5 ms·

It's just people playing "get Trump." Nothing wrong with lateral thinking. UV and disinfecting agents kill the virus on surfaces - OK, is there some way we can

by Tycho 7y ago

It's just people playing "get Trump." Nothing wrong with lateral thinking. UV and disinfecting agents kill the virus on surfaces - OK, is there some way we can use that to kill the virus inside the body? I bet chemotherapy sounded crazy the first time someone suggested it.

rsynnott 7y ago
If chemotherapy had been suggested by the president at the time going on TV and saying "it might be a good idea if people drank poison", _with no basis for that assumption_, then, well, yes, that would have been pretty crazy, and would have lead to a lot of unnecessary death. Also, of course, lobotomies probably sounded crazy the first time someone suggested them. And as it turns out, they were. For everything that sounds crazy and works, there are a lot of things that sound crazy and prove to be crazy.
- Tycho 7y ago
  But he didn't say that. He had a scientist up to announce promising results, and he suggested some avenues for further research or invention. At no point did he turn to the camera and say "so you see folks, if you're worried about the coronavirus, just reach into your kitchen cupboard and pour yourself a nice glass of bleach." I don't know why you're pretending otherwise.
  - Cyph0n 7y ago
    It is not the president’s job to suggest avenues for further medical research on live TV, especially if the suggestions are stupid and life-threatening. We already have enough on our hands with the pandemic, so let’s try to avoid getting more people in the ER.
    - Tycho 7y ago
      Who said it’s not the president’s job to show scientific progress to the public and engender discussion of new ideas? I realise many people are very used to dry, carefully stage-managed government briefings written in ObamaScript, but being spontaneous and discursive has its advantages. Many medical interventions are dangerous by nature - doesn’t and shouldn’t stop people discussing new possibilities for investigation, which is what happened here.
      - cthalupa 7y ago
        You're offering up a very charitable interpretation to a man that has been saying to take chloroquine and asking "What have you go to lose?" for several weeks now, despite the fact that we know that while chloroquine is relatively safe for most people, there are serious potential side effects including blindness and heart failure that can occur. So, the answer for to his question is "my sight" and "my life", which are, at least in my opinion, significant enough things to risk that he should't be telling people to take the drug. Why would we expect this to be anything more than more of the same? I know in HN we are supposed to give each other the benefit of the doubt, but we're well beyond benefit of the doubt here - you're asking us to check our critical thinking skills at the door and to ignore past actions - from the very recent past!
        Tycho 7y ago
        You say I'm being very charitable. This is what I see: - President brings scientist on stage to talk about new findings that will help combat COVID-19. Why? Because it's important to show people that progress is being made and we're not in a hopeless situation. - President follows up with the scientist with questions about possible therapies that could be developed. He uses words like 'would it be possible to', 'could we somehow', 'and 'it would be interesting to check that.' To me that's just a natural reading, given the context. Your reading appears to be: - President brings scientists on stage to talk about findings - President recommends that people inject themselves with Dettol (motive unclear) The problem is that's a ridiculously uncharitable interpretation. I mean, is that what you actually believe the president was thinking? The (hydroxy)chloroquine is example is also a non-issue. Trump correctly pointed out that this was a low-cost, long circulated drug with well understood risks, and that even if we don't yet know for sure if it works, if patients are dying from the virus, it makes sense for doctors to try it. I'm glad he shone a spotlight on it.
        cthalupa 7y ago
        >The problem is that's a ridiculously uncharitable interpretation. I mean, is that what you actually believe the president was thinking? Yes. If not outright recommending it, bringing it up as a somewhat viable possibility. Poison control hotlines have been fielding hundreds of calls asking if it is safe to ingest or inject disinfectant. >The (hydroxy)chloroquine is example is also a non-issue. Trump correctly pointed out that this was a low-cost, long circulated drug with well understood risks, and that even if we don't yet know for sure if it works, if patients are dying from the virus, it makes sense for doctors to try it. I'm glad he shone a spotlight on it. Those well understood risks include heart failure and blindness. Trump asked "What have you got to lose?" when saying "I think you should take it", and the answer is my sight and my life. There was no solid medical evidence at that time that chloroquine had any impact on coronavirus in vivo, and what we're finding now is that the null hypothesis is still the best supported in that regard, and that it causes an increase in all cause mortality, to the point where several studies have had to stop because the people they were giving hydroxychloroquine people were dying from heart failure, and the best completed study we have showed a nearly 3x increase in all cause mortality among those taking hydroxychloroquine vs. the control. It was reckless and irresponsible, exactly like this. >(motive unclear) The motive is extremely clear. Trump is worried about a wrecked economy ruining his re-election chances. He wants to open the economy back up to improve his chances, so getting people to believe that we have a plethora of solutions to novel coronavirus helps him achieve that goal.
pintxo 7y ago
Sure, for a kid in third grade. But any grown up should know that UV is somehow linked to skin cancer and that disinfectants have those strange scary warning symbols on them, indicating they are rather unsafe things to use inside bodies. I mean, happy for him to have those discussions with the experts (as long as it's not me sitting there), but do not do this on live TV.
- Tycho 7y ago
  Radiation also causes cancer, yet we have radiotherapy. I mean this is really basic, think-a-tiny-bit-below-the-surface stuff that anyone not afflicted by TDS seems capable of.
  - pintxo 7y ago
    Do you recall the last time a head of state discussed on live TV the usefulness of bathing in the reactor pool of a live nuclear reactor to cure cancer? I don't. Funny thing is, this would actually be pretty save [1], especially compared to anyone ingesting disinfectants. And it's orders of magnitudes easier to access disinfectants than reactor pools [2]. [1] https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ [2] That is an educated guess, actually. [Edit: Grammar]
    - Tycho 7y ago
      But notice that Trump didn’t suggest that anyone bathe in reactor pools, instead he asked the scientist if it would be possible to harness UV radiation for some kind of treatment.
  - cthalupa 7y ago
    If anything, TDS is the continued mental gymnastics required to paint his actions in anything resembling a positive light. The man was literally following up on a conversation about UV and bleach being used as disinfectant on surfaces and then suggested that they might be a good for use on humans. Chemotherapy would sound crazy on it's face - and in a lot of ways it still is, people do die from chemo - but the push for further research for chemo was done by scientists and researchers who had a grasp on why and how it could be of use as a treatment. It's also disingenuous to compare chemotherapy with injecting disinfectant. It is trivially easy for someone to inject themselves with disinfectant. It is not trivially easy for someone to give themselves chemotherapy. Trump's verbiage here is also the same as his playbook on chloroquine over the past few weeks - frame things as questions to be asked, but then pepper it all with words like "great" and "powerful" It's the same way he operates on every single subject he's a fan of but can't come outright and say that he likes and wants you to think that way or believe in it. This is nothing new, and neither are the backflips and contortions people go through to try and justify it. And, fundamentally, your entire argument falls apart now that Trump himself is claiming it was just a sarcastic joke, and that he was never ever suggesting that it's something we should do or even research. He's trying to walk back the statement and pretend he didn't mean anything by it at all except to be mocking because of how stupid the comment was.
anigbrowl 7y ago
That sort of spitballing and lateral thinking is great in a brainstorming session around a table. These press conferences are meant to be public service announcements/Q&A sessions. I think you know this already.

by Tycho 7y ago

rsynnott 7y ago

If chemotherapy had been suggested by the president at the time going on TV and saying "it might be a good idea if people drank poison", _with no basis for that assumption_, then, well, yes, that would have been pretty crazy, and would have lead to a lot of unnecessary death. Also, of course, lobotomies probably sounded crazy the first time someone suggested them. And as it turns out, they were. For everything that sounds crazy and works, there are a lot of things that sound crazy and prove to be crazy.

Tycho 7y ago
But he didn't say that. He had a scientist up to announce promising results, and he suggested some avenues for further research or invention. At no point did he turn to the camera and say "so you see folks, if you're worried about the coronavirus, just reach into your kitchen cupboard and pour yourself a nice glass of bleach." I don't know why you're pretending otherwise.
- Cyph0n 7y ago
  It is not the president’s job to suggest avenues for further medical research on live TV, especially if the suggestions are stupid and life-threatening. We already have enough on our hands with the pandemic, so let’s try to avoid getting more people in the ER.
  - Tycho 7y ago
    Who said it’s not the president’s job to show scientific progress to the public and engender discussion of new ideas? I realise many people are very used to dry, carefully stage-managed government briefings written in ObamaScript, but being spontaneous and discursive has its advantages. Many medical interventions are dangerous by nature - doesn’t and shouldn’t stop people discussing new possibilities for investigation, which is what happened here.
    - cthalupa 7y ago
      You're offering up a very charitable interpretation to a man that has been saying to take chloroquine and asking "What have you go to lose?" for several weeks now, despite the fact that we know that while chloroquine is relatively safe for most people, there are serious potential side effects including blindness and heart failure that can occur. So, the answer for to his question is "my sight" and "my life", which are, at least in my opinion, significant enough things to risk that he should't be telling people to take the drug. Why would we expect this to be anything more than more of the same? I know in HN we are supposed to give each other the benefit of the doubt, but we're well beyond benefit of the doubt here - you're asking us to check our critical thinking skills at the door and to ignore past actions - from the very recent past!
      - Tycho 7y ago
        You say I'm being very charitable. This is what I see: - President brings scientist on stage to talk about new findings that will help combat COVID-19. Why? Because it's important to show people that progress is being made and we're not in a hopeless situation. - President follows up with the scientist with questions about possible therapies that could be developed. He uses words like 'would it be possible to', 'could we somehow', 'and 'it would be interesting to check that.' To me that's just a natural reading, given the context. Your reading appears to be: - President brings scientists on stage to talk about findings - President recommends that people inject themselves with Dettol (motive unclear) The problem is that's a ridiculously uncharitable interpretation. I mean, is that what you actually believe the president was thinking? The (hydroxy)chloroquine is example is also a non-issue. Trump correctly pointed out that this was a low-cost, long circulated drug with well understood risks, and that even if we don't yet know for sure if it works, if patients are dying from the virus, it makes sense for doctors to try it. I'm glad he shone a spotlight on it.
        cthalupa 7y ago
        >The problem is that's a ridiculously uncharitable interpretation. I mean, is that what you actually believe the president was thinking? Yes. If not outright recommending it, bringing it up as a somewhat viable possibility. Poison control hotlines have been fielding hundreds of calls asking if it is safe to ingest or inject disinfectant. >The (hydroxy)chloroquine is example is also a non-issue. Trump correctly pointed out that this was a low-cost, long circulated drug with well understood risks, and that even if we don't yet know for sure if it works, if patients are dying from the virus, it makes sense for doctors to try it. I'm glad he shone a spotlight on it. Those well understood risks include heart failure and blindness. Trump asked "What have you got to lose?" when saying "I think you should take it", and the answer is my sight and my life. There was no solid medical evidence at that time that chloroquine had any impact on coronavirus in vivo, and what we're finding now is that the null hypothesis is still the best supported in that regard, and that it causes an increase in all cause mortality, to the point where several studies have had to stop because the people they were giving hydroxychloroquine people were dying from heart failure, and the best completed study we have showed a nearly 3x increase in all cause mortality among those taking hydroxychloroquine vs. the control. It was reckless and irresponsible, exactly like this. >(motive unclear) The motive is extremely clear. Trump is worried about a wrecked economy ruining his re-election chances. He wants to open the economy back up to improve his chances, so getting people to believe that we have a plethora of solutions to novel coronavirus helps him achieve that goal.

pintxo 7y ago

Sure, for a kid in third grade. But any grown up should know that UV is somehow linked to skin cancer and that disinfectants have those strange scary warning symbols on them, indicating they are rather unsafe things to use inside bodies. I mean, happy for him to have those discussions with the experts (as long as it's not me sitting there), but do not do this on live TV.

Tycho 7y ago
Radiation also causes cancer, yet we have radiotherapy. I mean this is really basic, think-a-tiny-bit-below-the-surface stuff that anyone not afflicted by TDS seems capable of.
- pintxo 7y ago
  Do you recall the last time a head of state discussed on live TV the usefulness of bathing in the reactor pool of a live nuclear reactor to cure cancer? I don't. Funny thing is, this would actually be pretty save [1], especially compared to anyone ingesting disinfectants. And it's orders of magnitudes easier to access disinfectants than reactor pools [2]. [1] https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ [2] That is an educated guess, actually. [Edit: Grammar]
  - Tycho 7y ago
    But notice that Trump didn’t suggest that anyone bathe in reactor pools, instead he asked the scientist if it would be possible to harness UV radiation for some kind of treatment.
- cthalupa 7y ago
  If anything, TDS is the continued mental gymnastics required to paint his actions in anything resembling a positive light. The man was literally following up on a conversation about UV and bleach being used as disinfectant on surfaces and then suggested that they might be a good for use on humans. Chemotherapy would sound crazy on it's face - and in a lot of ways it still is, people do die from chemo - but the push for further research for chemo was done by scientists and researchers who had a grasp on why and how it could be of use as a treatment. It's also disingenuous to compare chemotherapy with injecting disinfectant. It is trivially easy for someone to inject themselves with disinfectant. It is not trivially easy for someone to give themselves chemotherapy. Trump's verbiage here is also the same as his playbook on chloroquine over the past few weeks - frame things as questions to be asked, but then pepper it all with words like "great" and "powerful" It's the same way he operates on every single subject he's a fan of but can't come outright and say that he likes and wants you to think that way or believe in it. This is nothing new, and neither are the backflips and contortions people go through to try and justify it. And, fundamentally, your entire argument falls apart now that Trump himself is claiming it was just a sarcastic joke, and that he was never ever suggesting that it's something we should do or even research. He's trying to walk back the statement and pretend he didn't mean anything by it at all except to be mocking because of how stupid the comment was.

anigbrowl 7y ago

That sort of spitballing and lateral thinking is great in a brainstorming session around a table. These press conferences are meant to be public service announcements/Q&A sessions. I think you know this already.