How many people I know got hit by a car and had their life ruined horribly. Or a bad surgery. Things totally out of their control. We need to see disability as a cost to society we must pay, not a failure of individuals which is more or less what were treating it. The American disability system is basically proving (very painfully) that life is barely livable to get scraps of help. Like below poverty levels. I really…
We’re all just temporarily abled
411–420 of 537 posts
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
I friend of mine a few years back once said to me, "Some days ADHD is my most disabling condition." This is a person who often can't walk. I was properly medicated (with non-stimulant medication) for ADHD a few years ago and looking back to my life before that, I realize how much ADHD has negatively effected my life. And yet never along the way did anyone look at me with any sort of compassion. It was always seen as…
Out of curiosity, which non-stimulant medication did you have success with?
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another example of the fundamental attribution error on the right. In the same way, many on the left believe that having money means that you've stolen it and don't deserve it. So it cuts both ways.
Delusional centrism. One side : use our immense wealth as the richest nation on earth to provide basic services to all citizens by maybe taxing billionaires so they only have 1/10 b instead of 100. Other side: if you're poor, it's your fault. Get fucked. Laughable you can consider those two positions in any way comparable or equitable. Absolutely silly the enlightened centrism I'm seeing here. Gross and dishonest to…
I miss the cultural norm that privileged debate over zealous advocacy, leaving the latter to lawyers and politicians.
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't really see that working. The rich might use the government benefits to the extent they exist, but they will always have the option of paying more privately, or buying additional private insurance, etc. You see this every day in public school, where the more well-off families pay for math tutors or extra coaching or other out-of-school opportunities for their kids.
That's the point though. The rich already have all the benefits, plus more, but we also make the poor spend a lot of time, money, effort, and stress on "proving" they are poor to get the baseline benefits just so the rich "can't" use them (even though the truly rich have access to better and more services). If the rich already have plenty of access to stuff why are we forcing the poor to go through all these extra "p…
(A sentence that is not seen very often.)
Of course, the problem isn't really the rich. There aren't enough of them to strain the assistance budget even if they do all take the free lunch. The problem is the people who are richer than the ones who are eligible, but aren't actually rich. There are a lot more of them, and the money to give them all free things may just not exist.
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#415In terms of web UX, one disability that hardly anyone considers is intellectual disability - but really many people who work in development (design, project management, programming) are outliers in terms of intellectual ability (albeit probably not as much as they think they are) But we're all just temporarily smart as well, many people are not that bright before that first cup of coffee or if they are going through…
I friend of mine a few years back once said to me, "Some days ADHD is my most disabling condition." This is a person who often can't walk. I was properly medicated (with non-stimulant medication) for ADHD a few years ago and looking back to my life before that, I realize how much ADHD has negatively effected my life. And yet never along the way did anyone look at me with any sort of compassion. It was always seen as…
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#416This article really struck a chord in me. At the end of May, I started suffering from Achilles tendonitis in one of my feet. Because I was exercising too vigorously too early in the morning while my body was not properly warmed up. Never a problem when I was younger. It has been a long, slow recovery. With a few relapses into tightness because I tried to walk too fast or carry too much weight. Even now, almost 3 mont…
If your tendonitis bothers you in the future, you can get a prp injection which does wonders for the healing process.Tendons are funny and don’t really heal back as well as they were before. Putting your own blood back in let’s them get the blood flow they need to heal better.
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I feel like the biggest thing the US could do is remove means-testing from our disability aid programs. Means testing usually does not feel like an effective way to distribute services. This was an argument for "libertarian" universal income. Huge government edifice which exists to determine who, where, and how aid is distributed. Much glad-handing, acrimony, and inefficiency. Just cut out the middle-man and cut ev…
The issue with Univeral income is it's easy to dismantle or not fund. Let's say we set the level at $1k per month for everyone. Great, until it's 2050 and that level is still $1k. Without inflation adjustments it eventually turns into giving people the equivalent of a penny, only now there aren't other safety nets in place. But also, you'll have politicians saying "This is a huge cost to the government and everyone s…
Yes, one of the most important parts of making a healthy, empathetic, caring, and functional society is removing those people from office.
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course there are diminishing returns, the world famous brain surgeon billing at $10k per operating room hour isn't going to deliver a 20x better outcome then the average brain surgeon billing at $500, or however much the ratio is. Yet some folks still choose to seek out the world famous brain surgeon when they desire that extra quantum of assurance and if they can afford it.
There are still expensive private clinics in all countries with public healthcare.
What does the mere existence of 'expensive private clinics' in X countries have to do with the diminishing return on higher priced brain surgeons?
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#419How many people I know got hit by a car and had their life ruined horribly. Or a bad surgery. Things totally out of their control. We need to see disability as a cost to society we must pay, not a failure of individuals which is more or less what were treating it. The American disability system is basically proving (very painfully) that life is barely livable to get scraps of help. Like below poverty levels. I really…
>The American disability system is basically proving (very painfully) that life is barely livable to get scraps of help. Like below poverty levels. Yep, SSI disability is a system designed to keep you in poverty. The current max benefit is a little more than $900 / mo. That's basically unlivable unless you also happen to have section 8 housing, which when I asked, had such a huge waitlist it was unusable. $900 / mont…
So many people in America who are on government benefits for life would LOVE to work odd jobs or part time and contribute to the economy and buy like an xbox or something but they cannot, because they would then be kicked out of their housing program. It's absurd.
Then these people on fixed, abysmal incomes are preyed upon by an entire industry who exists to skim off fees from the poor for everything from cashing checks, to hounding them for debts, to things like Dollar Tree where you can pay double the unit rate to buy a small portion of a normal product.
Re: We’re all just temporarily abled
#420How many people I know got hit by a car and had their life ruined horribly. Or a bad surgery. Things totally out of their control. We need to see disability as a cost to society we must pay, not a failure of individuals which is more or less what were treating it. The American disability system is basically proving (very painfully) that life is barely livable to get scraps of help. Like below poverty levels. I really…
Yup. I have a child with autism. The American system is cruel beyond imagination. To qualify them for social security and Medicaid I have to leave them impoverished. They can't have more than $2k worth of assets in their name. Instead it's a complex lawyer game of trusts to give my child any sort of inheritance. Yet they are basically guaranteed to end up in a group home (Even though I own my own home) because a care…