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That is maybe technically true, but completely misses the context. The only reason this link from 2018 was submitted today and the only reason it's voted up to

That is maybe technically true, but completely misses the context. The only reason this link from 2018 was submitted today and the only reason it's voted up to the top of the front page of HN is because the president of the United States went on camera yesterday claiming that injecting bleach and disinfectants and using UV light was a promising path to a covid treatment. So now we have to argue about whether or not a 70-year-old quack treatment from soviet Russia is effective against this current pandemic instead of building consensus on test deployment or lockdown exit protocols. It's the same thing that happened with chloroquines last month. It's tiresome, and harmful.

ping_pong 7y ago
He didn't say using light or disinfectants were "promising". Please don't make me defend Trump, because I hate him, but I hate misinformation more. He suggested it might be possible, but clearly he was off script and had no idea what he was talking about and just making conversation, something that a president should not do. He shouldn't have said anything, but he didn't say it was "promising".
- newacct583 7y ago
  I think "promising" sounds like a very apt paraphrase of what he said. I did indeed watch the press conference, and I didn't present it as a literal quote. Do we need to dig in and tear out the quote word by word now before we're even allowed to refute it? Is that really a good use of our collective time? That was, after all, exactly my point.
  - ping_pong 7y ago
    Then be more accurate with your words and not irresponsibly spreading misinformation.
    - Bud 7y ago
      You're the one being irresponsible here, in mounting any kind of defense of what Trump said. It was total crazy talk. Tell the truth.
    - mattkrause 7y ago
      FWIW: 'Promising' is a pretty accurate paraphrase of “I think that’s a great thing to look at", which is what the NY Times quotes him as saying.
      - ping_pong 7y ago
        I'll assume no negative intent and that English is not your first language, because there's a big difference between calling something "promising" versus "interesting to look at".
        newacct583 7y ago
        How, exactly? In context, a treatment being "interesting to look at" is interesting because you think it might work. Isn't that what "promising" means in the same context? You seem to be hiding behind the presidents imprecision here. I genuinely don't understand how someone could look at the video of that press conference and think the president was not celebrating the idea of possibly finding a cure by injecting disinfectants into people's bodies.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        mattkrause 7y ago
        I am a native English speaker and would agree that "interesting to look at" is perhaps a little weaker than "promising." Maybe 20% weaker, as if there's a scale. However, the transcript from the NY Times and BBC--not to mention my comment above--also has him saying "a great idea to look at" in the same response, which I do think is equivalent to 'promising'. This is an inevitable consequence of telling others to be careful with their words.
    - splitrocket 7y ago
      Perhaps you could demand that first of the president of the united states, and then perhaps, secondarily of some random poster on hacker news?
  - krapp 7y ago
    >Do we need to dig in and tear out the quote word by word now before we're even allowed to refute it? Are you actually a new account? Because if so, be warned - that is exactly how HN works a lot of the time.
    - newacct583 7y ago
      I'm not. I have a longstanding account, but had a... somewhat suspicious event on other social media that I think might have been inspired by comments here. My account has never been very private and there's a lot of potentially harvestable information there. So I'm experimenting with keeping my comments in more controversial topics isolated.
      - splitrocket 7y ago
        I'm curious, how much does the Internet Research Agency pay these days?
  - chelovek89 7y ago
    > Do we need to dig in and tear out the quote word by word now before we're even allowed to refute it? Yes, this is a forum consisting largely of founder-engineers and words mean things. Not all bugs are spiders, not all disinfectants are bleach. Claiming the president suggested we inject bleach is disinformation, and it weakens the credibility of the rest of your argument.
    - rsynnott 7y ago
      ... Wait, what non-bleach disinfectant would it be appropriate for him to recommend injecting?
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      Does the president bear any responsibility whatsoever for his own words, or should we treat them as oracular emanations of the divine, to be explored for meaning like the entrails of a sacrificial beast or the residues at the bottom of a coffee cup?
- splitrocket 7y ago
  "So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting. BRYAN: We’ll get to the right folks who could. TRUMP: Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s — that’s pretty powerful." Technically, you are correct, he didn't say the word "promising". Given that promising has latinate origins, rather than germanic, it's likely not in his vocabulary. Still hydroxychloroquine ended up killing a bunch of vets, and at least one person credible enough to ingest it directly without medical advice or a prescription. I applaud your goals of precision, but, stochastic terrorism is real, and the point of communication, especially in such dire circumstances, shouldd not only to be understood, but to make it impossible to be misunderstood. Clarity and unambiguous language from leaders is literally essential public health.
  - swebs 7y ago
    >and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting. That's a pretty far cry from telling people to inject bleach, which is the narrative some outlets are trying to spin right now.
    - splitrocket 7y ago
      It's entirely too close for the leader of the free world. It's also remarkably stupid. Like astoundingly dumb. To quote Craig Manzin: 'One of the hallmarks of the dangerously stupid is the consistent belief they’ve found great solutions that experts somehow missed.'
      - 7y ago
chelovek89 7y ago
What you are saying is disinformation. Nobody has suggested injecting bleach. Bleach is a disinfectant, not all disinfectants(i.e agents that disinfectant) are bleach. It was poorly worded enough without you spinning it, the spin only strengthens his base of people who don't trust the media because of sophistry like this.
- newacct583 7y ago
  OK, I went back and checked the transcript. It's true that the president didn't say the word "bleach". It's not true that "nobody" did. Trump was riffing off of a report that had just been given by Bill Bryan, listing out some anticeptic testing in an in vitro context. Bleach was, in fact, the first disinfectant in his list. Then Trump stands up and says we should investigate injecting those into the body. I really don't think this it's applying a whole lot of spin to argue that Trump was saying we should inject the stuff the guy he was referring to had listed.
- cthalupa 7y ago
  Is there some other disinfectant that we could be injecting that would not be of roughly equal harm? Because I don't think injecting hydrogen peroxide, benzalkonium chloride, or isopropyl alcohol is going to have an effect that's any better. Quibbling over whether or not they meant bleach or some other disinfectant isn't really the point. The point is the President was lending credence to the idea that injecting disinfectant into the human bloodstream might be a good thing to do. Which is absurd, regardless of whether or not he specifically meant bleach, and bleach is a perfectly reasonable stand in.
  - bpnichol 7y ago
    He asked a question of experts. That's not the same as "lending credence" to a particular response to the question.
rsynnott 7y ago
Oh, yeah, I mean, that's definitely why this is here, but it's extremely doubtful that it's what Trump was promoting; he was probably just confused about sterilisation vs treatment of humans, and grasping at straws.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  I'm not sure "the president is just dumb" is much of an improvement over "the president is actively malicious."
  - rsynnott 7y ago
    Oh, I mean, I'm pretty sure he's both, but Occam's Razor says that this particular bit of nonsense is coming from the dumb side.
- freen 7y ago
  Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

ping_pong 7y ago

He didn't say using light or disinfectants were "promising". Please don't make me defend Trump, because I hate him, but I hate misinformation more. He suggested it might be possible, but clearly he was off script and had no idea what he was talking about and just making conversation, something that a president should not do. He shouldn't have said anything, but he didn't say it was "promising".

newacct583 7y ago
I think "promising" sounds like a very apt paraphrase of what he said. I did indeed watch the press conference, and I didn't present it as a literal quote. Do we need to dig in and tear out the quote word by word now before we're even allowed to refute it? Is that really a good use of our collective time? That was, after all, exactly my point.
- ping_pong 7y ago
  Then be more accurate with your words and not irresponsibly spreading misinformation.
  - Bud 7y ago
    You're the one being irresponsible here, in mounting any kind of defense of what Trump said. It was total crazy talk. Tell the truth.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    FWIW: 'Promising' is a pretty accurate paraphrase of “I think that’s a great thing to look at", which is what the NY Times quotes him as saying.
    - ping_pong 7y ago
      I'll assume no negative intent and that English is not your first language, because there's a big difference between calling something "promising" versus "interesting to look at".
      - newacct583 7y ago
        How, exactly? In context, a treatment being "interesting to look at" is interesting because you think it might work. Isn't that what "promising" means in the same context? You seem to be hiding behind the presidents imprecision here. I genuinely don't understand how someone could look at the video of that press conference and think the president was not celebrating the idea of possibly finding a cure by injecting disinfectants into people's bodies.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - mattkrause 7y ago
        I am a native English speaker and would agree that "interesting to look at" is perhaps a little weaker than "promising." Maybe 20% weaker, as if there's a scale. However, the transcript from the NY Times and BBC--not to mention my comment above--also has him saying "a great idea to look at" in the same response, which I do think is equivalent to 'promising'. This is an inevitable consequence of telling others to be careful with their words.
  - splitrocket 7y ago
    Perhaps you could demand that first of the president of the united states, and then perhaps, secondarily of some random poster on hacker news?
- krapp 7y ago
  >Do we need to dig in and tear out the quote word by word now before we're even allowed to refute it? Are you actually a new account? Because if so, be warned - that is exactly how HN works a lot of the time.
  - newacct583 7y ago
    I'm not. I have a longstanding account, but had a... somewhat suspicious event on other social media that I think might have been inspired by comments here. My account has never been very private and there's a lot of potentially harvestable information there. So I'm experimenting with keeping my comments in more controversial topics isolated.
    - splitrocket 7y ago
      I'm curious, how much does the Internet Research Agency pay these days?
- chelovek89 7y ago
  > Do we need to dig in and tear out the quote word by word now before we're even allowed to refute it? Yes, this is a forum consisting largely of founder-engineers and words mean things. Not all bugs are spiders, not all disinfectants are bleach. Claiming the president suggested we inject bleach is disinformation, and it weakens the credibility of the rest of your argument.
  - rsynnott 7y ago
    ... Wait, what non-bleach disinfectant would it be appropriate for him to recommend injecting?
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Does the president bear any responsibility whatsoever for his own words, or should we treat them as oracular emanations of the divine, to be explored for meaning like the entrails of a sacrificial beast or the residues at the bottom of a coffee cup?
splitrocket 7y ago
"So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting. BRYAN: We’ll get to the right folks who could. TRUMP: Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s — that’s pretty powerful." Technically, you are correct, he didn't say the word "promising". Given that promising has latinate origins, rather than germanic, it's likely not in his vocabulary. Still hydroxychloroquine ended up killing a bunch of vets, and at least one person credible enough to ingest it directly without medical advice or a prescription. I applaud your goals of precision, but, stochastic terrorism is real, and the point of communication, especially in such dire circumstances, shouldd not only to be understood, but to make it impossible to be misunderstood. Clarity and unambiguous language from leaders is literally essential public health.
- swebs 7y ago
  >and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting. That's a pretty far cry from telling people to inject bleach, which is the narrative some outlets are trying to spin right now.
  - splitrocket 7y ago
    It's entirely too close for the leader of the free world. It's also remarkably stupid. Like astoundingly dumb. To quote Craig Manzin: 'One of the hallmarks of the dangerously stupid is the consistent belief they’ve found great solutions that experts somehow missed.'
    - 7y ago

chelovek89 7y ago

What you are saying is disinformation. Nobody has suggested injecting bleach. Bleach is a disinfectant, not all disinfectants(i.e agents that disinfectant) are bleach. It was poorly worded enough without you spinning it, the spin only strengthens his base of people who don't trust the media because of sophistry like this.

newacct583 7y ago
OK, I went back and checked the transcript. It's true that the president didn't say the word "bleach". It's not true that "nobody" did. Trump was riffing off of a report that had just been given by Bill Bryan, listing out some anticeptic testing in an in vitro context. Bleach was, in fact, the first disinfectant in his list. Then Trump stands up and says we should investigate injecting those into the body. I really don't think this it's applying a whole lot of spin to argue that Trump was saying we should inject the stuff the guy he was referring to had listed.
cthalupa 7y ago
Is there some other disinfectant that we could be injecting that would not be of roughly equal harm? Because I don't think injecting hydrogen peroxide, benzalkonium chloride, or isopropyl alcohol is going to have an effect that's any better. Quibbling over whether or not they meant bleach or some other disinfectant isn't really the point. The point is the President was lending credence to the idea that injecting disinfectant into the human bloodstream might be a good thing to do. Which is absurd, regardless of whether or not he specifically meant bleach, and bleach is a perfectly reasonable stand in.
- bpnichol 7y ago
  He asked a question of experts. That's not the same as "lending credence" to a particular response to the question.

rsynnott 7y ago

Oh, yeah, I mean, that's definitely why this is here, but it's extremely doubtful that it's what Trump was promoting; he was probably just confused about sterilisation vs treatment of humans, and grasping at straws.

smacktoward 7y ago
I'm not sure "the president is just dumb" is much of an improvement over "the president is actively malicious."
- rsynnott 7y ago
  Oh, I mean, I'm pretty sure he's both, but Occam's Razor says that this particular bit of nonsense is coming from the dumb side.
freen 7y ago
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.