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Fetterman Is So Unpopular That He Loses to “Someone Else” by 18 Points in Poll (truthout.org)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/news@hexbear.net
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[–] 20 points 2 months ago* (3 children)

Brain damage does not make someone a bad person

I don't want to be perceived as saying ableism is ok because that's not what I'm saying, also I didn't read the removed comment and this has nothing to do with whatever that said, but, uh, technically yeah brain damage absolutely can make you a "bad person" at least in terms of causing negative behaviors that otherwise wouldn't be there or intensifying ones that are

like iirc the university of texas tower shooter in the 60s left a note requesting an autopsy because he himself didn't understand his own violent urges, they autopsied him and found a tumor pressing on his amygdala

then there's, you know, all the football players with chronic trauma who have all kinds of issues

I guess in the end it still doesn't make anyone a "bad" person because that's a moral judgment on issues that are ultimately out of their control

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago* (2 children)

    I understand and there are several ways to interpret the sentence “brain damage does not make someone a bad person”. I agree that it can contribute to harmful behaviour in a similar way that stress does. But brain damage is not how you measure how someone is a bad or even incompetent person, you measure by their actions. When we’re talking about the horrible politics of someone with brain damage I find it ableist to focus on the brain damage instead of the bad politics.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I agree that it can contribute to harmful behaviour in a similar way that stress does.

    This kind of dismissiveness is ableist itself. I know you did not mean it to be, but it seems like you don't have an understanding or appreciation for how serious and personality-changing a brain injury can be if you're comparing it to something everyone, even the most privileged person on earth has experienced, stress. A traumatic brain injury can completely disrupt someone's personality in a way that "stress" never can. Someone who is merely stressed does not have an excuse for acting on violent impulses but someone with a serious brain injury can literally lose their impulse control.

    But brain damage is not how you measure how someone is a bad or even incompetent person, you measure by their actions

    A person's actions are mediated by their brain! Free will aside, where do you think behavior and action come from? It's the brain. The actions of a person after a TBI can be drastically different than how they would have acted before their brain damage. Brain injuries can completely change a person's ability to regulate their emotions which in turn changes their behavior, it can make them among other things more impulsive, more violent, and less empathetic, all of which obviously alters their behavior and actions.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    To your first point: frequent high levels of stress alters brain chemistry and definitely changes behaviour, often in a negative way. Short term high level stress affects behaviour very significantly.

    To your second point: the brain is very complex and barely understood by scientists. You are reducing brain damage to the most extreme examples you see in the news, while there are many other manifestations of brain damage. I have brain damage which affects my cognition, I have to regulate the impulses that my brain receives or it shuts down. The only behaviour change you’ll find in me is that I am less engaged in a direct conversation and sometimes struggle to find a word that I wanted to say.

    Just because a change in behaviour can occur with brain damage, hopefully does not mean that you meet someone with brain damage and immediately conclude that they’re a bad person. Hopefully you look at their actions and base your judgment on that. That’s what I mean when I say that actions rather than brain damage defines if someone is a bad person.

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