Monday Morning Censorship Protest: The Real T-Men Speak Out

2009 August 24

By Matt Perryman

Lately I’ve been pretty quiet with my hater posts. Most of my vitriol stays on the Monkey Island, which is probably for the best since it’s off the Google. On the flip of the coin, though, it’s a bad thing because there’s a lot of good righteous anger that probably should be known to the ‘net at large.

Today, I want to rant about this latest paragon of quasi-scientific supplement hustling that plays on the insecurities of males 16-30.

This is the notorious “I, Bodybuilder” that’s been promoted through all the new media venues lately. This is the new “super-program” that’s going to roll training, nutrition, and of course supplementation into one mega-amazing-awesome plan for true ultimate gains.

If you’re reading this, you’ve doubtless seen the videos and read the bullshit claims and all the rest. I’m not going to rehash that here. There are some excellent rebuttals written by Alan Aragon and JC at these links, if you want to read some of the garbage in detail.

I’ve stayed out of it because, well, it’s not been worth my effort to criticize, for one, and for two, I hate sending that site more traffic. I don’t read it myself unless someone links me because there’s only rarely anything of value. A supplement company wants to whore itself out in a bit of irony* in order to sell their overpriced crap to morons. Hey, whatever works, right? Why do I care?

* Let’s just forget for a moment that Testosterone.net, as it was then known, was started in rebellion against Bill Phillips of EAS and Body of Life fame, and his magazine MM2K. They were going to be something new and different.

Once upon a time, and not even that long ago, I was more than willing to spread the hate for that kind of thing. Lately I’ve been mellowing out, because I just can’t be bothered to care. There’s a large mass of uninformed, uneducated, uncritical types – the “low information” population, if you will – that not only don’t care about the truth, but will actively resist being informed. Due to a strange kind of confirmation bias, we tend to believe what we want to believe and reject what we don’t.

Not just that, but these “low information” individuals also tend to highly overstate their own competence – known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. You literally wind up with a group of people that are too stupid to comprehend their own stupidity, and will get pissed off and defensive if you try to educate them. Explains a lot, really.

So we have a vicious cycle in effect here: an unscrupulous marketing company that parasitizes the “low information” fitness enthusiasts. But it’s willing parasitism, you see, because our “low information” individuals genuinely believe the claims that the marketing company is pushing.

This is by no means limited to the fitness industry, mind you. You see this across the board, anywhere that a large organization uses marketing to engineer the beliefs of a large group of people. This effect especially applies in politics, just to give you a context. Human minds are wired to absorb and transmit ideas like this – the concept of the “memetic replicator”, which is the informational equivalent of a gene.

Getting back to the point somewhat, I tend to stay away from the T-Muscle forums because, frankly, they attract a level of stupid that is not only epic, but enforced via censorship. The moderators there have a habit of deleting anything that doesn’t agree with the bottom line of the site, worsened by the fact that you don’t have to say anything inflammatory or disrespectful.

The “low information” posters on that forum will immediately rush to the defensive as good zombies do, pointing out that “you can’t complain, they post free articles and they pay the bills so you can’t criticize”.

Well, you know, I’ll concede you guys do have a point. It is their site, they can do what they want, etc. The problem is that half the guys there will, in the same thread, admit that they don’t find their information anywhere else.

So let’s summarize: we have people that get all their information, willingly, from a site that they realize is censored of competing or alternative viewpoints and primarily exists to sell them things. Yeah.

And let’s note that I don’ t mean alternative viewpoint in the sense of teaching Creationism in a science class. There’s alternative evidence-based claims and then there’s nonsense. When I say “censored of competing viewpoints”, let me keep it real: they censor anything that disagrees with their authors, their business model, or that makes them look incompetent. Evidence and logical reasoning need not apply.

There was a previous thread between T-Muscle author Bill Roberts and Alan Aragon which has since been deleted from their forum, but can be found in part here. That particular thread exemplifies what I’m talking about. Bill Roberts, Real T-Author (TM), was attempting to argue that, somehow, the sugar in Bio-Test’s product was “better” than the sugar in chocolate milk. Perhaps due to some kind of magic.

He offered up no evidence, short of the usual Bro-logic of “everybody knows”. When called to the carpet for his seriously poor logic, he simply had the moderators remove the opposing arguments for him. Not only did he get away with making completely unsubstantiated claims, while calling on others to prove their own claims, but he went unchallenged due to anyone in disagreement being able to even post a response.

Of course you can win an argument against “idiots” when you gag them from the outset. Of course to the “low information” peanut gallery, this looks like a win for Roberts; they don’ t have the cognitive tools to actually understand logical argumentation and reasoning. All that matters in this case is that their team won.

I’m not going to dwell on this particular example as you can read more on the linked threads. Let it suffice to say that yes, there is some animosity in play here. One thing I can’t tolerate is censorship, especially in a place claiming to encourage open discussion.

So I decided to write up my own response here, taking into account some of the non-censored rebuttals that have come up and including, especially, a response to the T-Muscle forum thread dealing with the backlash. Since they can’t silence me here, here is where I’ll play.

First thing you’ll notice right off the bat is that TC just comes out and says he’s deleted a thread about Alan’s blog response, on the grounds that you can’t criticize the program without having seen it first.

Well, uh, actually, yeah, you can. Nobody that’s already been at it for 10+ years is putting on 20+ pounds of muscle in six weeks. It is not happening. It’s just not. No.

PRO-TIP: If you don’t want people to criticize your programs, don’t hype them up with bullshit claims.

As an aside, this is especially sad to me because I actually like Christian Thibaudeau. I’ve followed him for close to 10 years now, well before he started writing for T-Mag, and he’s a very intelligent guy. It’s really sad, for me, to see him slip into this kind of thing, but I guess we gotta get paid somehow.

Anyway, from here it just goes downhill fast. Not a lot here but the usual T-Apologetics(TM) as they circle the wagons.

One of the posters takes the time to disparage Casey Butt’s analysis of maximum drug-free body mass without actually explaining why. Casey’s analysis isn’t perfect, no, but it actually does line up with research on maximum drug-free body mass, so it probably is widely applicable, if not universally so. I don’t think anyone’s ever ruled out the occasional genetic anomaly, but from the generic American populace (where most of those samplings were taken, in both cases) it’s probably going to be pretty dead-on.

More defensive, vacuous ramblings before King Bro Professor X decides to chime in, explaining how “intensity” in the gym will build you massive amounts of muscle. I only take partial offense at this, as he does have a point. Most people in the gym do train like pussies, and they have the results to show for it. Where he goes off the rails is suggesting that “intensity” will somehow overcome physiological limits. Yeah, no, it won’t.

Then Alan’s article on chocolate milk vs. Surge gets brought up. Lots of posturing, lots of “it worked for me” defense of Surge…no well-reasoned argument as to where Alan actually tripped up in his article. If just one of these guys could actually go to Pubmed, pull some evidence, and make a substantive argument, it’d be great. Only on the Internet does a censored circle-jerk serve as a legitimate rebuttal to evidence-based claims.

The really funny part is that Alan will actually respond to questions and defend himself on unmoderated forums. T-Muscle has to rely on censorship. I don’t know about you, but I like transparency in my arguments. I like to know that the other guy can say his piece, even if he disagrees with me. Even if he’s drooling at the mouth stupid he deserves a chance to speak. I may shred him for saying something God-awful stupid, but that’s how science works.

It’s the height of stupid to think that being e-champion of the thread is more important than actually learning something.

More drooling stupidity on to the second page, where a few posters are actually showing hints of understanding. The big thing now is that Lyle and Alan have “an agenda” against T-Mag and Bio-Test. No kidding, when you challenge bullshit claims and get censored for your trouble, it’s annoying. Especially when you’ve done nothing but present hard evidence and analysis.

Even if they did have “an agenda”, that alone is not sufficient to disprove the claims. That’s a style over substance fallacy. Argue what’s being said, not how or why. The fact that none of these guys have even once tackled Alan’s actual argument is telling. Just lots of posturing and typical dismissal.

Now we get to the juicy parts. Bill Roberts finally chimes in:

I wonder if the author of that article — assuming the above is in reference to something real — is the same as the idiot who was arguing with me on this site that the best advice for a given young athlete (12 years old or something like that) was that his post-hockey-game nutrition should be sucrose-sweetened chocolate milk?

I got a PM that the idiot was in fact a bb’ing author, so perhaps it is the same person.

Yes, it is nearly incomprehensible that someone could actually argue sucrose-sweetened chocolate milk as being the ne plus ultra of post-training nutrition, but it has been done.

Ah Bill. You want to actually tell us why it’s incomprehensible? Of course not. It’s incomprehensible because…you say so, right? Everybody knows, right?

Laughable, laughable bullshit from someone claiming to be an expert with an advanced degree.

The laughs continue:

Back when I trained people personally it was not unusual to get results of 10-15 lb without apparent significant fat gain in time frames such as 6 weeks. Without drugs and without enhanced nutrition techniques such as exist today. Outside of personal experience, there are countless examples of this having been done. Such things are not new.

Way to provide context there, Bill. Anybody half competent can get those kind of gains out of a beginner. We’re not talking about a beginner, for one, and for two, they’re claiming over 25 lbs of muscle gains in that time frame.

But nice touch there with the “countless examples” bullshit. Appealing to vague authority is what you’re good at, after all.

I don’t need any other aspect about it beyond the fact that CT has trained very seriously for strength for quite some time, obviously very expertly, and has tried his best for bb’ing as well (while not going for offseason large weight increases, but staying pretty lean), and never before have his shoulders or arms looked anything like this nor has he put up such weights. There cannot be nothing to whatever method accomplished this.

You know what Occam’s razor is, right Bill?

The simplest possible explanation that accounts for all variables is likely the correct explanation.

What’s the simplest possible explanation here?

1) A supplement company has discovered some magic of physiology that allows for muscle gains at a rate faster than AAS will provide

2) The supplement company is full of shit

Should be an easy answer, but I see it’s not because the paycheck is getting in the way.

I would expect such a method to outperform for typical people the very ordinary methods I used to employ for them. That does mean quite substantial muscle increases in 6 weeks.

Like what, Bill?

If you’re the authority you so badly want to be, give a concrete answer.

I am pretty sure that had CT followed my old or current advice over the same time frame, and with typical nutrition instead of the protocols involved, he’d have accomplished jack squat versus simply sticking with what he’d been doing before. Rather than moving to a new level, he’d have stayed the same. Not so with what he actually did. Thus I think it’s reasonable to conclude his method is better than routines I used to write, or would currently do.

Occam’s razor again, Bill.

What’s most likely, given the evidence?

Hint: It’s not magic.

I don’t read other forums or websites and do not directly know what they say, but if it is as reported above, it shows the ignorance of the naysayers, IMO. Not their expertise; that is for sure.

Right, using basic logic, asking for evidence, and being a reasoned skeptic is ignorance.

At this point I’m not convinced Bill Roberts actually knows the meaning of the word “ignorance”, given that his usage of it is in itself ignorant.

This is, again, laughable bullshit from someone claiming an advanced degree.

It’s about as expert as insisting high-sucrose chocolate milk is the optimum post-workout nutrition.

A claim which you never actually rebutted, Bill! You turned to ad hominems, red herrings, and outright refusal to provide evidence, remember?

(And I’ll even let this little strawman of yours slide. Nobody claimed it was optimal; what was claimed was that it would be no less effective than Surge. Honesty is not a difficult thing unless you’re a liar.)

So pony up. I’m calling you out, Bill: tell me, with a science-backed argument, why this is bad. I’ll be especially interested to hear why it’s bad given that Surge is full of sugar itself.

The moral of the story here: demand evidence. Guys like Roberts are trying to run rough-shod over you with bullshit claims and the logical reasoning ability of a 15 year old girl during PMS.

PRO-TIP: Screaming and whining while ignoring any semblance of logic and refusing to provide evidence is not an argument. It’s hysterics.

One poster summed it up perfectly:

[Alan] wrote the Chocolate Milk article BECAUSE he indeed was schooling Bill but his posts weren’t passing moderation. So Bill was able to write what he wanted without reproach. So he basically kept misrepresenting Alan’s point and then attacking them as if Alan had made them (kinda like what he is doing now).

Let me tell you what you won’t see. Bill represent his ideas in a form where he can’t control the responses. That should “say it all”.

I read the article and the article isn’t about bashing T-Nation but rather refuting the claims made. Will someone defend the claims or is this gonna continue to be a us against them pissing match?

No, no they won’t defend the claims. Because they can’t.

If they could, that site wouldn’t need its censorship policy. Which speaks volumes on its own.

Good on ya, T-Mag. You’re really setting the bar high for intellectual honesty and evidence-based claims.