process

[mrchaotica]

Honestly, I always found the critical hypocrisy in libertarianism to fall into the fact that they denounce all types of social contract using force to implement at the expense of one's individual rights, except one. The concept of property. Seriously, except that we all agree to pay taxes and abide by the social contract that is property, what else gives you the right to declare a piece of land or an automobile yours? Perhaps I could make a living mining and selling coal, but you "own" all the coal mines. What gives you that right? In nature, if a squirrel drops an acorn out of his tree and another squirrel picks it up, there's no court of law in place that will assure the acorn is returned to it's "rightful owner." So where does this right come from?

Force.

Property is not a "social contract;" property is a way of codifying "might makes right" to make it somewhat civilized (i.e., efficient). Instead of each property owner having to defend his property himself (or hire a private army), they cooperate with each other to construct a court system and police force to do it for them. (This system also acts as a check against certain types of mistakes, such as accidentally dropping one's acorns. Is it that surprising that, being under the control of property owners, the system would expand the concept of "property" over time?)

Why else did you think libertarians are so enthusiastic about the 2nd Amendment? They recognize the need to defend their property!

The difference between you and me is that I also see how this same concept of social contract could be applied elsewhere. Public schools. Public libraries. Public roads. And yes, even unemployment insurance, medicare and social security. They are all social contracts, like the concept of property, meant to better society and make life more enjoyable for everyone.

On the contrary, the difference between you and libertarians is not that you recognize those other things as social contracts, but instead that you don't recognize that property is not one.

Why not do away with all social contracts and be an anarchist?

Of course, my observation is that libertarianism is really just a euphemism for "I'm rich and I want to do whatever I want."

Some libertarians are anarchist; others realize they aren't rich/powerful enough to survive anarchy, and still others recognize the value of social contracts and call themselves "libertarian" mostly because the other obvious choices (Democrat and Republican) have both gone off the deep end of authoritarianism.

Re:This explains the political process

[commodore64_love]

>>>don't want "them" to have it, because "they" are moochers or lazy

Actually I don't want to have it for *myself* because I've seen how poorly the US Congress runs other programs like Amtrak, the post office, the SSI program, and so on. If they tried to run a Healthcare program I'd probably go in to have an appendix removed, and instead lose my tonsils. And of course the program would be verging on bankruptcy, just like Amtrak, USPS, SS, and so on.

I'd prefer to pay my healthcare directly (cash), so I can have maximum control over the doctors w/o any kind of middleman to interfere with negotiations. Plus a backup insurance plan in case I developed some terminal illness costing ~$100,000 a year.

Intentional?

[Carewolf]

Is it really intentional?

I thought the walk-buttons was just there because no-one bothered to remove them, and later because they shared house with the beeper that helped blind people. So a lot of crossing had walk-buttons simply because they had beepers, even if the walk button wasn't connected.

Re:Intentional?

[WrongSizeGlass]

If no one ever tells the masses that the elevator or crosswalk buttons don't do anything then of course they're going to keep pressing them. They may not help but the person doesn't know that it doesn't make a difference. At least when you hit something with a hammer you know something happened.

Re:Intentional?

[X0563511]

That being said, you are taught that pedestrians have the right of way in such cases, and even on a geen light you are supposed to look before turning. It's hardly the traffic control devices' problem that people persist in ignoring those rules.

Re:Intentional?

[PitaBred]

It's usually right that you turn off of a red light, being the US and us driving on the right and all. And it's only certain big cities... it's perfectly legal to turn right on red in Minneapolis and Denver, as well as many other places. That said, the pedestrian always has right of way during those times. I actually don't mind walking around most big cities in the US... it's not that hard to pay attention to your surroundings and make sure the big metal boxes don't hit you.

Re:Intentional?

[Totenglocke]

You're forgetting that, if there's a crosswalk, pedestrians have the right of way and you're not allowed to run them over. Besides, other than the occasional moron jumping out in front of your car (I go to grad school at a university in a big city and you'd be amazed how many idiots just walk right into oncoming traffic), cyclists are much more of a problem than pedestrians.

Re:Intentional?

[jandrese]

Vehicles aren't allowed to make a right turn on red if there are pedestrians in the crosswalk.

Placebos & Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you'll tell me that posting on Slashdot has no effect...

It is slashdot too.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The button that you press after you get, "slowdown cowboy" that asks you to wait 1 minute before posting again, does nothing. No matter how many minutes elapse, that button never gets reactivated. Slashdotters have typically installed greasemonkey, flashblock, adblock, noscript and thousand other add ons, they just blame their javascript interceptor is misbehaving and continue on.

Re:Wow.

[MichaelKristopeit128]

it actually only shows how little pride they have in their work...

Does this surprise anyone?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Why would the effect only be limited to pharmaceuticals?

not placebo

[LiquidCoooled]

ok, so I arrive in a town at an intersection with a button.
I am going to press it because how the heck do I know whether its connected or not?

Re:not placebo

[Tsiangkun]

I'm the jogger. If you would have looked, made eye contact, and given me the right away to cross, I would not have to hit that button. I KNOW it causes you a longer wait. As soon as you learn that it is faster to yield to the pedestrian than to wait for a whole light cycle, the situation will change. As it is, you show no sign of yielding, so I hit the button.

Re:That's just sick

[mccalli]

If even one of them works, doesn't that mean I have to push them just to be sure?

Exactly. If you press a control that doesn't work you lose nothing. If you fail to press a control that does work you lose functionality. Whilst I agree with the effect they're suggesting, presenting it using examples of deliberately wiring-in dummies is ridiculous. If they then go back and ask people if they believed the button in question actually worked, well then there's the begins of the data we actually need for this.

Cheers,
Ian

Not sure "placebo effect" is accurate

[gosand]

"Placebo effect" implies a perceived improvement. I think it's obvious by the number of times people push elevator close door or street "walk" buttons, or fiddle with office thermostats, there is no perceived improvement.

Not sure author understands meaning of "placebo"

[ugen]

"Placebo" refers to situation where a patient does not know that the medication is inactive.

I am not sure about everyone, but I happen to know that most "close" buttons on elevators and most street crossing buttons to activate a pedestrian traffic lights do not work (the former by design, they are there for fire control mode, the latter mainly because they are broken :) ).
However, I still continue to use them and the reason is very simple:
1. They still work occasionally (as was the case just last week in a hotel elevator, where doors would close immediately by using close button, and stay open for extended periods of time without it, tested many times). It's a "nice surprise" when it works - and nothing is lost when it does not work.

2. They may be required occasionally. I know of a quite a few intersections where pedestrian traffic light won't turn green without the use of a button. It's not worth wasting a few traffic light cycles to find out whether the button is or is not needed. It's easier to just press it - if it works, great, if not - again nothing lost.

So, to conclude, this situation is nothing like placebo.

Well, perhaps except for thermostats, but I haven't worked in the office in years - and when I did, never bothered with these things.

Not really true

[demonbug]

The elevator close button not doing anything is certainly true most places in the U.S. It isn't worth pushing the button. Go somewhere like Hong Kong, though, and when you hit the door close button the doors close right now. If someone is halfway through the door when you hit it, too bad - they get chopped in half. I love it.

Walk buttons are different. I can see not having them hooked up at busy intersections, especially at intersections where there are always (or nearly always) pedestrians waiting to cross. Where I live, the buttons absolutely work - the walk signal doesn't illuminate and the signal timings are different if you don't push the button. It is all about maximizing the flow of vehicular traffic while protecting pedestrians. Interesting that they leave the buttons there even when they don't do anything, but I seriously doubt there are many (if any) places where walk buttons were installed purely for the placebo effect.

Also - you call that an article? Worst. Submission. Ever.
Here is a rule of thumb for article submitters: if you can repeat the entire 'article' in the summary, you chose a bad article. Try at least digging up some of the original sources to link to (like the Wall Street Journal article mentioned).

Re:bullshit

[windcask]

This comment is just proof how well the placebo effect works.

Re:Not sure author understands meaning of "placebo

[bws111]

I agree. This seems more like behaviorism - if I push this button, I may get a reward.

As for the thermostats, they are kidding themselves if they think people actually believe they work. People stop calling because at that point the realize it is pointless to continue complaining, because nothing is going to be done about the situation.

Re:close button in elevators...

[stewbacca]

when the elevator is in service mode (i.e. apartment move mode), then doors stay open until you press the close button.

I love it when there is more to the story than a snarky slashdot editor thinks.

Nice post!

Re:Worked on CD-ROMS for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he realized you sharpied it and was making fun of him and decided you were tools and never bothered with you again? Instead going around you and reaffirming his 'I am an engineer and better than IT' attitude?

Here is how it would go down if I would have found something like that. Boss wanders in 'here is what our IT department thinks is a "34x" drive'. Boss: "here is a PO go get a faster drive and put it in". 2-3 years later IT is redundant each group has taken on the responsibilities itself. Your looking for a job and the company is spending more per year because you wanted to be funny. Instead of saying 'we do not buy those talk to our head IT guy if you want something better'. If he kept bring it up take it up with his boss.

Damn elevators.

[MaWeiTao]

I've known for years now that close door buttons in elevators have no effect. I've been in dozens of elevators and have tried the button for the hell of it to no avail. I don't bother anymore. I always assumed there was some kind of associated safety law. What I don't get is why they keep the damn button there; I assume it's cheaper to do so than to remove the button for the US market. I do know for a fact that the button does work overseas. It's why I would try the button when I got back to the States.

Honestly, I don't know if in this particular case it's a placebo effect so much as Americans being conditioned to believe that anything in a public space is likely busted or not working properly. There seems to be a general state of disrepair in the US that I haven't really encountered in other countries. On the one hand, you've got ham-fisted oafs and outright vandals who are compelled to break everything in sight. And on the other hand, you've got service people who can't be bothered to do their jobs, or management which apparently doesn't take enough pride to pay to get things fixed. But then, if something keeps getting broken, eventually you just give up and leave it be.

Re:Not sure author understands meaning of "placebo

[Muad'Dave]

...65 degF in the winter and disable the 2 degree adjustment entirely.

So you end up with women bringing in 1.5kW heaters to place under their desks? <sarcasm>That's efficient and safe. </sarcasm>

Re:close button in elevators...

[thasmudyan]

I've also seen thermostats that, while they don't directly control the system, do alter the way the system cycles.

This might be a rational illusion your brain constructs because on one hand the thermostat control doesn't produce directly observable results, on the other hand it looks like a pretty legit button, so we just assume that the input actually goes somewhere into a complex and intelligent system where it will be observed and acted upon in some convoluted and unprovable way. Because it feels like the pedestrian signal is changing "just a bit" faster, like the elevator door is closing "just a bit" sooner, like the temperature is balancing out "just a bit" more favorably, like the ruling parties were "just a bit" impressed by your intent on election day. We construct these illusions because we want our desires and wished to matter, or when that's not possible, we at least want borderline-plausible deniability about the insignificance of our actions.

Re:i'm sick of this kind of whining

[cheekyjohnson]

"our democracy"

You mean the one that is ruled by the rich because of the people who let it be ruled by the rich (and the people that vote for the same two parties over and over again)? Yeah, what a nice democracy! I just love it when the government is able to pass bills and laws which clearly violate our freedom and privacy without the consent of the people, and what's worse is that people seem to support these bills and laws because they 'stop' those dirty 'terrorists'. I'd say these idiots are in need of some actual education, and no, the public school system isn't cutting it.

Re:Walk button doesn't suprise me

[clone53421]

Any single explanation would be a gross over-simplification, so here goes.

When you press the “walk” button, one or more of the following may occur:

(a) nothing different, lights are timed and the green and walk signals turn on when they would normally have
(b) signal turns green sooner that it would otherwise have (it may not have turned green at all without pressing the button)
(c) signal stays green longer to give pedestrians extra time to cross
(d) oncoming traffic’s green signal and/or left-turn arrow is delayed / disabled
(d) walk signal turns on during the next green signal (instead of the don’t walk signal)
(e) signal turns red in all directions and walk signal turns on, giving pedestrians a chance to cross

In all cases except (a), it is to the pedestrians’ advantage to press the walk button, so unless they know for certain that it doesn’t do anything, they should press it.

To complicate the matter further, the signals may act completely differently at different times of the day.