4 ms·

If he hadn't tried to self-treat his cancer with acupuncture, fruit juice and herbs, he'd probably be around now to do that. The man was clearly a lucky idiot,

by welks 11mo ago

If he hadn't tried to self-treat his cancer with acupuncture, fruit juice and herbs, he'd probably be around now to do that. The man was clearly a lucky idiot, and shouldn't be revered, but used as a cautionary tale of unbridled arrogance.

steve-atx-7600 11mo ago
A person should be judged by a stupid decision they made? I hope you never did anything that wasn't rational.
- stickfigure 11mo ago
  Stupid decisions that result in fatalities deserve extra judgement.
- rootusrootus 11mo ago
  Especially when it comes to life threatening illnesses like cancer. I've seen more than one entirely normal, rational person start grasping at off the wall solutions when faced with the imminent end of their life.
usui 11mo ago
Maybe watch this lecture by a medical professional https://youtu.be/81xnvgOlHaY https://youtu.be/81xnvgOlHaY before repeating a commonly-believed myth.
- pgalvin 11mo ago
  That lecture is by a doctor who had widely discredited views on cancer, often cited as an example of quack, pseudoscientific claims on the topic. His claims, specifically on cancer, were widely and roundly rejected by the scientific and medical community. This is not a controversial statement, either - his supporters proudly proclaim that his views are rejected by the vast majority of experts which, in my opinion, pretty much sums it up. I highly recommend people avoid falling into this dangerous rabbit hole.
rkomorn 11mo ago
I'd consider myself a Steve Jobs hater (and I think his treatment choices were bad) but the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is in the 10-15% range. "Probably", he'd not be around today. Even with his money, it'd be improbable.
- mikeyouse 11mo ago
  He had a much more treatable and slowly growing variety of pancreatic cancer - it was a neuroendocrine cancer in his pancreas (an islet cell tumor). The 5-yr survival rate for stage 1/2 is something like 95%, and even stage 4 is still around a 25%. The more common and deadly pancreatic cancer you’re thinking of has a 5yr survival rate of under 15% and under 3% if it’s advanced to stage 4. If he had received real care immediately after diagnosis, he’d almost certainly be alive and cancer free today.
  - rkomorn 11mo ago
    I stand corrected! Not moving goalposts, but on another note: He refused regular treatment for 9 months, for an allegedly slow-growing type of cancer? That still doesn't sound that crazy, especially given he lived another 8 years.
    - mikeyouse 11mo ago
      Right - but he only lived 8 more years because by the time he’d had surgery, the cancer had metastasized to his liver which is much more difficult to treat. Per this paper, with surgery and treatment, a 50yr old man diagnosed with grades 1/2, stage 1 pnet tumor, has a median additional lifespan of 23 years. You can do the regression yourself for all of his characteristics but there’s no reason as one of the wealthiest people on earth that he couldn’t have lived to old-age. https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinre.2018.08.005 https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinre.2018.08.... Think of cancer like trying to stop an exponential growth curve. Waiting months for treatment can mean billions or trillions of additional cancer cells you need to clear. And instead of being able to carve them out of one location, they’re now all over your body requiring systematic poisoning.
nozzlegear 11mo ago
Few people should be revered, but calling him a lucky idiot is just blatant revisionism.
johncolanduoni 11mo ago
He should perhaps be a cautionary tale against thinking that being really good at building consumer tech products makes you good at everything. But if this is your standard for "lucky idiot", I wonder who of note you wouldn't consider a lucky idiot. You can dig up something like this for everyone from Newton to Salk.
- gota 11mo ago
  My go-to example for this is Turing. The genius of our field, and apparently duped into credulity about telepathy (probably based on faulty/fraudulent results by people at then-respected institutions)
  - snowwrestler 11mo ago
    To be fair, tons of scientists and technical people believed at that time that telepathy might be real. For example if you go back and read science fiction from the 40s, 50s, even 60s, there is a ton of telepathy and mental powers. This reflects both the authors’ efforts to predict future scientific advancement, and their audience’s willingness to believe it.
    - pasc1878 11mo ago
      No it represents the editor's (John W. Campbell) passions - he would suggest using those ideas to authours and was more likely to accept stories with those ideas. He had an overwhelming presence in SF until the New Wave of the 1960s
      - snowwrestler 11mo ago
        It’s more accurate to say that Campbell became a huge presence in science fiction by publishing the stories he did. Their popular success reflected a desire in the culture to read what was being published. Larry Niven is one example of an author who did not go through Campbell but yet had many mental powers in his stories and found huge success. Many universities had depts to study “parapsychology.” The end of that era is the basis for the opening of Ghostbusters. I’m using popular media as shorthand for how wide-spread these ideas were, but military and intelligence operations seriously studied this stuff too, and in many countries, not just the U.S. This is the way science goes; people can only work with what is known at the time. Newton was doing alchemy while inventing the basis for modern physics. It’s tempting to look back and condemn people by the standards of what we know today, which is based on additional evidence and theory developed over decades or centuries since. But I think it inhibits understanding of how such knowledge is created over time.
vasco 11mo ago
People get sick and they die. Nobody should have to go through any treatments they dont want to. And to blame someone for that is like blaming them for the disease.

by welks 11mo ago

steve-atx-7600 11mo ago

A person should be judged by a stupid decision they made? I hope you never did anything that wasn't rational.

stickfigure 11mo ago
Stupid decisions that result in fatalities deserve extra judgement.
rootusrootus 11mo ago
Especially when it comes to life threatening illnesses like cancer. I've seen more than one entirely normal, rational person start grasping at off the wall solutions when faced with the imminent end of their life.

usui 11mo ago

Maybe watch this lecture by a medical professional https://youtu.be/81xnvgOlHaY https://youtu.be/81xnvgOlHaY before repeating a commonly-believed myth.

pgalvin 11mo ago
That lecture is by a doctor who had widely discredited views on cancer, often cited as an example of quack, pseudoscientific claims on the topic. His claims, specifically on cancer, were widely and roundly rejected by the scientific and medical community. This is not a controversial statement, either - his supporters proudly proclaim that his views are rejected by the vast majority of experts which, in my opinion, pretty much sums it up. I highly recommend people avoid falling into this dangerous rabbit hole.

rkomorn 11mo ago

I'd consider myself a Steve Jobs hater (and I think his treatment choices were bad) but the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is in the 10-15% range. "Probably", he'd not be around today. Even with his money, it'd be improbable.

mikeyouse 11mo ago
He had a much more treatable and slowly growing variety of pancreatic cancer - it was a neuroendocrine cancer in his pancreas (an islet cell tumor). The 5-yr survival rate for stage 1/2 is something like 95%, and even stage 4 is still around a 25%. The more common and deadly pancreatic cancer you’re thinking of has a 5yr survival rate of under 15% and under 3% if it’s advanced to stage 4. If he had received real care immediately after diagnosis, he’d almost certainly be alive and cancer free today.
- rkomorn 11mo ago
  I stand corrected! Not moving goalposts, but on another note: He refused regular treatment for 9 months, for an allegedly slow-growing type of cancer? That still doesn't sound that crazy, especially given he lived another 8 years.
  - mikeyouse 11mo ago
    Right - but he only lived 8 more years because by the time he’d had surgery, the cancer had metastasized to his liver which is much more difficult to treat. Per this paper, with surgery and treatment, a 50yr old man diagnosed with grades 1/2, stage 1 pnet tumor, has a median additional lifespan of 23 years. You can do the regression yourself for all of his characteristics but there’s no reason as one of the wealthiest people on earth that he couldn’t have lived to old-age. https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinre.2018.08.005 https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinre.2018.08.... Think of cancer like trying to stop an exponential growth curve. Waiting months for treatment can mean billions or trillions of additional cancer cells you need to clear. And instead of being able to carve them out of one location, they’re now all over your body requiring systematic poisoning.

nozzlegear 11mo ago

Few people should be revered, but calling him a lucky idiot is just blatant revisionism.

johncolanduoni 11mo ago

He should perhaps be a cautionary tale against thinking that being really good at building consumer tech products makes you good at everything. But if this is your standard for "lucky idiot", I wonder who of note you wouldn't consider a lucky idiot. You can dig up something like this for everyone from Newton to Salk.

gota 11mo ago
My go-to example for this is Turing. The genius of our field, and apparently duped into credulity about telepathy (probably based on faulty/fraudulent results by people at then-respected institutions)
- snowwrestler 11mo ago
  To be fair, tons of scientists and technical people believed at that time that telepathy might be real. For example if you go back and read science fiction from the 40s, 50s, even 60s, there is a ton of telepathy and mental powers. This reflects both the authors’ efforts to predict future scientific advancement, and their audience’s willingness to believe it.
  - pasc1878 11mo ago
    No it represents the editor's (John W. Campbell) passions - he would suggest using those ideas to authours and was more likely to accept stories with those ideas. He had an overwhelming presence in SF until the New Wave of the 1960s
    - snowwrestler 11mo ago
      It’s more accurate to say that Campbell became a huge presence in science fiction by publishing the stories he did. Their popular success reflected a desire in the culture to read what was being published. Larry Niven is one example of an author who did not go through Campbell but yet had many mental powers in his stories and found huge success. Many universities had depts to study “parapsychology.” The end of that era is the basis for the opening of Ghostbusters. I’m using popular media as shorthand for how wide-spread these ideas were, but military and intelligence operations seriously studied this stuff too, and in many countries, not just the U.S. This is the way science goes; people can only work with what is known at the time. Newton was doing alchemy while inventing the basis for modern physics. It’s tempting to look back and condemn people by the standards of what we know today, which is based on additional evidence and theory developed over decades or centuries since. But I think it inhibits understanding of how such knowledge is created over time.

vasco 11mo ago

People get sick and they die. Nobody should have to go through any treatments they dont want to. And to blame someone for that is like blaming them for the disease.