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0 pointstrhway12y ago0 comments

>she simply wasn't interested in changing anything and that just doesn't work when you have to move and have to change your lifestyle

not interested? or not being able to? it starts to look like a diagnosis (as an extreme illustration Rain Man comes to mind). It is not a big stretch of imagination to allow that after 20 years of being in the same situation an elderly person may lose ability for "changes", just like many lose ability to bend and reach the floor or make a split. Brain is just a biological organ and there is a lot of information around about it losing its "flexibility" with time.

Basically the society is very cruel to its members who lose the ability to function above specific level, be it physical or mental abilities.

0 pointstrhway12y ago0 comments

>she simply wasn't interested in changing anything and that just doesn't work when you have to move and have to change your lifestyle

Basically the society is very cruel to its members who lose the ability to function above specific level, be it physical or mental abilities.

0 comments

5 comments · 2 top-level

hack_edu12y ago· 3 in thread

But is that reason to be mean and obstruct anyone who challenges your comfort zone?

trhwayOP12y ago

that is the point - it is basically a definition of diagnostable situation when reasoning machinery doesn't function well (i'm not a doctor of course).

I mean, was she mean and obstructing by explicit willful choice or was it a panic reaction and collapse of reasoning machinery in response to what she perceived as destruction of her world? Former is ill will, while later would seem to be a diagnostable episode.

thaumasiotes12y ago

> it is basically a definition of diagnostable situation when reasoning machinery doesn't function well (i'm not a doctor of course)

Sure, but this condition is called "stupidity", and there's a whole section of society that takes offense at the concept.

jeffdavis12y ago

What difference does it make? Pretty much everything has reasons behind it. A diagnosis is just giving one of those reasons a name.

1 more reply

brc12y ago

The problem is that, via rent control, she was given 20 years protection from reality evolving around her. That is the issue here.

There would be much less sympathy for a tenant who moved into a place at below-market rent, and then the rent was adjusted to market. But because a feel-good policy has created a broken market, the day of reckoning eventually had to arrive.

In a city of housing shortages, giving a small minority special protection under the law is a very bad outcome. Too bad for those not under the umbrella, too bad for those when the time comes and the umbrella is removed.

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