system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What is homeopathy and why does/doesn't it work?
gpt
Homeopathy is the notion that something that is bad (say, cyanide) can be good (a cure for cyanide) if it's diluted many, many times. 

The more diluted it is, the stronger it is.  So pure cyanide is bad because it'll kill you.  Cyanide diluted 40 times will cure cyanide poisoning.  

The reasoning has to do with water having a memory, and having the cyanide impressed upon it, changing it from just water to a medicinal tonic.

Of course, if you dilute something 40 times (That is, dump something into a solution of 1/part thing, 9/parts water, dump a 10th of that into 9 parts water, dump a 10th of THAT into 9 parts water... that's three dilutions) the odds of you getting a single molecule of whatever the medicine is becomes pretty much unlikely.  Some homeopathic dilutions are basically a single molecule of the medicinal compound in a sphere of water that would encompass the solar system.

The reason it doesn't work is that water doesn't have a memory.  It doesn't get imprinted by compounds put into it, it's just water.  It's always water, nothing else.  You can mix it with stuff, and then it's water + stuff or it undergoes a chemical reaction and is no longer water.  There is no difference between ordinary water and homeopathic water used in a solution.

There's also some arguments I've read where the homeopath in question believes that the diluted compound doesn't do the opposite, but does the original, just stronger.

In either case, we can demonstrate that this is untrue - if there are poisons that exist in nature (there are) that can be dissolved in water (there are), then they are in the entire water system due to rain and such.  Meaning the water is already a homeopathic solution for the compound.  So regular water should either already be a cyanide cure (it's not) or thousands of times more lethal than cyanide (it's not).

Homeopathy is bollocks.  It's bullshit.  It's snake oil.  It's trickery.  All because a drink from a fountain won't kill you instantly or cure all your ailments.  Or both, at the same time.. which would be a neat trick.