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Comment by meta_gunslinger | Hacker News Reader

The wrong decision is not being insured for disaster and not saving enough when you were able to work, electing to spend the money instead. Not being unlucky with your health or having an accident. That's clearly stated in my original response if you care to read and not knee-jekingly respond.

For someone who has been born disabled, the conversation should be moved to the people who brought them to life and are responsible for their survival.

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Look at all those people worldwide “electing” to spend their money to feed and shelter themselves and their families with barely anything else left afterwards. The should’ve elected otherwise! It’s insane how some people here are disconnected from the realities of the majority of people worldwide. All those years of education and the infinite access to information and still it’s an enigma to them the fact that the majority of people worldwide are just shit out of luck for having been born in places where a full time job just barely gets you by.

You can speak for yourself, because you know nothing about my background and your ideological bias leads you to embarrassing assumptions.

My family until my parents generation were dirt poor in one of those countries you would also call piss poor.

So you got lucky, thought it was because you were a genius and now you think everyone who didn't get lucky is just stupid.

A common thinking pattern. To prove it's luck, though, your great-grandchildren will be poor again - that always happens - they say rags to rags in three generations.

I am not poor but I am not rich either, why do you make assumptions?

Sorry, I misread. Your parents were the first generation to escape poverty. They are the ones who worked hard and got lucky. You are the second generation, the one who grew up middle-class and takes it for granted, and wouldn't be able to climb up out of poverty. Your children will be the ones you spend all the money on and won't have any inheritance left for, and their children will grow up poor. This happens every single time.

"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel."

When your insurance denies your claim, does that mean being insured was the wrong decision too?

Which wrong decision did the parents of a disabled person make? Not getting prenatal genetic testing and an illegal abortion?

Almost everything in this universe wants you dead, including the species you belong to yourself, including the oxygen you so desperately need. The sooner you realise that the living time you have left is a careful balance of sheer luck and some preparations (money, food, shelter, love, the whole Maslov pyramid) the sooner you realise a standard job or labor is just a tool.

The universe doesn't "want" you dead. It just happens that life is always on a precipice, a little bubble carved out from an endless sea of unlife. But when you live underwater in an air dome, the sea doesn't "want" to flood your dome - that implies malice. The sea will flood your dome if you aren't careful, but you can maintain this air pocket as long as you want.

Sadly (arguably this is the greatest possible sadness) biology doesn't work that way. I think at our current rate of advancement we'll have practical immortality within the next 500 years, which is far too late for any of us alive right now, but it's not like a 90-year lifespan is an irreducible fact of reality. We've already found several genes that control certain aspects of aging and death. Interestingly, it seems to have evolved on purpose, and there are other animal species with indefinite lifespans.

I totally agree that it does not 'want' anything. It just is. My apologies for that.

> For someone who has been born disabled, the conversation should be moved to the people who brought them to life and are responsible for their survival.

Please explain exactly what you are suggesting or advocating for here.

I mean that the people who brought the person to life are responsible to make choice that will ensure theirs long term survival.

e.g my grandmother had a brother who their brain stopped developing at a very young age (afaik 5), the parents ensured and my grandmother ensured that my uncle lived a full (but sadly difficult) life living and been taken care of by them and then my grandma after they passed.

So what does that actually mean in reality?

Have you ever asked them what it was like to financially support him like that? Do you actually want the world to work that way?

Everyone that doesn't die early will become disabled, that includes you. You just hope it happens after you've made some money, but maybe between now and then you end up with a cancer or two.

Yup.

My best friend married the love of his life. Had amazing kids and a nice job. Then he got cancer.

He had amazing insurance, a very supporting family, a job at a company who totally understood his situation. Everything was taken care of. The only thing left was hopefully getting better.

Which he did not. All that was left was pain. I literally watched him die. I heard his last breath. I saw the life leave his eyes.

That was it. His book of life will never have any more pages. It's done. The only thing left is to remember him.

Individuals cannot afford to insure themselves in a vacuum. That's why social safety nets were created as a sort of forced and collective insurance. It's cheaper for all of us to ensure no one starves or becomes permanently homeless regardless of their choices.

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