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Speaking clearly has nothing to do with mental fortitude. Tons of things can affect the fluency of speech. We really need to move past the days where we judge p
by navjack27 2y ago
Speaking clearly has nothing to do with mental fortitude. Tons of things can affect the fluency of speech. We really need to move past the days where we judge people's intelligence and competence based on how well the connections of their brain are able to influence the movement of the vocal cords and the tongue the lips and the jaw.
- Shocka1 2y agoI agree for the average person, but at the same time the front man for one of the strongest economies in the world should be able to speak at least on an average level. Unfortunately I would define his speech at this point as poor - please correct me if I'm wrong. This factor seems like a running joke not only in the US, but the entire world.
- endofreach 2y agoSounds good to me. Will you inform the other world leaders with nuclear weapons?
- exitb 2y agoIt sounds nice and correct, but what if it’s literally part of the job?
- tim333 2y agoBiden has more problems than just speaking unclearly. The thoughts get muddled at times too.
- mschuster91 2y agoSo what, at least he doesn't go completely off-prompt with utterly random unrelated bullshit every minute like your average Trump speech. The doublespeak from the Republican side regarding Biden's capabilities has been, frankly, astonishing.
- jjtheblunt 2y agoYou've got to be kidding, I must as a non-partisan say. The observations entertain the republican world, but they're there nonetheless for everyone, or this wouldn't have been forced by the democrats.
- ithkuil 2y agoI agree. That said, it's infuriating when you have an opponent that can literally say whatever he wants however unintelligible it may be and his cult-like followers will just find the meaning kn what he said. The double standard is astonishing. But yeah obviously there certainly are better candidates than Biden to run for president. Why he or she hasn't been found in 2020 eludes me.
- mschuster91 2y ago> That said, it's infuriating when you have an opponent that can literally say whatever he wants however unintelligible it may be and his cult-like followers will just find the meaning kn what he said. Yeah, just three days ago, praising Hannibal Lecter, or remember "covfefe" from a few years back? Or the QAnon bunch where some people managed to assemble millions of people [1] by essentially doing "tea leaves predictions" on Trump speeches? There is no equivalent to that level of derangedness on the Democrat side, not even close. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/qanon-groups-have-millions-members-facebook-documents-show-n1236317 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/qanon-groups-have-mil...
- Izkata 2y agoIs this satire? A typo on twitter and something that wasn't Trump? Meanwhile, early this month, Biden called himself the first black woman to serve with a black president, as well as referred to "vice president Trump" when apparently talking about Harris.
- mschuster91 2y ago
- lamontcg 2y agoIt is a requirement for the job of being a national politician. You have to be able to win elections at that level, and there's no participation trophies for feel-good runs by someone with a handicap, you just lose.
- jstummbillig 2y agoThat is what parent is challenging. You can of course disagree. I think it's an interesting point. How much damage do we do to ourselves by societally selecting charismatic people who speak eloquently as leaders (importantly: over other qualities)? Unclear, but certainly not 0.
- andsoitis 2y agoOne has to be practical. Some handicaps are seen by the majority as a negative for the job. You can’t tell them they are wrong for making it a requirement (after all, they hire the candidate).
- FredPret 2y agoWe evolved a natural tendency to like charismatic and funny people, because (I'm speculating) you need a high minimum level of broad cognitive competence to pull that off. Things like empathy, quick thinking, emotional intelligence, a fresh perspective, broad knowledge of the world, a large vocabulary, and the self-confidence to go with your judgement calls are all involved in telling a single good joke to a crowd. These are all fantastic things to see in a leader.
- maxerickson 2y agoOn an evolutionary scale, it's probably a little simpler than correlation with cognitive competence. A group united towards a stupid purpose can be more effective than individuals acting towards more reasonable purposes. If this is true, you can select for both following (susceptibility) and leading (charisma).
- edmundsauto 2y ago
- malux85 2y agoI agree that mental fortitude is not necessarily correlated with fine grained muscle control, but speaking clearly is a pretty freaking basic requirement for A PRESIDENT
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoBiden wasn't running for chief scientist somewhere, he was running for President of the United States, and a huge part (probably the primary part) of that job is being able to communicate effectively. If "your brain isn't able to adequately influence the movement of the vocal cords and the tongue the lips and the jaw" then you shouldn't be applying for a job where verbal communication is paramount.
- codr7 2y agoCome on people, what are you chasing here? His vocal cords are fine, it's just that the words don't make much sense, which is a pretty big problem in that position.
- LooseMarmoset 2y agoit honestly astounds me that people did not recognize Biden’s cognitive decline in the 2020 debates. it was obvious then, and it was obvious a month ago when all the news outlets were boldly proclaiming that Biden was fully fit for duty.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago> it was obvious a month ago when all the news outlets were boldly proclaiming that Biden was fully fit for duty. Dude, you just completely made that up. Certainly every news outlet I recall, from NY Times, WaPo and CNN to Fox News and the WSJ were all running a ton of articles questioning Biden's fitness for another term. None of them were "boldly proclaiming" anything.
- gherkinnn 2y agoIntroducing Zelensky as Mr Putin isn't a sign of incompetence?
- oezi 2y agoNo, it is a sign that both terms occupy close relationships in the brain. I consistently fumble the name of my elder sister with the name of my eldest daughter and I know many people who have similar mixups.
- keybored 2y agoAre you nitpicking that specific complaint? Or saying that Biden seems relatively okay? Even the Democratic Party has given up on the far-fetched excuses. It’s time to surrender to the evidence. That example is just one out of dozens.
- khazhoux 2y agoBiden is showing signs of decline, but the name-swapping thing was never (and still isn't) that. It's mental klutzery, nothing more. As the other person pointed out, it is /very/ common when two names are mentally-adjacent, to reach for the wrong one. My parents would call me by my brothers' names all the time, and I just did that with my own kids this morning. Anyone who thinks that Biden got confused and thought he was in a press conference with Vladimir Putin (!!) is just spouting nonsense.
- gcanyon 2y agoLaying out an argument (Biden mixing up names indicates he's senile) and having it disproven doesn't prove the case.
- chaostheory 2y agoDuring the same event, he called his VP, Vice President Trump. Regardless of what you call it, it’s a bad sign similar to GW Bush’s constant gaffes.
- arp242 2y ago
- catlikesshrimp 2y agoCompetency is not a requirement for being a politician. Winning the most votes is. And being elocuent and aggressive helps much more than being coherent
- readthenotes1 2y agoI was using "speak clearly" as a shibboleth for general mental and physical ability. There is clearly something wrong with him that was not in evidence in 2020. Whether it's Parkinson's, senility, 12-day-old jet lag, I don't know. But it's clear that it's hard for him to carry on a conversation, and that is basically the job of a politician.
- toast0 2y agoHis recent debate performance was poor. But he's had trouble speaking for a long time. Go back and watch older debates or speeches and see. It's all classic speech impedement stuff; he's clearly had lots of training and experience, but sometimes he can't use the words he wants and switches to different words. I'm honestly not sure what we're looking for in a debate, but most presidential debates since I've been a voter are contests to see who can look like they're listening the best while getting back to a rehearsed talking point the fastest. [1] When you combine that with trouble with words, and maybe some over training, it doesn't look good. Does it mean he has trouble carrying on a conversation in a real setting? I don't know, it's a totally different setting with different expectations. We don't really get a window into that. [1] Well except that MTV town hall. Pretty sure Bill had no talking points appropriate there.
- xeromal 2y agoI've watched several old debates and he's a killer debator even with his slip ups. He was anything but that in this recent one.
- SauciestGNU 2y agoThere are also different kinds of difficulty speaking. When he was younger, Biden would trip over words or say something not quite right, or make gaffes (supporting same sex marriage before it was the admin policy). But now his difficulty seems to come from difficulty understanding what is happening around him. He seemed confused by his surroundings multiple times during that awful debate. I've seen a lot of Biden supporters pointing to his stutter and speaking difficulties, but his troubles have qualitatively and quantitatively changed, and definitely for the worse.
- poes-law 2y agoThis comment triggers Poe's Law for me. Given this comment by itself, I would have guessed this was satire. Unfortunately, from a fuller picture, I guess this is actually fundamentalism.
- basementcat 2y agoIf one disqualifies people based on speech impediments, is it much of a stretch to disqualify people for their skin color or religion?
- dahfizz 2y agoYes. That’s a huge stretch.
- jiggawatts 2y agoYes. Not all discrimination is the same. Being ugly is a disqualifying trait for getting a job as a supermodel. Being unfit is a disqualifying trait for being an Olympic athlete. Being unable to stay awake and say coherent sentences is a disqualifying trait for being the president of the most powerful nation on earth. Being black or latino is a disqualifying trait for playing a Roman emperor in a movie — which is why Netlix will surely try, because they’re unable to comprehend what the problem even is, and why their “equality” is groan-inducing. PS: If I was a US citizen, I would vote for AOC not because of her sex or race but because neither of those influence my decision. Do they influence yours?
- basementcat 2y agoCan you explain why being black or Latinx would disqualify one from playing a Roman emperor in a movie?
- adolph 2y agosed 's/ b/\u&/' || sed 's/ L/\L&/'
- khazhoux 2y agoIf going for visual realism, then obviously a black man would not look the part, since all roman emperors were caucasian (except possibly Septimius Severus). A latino man could almost certainly fit, though.
- lotsoweiners 2y ago
- educasean 2y agoThe truth we cannot change is that people simply want to follow charismatic leaders. We can sit and lament on how stupid that is, but we aren't magically fixing that anytime soon.
- gcanyon 2y agoHell, I am very staunchly liberal/progressive, and even I was swayed by that image after the assassination attempt of Trump with his fist raised.
- avalys 2y agoYes, we shouldn’t confuse verbal fluency with intelligence, or the lack of one with the lack of the other. Perhaps you should go back in time to 2000 and step up to defend George W. Bush. However, when someone was previously verbally fluent and then the whole world can see that that person’s fluency has deteriorated, it’s completely reasonable to believe that deterioration of other mental functions is happening as well, as seems to be the case with Biden.
- TylerE 2y agoExactly. A stutter doesn’t cause you to confuse names.
- khazhoux 2y agoNo, the names thing has always been exaggerated. I occasionally call my kids by each others' names. My parents would call me by my brothers' names. This is a running joke in large families. I occasionally in large meetings swap the names of two products we're talking about and have to be corrected. It's just a very low-grade "verbal dyslexia" that means nothing except that the brain isn't a perfectly-wired machine.
- TylerE 2y agoWhen you confuse the name of the leader of one country with the leader of the country they're at war against, that's...a bit more than that.
- khazhoux 2y agoOccam’s razor— which is more likely: * Swapping a name as he’s known to do, with the name of the person who is contextually-adjacent and the other main character? * Thinking the man he just finished discussing our continual support against Russian expansion, was actually Vladimir Putin himself?
- 2y ago
- ithkuil 2y agoAnd it's such a double standard. Trump never pretended to speak clearly and now people can in good faith point out that trump has not shown signs of regression because there was nothing he was curating about his persona in the first place and thus nothing to regress. Whatever Trump says can be construed as some sort of 4d chess hidden message because of a cult of personality that has developed around him. He can hint that asylum seekers escaped from mental asylums but his base will not suspect that he may be the one confusing the two words and instead they will just cheer at the grotesque image because that's the kind of politically incorrect thing they want somebody to say (regardless of whether Trump did that on purpose or not). I have the feeling that whatever Trump will say and will do will never ever be scrutinized by his side in a way that even remotely resembles the scrutiny to switch Biden has to be subjected to. And that double standard speaks a lot on the troubled times we're living through.
- cowboylowrez 2y agoI get the feeling that even trumps fans don't really listen to his speeches.
- whycome 2y agoNations first mute text-only President? The current generation reaching voting age would much rather send a text than call so.....
- vanattab 2y agoSooner then you think. President GPT is coming
- xeromal 2y agoIf you play a video of Biden in 2004 or 2008 debates, you'll notice something has changed.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoSpeaking clearly has everything to do with mental fortitude for the most important communication job in the US.
- newsclues 2y agoHow else do you prove competence of a leader to hundreds of millions of citizens?
- kernal 2y ago[flagged]
- krapp 2y ago[flagged]
- ruraljuror 2y ago[flagged]
- kernal 2y ago[flagged]
- drusepth 2y agoI don't know the quote you're referring to, but sexual assault by siblings is at least 19x more common (2.3%+ of children) than by adult family members (0.12%+ of children), according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Tangential fact to Biden being able to coherently communicate such a fact or not though.
- kernal 2y ago>Joe Biden: But here's the deal, a lot of young women are being raped by their in-laws. By their spouses. By their brothers and sisters. Could you provide us with the percentage of women getting raped by their sisters and in-laws?
- dmazzoni 2y agoIt's not verbal flubs that are a problem. Tons of presidents had that tendency before (George W Bush, for example).