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We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

bbc.co.uk

251–260 of 300 posts

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would it even hallucinate? You wouldn't be asking it to cite a court case from 2004 that doesn't exist and it wouldn't invent people you didn't tell it about in the first place.

I've been reading about how chatbots have been reinforcing paranoid delusions. If the person asking, was really trying to justify their own approach, and blame others (or that's what the chatbot perceives), the chatbot may go along, instead of saying "What the hell were you thinking?".

Oh my first reply didn't address your question. Yes, if you're a malignant narcissist that seeks reassurance that it's okay you're a piece of shit, then it can be used that way too. I don't read you as one, however.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#253
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also reminds me that systems can’t fix situations like this. The system of “care,” as the story alludes to the autistic person experiencing in their youth, often looks a lot more like warehousing the people on the margins of society, often in unpleasant (and almost always in institutional) conditions. Some kinds of humanity can only ever happen person-to-person, and it’s a great treasure for everyone involved to e…

That’s an easy cop-out and disagree as an European with stronger social nets. But yes this is still a heart warming story.

This story takes places in Europe, so it sounds like those social safety nets aren’t really doing shit here, as OP implied.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#254
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also reminds me that systems can’t fix situations like this. The system of “care,” as the story alludes to the autistic person experiencing in their youth, often looks a lot more like warehousing the people on the margins of society, often in unpleasant (and almost always in institutional) conditions. Some kinds of humanity can only ever happen person-to-person, and it’s a great treasure for everyone involved to e…

I think that the _current_ systems are incapable of care, but that doesn’t mean systems can’t be in general. I often think that they’re held back in large part by people who say “we can’t” rather than building a solution

It’s extremely easy to say that things could and should be better, but it’s about as useful as saying that things “can’t” be done.

The problem isn’t that nobody wants things to get better, it’s that we disagree on how to get there. This has literally always been the case.

Of course things could be better. Life could be perfect. Lacking this solution you’re hand-waving, it’s useless drivel.

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an easy cop-out and disagree as an European with stronger social nets. But yes this is still a heart warming story.

This story takes places in Europe, so it sounds like those social safety nets aren’t really doing shit here, as OP implied.

It takes place in the UK, which many Europeans (British and non-British) do not include when they say "Europe."

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#256
post #232

Not as hugely generous as this story, but during his whole college professor career since the 70s, my father always took care that none of his students spent any major holidays alone and away from home, so we always ended up having 2 or 3 of them around for Christmas, the New Year, Easter... They were from everywhere around the country and the world, and it was so very enriching for me and my siblings. I had a huge p…

That seems to be one of the things that some great professors do. I've heard of that convention from many colleges/universities. At any university, look for the professors who act like benevolent citizens of the best of university ideals. They don't all do it in the same way, but they're some of the best. I like to think of the university as a microcosm, and incubator, for how you'd like larger society to be.

You can do the same for work colleagues. This has happened to me throughout my career when time/money/circumstance kept me away from family/home during holidays.

It was greatly appreciated, and fun!

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy Christmas, folks! > please have some humanity about the homeless In the US, the homeless population exploded , in the 1980s, when they closed down all the mental institutions. Before that, there was a far less pervasive homeless population in urban areas. Being "on the spectrum," myself (but highly functional), I can attest to how easy it is for an autistic person's life to go sideways. Many autistic folks have…

don't worry, brother, come to Reddit where all we autists live in harmony

Redditors are anything but harmonious with each other

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the reason was to save tax money by making mental healthcare a personal responsibility instead of a social one. There were many justifications (abuse, new drugs, etc), but the reason was cost. Abuse was/is a reason to improve controls over abuse and increase funding to improve conditions. It is not a good reason to abandon inpatient care wholesale. Imagine if we had made the same decision about hospitals or schoo…

> No, the reason was to save tax money no, it wasn't, it was SCOTUS decision O'Connor v. Donaldson

I think in 2025, it is naïve to think the Supreme Court is apolitical in its rulings. =

Re: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years

#260
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-neurotypicals can receive bad treatment from neurotypicals. But, it's also a trap to start thinking that neurotypicals are 100% intolerant. The corollary of not knowing when they're offending people, is that they also don't know when they're receiving tolerance - which is actually a lot; although it's understandable that this is not obvious.

The default instinctual reaction of nearly everyone to someone who lets the mask slip and exhibits spectrum behaviours is somewhat like they would react to seeing a large spider. The knee jerk baked in emotional response is a mix of fear, disgust, and 'other'ing. OP isn't making some claim that neurotypicals are consciously intolerant. I would, however, make the claim that regardless of what actions people consciousl…

That happens to anything non-normative. I got that reaction on two things that I suggested:

* that people whose organs are harvested should receive some compensation in the way that other participants in the transaction do: https://web.archive.org/web/20240417004658/https://news.ycom...

After I complained enough people flagged the replies calling me a Nazi but before that they were the top ranked responses.

* I suggested that the franchise should be restricted and the majority of reactions were not considered and simply emotional outbursts https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291336

This is the nature of being different: most people don’t bother with the rider; the elephant suffices.

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