Current Events > 'Not the Biden I knew' (aneurysms, gaffes, Bernie) 'I dont think Im a stutterer

(+) Yeah! (+)

COVxy posted...

Naw, I think there's a serious conversation to be had about age and average cognitive and brain health that will happen by the next election, given this cycles heavily aged candidates. But this conversation is different than "my political opponent clearly has dementia/psychopathy/whatever else".

A conversation about a particular person's mental status is very different than a conversation of ensuring that in general we have candidates that are well. One is dangerous, the other is necessary.

I'm fine with not getting as specific as "I think ______ has dementia" but I think that "Biden doesn't seem like he's cognitively performing at what we should have for a president" should be fair game.

Just look at how Trump sounds now versus four years ago. Being president is taxing physically and mentally.

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ThePrinceFish posted...

Maybe don't wave your dick around if it was such a minor thing for you then. "I've actually given it... have you?!"

Embarrassing.

Ehh, the number of points is fucking meaningless because it gets normed based on population values. In fact, you can't even use the original norms provided by the assessment because they are an overestimate in the US.

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COVxy posted...

Smashingpmkns posted...

Is that why you said 20/20 before googling it?

Got me, i misremembered the actual amount of distributed points from a single page assessment that I gave out 6 years ago for a project that didn't lead anywhere. Must be that I'm lying.

Sounds like you have a lot of experience.
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shockthemonkey posted...

What is dangerous about wondering why Biden cant stay coherent for an entire debate? What is the danger here?

It's mean to Biden. Won't toxic Bernie Bros think of their actions???

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shockthemonkey posted...

What is dangerous about wondering why Biden cant stay coherent for an entire debate? What is the danger here?

You mean, what's the danger in letting public denouncement of political candidates as mentally unsound without any actual real process?

Seems like a pretty good way to both let politically driven silencing and increase stigma of mental illness at the same time to me.

I apparently also have to mention again that it is fucking stupid, and no neurologist or psychiatrist worth anything would suggest that you'd have an accurate read on someone based on clips of public events.

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shockthemonkey posted...

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Absolutely nothing. Also you don't have to be a doctor to notice there's been a massive decline in Biden's speaking abilities in the past 5 years.
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shockthemonkey posted...

Still not seeing the danger of scrutinizing someone for being unable to stay coherent for 2 hours. Vague posturing about how its dangerous to speculate that someone weve watched become more incoherent over time doesnt explain an actual danger to me.

Strange that the APA had such a strong response to it when license holding practitioners started doing it with Trump, no?

Or maybe diagnosis is extremely hard and noisy, and political bias is a much stronger signal.

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COVxy posted...

I apparently also have to mention again that it is f***ing stupid, and no neurologist or psychiatrist worth anything would suggest that you'd have an accurate read on someone based on clips of public events.

But you're making the same mistake that the other people are making, just from the other direction.

It doesn't matter if Biden (or Trump) actually has dementia or are senile if the general public perceives them as being so.

How smart/sharp we perceive our politicians as is something we bring up in other contexts. There's just additional stigma as soon as you try to relate it to their age rather than just "They're not a sharp person in general".

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shockthemonkey posted...

Youre doing that thing where you respond to what you wanted me to say instead of what I said.

Naw, the fact that you don't see the danger doesn't mean jack shit when organizations governing the ethics regarding these professions do.

I don't care that you don't see the danger. I do, and so do the boards governing ethical practices of mental diagnosis.

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Neither you nor the boards governing ethical practices of mental diagnosis dictate public perception.
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Holy shit @ that OP

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Anteaterking posted...

It doesn't matter if Biden (or Trump) actually has dementia or are senile if the general public perceives them as being so.

I don't understand. Is it good to label someone who doesn't have dementia as being demented if they are our political opponent? Seems like the answer is pretty clear, no? Seems like driving public perception by explicitly stating so, therefore, would be bad, no?

Anteaterking posted...

How smart/sharp we perceive our politicians as is something we bring up in other contexts. There's just additional stigma as soon as you try to relate it to their age rather than just "They're not a sharp person in general".

A medical diagnosis is something that is both perceived and received entirely differently by people, yes. That is the point. That makes it both that much easier to leverage maliciously, as it is to drive those perceptions of mental illness even further down the stigmahole.

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shockthemonkey posted...

Youre hyper focused on the diagnosis part of this and in doing so youre not actually attempting to have any discussion on this. Youre just saying its dangerous to diagnose as a response to why is it dangerous to acknowledge his incoherency?

I'm fine acknowledging his incoherency, in fact i have multiple times in the past (his debate performance has been pretty shitty). But saying that it is pathological is both irresponsible and dangerous.

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COVxy posted...

I don't understand. Is it good to label someone who doesn't have dementia as being demented if they are our political opponent? Seems like the answer is pretty clear, no? Seems like driving public perception by explicitly stating so, therefore, would be bad, no?

A medical diagnosis is something that is both perceived and received entirely differently by people, yes. That is the point. That makes it both that much easier to leverage maliciously, as it is to drive those perceptions of mental illness even further down the stigmahole.

Some rando on Twitter saying "Joe Biden clearly has dementia" isn't being perceived as people as a medical diagnosis and it isn't "dangerous" for them to do so, even if it's "uncouth".

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Personally the reason biden's behavior reminds me of dementia is because whenever he talks about really old events, made up or not, he sounds immensely more lucid than when he has to talk about the stuff going on around him. When he's talking about Corn Pop or fake-getting-arrested, he sounds pretty confident but the moment he has to talk about recent events he meanders and stammers and stutters a lot more. That was exactly how my grandma was when her dementia started to become a lot more noticable. She would recall really old stuff from when she was a kid or a young adult with crystal clear acuity and meanwhile any recent memories or decisions about current events she would visibly struggle

Even if it's not dementia though, something is really obviously going on with him. He sounds almost like a completely different person than he did in the past. Compare his public appearances from the 2012 elections to how he's acting now. There was a pretty hefty decline precipitated by something

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Anteaterking posted...

Some rando on Twitter saying "Joe Biden clearly has dementia" isn't being perceived as people as a medical diagnosis and it isn't "dangerous" for them to do so, even if it's "uncouth".

Oh, i didn't realize the disease names were actually metaphorical!

Come on man. It's entirely a game of leveraging the diagnosis to further the negative impact of the statement.

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COVxy posted...

Oh, i didn't realize the disease names were actually metaphorical!

Come on man. It's entirely a game of leveraging the diagnosis to further the negative impact of the statement.

They don't have the authority to make a legitimate diagnosis dude, get off this ****. You're still putting too much weight on what these people are saying.

You're acting like people here are suggesting that professionals should be making speculative diagnoses on TV with their titles displayed beneath them as official proclamations. We're not. We're saying that the response to randos accusing Biden/Trump of dementia shouldn't be scolding remarks about the dangers of unprofessional diagnose instead of addressing those cognitive lapses they're talking about.

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Anteaterking posted...

They don't have the authority to make a legitimate diagnosis dude, get off this ****. You're still putting too much weight on what these people are saying.

You're acting like people here are suggesting that professionals should be making speculative diagnoses on TV with their titles displayed beneath them as official proclamations. We're not. We're saying that the response to randos accusing Biden/Trump of dementia shouldn't be scolding remarks about the dangers of unprofessional diagnose instead of addressing those cognitive lapses they're talking about.

Isn't the goal of this topic to convince people that Biden is going through non normal cognitive decline (dementia)? How is that not fucked up?

It shouldn't be accepted and is dangerous, especially in the current day where twitter threads seem to actually hold a lot of influence.

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COVxy posted...

Isn't the goal of this topic to convince people that Biden is going through non normal cognitive decline (dementia)? How is that not f***ed up?

It shouldn't be accepted and is dangerous, especially in the current day where twitter threads seem to actually hold a lot of influence.

He's 77. Why can't it just be normal cognitive decline?

That's still cognitive decline.

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Anteaterking posted...

He's 77. Why can't it just be normal cognitive decline?

That's still cognitive decline.

Absolutely. So what's this about aneurysms from the 80's?

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COVxy posted...

Absolutely. So what's this about aneurysms from the 80's?

Let me ask you this. If that quote from his wikipedia article was removed from the post and the entire post was instead just examples of him having trouble speaking, forgetting things, etc. would you say "Biden seems to be suffering cognitive decline as you would expect from someone his age?"

Or would you claim that giving examples of possible cognitive decline would also be "trying to trick people into thinking he has dementia"?

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shockthemonkey posted...

You sure got us. We shouldnt worry about Bidens incoherency because TC mentioned his aneurysm.

You missed the point there

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Anteaterking posted...

Let me ask you this. If that quote from his wikipedia article was removed from the post and the entire post was instead just examples of him having trouble speaking, forgetting things, etc. would you say "Biden seems to be suffering cognitive decline as you would expect from someone his age?"

Or would you claim that giving examples of possible cognitive decline would also be "trying to trick people into thinking he has dementia"?

I don't think the hypothetical matters so much since it's absolutely obvious that the intention was to persuade people of a medical issue.

But, in this hypothetical world, I think it's probably fine to mention normal cognitive decline as a potential issue with electing anyone this old (though, this field is complicated, and doesn't have very good definitions of cognitive decline to begin with).

But as hard as it is for you to believe, the information present in public events probably doesn't provide much predictive power in detailing who is declining faster or who is declining abnormally.

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COVxy posted...

I don't think the hypothetical matters so much since it's absolutely obvious that the intention was to persuade people of a medical issue.

But, in this hypothetical world, I think it's probably fine to mention normal cognitive decline as a potential issue with electing anyone this old (though, this field is complicated, and doesn't have very good definitions of cognitive decline to begin with).

But as hard as it is for you to believe, the information present in public events probably doesn't provide much predictive power in detailing who is declining faster or who is declining abnormally.

COVxy posted...

I don't think the hypothetical matters so much since it's absolutely obvious that the intention was to persuade people of a medical issue.

But, in this hypothetical world, I think it's probably fine to mention normal cognitive decline as a potential issue with electing anyone this old (though, this field is complicated, and doesn't have very good definitions of cognitive decline to begin with).

But as hard as it is for you to believe, the information present in public events probably doesn't provide much predictive power in detailing who is declining faster or who is declining abnormally.

You're already moving the goalposts now though. You're still in this hypothetical saying "Well even if they tried to claim that he was suffering normal cognitive decline, the jury is still out on what that means". You seem to essentially want there to be no conversation about it at all.

I also think you're missing part of the point which is that neither of them have to be abnormally declining or be declining fast to be still below the threshold of what we should expect in a president. I wouldn't claim that your average 77 year old has the cognition to be a good president.

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Maybe it's a tactic to be relatable to the average American

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Anteaterking posted...

You're already moving the goalposts now though. You're still in this hypothetical saying "Well even if they tried to claim that he was suffering normal cognitive decline, the jury is still out on what that means". You seem to essentially want there to be no conversation about it at all.

No, i'm just adding addition information as to why this is such a hard problem. So we have the hard problem of diagnosis, where diagnoses themselves are uncertain, but on top of that we have a measurement issue, where measuring even what we want to measure for our uncertain categories of diagnoses is hard. And yet you have people saying "i watched 10 minutes of selected clips and this dude definitely should be diagnosed". I'm just providing context to the absurdity of the situation here.

Anteaterking posted...

I also think you're missing part of the point which is that neither of them have to be abnormally declining or be declining fast to be still below the threshold of what we should expect in a president. I wouldn't claim that your average 77 year old has the cognition to be a good president.

I don't disagree, we should be having a serious conversation about age it's implications for presidency. But that extends to almost every single democratic candidate this cycle, and is very different then picking out clips and suggesting that a particular candidate has some medical issue.

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One more for the pile

https://twitter.com/CANCEL_SAM/status/1236760401918005249?s=19

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NL posted...

One more for the pile

https://twitter.com/CANCEL_SAM/status/1236760401918005249

^ "Are we afraid to say a lot of his sentences don't make sense." "People in my circle (behind the scenes with the Democrats) can he handle this? (is he up to the job)" That was MSNBC in November....

Here's more.

https://mobile.twitter.com/iBrianHamilton/status/1236383456331829248

^ (These are a lot of CNN/MSNBC/Democrats quotes) This is what we are going to be dealing with from Trump till November.

... unless we make an emergency u-turn.

Do you think the average voter hears all this?

No. The support of the average voter is "we must beat Trump." "choose the safe choice to do it." "Obama's guy is safe."

... But Biden isn't safe. This is what is ironic. This is an unforced error, when Bernie is right there.

COVxy posted...

Absolutely. So what's this about aneurysms from the 80's?

If a man known to have had lung damaging Tuberculosis or is a smoker, starts coughing heavy later in life or having trouble breathing (decreased lung quality over the years), we the public don't have to be doctors to connect the two.

Quotes from that wikipedia:
"Each required high risk brain surgery with risks of long term impact to brain functionality."
"He also said he was told he would have less than a 50 percent chance of fully recovering."

https://www.stroke.org/en/about-stroke/types-of-stroke/hemorrhagic-strokes-bleeds/what-you-should-know-about-cerebral-aneurysms
"Having one aneurysm means there's about a 20 percent chance of having one or more other aneurysms."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16266045
"CONCLUSIONS: Patients with cerebral aneurysms have increased levels of anxiety and depression and poor general mental health. Those who have experienced an SAH and harbor an unsecured cerebral aneurysm demonstrate increased levels of anxiety. A lower functional status in patients with aneurysms is associated with depression and decreased general mental health."

Is it unreasonable to say the lifespan of the brain tends to lessen via damage from surgery, blood leaks/aneurysms , I don't think it is.

Now if you want to make a distinction that it's "not technically Dementia, Senility, Alzheimers, etc" because we're not doctors and can't diagnose things PRECISELY. I can understand being pedantic over those terms at times. But let's face it. We're not going to get that data. Just like Trump isn't going to give us his tax forms.

And really, many Democrats (moderate and progressive) have made attacks on Trump along the same line.

emagdnE posted...

Stop making excuses for him. The man is almost 80 and was dumb to begin with. (See: his entire voting record.) This is normal. I'm not sure what the exact criteria for dementia is compared to just plain getting old, but brain functionality usually starts to decline around 50. And he is well past 50.

If anything, Bernie is abnormally functional for a man his age. That makes him exceptional.

An exceptional man is EXACTLY who we want to be president. Not an average Joe.

Furthermore, even just 4 years ago when we had Biden talking about the 2016 election, he was much more coherent. He's declined sharply in just 4 years. Nay, he seems to be getting worse and worse from when he started the election.

What the hell stutter are you even talking about anyway? Biden isn't having trouble pronouncing the words besides "Obiden Bama". He's saying the words but they are stringed together incoherently. What he is actually saying is either extremely stupid or structured very poorly. Like the whole "We can only re-elect Trump" line that in its full context is about party infighting helping Trump but he used awful sentence structure. He didn't slip on the words. He just used a very poor choice of words.

Some people age better than others, and some fall apart in different ways. I agree it's not wrong to point potential campaign losing problems with Biden.

seankimberley42 posted...

then posting a Biden attack ad.

https://twitter.com/BerniesBack2020/status/1236691820433809408

It's just a compilation of Biden quotes, some I never heard before. (especially his family and early career. It's an excellent collection imo)

Quotes dealing with his errors and bad policy and what he and his family might really think, off the campaign trail.

It's also an example of what's going to happening from Trump and his Deplorables in 2020.

lilORANG posted...

No shit. Remember dude rekting Palin and Ryan in the debates? Now he can't even keep up in friendly primary debates.

This is very well might destroy our chances of a Nov win. It's not funny and I'm not trying to make fun of Biden. It's a bit sad and tragic, not just for the US and getting rid of Trump, saving the Supreme Court, etc. But it's sad that we're just gonna try to force a what I feel incapable man into the public like this.

It's dangerous too. My grandfather had Alzheimers. He thought he was perfectly fine. We had to take his car keys. He was getting into more and more minor accidents and weird driving behaviors.

Turtlemayor333 posted...

["Stutters! You're mean for bringing up potential ugly truths!"] is really going to be our version of "Trump was just joking"

It's already happening. Any legit criticism of Biden is meeting with this. But as shown already, even DNC people are worried. (in November, that's why support fo

They still gonna prop him up because they'd rather lose with him than win with Bernie. He's going to look fucking awful in debates against Trump.

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Yes, thank you for confirming the entire point of that post.

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*Biden gets the nomination*

Trumpers: Thanks Bernie Bros, well just be retweeting this & this & this & that & this & this & that

Trump is going to win isnt he

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COVxy posted...

Yes, thank you for confirming the entire point of that post.

The voters will make that connection anyway.
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iPhone_7 posted...

*Biden gets the nomination*

Trumpers: Thanks Bernie Bros, well just be retweeting this & this & this & that & this & this & that

Trump is going to win isnt he

Trump and his team are a lot of things, but "unable to find things that make their opponents look bad" is not one of them.
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iPhone_7 posted...

*Biden gets the nomination*

Trumpers: Thanks Bernie Bros, well just be retweeting this & this & this & that & this & this & that

Trump is going to win isnt he

Tbh they would do that regardless of who wins. This democratic primary has been one whole shitshow and everyones covered in it

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You should also add something about Clarence Thomas, since one of the most common "lesser evil" arguments is that Biden's Supreme Court picks would be better than Trump's.

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