The terrorist inside my husband's brain (2016) | Hacker News Reader

The terrorist inside my husband's brain (2016)

n.neurology.org

116 pointsdsr1217 comments

I love the article, but hate how it personifies LBD as a "terrorist". I mean, a degenerative disease has no political goals. I don't even see anything about infectious agents, to which one could ascribe goals of some sort.

If one must personify, LBD is basically a traitor.

But whatever, I mean no disrespect. It's just that the usage detracts from the article. It should have been caught by an editor. And if it was introduced by an editor, that was a poor decision.

I think the way it is meant to be interpreted as is "inflicting terror", not necessarily in the strict political sense.

Basically it's sneaky, can hit anytime, you don't know how to find & target it, when it's going to attack, where it's going to come from, and what suffering it's going to cause (but you know it's going to be bad). It seems to me the metaphor is quite apt.

Personally, I didn't feel like the usage detracted from the article at all.

I'm not sure why it causes such a strong feeling of "hate". Mild disappointment perhaps, but hate?

Upon reflection, it annoys me so much because the label "terrorist" has become so misused in propaganda. Friends are "freedom fighters" and enemies are "terrorists". Regardless of the actual merits of their cases. I'm just very tired of it.

One could argue that 9/11 wasn't all that bad. After all there are just as many fatalities in two months of traffic accidents in the US. How did such a small band of hijackers change everything forever? Suddenly there is no way to go back, no way to return to the peace of how things were before. That's just gone forever, out of reach.

What peace? I suppose that you mean the safety of geographic isolation. The US had gotten very complacent about taking military action with virtually no fear of retaliation. I mean, Europe got trashed twice within a generation, and the US only lost troops, and expanded its manufacturing sector.

But really, wasn't the Cold War enough? Maybe not, I suppose. There was never an actual attack, just testing and proxy wars. And notwithstanding potential impact, there were really just two adversaries.

Anyway, it's just war. It does suck when it comes to your home, but that's just how it goes. Labeling adversaries as "terrorists" is just propaganda.

Edit: And by the way, in my childhood, damage from WWII was impossible to ignore.

Note: this article is about the actor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams

A great story about a guy's 2008 interaction with Robin Williams:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-randomly-meet-a-cel...

I'm glad she told the story. When William's death was in the news, everyone was talking about "depression." This really wasn't the full story behind his death.

Williams also abused cocaine in the 70s and 80s. And there is some evidence that cocaine abuse is linked to Parkinson's type disease.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/23/7/2564.full.pdf

LBD/Alzheimer's is not "Parkinson's type".

This is so painfully true.

My mum’s partner has LBD. It’s still considered obscure: the diagnosis only came after she pushed and pushed. But it’s insidious - the inevitable, relentless breakdown of a human being. Two years ago he was a bright, independent man, with an active social life, a dozen interests and a retirement to look forward to. Now he can’t sit down in a chair without missing and she can’t leave him alone for more than a couple of hours.

What a harrowing experience for everyone involved. Coupled with financial difficulties, this could be the worst nightmare imaginable.

For something that affects 1 in 6 people it seems surprising that it was missed during 2 years of diagnoses.

The 1-in-6 figure I believe is for brain disease in general. 1.5 Million out of ~300 million is a much rarer case.

> As you may know, almost 1.5 million nationwide are suffering similarly right now.

> He just happened to be that 1 in 6 who is affected by brain disease.

Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12619622

(Don’t know how to mark as dupe)(Or more probably haven’t got enough karma)

Hacker News has its own algorithm to detect dupes, but it only does that for 1 or 2 days (Sorry I don't know the specifics). However it means that there is nothing to mark.

Having said that, it is fine to repost a particular topic. What has been read by people in 2016, might still be interesting to read about in 2018 too, there might be people who didn't notice it in 2016 or people who didn't even visit the site in 2016.

The time interval doesn't even have to be that long.

Too all the downvoters of this comment: Boo!, the linked discussion had 144 comments and hit 600 points.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com