Ignorance

The darkness became all consuming — I wasn’t depressed, but sad… and angry.

It may have been the numbers: a half a million Americans are getting a gift every year worth more than most earn each year. At the same time, a half a million Americans are homeless and being left out in the cold on any given night.

It may have been first-hand experience: a dialysis clinic is a crosssection of humanity. The gift is granted fairly’, especially in California. If you need dialysis, you will get dialysis. Well… if you can make it to the clinic, you can keep your job during it, you can manage a fairly precise schedule, and you can stay healthy — e.g. in spite of sleeping outside all night.

I could see this cross-section every other day, and how extra-hard it was for those coping with being homeless. Nothing was different about their humanity: the person with the latest iPhone is being kept alive by the same kind of machines (and vampire) that the homeless person is.

It may have been the partial employment-enslavement of the vampires. Being forced to work when and where a monopolistic employer wants is initially frustrating and eventually depressing & debilitating. This frustration had not built up that far in me yet, but I could feel it growing. And Susan & others were clearly far beyond frustration.

‘A Veil of Ignorance’ — is a way to determine if something is fair. It is generic version of “You split the cookie, I pick the half”, except it works when the universe splits the cookie for us both. Given the creation of two life scenarios — two ‘lots in life’ and society’s behavior around them — if you and I don’t know which lot we are in, would we accept that the two scenarios are fair. Would we freely accept being in either lot. Lot-1: need life-sustaining dialysis… and you get fifty thousand dollars. Lot-2: need a life-sustaining home… and you get nothing. You do not know which will be your lot in life. Let’s flip a coin. Sound good? Sound fair?