@Jaybefaunt

TRIGGER WARNING: We have people self immolating because of genocides happening and because people are losing housing. This nation is going down and it’s the greed of the capitalists that’s the cause.

I’m basically in that elderly gentleman’s shoes as far as housing goes. I’m sorry to his family and to him for being pushed into this situation.


@weareronin47

Elderly man self-immolates while being evicted.

Housing is a human right.


Direct link to video: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1775547959775502338/pu/vid/avc1/640x360/8Bhf9UQdY6pfh4gx.mp4

Source: https://twitter.com/Jaybefaunt/status/1775639781868720573

  • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 months ago

    Shit sucks when people think this is the only solution.

    I guess on the upside, the cop didn’t shoot him or draw on him while on fire. Baby steps

    • GluWu@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Idk what the GOP has outlined in Project 2025, they aren’t going to stone people because the peasants might realize they’re exactly the same as the IS. I’m thinking they’re going to go for burning.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        You think the gop are the ones self immolating because of genocide and homelessness? That’s wild!

        • misanthropy@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          You should work on your reading comprehension. I mean this in the nicest way. Read the comment he’s replying to, then his again.

    • No_@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      People who are in pain don’t want to put others through it too.

    • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      I mean, obviously, mental health issues were at play, but being forcefully evicted most definitely exacerbated, or just straight up caused said mental issues. The guy probably felt as if himself, wife, and dog were better off dead than being homeless. I’m not saying that’s right at all, but we can’t expect people forced into desperate situations to always make rational decisions.

      The US is the richest nation on Earth. We should have no reason to ever kick elderly people(or anyone for that matter) out of their homes, and put them into desperate situations, even if they can’t afford rent anymore. Cuba, for instance, has a near zero homeless population, and they have nowhere near the amount of resources the US has. This country lacks empathy.

      Housing is a human right and should be treated as such.

      • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 months ago

        The guy probably felt as if himself, wife, and dog were better off dead than being homeless.

        Fun fact, this is the thought process of most family annihilators. They, for example, lose their job and feel like it’s better their family be dead than suffer the embarrassment of losing standing in the community, or get caught cheating and feel it’s better for them to be dead than suffer the embarrassment of divorce.

        There’s nothing really useful you can do with that knowledge, but it’s been floating around in my brain since I learned it and now I gift it to you.

      • Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Hey I agree with you. I mostly just don’t like the way this tweet is framed without the context of him also killing his dog and putting his wife at risk. I think that’s a very important distinction that should’ve been included.

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          Fair, the tweet does lack that context. That does add a bit of nuance and questions related to mental health to the discussion. I apologize for reading too far into your comment, and just assuming that you were attempting to downplay the actions of the police and state in this situation.

          • Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Well I appreciate your reply instead of just downvoting and moving on. Hey look at us being civil on the internet!

        • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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          7 months ago

          a more appropriate location

          Would that be a homeless shelter? How do we even rationalize evicting an 82-year-old? If this is normal, how do you avoid it? I imagine at 82, you don’t have a ton of options for getting income.

            • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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              7 months ago

              Nice strawman. All I was saying that the eviction of an 82-year-old should make for at least a mention to what actually led to this, which all articles forget to mention. It’s as if any of this, this whole situation, is even remotely normal.

              I am not arguing for ending free markets, I’m arguing that one of the reasons people pay taxes is that people have a way to retire in dignity. Self-immolating as a result of likely untreated mental issues while in financial ruin as evidenced by the eviction is not how I think people imagine spending their twilight years.

          • Kitty Jynx@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            The article stated it was an assisted care home. The wife had Parkinsons and the 82 year old man may have had medical conditions that needed care. A lot of those facilities charge medicare and take a portion of Social Security so it may not have cost them anything out of pocket. I don’t know the full story but it doesn’t sound like they were going to a shelter.

    • Ginger666@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I fell into a burning ring of fire I went down, down, down And the flames went higher And it burns, burns, burns The ring of fire The ring of fire

      • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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        7 months ago

        What percentage of Americans burn themselves to death because of housing insecurity? The problems can cross paths at some point, but be two different problems.

        • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Spoken like someone that has never felt the desperation and complete hopelessness that comes with housing insecurity. It’s probably one of the worst feelings I’ve ever felt and knowing there is nothing you can do about it makes it even worse. I’ve seen way worse things than self immolation because of getting evicted.

          The thing with getting evicted is that if you don’t have any other options it could potentially ruin your entire life. I live paycheck to paycheck these days and if I lost my job it would create a domino effect that will completely undermine everything in my life. You could lose everything you own, lose your job, lose access to food, and even lose your own life because of it. Shelter is the first thing people prioritize when lost in the wilderness for a reason. Because without it you are basically fucked.

          Now, I’m not saying this is a reasonable response to getting evicted. But at the same time, in that moment when you know you are about to potentially lose everything in your entire life, people get desperate.

          • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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            7 months ago

            Untrue. But I did have resources I was able to leverage, unlike many others. And I was fortunate not to have any underlying mental health issues at the time that could have been exacerbated by the situation.

            • Bipta@kbin.social
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              7 months ago

              I did have resources I was able to leverage, unlike many others.

              You ever stop to wonder if lack of such resources is what leads to said “mental health issues,” which are really the logical consequence of deprivation?

        • Carnelian@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          yeah wouldn’t want to try and help these people with housing on the off chance it helps with their mental health, probably way more effective to just point out to them that their problems are entirely their own and they most likely would have harmed themselves anyway. good talk

          • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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            7 months ago

            I didn’t say that-- you’re saying that.

            What I’m saying is that in addition to the housing crisis, you have a mental health crisis, and it’s irresponsible to ignore or conflate the two.

            It’s wild how desperate y’all are to gloss over how much deeper these situations go, because it gets in the way of a headline.

              • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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                7 months ago

                A good start is being able to talk about it and have dialogue, without getting defensive. Stigmatization is alive and well, and it’s one reason why people don’t seek resources and help.

                • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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                  7 months ago

                  So in your opinion, material conditions (such as housing and healthcare) aren’t the cause of the mental health crisis? People just need to talk about it more and it will all go away?

        • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I get what you’re (poorly) trying to say, but in the context of this thread - an old man lighting himself on fire during the eviction - we can safely assume his mental state is being largely influenced by the eviction.

          It’s pretty ridiculous to assert that self immolation is exclusively a mental health situation that is entirely insulated from the outside world, as though mental health and a person’s environment are mutually exclusive and have absolutely 0 affect on each other.

          It’s a very convenient way of reducing problems to an individual level to completely avoid the root causes.

          Maybe you are just trying to be some data purist who believes self immolation can only be done by someone in a mental health crisis - and mental health crises are exclusively internal and cannot be tied to external circumstances??

          For future reference, lighting yourself on fire while actively protesting war, or actively being evicted probably has more to do with the realities of war and housing crises, and less to do with forgetting breathing exercises and lacking cognitive behaviour therapy strategies.

          • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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            7 months ago

            Someone doesn’t just suddenly light themselves on fire because of either of these catalysts, without having any underlying mental health struggles that went untreated or simply were brought to a head. Feel free to break that down and correlate that any way you want to the state of the world, their environment, etc, if out of avoidance or because it’s easier and more satisfying to say, “this one thing had this outcome!”

            • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              An event can force a mental health crisis. You’re wrong if you believe otherwise.

              You’re trying to say “everyone who lights themselves on fire is having a mental health crisis” - this is true.

              You’re also saying “if a common event like eviction results in self immolation it’s entirely the fault of mental health crisis and not eviction, because not everyone evicted self immolates” - this is false.

              You’re intentionally reversing cause and effect, when it’s obviously wrong.

              It’s a weird thing - you getting your rocks off acting willfully ignorant and belligerent over some arbitrary belief that events can’t be responsible for a mental health crises if the reaction isn’t typical.

              Why do you insist it is so important that everyone you interact with in this thread believes only mental health crisis can carry the blame?

              Why is it not possible for someone who is being evicted to light themselves on fire because they are being evicted?

              What makes this exclusively a mental health issue, and not a housing crisis issue?

              Which would be more effective at stopping self immolations during eviction - affordable housing preventing eviction but no mental health support? Or mental health support prior to eviction, but the individual will still be homeless?

              Which outcome is better? If the old man didn’t self immolate, but instead became homeless? Or if the old man was never worried about losing shelter because they would never lose shelter?

    • HuddaBudda@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      I imagine getting kicked out of your home to live on the street at 80+ would do wonders for your mental health.

      • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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        7 months ago

        So you agree, the self-immolation was a reflection of a mental health crisis, and the eviction was a trigger?

            • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Fuck you’re toxic. Please leave the dialog to the people arguing both in good faith and with some eloquence and just go smug yourself off in a dark room somewhere where we don’t have to see to this self-indulgent wankery.

                • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  The fact that your entire tone shifted to one of aloof denial and ‘masterful intentionality!’ after this suggests that it actually hit you quite close to home. You clearly had been hedging around the issue, and people have been attempting to engage you in good faith instead of calling you out to your face. It’s hard to deny the impression your comments give when you’re getting ratio’d on lemmy though. That’s… that’s rough. Your initial point about mental health was founded from a perspective that we can all understand, but you didn’t factor in what a huge effect material concerns have on a person’s mental health. The two are very linked, and for any one of a thousand possible reasons, you just missed the mark.

                  And that’s okay.

                  You’re letting yourself be ruled by an unfounded anxiety about your own intellectual inferiority and you’re sensitive to any flaws in your reasoning or arguments as a result - that’s why you were trying so hard to use clarification to adjust the initial meaning of your statement. I wanna assure you that from even a brief read of your comment history nah, you’re plenty intelligent. I doubt you have many concrete indications in your life to point to, which is okay those will come in time.

                  But you’re going to be a happier person if you can learn to accept and admit that you were wrong. My kneejerk reaction to things like this is to do exactly the same thing you’re doing, and I spent a good portion of my youth being the same kind of commenter-that-claims-they-were-a-troll-all-along as you are, and I was miserable. Letting you in on a secret here though: People estimate the intelligence of an individual who’s admitted their fault to be much higher than someone that sticks to a clearly flawed argument and argues from the ego until the fire in their metaphorical cave has burned down to embers. It’s a basic trick of actual social manipulation (instead of the bush league tricks image board trolls rely on), and it’s never failed me. Maybe it’ll work for you too.

                • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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                  7 months ago

                  What about a complete stranger who thinks you probably don’t/didn’t get enough attaboys from mom n pop? Did their lack of love cause you to enjoy any attention at all, like a child acting up in class? Is the derision of strangers that exciting, where youd beg for it like this to someone who clearly looks down on you?

        • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Eviction caused a mental health crisis which resulted in self immolation (you can also insert any negative outcome at this point).

          You have invented a “hierarchy” of cause and effect that is backwards.

          The correct order of operations is: Event happens that forces a mental health crisis in an individual, which can have various results (sometimes immolation).

          Some people with mental health issues may be in a near perpetual state of mental health crisis. This is the only type of situation where you’d be correct and anything could be a trigger. This is absolutely not the standard, but you assert that it is, which is why you are wrong.

    • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I wonder what effects mental health. Possibly material conditions of people? Maybe capitalism prioritizing profit over every thing else causes mental illness in people who are exploited for the greed of few?

      No shit dumbass. That doesn’t change anything.

    • GrundlButter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      And since mental health is healthcare, we don’t have to do anything about it at all. Because as we know, the free market healthcare system is self solving and bulletproof so we should never do anything to try to fix it. Murica.

    • Facebones@reddthat.com
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      7 months ago

      Luckily, the US ALSO brushes mental health under the table making MH care equally inaccessibly expensive and unattainable!

      U S A!

      U S A!