Comment by mgkimsal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mgkimsal | Hacker News Reader

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> who did not say anything like "drink bleach"

"We're preparing to launch a submarine offensive".

"We need to do more to address homelessness".

"I'm having a team investigate infrastructure spending bills".

Those sorts of quotes are not anything like "drink bleach".

Within the span of a few seconds, Trump strings together "disinfectant" and "injection" and "sounds interesting". We've already seen someone drink chloroquine phosphate, after days of Trump mentioning hydroxychloroquine multiple times, with lines like "If it were me, in fact, I might do it anyway. I may take it" and "what have you got to lose?"

Did Trump specifically say the words "Drink any form of chloroquine on your own?" No. In the midst of a global health pandemic, he keeps throwing a bunch of words together which don't make much sense, and can easily influence people to make bad decisions. His influence in this matter has already been demonstrated.

A danger of multiple people saying "don't do it" is... a certain portion of people will read that as a sign that "they" don't want you to get healthy, and that Trump is "on to something", and they may do this sort of thing anyway.

>Within the span of a few seconds, Trump strings together "disinfectant" and "injection" and "sounds interesting".

So, you are fully and entirely aware that he said nothing of the sort, so much so you afraid to actually quote him and just want to pull individual words and say "these words were near each other!". And none of those words are drink or bleach. This supports my point.

>We've already seen someone drink chloroquine phosphate, after days of Trump mentioning hydroxychloroquine multiple times

And when the woman who poisoned her husband with fish tank cleaner is convicted, is that going to change anything in your mind? Or will you simply dismiss reality as inconvenient and cling to your media created fantasy?

I upvoted because I think rational disagreement is important. Let's just go through the facts we have. Below is some of the White House transcript, and a link to the rest.

The President did not tell Americans to inject bleach. The President did speculate, at a press briefing, about the possibility of injecting disinfectants into the human body. To me it seemed pretty clear that he was talking about a research idea, not about a home treatment.* The President added the caution that doctors should be involved.

Agreed?

*Personal opinion, I don't believe he was clear about the lethality of this idea if somebody is silly enough to try it at home.

Transcript excerpt: "THE PRESIDENT: 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."

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres...

>To me it seemed clear that he was talking about a research idea, not about a home treatment.

Yes, the preceding paragraph makes that clear.

>On the other hand I don't think he made that point 100% clear.

Definitely not, most of what he said is barely coherent nonsense. So if the media wants to report on that, they should report what he said, or even "we have no idea what he is babbling about". But instead the media openly lies about what he said. We have huge numbers of people right here being outraged that Trump would give people the idea that drinking bleach is a good idea, yet it is the media giving people that idea, not Trump. Our media is not simply failing us, they are actively harmful. It is disgraceful.

I agree that the media should report on facts. If they delude us on purpose then they're helping wreck the country.

Unfortunately that applies to the media on both deranged "sides" of the post-truth landscape. When they misreport, they're wrecking the place. They all do it, and the old excuse "well the other guys are doing it" is the opposite of comforting.

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