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Paul Alexander, the polio survivor who spent over 70 years in an Iron Lung, has died at 78 (www.bbc.co.uk)

submitted 8 months ago by sjmarf@sh.itjust.works to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 110 points 8 months ago

I feel like this guy alone undercuts the whole meritocracy narrative quite a bit. I know the defenders of that worldview would go "okay, but except for all the exceptions...", but in a lot of ways it's just a more extreme version of the stuff that puts people in normal poverty.

Also, vaccinate your damn kids, everyone.

[-] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 56 points 8 months ago

Send this story to every anti vaxxer and ask if this is what they want their kids to suffer this.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 55 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I have a wall right here if I need to bang my head against something. I don't know, maybe somebody else reading has the gift of convincing irrational people of things, but I do not.

I brought it up partly just to vent, and partly for any fence sitters that might be lurking and hadn't made the connection.

[-] ItsAFake@lemmus.org 8 points 8 months ago

Have you ever tried screaming at clouds, much safer and sometimes the clouds will flip you off in return.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 8 months ago

What if it's completely clear?

[-] ItsAFake@lemmus.org 3 points 8 months ago

Well you're fucked then I guess.

[-] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 months ago

I probably didn't make it obvious, but I was talking in the general sense of "everyone should do this". My bad...

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 8 months ago

Ah, okay. I'm still not sure if that would accomplish anything, though. They need deprogramming or something, not more yelling at.

[-] Crikeste@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago

They’ve already decided they don’t care for the suffering of other people’s children, the step to not caring about their own isn’t a far one.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 8 months ago

Most people are wired to care about people that are familiar to them, instinctively, so I actually think it is a big step. Antivaxxers, as far as I can tell, genuinely believe the conspiracy theories and snake oil salesmen.

[-] bartolomeo@suppo.fi 6 points 8 months ago

undercuts the whole meritocracy narrative

How do you mean?

[-] Sizzler@slrpnk.net 7 points 8 months ago

A classic case of success against all the odds, to manage to become a lawyer at all is a challenge let alone when you live in an iron lung. It's an argument for people saying that no matter who you are in society you can succeed and that (therefore) society isn't racist/classiest etc.

[-] bartolomeo@suppo.fi 5 points 8 months ago

Oooh, I see. Thanks.

I was missing this part:

and that (therefore) society isn't racist/classiest etc.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yup. Through no fault of his own, the dude spent his entire life lying motionless. Where's the merit in that story?

It's not really helpful on it's own in a debate, because you'll 100% get "okay, but normal people" back, and it takes way too long to unravel how there's not actually a hard distinction between various degrees of disadvantage. You're better off with a mini Gish gallop, since there's no shortage of examples, and your opponent will be too embarrassed to say the African children were lazy directly.

You could also use actual hard numbers if your talking to an audience savvy enough and with enough attention span to get that. That's a rare audience, though.