Z Buck McFate
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2009
- Messages
- 6,069
- Enneagram
- 5w4
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/sp
A major part of my frustration is it's be touted by the Trump administration, co-opted by people who don't understand medicine and are looking to make a profit, and is being disseminated through the public as part of the massive ongoing disinformation campaign. Almost every time it is brought up it is pounced on by Trump supporters who have no idea what they are talking about.
Of course it was worth looking at initially, I was extremely skeptical but my first thought was "that doesn't make any sense at all... but, well, alright it can't hurt if there are potential leads" and yes I am aware of a theoretical mechanism on how it could work (it's a stretch). Still, worth a look, as we need to try any and all leads, and follow the ones that pass the marks as we go as needs to be done in drug discovery and reappropriation of orphan drugs. It was pretty unlikely going in, and it is looking increasingly unlikely the further we go.
The core of my frustration is all of these "well, maybe's" gets uses as vaidation and twisted into disinformation by trump supporters, and by bad operators seeing to sow discord the world over. It's being overhyped and painted in far more of a positive light than it should be. It's becoming a game of telephone in the worst way. It's being passed upwards to doctors and nurses in treatment rooms and they're taking what seems like trustworthy valid advice on the medicine, when it hasn't been nearly as vetted and validated as it needs to be. What ideally should be happening is it is worked on quietly in labs, and as we gain meaningful results, it gets sent up the clinical chain. Because of the media it's being dragged through the mud and causing harm. It's a major reason why I want people to stfu about this stuff and I get so upset when people say "well, there's potential" because it often comes with no sense of scale for the lay person to understand.
The problem with getting forceful about making others shut up about it, though, is that it comes across as forcing a truth (trying to establish 'truth' via willpower vs. letting 'truth' surface through valid gradual discernment) in the other direction. While I can understand not feeling the patience with gradual discernment (because that can feel like playing Whack-a-mole with it for months, when the nuclear option of initial forcefulness can feel - to the person doing it - like getting it all over with at once so that everyone can move on), it's a necessary part of sharing reality with other people. It's self-sabotaging to get forceful. Even though *you* are confident that your forcefullness is about facts (and not about simply wanting to make sure everyone knows Trump is/was wrong), your forcefulness in itself won't *prove* it's wrong. Especially to Trump supporters. Only gradual discernment will (and the actual scientific process repeatedly proving it's wrong).
And sure, there will be some Trump supporters who will always believe it regardless of how the science plays out - but getting forceful about it is still self-sabotaging because that's the kind of thing that makes them dig their heels in In the first place.