Lou referred to a great Vox article about how Covid-19 reveals social inequality in the United States.
My grandmother died in her own home at around the age of 65. Fortunately, she never had to visit a nursing home. When she died, I felt like I had been disloyal to my grandmother. Thus, I visited a nursing home twice a week for five years in order to show respect for my dead grandmother. From my memory, people did not worry about germs back then as they do now. Nobody discouraged me from visiting the nursing home during the flu season. I could get a kiss from 6 little old ladies in one day. These ladies generally gave out slobbery kisses. Still, spreading germs was not on my radar screen.
Some of the old ladies referred to the flu as their friend. They actually wanted to die sooner rather than later. Some of the ladies wanted to hold on to life for as long as possible. In my opinion, it is an individual decision.
I recently had a discussion with my wife about my final wishes when it is time for me to die. In particular, I would prefer a fast natural death than an extended stay in a nursing home. I will take pain killers that keeps me comfortable even if those pain killers hasten my death.
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Vox left out another important group that experiences social inequality. This group of individuals is students in public school settings. For example, we cram 40 teenagers with raging hormones in small classrooms and wonder why there are so many behavior problems. We also introduce concepts to students far earlier than they are developmentally ready to learn. Many students look at the impossibly difficult work and just give up.
I never taught high school math. Yet, I know far more math than the average high school teacher. Thus, I have a good sense of what is important in math and what is not important. Most of the math that students learn is useless convoluted garbage. Still, federal, state, and local governments create unrealistically high expectations for student achievement. Thus, the teachers feel intense pressure to teach our young students worthless cr@p.
Both of my sons are considered gifted in math. Maybe they are gifted. Maybe they are not. I used a simple strategy to make them look gifted in math. I pulled out a calculus textbook and read the chapter that taught all the prerequisites of calculus. If the math concept was not covered in the chapter of prerequisite skills, then I did not cover the topic.
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Here is the connection back to veganism. Little old ladies should have the ability to make meaningful decisions about how they want there lives to end. I certainly do not want a slow death in an unnatural environment such as a nursing home. Young students do not like participating in meaningless learning activities in a cramped unnatural environment. Nursing homes and high schools remind me of factory farms. No pig wants to live a meaningless life in a cramped farm with his or her face rammed up someone's rear end. Maybe some pigs actually want to sleep in their own feces. But, that should be a personal choice made by the individual pig.
