Oh, fuck.

“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous ultra violet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you are going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you could do either through the skin or in some other way. I think you said that you are going to test that, too. And then I saw the disinfectant, where knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way we could do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning. As you see it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.” — Relativist

The man has broken through to the other side. It reads like a paragraph from Dr. Scheber's diary.


(Say if Schreber had gone through with the lobotomy.)

We actually aren't apes.
— ZzzoneiroCosm

The Hominidae (/hɒˈmɪnɪdiː/), whose members are known as great apes[note 1] or hominids (/ˈhɒmɪnɪdz/), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo, the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan; Gorilla, the eastern and western gorilla; Pan, the common chimpanzee and the bonobo; and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.[1]
Wiki. — Banno

We’re sapiens, a species infinity more lethal to itself and other species than, uh, any other species.

And we will probably wipe ourselves out before we get many, many generations to evolve into something closer to the paragon of animals that Shakespeare thought we were. — Bitter Crank

This wipe ourselves out notion is interesting. It's an expression of pessimism without a rational basis. It is easy to kill billions of people, less easy to kill all. It seems ludicrous to include the phrase "we will probably wipe ourselves out" in a discussion of this kind without providing statistic-like projections (graphs and charts) in support of this hyperbolic hypothetical. Is there a math to do here? Is it probable that we will wipe ourselves out, statistically speaking? How can the numbers on this be run? If the numbers on this can't be run why is it considered rational to continue to say we will probably wipe ourselves out?

This has been done plentifully in the scientific literature of climate change. But take this little piece as an example: A pandemic has (appropriately) frightened the species. Appropriate protective measures (social isolation, distancing, etc.) has produced the highest unemployment in the US (22,000,000) since the Great Depression. Millions of individual's personal economies have tanked. Revenues from commerce, taxes, transit fares, fees, and so on have crashed. Besides all that, many people are sick or dead.

Compare this massive economic and social disruption, just over 3 months long and which isn't over by any means, to the kind of massive long-term industrial/economic/social changes required to sharply and permanently reduce CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions. The costs, disruptions, ruptures with habit, and so on are so severe that it will cause far worse disruption.

The alternative -- doing what we have been doing since the industrial revolution got underway -- will mean a slower, but no less severe disruption and severe disruption--likely worse, because it will last for a very long time.

OK, technically, global warming won't wipe out the species. Remnants of humanity will remain. They will be isolated little groups of former industrial masters reduced to figuring out how to hunt and gather--if they live long enough. They will have left the glories of human culture behind--the loss of which will only take a couple of generations. Culture is either maintained or it is lost. We know this from ample historical experience.

So sure, we'll survive global warming.

Why would we do this to ourselves? Because: bright as we are, we do not seem to possess the ability to detect distant disasters (like, even 50 years away) and act in the present to avoid them. Environmental, agricultural, population, nuclear, disease, and other disasters have been clearly seen coming down the pike. Humans have not, by and large, acted effectively to avoid any of these calamities.

The [western] Roman Empire endured for many centuries--much longer than the modern world has--and sustained repeated calamities. It always bounced back. Resilience. It bounced back until just the right combination of disasters overwhelmed their exhausted resilience, Then they went down the cloaca Maximus fairly fast.

It's an expression of pessimism without a rational basis. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Definitely pessimistic, hardly irrational. I'm getting old; I can afford to be honestly pessimistic -- I won't be around, most likely, too much longer. I don't need to maintain optimistic delusions of the sort that I used to.

I'd prefer that the evidence led to optimism. It just doesn't.

Not relevant indeed. When doing nothing, the virus will spread at more or less the same speed in every population. While population density might have an effect on that speed, total population does not at the beginning of the spread of a virus. The fact that it's 199 times more than Korea, means the USA has done a 199 times worse than South Korea. Adjusting for population size actually makes the failure of the USA Trump administration less egregious.

Another misrepresentation. I have not criticised his optimism as my post history shows. You've just relabelled and excuses bad policy as "optimism". The fact that his "optimism" has had real life consequences resulting in the deaths of 199 times more than South Korea "because it will go magically away" is a criticism of policy failure. Just as Russian collusion wasn't a hoax (just not a legal term!), obstruction of justice was real, the emoluments clause is an issue, impeachment where Republicans blocked witnesses a sham etc. etc. That last has probably moved the US closer to an authoritarian regime as it was a tacit approval of the unitary executive theory.

Trump is corrupt and a product of a corrupt political system in the US, which system is propped up by both parties. He is too stupid and doesn't inform himself or inspire those who serve him to advise him on how to avert a crisis.

Trump has done exactly nothing to "drain the swamp", has not made the world safer, and his lack of action on the coronavirus has killed many more Americans in the short term than that would have otherwise died. All this was glaringly obvious from the beginning as the thread on the coronavirus had made clear.

Maybe the relative population metrics aren't relevant to the way you're looking at it, but I'm thinking of it this way:

data:

Geographical Areas, National Populations & Population Densities (best online stats I can find):

South Korea
• 100,210km^2  (38,691mi^2)

• c52 million

• 519 pp/km^2 (1,344 pp/mi^2)

United States
• 9,833,517km^2 (3,796,742mi^2)

• c228 million

• 23.2 pp/km^2 (60 pp/mi^2)


With about 1/6th the population, South Korea has 22.4× greater population density than the United States.

extrapolation (guesstimate):

Assuming the United States government had acted immediately and as effectively as the South Korean government had (NB: both the Bush & Obama administrations have helped South Korea develop and rehearse rapid response protocols, etc over the decade or more since the SARS-1 outbreak in East Asia in the mid-2000s, in preparation for the next pandemic :brow:), it's reasonable to expect similar mortality outcomes, especially as a percentage of national population adjusted for relative population density as a/the major driver of the rate of transmission of highly contagious pathogen like Covid-19 (aka SARS-2) and the same time period (93 days) for public health mitigation efforts and emergency-critical care medical interventions: as of 4/22/20, the United States' death toll should have been

6.3 (times greater national population than S.K.) ×

1/22.4 (lower population density than S.K.) ×

10 (times scale of bureaucratic inefficiency,  *fudge factor* in U.S.'s favor) ×

240 (S.K. deaths) =

:point: "675 deaths" (or 1/70.7th of the current U.S. death toll of 47, 750).

As a grade on a scale of 1-100, using South Korea as a perfect 100 (for the sake of argument) @240 dead, the United State response - indicated by its national death rate being nearly 1.8 orders of magnitude higher than S.K.'s to date @47,750 dead - earns a grade of 0 (rounded).

Adjusting for population size actually makes the failure of the USA Trump administration less egregious.

Well, we disagree. I see things exactly opposite to what you say here.

:mask:

I'm convinced the gross level of presidential maladminstration is even greater than these cocktail napkin figures suggest. The Covidiot-in-Chief has been pushing dangerous drugs unproven for Covid-19 treatment for about a month and now suggests injecting disinfectants into Covid-19 patients to "clean" them inside out. As if he doesn't have enough blood on his tiny hands already ... :shade:

@ZzzoneiroCosm

Denying that humans are apes is just as wrong as denying dolphins and whales are mammals and calling them fish instead. The problem is just the connotations of the word "ape". But, hey, we made a dude who thinks we should inject bleach into each other to cure us of COVID, the leader of the free world, so let's not overestimate ourselves.

But, hey, we made a dude who thinks we should inject bleach into each other to cure us of COVID, the leader of the free world, so let's not overestimate ourselves. — Baden

I hope Trump isn't the standard by which you judge humankind.

"The average man is closer to an ape than to Einstein."

-I Forget

Trump is far below average.

the leader of the free world — Baden

This expression is obsolete.

Denying that humans are apes is just as wrong... — Baden

This position is irrationally science-centric. You're going to let the eggheady chaos-codifiers dictate what your language will connote.

I will dictate my own connotations.

I am not an ape, I am human.

Definitely pessimistic, hardly irrational. I'm getting old; I can afford to be honestly pessimistic -- I won't be around, most likely, too much longer. I don't need to maintain optimistic delusions of the sort that I used to.

I'd prefer that the evidence led to optimism. It just doesn't. — Bitter Crank

Again: Where are your charts and graphs demonstrating that "we will probably wipe ourselves out"? If you lack charts and graphs why do you continue to say we will probably wipe ourselves out? Explicate the rationality of your position, if you can.

I don't think we disagree on substance but I do think you're wrong to multiply with the 6.3 due to the population size difference. All things being equal, population size has absolutely no effect on the number of people getting infected and dying, if you'd take no action whatsoever, until such time as herd immunity starts to have an effect.

Due to the lower population density in the USA, the speed of the spread should be lower so the number of deaths in the short term in the USA should have been lower in absolute terms than in South Korea. On the other hand, I think the large cities in the US are as densely populated as the large cities in SK, so I suspect the effect of a slower spread based on average population density is too heavyhanded.

I'm convinced the gross level of presidential maladminstration is even greater than these cocktail napkin figures suggest. The Covidiot-in-Chief has been pushing dangerous drugs unproven for Covid-19 treatment for about a month and now suggests injecting disinfectants into Covid-19 patients to "clean" them inside out. As if he doesn't have enough blood on his little hands already ... :shade: — 180 Proof

Trump says some extremely stupid things, but its less clear that any of his actions or inactions have caused preventable harm.

It's easy, with hindsight, to say actions should have been taken earlier, but we'd need to judge that based on the conditions, and state of available knowledge, at the time.

I'm not a Trump apologist, but I do think we should judge the facts fairly. IMO, the majority of the untruths he mouths are the result of extreme stupidity, not duplicity. Fortunately, there are smart people doing the real work here (like Dr. Faucci). Trump is nothing more than an idiotic pundit.

Trump’s innocent question to the doctor about how to get disinfectant into the body or lungs gets twisted into “Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment”. Antitrumpism in a nutshell.

Nah Trump's just the fuckin idiot everyone knows he is lmao

Fuckin retard in charge of that country lol

Maybe 20 years ago people would've said "Someone who would advise their public to inject bleach into their veins is unelectable". Now it's a bunch of supporters playing word games, he didn't tell them to do it, he merely implied something like detergent would be effective if applied inside the body!

Fuckin retard supporters lol

When I first heard Trump at the press conference, it seemed like he was taking a more questioning tone than anything else. He said disinfectants hurt the virus, as do heat and light, and he wanted to know if there was a way to replicate these effects somehow in the form of a treatment. "Maybe we can, maybe we can't. I'm not a doctor... But maybe it's worth looking into." I'm not a Trump apologist either, but I think if a normal person hears that such and such has been found to hurt the virus, their next thought might be, "I wonder if there's a way we can use that somehow." I think the idea that he is suggesting injecting bleach into people, or something like this, is an uncharitable, not to mention inaccurate, interpretation of what he was saying. It doesn't really add anything to the discussion unless the goal is to just pile more hate onto the bandwagon.

In any case, Trump is probably the most imprudent, undiplomatic, egotistical president we have ever had. He needs to have these kinds of discussions in private with his medical advisors as opposed to out in the open during a press conference. There are some extraordinarily stupid people in this country, and while I don't particularly care about them misinterpreting his words and introducing cleaning agents into their bodies, I am concerned about them maybe doing it to their kids.

That’s one of the things I’m trying to figure out. I’m not sure how one can misconstrue a layman’s question to a doctor into an official suggestion that the public should do such and such.

Oh look there's one now lmao

I’m not sure how one can misconstrue a layman’s question to a doctor into an official suggestion that the public should do such and such. — NOS4A2

A layman? What a joke. Anything to cast your hero in the most innocent light.

It's just his programming he can't help it.

A layman? What a joke. Anything to cast your hero in the most innocent light.

So...he’s not a layman?

You are right of course. It is my partisanship, my ideological blinkers, and my thorough lack of critical thinking skills that lead me to believe Trump implied injecting bleach into your veins has a hope of curing coronavirus, in public, just for a PR move.

I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just asking how one can misconstrue Trump’s question to the doctor into an official suggestion that the public should inject disinfectant into their veins. Can you suggest that I do something by asking someone else a question? I just don’t understand it, but perhaps that’s my own blinkers.

I think the best thing about Trump is that he's like a sieve for stupidity - you can watch people out their retardation in real time while trying to defend him. It's the most glorious show.

Can I imply something with a question?

So...he’s not a layman? — NOS4A2

Nonchalantly affixing the term "layman" to the President of the United States is an act of decontextualizing reductivism. You know this.

That’s one of the things I’m trying to figure out. I’m not sure how one can misconstrue a layman’s question to a doctor into an official suggestion that the public should do such and such. — NOS4A2

Wolfman addressed that best:

He needs to have these kinds of discussions in private with his medical advisors as opposed to out in the open during a press conference. — Wolfman

A President doing a press conference to address an ongoing crisis should stick to setting out the facts about what the administration is doing and the like. Some off-the-cuff question about possibly injecting disinfectant or irradiating the body has no place on the podium.