.. continued almost religiously by her into adulthood. So it is anecdotal and not scientific but I do personally believe that hair care products like conditioners can work or have some impact. It makes some intuitive sense as well- depending on the product- and I can’t say that it actually does anything to the hair itself.
I mean- numerous coatings exist that can make things like wood look and feel smooth but the wood is not altered, it’s merely coated by a substance that gives it those properties and if that substance isn’t renewed periodically, you’re left with wood that is in the same or worse condition as it started generally.
So… I can agree with you that I think much of the industry is a scam and we can only go off our best judgments and experiences.

Indeed. My personal thoughts are that some are useless or even harmful and others have valid usage for a purpose-
Like many beauty or health products and systems. Many are junk or even more harm than good or some passing benefit for long term detriment etc. but I’m sure some are effective at what they promise when used as directed.
But it’s a whole thing. Getting more fiber won’t benefit you if you’re already getting enough fiber so I’m sure that it is possible through genetics and lifestyle that a product that benefits some would t have any impact on others.
Anecdotally I can say that I’ve noticed a difference in textures and appearance of hair using certain conditioning products.
I also once dated a woman who, no exaggeration- her hair was elastic like rubber bands and extremely strong but also soft and manageable. I suspect some of that was genetics but she also had followed a strict hair care routine for most of her life started when she was a child by her mother and…

@karlboll- welllll…. If you really want. But I warn you that getting old is an easier habit to start than to stop once you’ve tried it.

That’s a hyperbolic example but it illustrates the point that a combination of social engineering and cleverness tends to make it so that while circumstances and specifics may change, the larger systems tend to all work on the same basic principles.
Of course ownership isn’t real either, it’s a concept. Most things concerning human behavior “aren’t real” but are just how we describe and attempt to understand and navigate interactions between people.

If enough people refused to pay inflated prices, it could in theory drive down the cost of things- but this is unlikely. Money or control of resources is a cornerstone of power and so threatening that money is usually dealt with harshly.
Skillful persons in power often turn these sorts of things into ways to make money- an example might be that theft was decriminalized under certain circumstances but then it became legally required or compulsory to have theft insurance, driving private industry, and a new tax system might be put in place to tax Stollen goods, which would then be taxed again if they were sold.
By using taxes to make the money back, the criminal act can be balled up into the customary understanding that taxes are a
Fundamental.

So when you have something like weed or alcohol where legal or not so many people of such broad backgrounds use it- it gets hard to justify why you are saying those people are criminals that deserve to be locked up, and of course most of us don’t want to be locked up so we tend not to support laws that would make things we regularly do into criminal acts.
So the other option when something gets so pervasive is…
Give in. If you say something is illegal but enough people do it, your authority is meaningless. People aren’t listening. So you say it is legal and then you can claim people are doing it by your authority. Being the one to make something accesible that people like is usually good for your popularity and gives the appearance that you are working for those peoples interests when in fact you were simply powerless to stop it so had to either choose to fight a losing fight or give in to what people were already doing.

It’s a numbers game. Plastic bag bans and gas oven bans- these sorts of things that either literally make you a criminal for them or stigmatize it socially like it is something “bad people” do to “Hurt others.” Lots of people have gas stoves, they use plastic bags. They like to or find or convenient. Their parents did it and maybe their parents before them. They’re nieces and nephews, they’re best friends, that nice old guy down the street.
It’s hard to convince people that they themselves are criminals or their little old granny or nice coworker is let alone that ALL of them are.

So if you say “this is a bad thing. Criminals do it. We lock up people who do it to protect you…”
No one cares if it isn’t something they do and they don’t know anyone who does it.
Your average American doesn’t care about how various vehicle laws impact the enjoyment of millions of car enthusiasts because to most people a car is an appliance and not a hobby or interesting machine to tinker with or form of expression. Most people are perhaps even happy when a law passes that they feel will reduce the loud cars they have to hear or the tacky machines they see on the road or parked in the driveway across from them etc.

The other issue is perceptive. This is fairly simple. Most people do not operate convenience stores on Saturn. If you pass laws restricting or taxing convenience stores on Saturn, most people won’t care much or at all. If you increase taxes for sales of goods on Saturn but the same bill reduces paycheck taxes by 15% here on earth, most people will support the bill because they don’t care about Saturn but they do care about their take home pay.
This works with crime as well. Most people don’t care if you make it a crime to renegotiate a bond if that bond is worth greater than your total losses Yoy and the bond is not within 2 years of maturity and you are not a 401c. Because that’s gibberish anyway but most people would buy it because most people have little stake in those things.

Such mass punishments are also disruptive to commerce and the systems of power and benefits, and if the will of the people isn’t broken by the first wave of punishments the situation can spiral out of control and end in not just your loss of power but in the crippling or destruction of the current ruling class. Placing fellow ruling members in a position of danger like that will generally make them see you as a problem to be dealt with, and now you have both the masses and the ruling class against you. That isn’t a good place to be regardless of the outcome of what happens next generally.

However, when enough people gather in defiance of the rules set forth by the powerful, they are left two broad choices if they wish to keep their power.
The first option is to use mass punishment to instill fear and obedience-this is problematic. In the modern age such measures often backfire against those in power and in a democracy where the people play some part or believe they play a part in selecting leaders, mass retribution against the public is generally unwise to keep power. You are likely to become unpopular in their view and lose support, which if you are actually elected can cost you your power, and if you are there by illusion of election you’d still lose your power because maintaining that illusion of choice when the general public hated you for mass punishments would break all illusions that their voices mattered.

So theft can possibly change the structure of commerce, in the least as an act of rebellion. As an example, as seen with various attempts at liquor prohibition, numerous political and social causes, and recently the move in many places to decriminalize or legalize certain drugs-
The power relationship requires that those being ruled submit to those in power. Modern democratic systems tend to favor attempting to avoid direct physical force or intimidation to coerce compliance.
The penalties for breaking the rules that empower those in power coupled with human social behaviors and rewards/punishments that take advantage if those social behaviors, will usually keep most people doing what the powerful require and desire for their benefit, and then some smaller benefit or illusion of benefit is provided to the masses to encourage further compliance.

Underlying concepts remain- scarcity, demand, but when you have instruments within the social confines to acquire those things without wealth, the economics changes.
Of course even within our own system theft is in theory a valid form of market pressure.
Mass theft can show that there is demand for a product but that the product is not priced to the market. This CAN lead to repricing or other relief, or it can lead to products no longer being available because their total cost to put to market exceeds the price people will pay. That isn’t always a bad thing of course. The ability to create “artificial demand” has been honed to a fine science and digital assets have opened new doors for that. Artificial scarcity and the ability to restrict or prevent product usage after purchase easily or force “subscriptions” and such for example.

And then so much is subjective. Many crimes or civil matters deal in intent- did a person mean to cause harm or deceive etc?
From one persons perspective, something can be clearly intentional and from another’s it could be an accident.
The person who did it may or may not even know, but let’s say that they do know- if we simply ask them, they would generally be incentivized to say the thing that causes them the least harm- so to lie. If they tell their lawyer one thing and the lawyer has no reason to investigate that further- they likely won’t right?
But regardless of side of the court or table, each lawyer mainly tells a truth as they see the facts and then a judge or jury or arbitrator etc. decides which truth is the singular truth they will rule on.
Truth is often a matter of perspective.

So what is a lie? Well- regardless, the facts available to a lawyer in court are generally the same facts available to everyone else.
These are what is known as established facts- so in essence everyone has agreed they are true. The defendant says they were at this place at this time, witnesses say they saw them at X place at Y time, their cell phone records show one thing etc. the lawyer can’t simply make up facts- that is why evidence is required, any fact submitted generally needs to be backed by evidence of some sort to have weight.

If we reframe things, if you can’t afford a home in XYZ area, it isn’t because the home is costs more money than you have, it is because the home has greater value due to scarcity than your buying power can achieve.
Take money out of it and pretend we live in a barter system. What would you need to trade to afford a home in the Dallas Suburbs?
The size/resource cost, importance, and scarcity of homes generally means that you’d need quite a lot to trade which the owner values or can readily be used to trade for another home etc.
If you don’t have the resources to acquire a home you don’t. That’s not a money problem so much as a value problem and in a “free market” the value of the home is only indexed to demand and the asking price of similar items. So long as someone with greater buying power wants the item and the item is scarce, you can’t likely have it in an open market.

I can’t help you if you dig too deep on this one you know. When you break the 5th wall it tends to break you back.

Is it a coincidence that so many of Americas wealthiest people are white? No. It isn’t. There are historical forces afoot which denied or supplied opportunities and unequal privileges to various groups and individuals. People with power and money, people in systems that give them power and money- they tend to shape rules or break them to keep their power and wealth and power and wealth usually let them do that. That’s how it works. It’s how is bad pretty much always worked. If you believe otherwise you don’t need to debate it because you’ve already proven you either are ignorant on the subject or dissociated from reality. Go figure out why you’re wrong and come back and you can debate HOW those realities and inequities may or may not influence various groups- but you cannot debate that they do without self labeling yourself as ignorant of the basic working a and history of the world.

But do you REALLY think it is a coincidence that so much of Hollywood is full, from screen talent to design and admin and directors and music and art and more- full of the children and nieces and nephews and grand children etc. of the last several generations of Hollywood elite? Do you think the fact that the richest families in Europe today, more than 70% trace their roots back through the richest families for Mike 1000 years and that if you go to America or China or most places that you’ll find that the richest families tend to remain generationally for hundreds or thousands of years as the top dogs? Is that a coincidence?