And finally there’s “I think only people like me suffer so I want people who aren’t like me to suffer, for the sake of justice”
Luigi was from a life of privilege, parents likely firmly in the 1%, and was incredibly well educated in a high paying field.
He had to deal with the American Healthcare system on what was likely the worst possible plan (he read Any Rand) for one injury in 20s and threw his entire life away to merc a single CEO.
It really speaks to the two different America’s the rich and everyone else experiences. Like, it gets said all the time the wealthy couldn’t live like an average person. But they really can’t.
It’s a big reasons conservatives hate any kind of education and neoliberals are fine with shit k-12 and unaffordable college so onlly elites afford it. They both benefit from a large poor working class, and that’s easier when they can’t figure out what’s going on and have been treated like shit since they were kids.
Which is stupid because I is largely random. Who knows how many Einstein’s were born in poverty and never had a chance to learn shit?
It constantly drives me crazy that the Dem party just kinda forgot about education.
That’s a really good point.
According to the NYT
The back pain was not his only struggle. He wrote at times about “brain fog” that had worsened during his college years, making studying more difficult. Doctors could not seem to figure out what was happening, he reported.
“It’s absolutely brutal to have such a life-halting issue,” he wrote.
He also posted on a page for people dealing with irritable bowel syndrome, saying that he had undergone some testing for the condition. He said the testing had been covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield — his only reference in the Reddit writings to insurance coverage.
As someone who went multiple years from doctor to doctor trying to find the cause for disabling symptoms, I can relate that he must have faced lots of suffering.
When you don’t have diagnosis, the medical system really isn’t there for you. You’re treated as a malingerer.
Doctors don’t propose treatment solely for pain in this situation. They’ll refer you to a pain management specialist after washing their hands of you.
I had a neurologist tell me that it can be like trying to address electrical issues after a car accident. The pains are unreliable indicators, and the complication of the issues so unpredictable that no doctor wants to risk malpractice on a hunch.
I’m not talking about the back pain, but the brain fog and bowel symptoms.
He ended up getting surgery and diagnosis for the back issue. Not the rest though.
Yes. I have both of those symptoms as well as several others. Brain fog is a common symptom for people in persistent chronic pain. The nerve I damaged is the second one up from the root, and it services my lower intestines. Gastric issues are to be expected, and no gastroenterologist has offered me anything more than Mirilax once they hear I have genitofemoral neuropathy.
I’d like to read his manifesto. Got a link?
Luigi was from a life of privilege, parents likely firmly in the 1%, and was incredibly well educated in a high paying field.
He had to deal with the American Healthcare system on what was likely the worst possible plan (he read Any Rand) for one injury in 20s and threw his entire life away to merc a single CEO.
I fail to see how these 2 statements are true, if his parents/family were part of the 1% why would he simply not pay for his medical costs out of pocket?
Maybe if his parents had cut him off in some way, but from what I’ve seen of the publicly released stuff he seems to be the “good son” so I can’t see why they would
Got news for you, the top 1% != the top 0.1%. Honestly I’ve used “is someone rich?” If they can shrug off any medical bill and not have to change their quality of life. There are literally bills that are 5-7 digits which even someone in the top 1% can’t handle. Hell I’m technically in the top 6% and if I got cancer or another rare illness, my finances would be straight up fucked.
So, though those people may seem well off to the “average” person. We’re all in the same boat unless super rich.
if his parents/family were part of the 1% why would he simply not pay for his medical costs out of pocket?
At 26 you’re on your own insurance and he was a right wing tech bro, it’s a safe assumption he had the cheapest insurance, got hurt and bailed out, then got the “good” insurance and found out it’s shit too.
He had major back surgery and then other shit, it could have went over a million, and the wealthy stay wealthy for generations by understanding wealth is finite. At a certain point they may have cut him off for deductibles and/or insurance capped out.
He could just be pissed Doctor’s won’t investigate the issue, because insurance told them not to.
There’s a lot of reasons to be pissed at insurance, and a lot of reasons health issues bankrupt even well off families.
And then there are privileged people who read alot and become allies.
Even the privileged have trials and tribulations. Crazy to see how few think 'if that was hard for me, just imagine how it is for those without my privilege ’
Unfortunately a tiny minority
I am privileged and haven’t had any real suffering, but still turned out fucked up. I can’t even imagine how hard people have it, so I will always be an ally.
Those who have suffered and decided that others must suffer too because “they turned out OK” or to “toughen them up” were broken by their suffering and that’s just deeply sad.
‘Privileged’ isn’t something that you either are or aren’t, and it’s not productive to blanket state some are privileged and some aren’t.
Example: I’m queer and white. I have white privilege, but some people have straight privilege over me.
Every human suffers. Some people who objectively have more privilege than most will read something like this and think they can’t be part of ‘the privileged’ because they’ve suffered or they’ve had to work for things others were just handed, so therefore, they’re ‘the non-privileged’, and if they can handle it, the other non-privileged can, too.
Take, for example, many non-college-educated people in their 50s or 60s who managed to safe up for a house through hard work, and now think the young or immigrants are lazy because ‘if I managed it through hard work, why can’t they?’
The way the last comment frames it as ‘the privileged’ precisely plays into the problem it’s addressing.
I hate the term privilege because it sounds like you have something that other people don’t have. When in reality privilege is the lack of things.
White privilege means a person doesn’t have to worry nearly as much about police. Straight privilege means a person doesn’t have to defend their right to get married. Male privilege means a person doesn’t have to survive earning 30% less money for no reason.
Example: I’m queer and white. I have white privilege, but some people have straight privilege over me.
But then privilege is a consequence of the society, not the individual. You can be in a community that doesn’t discriminate, at which point neither applies. You can be in a community that overvalues queerness or undervalues whiteness.
The way the last comment frames it as ‘the privileged’ precisely plays into the problem it’s addressing.
People who bought homes in the 90s, when real estate was more in line with wages, benefited from the historical moment. You can call that privileged.
And people inherit property from family. That’s definitely a privilege.
But it all overlooks a broader system of cheap lending for mega-rich financial institutions, which allow groups like Blackrock and Berkshire Hathaway to become some of the largest landlords in the country.
Talking about “white privilege” or “millennial privilege” or “native born privilege” in the face of a historic real estate consolidation at the hands of a tiny aristocratic elite seems trite and misplaced.
You are commenting on Yann’s “third category” from the twitter image. It’s something of a satellite to the main point, which is that the major groups of people are divided by how they feel about others’ suffering. How do you feel about that?
- (-) luck, (+) empathy
- (-) luck, (-) empathy
- (+) luck, (-) empathy
- Fayettistes
That last one is called a Class Traitor
Every revolution has a few.
Don’t forget the “People suffering get attention so, IM SUFFERING!!!” group.
Fourth school: “All your social theory does is rationalize taking away my stuff, and I want to keep my stuff, so fuck you.”
The people who don’t want to acknowledge that the system causes suffering don’t want to do it precisely because they have suffered and continue to suffer, and seeing how big the fountain of suffering is would be too painful. It doesn’t make it past their brain’s guard dog.
The replier fails to see that suffering because they’re numbing their own suffering by hating people richer than them, and if they stopped, they’d have to deal with something they might not be ready for. It doesn’t make it past their brain’s guard dog.
Mine is I haven’t really suffered and I don’t believe others should either.
Although in truth my suffering is seeing all the other suffering, not that its even close to the same.
Fourth:
I’m winning the game, and because you’re not, sucks to be you.
that’s mostly category 2.
You achieved your winning by some amount of perceived suffering, you want others to suffer too in order to reach this winning state.
that goes in the third category, Pretending how others suffering is their own fault always since it couldnt possibly be caused by anything else.
Combine it with pulling up the ladder. Extra degree of active selfishness and exclusion.