Mason Profile picture
Aug 21, 2019 7 tweets 1 min read Read on X
There's an investigative podcast — called "Room 20" — about a man, presumed to be in a vegetative state, unidentified & kept on life support for 15 years. The bulk of the series focuses on other issues, but I'm left horrified by one simple fact:
Though he is severely & irrecoverably brain damaged, he is likely sensitive to pain. 6-8 times per day, he is subjected to a trachea suctioning procedure necessary to keep him alive but so distressing that his nurse describes it as akin to waterboarding.
He can hear, but not understand language. He can see, but not understand the purpose of objects around him. He lays in a bed, largely incapable of motion & generally without visitors, & to keep him from dying he is tortured every day for years. And will be until he dies.
Apparently the cost to the state of doing this to this man — whose mental "age" is estimated at ~2 — has exceeded $4 million. It's like a sicker version of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, where torturing an innocent accomplishes nothing but fulfilling broad legal obligations
I'm really fucked up over this and have no idea what can be done about it
There's something else, central to the way the host frames the narrative: his identity is discovered, and he's undocumented; an illegal immigrant. She doesn't share his full name, because he would likely be deported, which would of course likely result in his death.

Yeah.
How many people are there like this? christ

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More from @webdevMason

Nov 17
It's scope sensitivity

The median taxpayer pays around $15k/year in federal income tax

That money is harder earned than most, and it's coming from people who could really use it

Head-math tells them that a single $1M vanity project wipes out their *lifetime* contributions
tbc I don't think obscure basic or applied research is the place to try to trim fat either, but it's a powerful thing to show people what someone like themselves is buying for the federal government and it's a study about 'roided up hamsters or whatever
I think even smaller decrements will REALLY fire up the typical person, e.g. contracts for $600 hammers

Because most people in this country spend a lot of time thinking about whether to buy the slightly-better-thing when the price difference is like $10

It's just what's salient
Read 5 tweets
Oct 14
I'd also have had a hard time believing the "Venezuelan gangs are taking over apartment complexes" story if I hadn't had my own utterly insane experience with tenant protection bureaucracy

The police will not help you, period Image
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Now that she's got these people out of her home, I can share more

One of the squatters grabbed her by the hair and tried to push her down her stairs — police took the report and did nothing

By the end she was carrying a loaded gun on her at all times in her own home
She took the squatters to court and was awarded Oregon's version of a restraining order

The judge didn't attach a "kick-out" order so it didn't matter, the police refused to enforce the order

When the squatters finally left the property they did so VOLUNTARILY
Read 5 tweets
Mar 15, 2023
I think everyone will find something to dislike in my take on Dylan Mulvaney, which is that there is obviously a desperate cultural thirst for someone, anyone, to just wholeheartedly enjoy being a girl in a way that is politically acceptable — and this is probably a good thing!
I do find it reductive and a little bit embarrassing, but man, the culture we have has got to start somewhere. The idea that there is *anything* good about femininity has been MIA for what, a decade? Longer?
While I'm digging my hole, I think trad culture could probably take a note here because a lot of it does come across as very... Girlboss, But With Apron. At times, it delves into "our way is better because it takes 20x as long and hurts." This is not the way, not always
Read 4 tweets
Jan 19, 2023
My mom's home in Oregon is being seized by "friends" who she allowed in a few months ago, who now refuse to leave & have literally stolen keys to her outbuildings. It's impossible to navigate her rights & obligations because local housing lawyers are booked up w similar conflicts
They moved two additional people in; mom can't afford to go anywhere else, so she has four people who live rent free in her house and glower at her as they go to and fro, leaving their dishes for her to clean and taking hour-long showers
You cannot imagine how bad tenant-landlord law is in some of these coastal states
Read 7 tweets
Dec 27, 2022
There is a whole alternate canon, more vibe than fact, emerging here
"My lived experience is that twitter was actually always pretty right wing"
What twitter did is sort of brilliant, though probably emergent rather than masterminded

If you preferentially remove or obscure dissent from expert/high follower count users, the debate doesn't disappear, it just looks fringe and stupid
Read 4 tweets
Nov 15, 2022
Stellar jays have caught on that I'm feeding the squirrels from my window
(I guess these are actually "Steller's jays." I just always heard it pronounced "stellar jay.")
They are pretty stellar
Read 4 tweets

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