I had a uncle with Down syndrome. He was the sweetest and funniest person, we remember him every day more than 10 years after he passed away. Down syndrome carries a lot of physical health problems like heart or lung diseases which make their life very painful. He suffered from lung problems since he was 18 until he passed away at 49, living in a lot of pain and being a big burden to my mum and my grandma, who took care of him. Still, it's true, he never lost his smile and love her sister and mother back as much as it's possible, giving all of us who lived with him a lot of joy.
I am very conflicted with these kind of issues, but I think I am of the opinion that it's better to prevent this suffering, but once they're already here we should make their life as easier as possible.
I chose to call it quality of life because I don't think that simply being happy is enough to have quality of life, but I don't agree that it's about valuing intelligence over happiness.
It's a condition they, and their family, have to live with their entire life. You can't really be permanently sad about a condition you have literally been born with and can't expect to change.
Meanwhile, there are conditions that significantly decrease quality of life even though one's intelligence is unaffected. I think the factor is better described as choice. There are a large number of things a person with Downs just does not have the choice to do differently.
I know that I'm in the small minority of people that read Flowers for Algernon and didn't think the ending was a sad one. His life was interrupted with some brief magic and resolved into what it was always meant to be.
People have gotten emotional with me about my take on that, and that's just fiction. I guess my point is I don't think there is a clear morality play here. This is more like a trolley problem where you have to decide for yourself how much control you're comfortable with.
> though there are a few notable exceptions (i.e. Prince)
There was an episode of "What's Happening" when Rerun gets in trouble for bootlegging a Doobie Brothers concert, does anyone remember? It aired when I was a kid and now I somehow still feel guilty when I listen to bootlegs.
Yup, just remembered around ’99 I bumped into “Rerun” in full costume dancin’ for a small crowd in the parking lot of a Sugar Hill Gang concert in Santa Monica. Didn’t carry a camera in those days, as they weren’t allowed inside anyway. :-P
I've only heard it in a gambling context which is why I was confused. I was briefly on a UK gambling platform and they referred to themselves as punters.
They should still be allowed to disconnect you or cap it if you abuse it. Businesses shouldn't be forced to put up with customers that are costing them money by being unreasonable.
So, you are saying it is unreasonable to take a company at its word.
You are saying it is unreasonable to understand the words a company uses as having the same meaning as understood by every other speaker, writer, listener, and reader.
And you are saying it is reasonable for a company to lie, to make claims that are the opposite of the words it uses.
Yes, the company's network resources are finite, and it is reasonable to put in limits on abuse. That does not (and should not) create a license to abuse the language. There are many other words a company could HONESTLY use to describe its biggest plan that do not mean infinite when they mean finite. Any competent marketer and lawyer can find a thesaurus.
(and the same applies to "Full Self Driving", an obvious lie in it's second decade.)
"Unlimited" is just the plan name / description. It doesn't mean you can defy physics. You cannot have more Olive Garden breadsticks than there are atoms in the universe.
Sure, but if you advertise unlimited data and a data rate of 100mbps you should be obligated to deliver 100mbps for as long as the user continues to pay for service.
Except that I guarantee there's some fine print in the terms that says otherwise. Also, cancelling his service means he's not continuing to pay for service.
> that he would rather live in an underground bunker
He isn’t, never has and never will. I know some of the bunker people. They basically have them in the way you or I might have a fancy tool in the garage or piece of art. It’s a discussion piece for a different class of wealth.
That's a cute theory that it's just a conversation starter. Truth is, he knows he will need that bunker when the shit hits the fan. And it's already starting to.
I don't see the bunkers as being as useful as some might imagine them to be. In the kind of apocalyptic scenario which would actually make him want to move to the bunker in New Zealand, why would his security people bother to keep taking orders from him instead of just taking his stuff and demoting him to an advisor or maybe even killing him? I guess it's better than dying outside the bunkers, but there's a good chance that he would lose his status and live subordinate to whoever the local warlord turns out to be.
Yeah, I guess the practical problem with shock collars / implanted brain bombs is that you would have to somehow convince your security people to put them on or get them implanted before the apocalyptic scenario happens, which seems like a tough sell even for someone with Altman's business acumen.
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