Thread by @owenbroadcast

one semiotic social-spiritual note that is interesting considering the last year is how "normal people" talk about illness and medical stuff with others. i first noticed this around 3 years ago when a friend got this medical problem, and i noticed how people talked about it [..]

i noticed that, all the time, if we were somewhere and he said, "yeah, I have X", people would say something like "oh man, my uncle died from that". it happened all. the. time. and he's just standing there like, "okay... cool. thanks... for that information...?".

since then i notice this quite often. that someone will mention having a medical problem or potentially having one and people will just immediately say something like that. "oh yeah, a lot of people are dying from that now", or something. that is socially acceptable, for sure.

in the abstract of course you might say, well, that doesnt really seem socially acceptable, isnt that weird? but in specific cases no one ever acts like its weird or anything.

i have also noticed this with pregnant women, which is when i really picked up on it.

i think anyone uh, with any kind of attunement to any aspect of there being a higher side to life in literally any way, would understand that 'vibes' or excessive negativity could obviously affect someone, and a pregnant woman would sort of be an ultimate case of this.

ive seen women post about it here, and ive also dealt with it directly with my wife, that (normal non medical) people will just say like heinous really disturbing stuff to pregnant women all the time about their health with literally no regard for how it affects them. example:

someone literally emailed my wife a news article about pregnant women dying from [that thing rn]. just an article about it. cool man. thanks. so here i am, on my end, trying to keep things positive, and youre literally just sending my wife this dark morbid information. thanks.

ive noticed this in real life as well, not just with my wife, where people will just kind of unleash this weird negative information that, if you zoom out, really should not be socially acceptable to drop on someone who really didnt ask for it. its interesting to ask why.

like, what is the point of that. someone tells my wife, hey, just so u know, this article says a lot of Y people are dying from X. cool man. thanks for the info. u know, i was going to just roll out and contract a weird disease but now that you told me, i definitely wont. thanks.

i think it mostly has to do with three factors. one being that most people are just actually automatons. unfortunately. theres like one wire with no switch going from their brain to their mouth so if someone says, "yeah, i have X lung problem", their first thought just comes out.

and they just say, "yeah, my aunt died from that". its just a little machine without many complex parts. unfortunately.

one reason is obviously the social media-ization of society where people feel the need to "be the news" for everyone. we have covered this previously.

however the last reason i think is the most reason. it has something to do with what is called nominalism. maybe its a kind of inverse nominalism actually. i think a lot of people have gotten to the point, maybe its always been this way, of only dealing with people in abstracts.

so people in general, around them, dont actually manifest as a specific point of humanity, a specific individual, they're just an embodiment of whatever larger abstract groups they belong to. a lot of these people stack the categories up before the individual and only see them.

maybe that sounds very obvious or like "woah man, we're all like, individuals though maaaan" but its kind of crazy to see it actually play out, where the specific qualities a person has (that can be seen as a marker for what groups they belong to) are what people "deal with".

so you have "mark", and mark isnt "a guy" who has these physical problems, and its probably really hard for him, maybe he cries about it sometimes when no one is around, that order or things where "he" exists first or we experience "him" primarily isnt the default.

a lot of people work backwards, so when mark says, "yeah I have X medical problem", he becomes "person with that medical problem", and him as an individual and how he is experiencing it and maybe having a hard time with it is secondary. that's "behind" the group designator.

thought it was interesting considering the general news and the general main topic of conversation over the last year or two: illness, the illness, people being ill, peoples medical stuff as it relates to that issue, etc., to think about how that conversation dovetails with this

once i noticed it i really couldnt turn it off and now i see it all the time. its funny, if you work in certain jobs, they teach you how to talk about people, because youre standing there representing the institution and they dont want you to accidentally say something idiotic.

and theres one protocol where, lets say youre working for a Big Organization, and a guy comes, and he is in a wheelchair, or they're blind, so youre at this official fancy event (hypothetical) and now you need a ramp, or someone to help this guy, or something like that.

when you get on the phone, and you talk about this guy probably right in front of him, youre not supposed to say their medical issue before their individual designator. you have to designate them as an individual first and then say what the special situation is.

so the official protocol is that youre not supposed to pick up the phone and say "hey there's a blind guy here we need an X", or "hey theres a disabled guy here, we need a Y", you have to flip it and say "theres a guy here who is blind, so we need a X". thats "the rule".

obviously you wouldn't say guy and blind while youre standing there wearing a suit or something, but the point is he's not "a visually impaired guest", he's "a guest who has a visual impairment". the human designator has to come first, he IS "he", he isnt "the visual impairment".