I stopped picking up unsolicited unknown calls perhaps a decade ago, and nothing was lost. It was impossible, however, to convince my 99-year-old grandma to do the same; she vehemently refuses because that would be 'impolite'. It would be great to have a tech solution for this, really, but I doubt printing another law is going to help with the scammier side of this market.
Assuming you can get access to their phone, only allowing calls from saved numbers would probably be the best solution, assuming she doesn't get random calls from hospitals and the like. If she's still using a landline though, that's a tough one to solve.
You can in fact just do that. Whether or not you should is another question.
I hate that phrasing. It was weaponised by teachers in my youth. It's still used by some people to close doors and remove options without good reason. I'll make fun of it whenever I can.
> In context, me saying 'You can just do that' means 'You should do that'
That's not very consistent. You wrote that whether they should was another question.
> (barring there being good reason, which I haven't seen so far)
I disagree with you. Someone being autonomous is a good reason for not wanting to take a decision for them against their will.
It follows that:
> It's still used by some people to close doors and remove options without good reason
This didn't happen here. No doors were closed without a good reason, because there is one.
Tell that to society at large. No man is an island.
It's a sensible default and should be enabled as such. They wouldn't know the difference if it already were. If they can articulate a specific and valid reason as to why they don't want it that way, then fair. It should be an option open to change. It simply being 'impolite' is somewhere between 'open to interpretation in specific cases' and 'wrong'. Many aspects of what is normally called politeness are constructs that have no or limited use in the current world. This is one of them. My conclusion is thus that their reason is invalid.
I'm making some assumptions. If any are counter to the reality of the situation, then there might be good reasons not to change it.
Edit to your edit:
> That's not very consistent. You wrote that whether they should was another question.
Emphasis is a common literary tool.
> This didn't happen here. No doors were closed without a good reason, because there is one.
I disagree on the reason given being good.
Okay, that's what you probably implied in your first reply, and I think that's what's actually interesting to discuss.
I don't think not acting against someone's will is a question of mere politeness. In social care, it's often considered mistreatment to do so.
For instance if it is not considered that an adult who's not otherwise autonomous can't express consent and doesn't want to take their pills, social workers normally shouldn't (and legally can't) force them to take them, even if it's good for them.
At least where I live.
Not all act against someone's will is mistreatment, but it definitely goes beyond politeness.
The reason given by the person in question was politeness. I'm not talking about whether or it's polite to change this setting.
> For instance if it is considered that an adult who's not autonomous can express consent and doesn't want to take their pills, social workers normally shouldn't (and legally can't) force them to take them, even if it's good for them.
That's because 'I want to die' is a valid reason. Or at least it should be. I doubt that social workers actually come to their conclusions from that framework. They probably do it like you said; simply acting against autonomy is itself bad within their framework, but this is inconsistent with society's behaviour at large.
Similarly, if GP's grandmother's reason was 'I want to receive random spam calls and calls from telemarketers' or 'I have friends overseas who might not be able to reach me', then I'd have nothing to say. Those are valid reasons. On the other hand, perceived potential impoliteness, which actually isn't, is not.
Yeah, I don't think that's a good reason neither. Now, it not being a good reason is not a pass to act against her will either.
I think OP needs to convince her that it's a bad reason first.
> That's because 'I want to die' is a valid reason. Or at least it should be
That's a very reasonable reason not to want to take a pill, but that's not even necessarily the actual reason. Often the reason is completely unknown. Possibly the person refusing the pills doesn't really know why they are refusing it / doesn't even have good reasons. The actual reasons behind the refusal doesn't theoretically matter much in whether they should be forced to take the pills. They should only matter to convince them that they should take the pill for their own good. (the reality is probably more "dirty" than that though)
> simply acting against autonomy is itself bad within their framework, but this is inconsistent with society's behaviour at large.
Possibly, but, depending on what you mean:
* society at large acting against autonomy isn't necessarily a good thing / a good justification for doing it. Society at large needs a fix.
* fighting fire with fire is not necessarily the right approach
Given that they're working of incomplete information or in otherwise difficult situations, it's understandable why they've taken the shortcut to 'just don't work against autonomy'. The reality that they're taking another shortcut through dirtier solutions doesn't surprise me.
> * society at large acting against autonomy isn't necessarily a good thing / a good justification for doing it. Society at large needs a fix.
Society definitely needs a fix in this area, but I'm unsure whether or not it's viable or even reasonable to expect complete autonomy (or even as complete as one can imagine until it starts bumping into other rights or major problems. Compare freedom of speech). It's probably something worth thinking about.
When it happens to me, they're met with silence or "GTFO" after the 3rd question. I am impolite.
Add in the fact that the person on the other end isn't even a human (it's not a human spam calling you; at best it's an automated call which get dumped on a human when it connects), and the whole thing gets even more absurd.