It's a bit heartbreaking for me to remember that because, prior to that point, there wasn't any real confirmation about why Parenti stepped out of the (admittedly small) limelight to seemingly retire but I could tell it was due to dementia because I could see the early signs of it in his lectures and there's a clear progression of symptoms over the passage of time. I probably shouldn't have done this but online occasionally people would ask what happened and occasionally I'd respond telling them what I had observed and that it had all the hallmarks of the onset of dementia. It sucks to knowing you're right while hoping you're wrong, only to eventually get confirmation that you were right the whole time.

It feels like such a cruel injustice to have such a sharp mind robbed of its capacity like that.

[–] mickey@hexbear.net 1 points 11 hours ago

Yeah dementia is really brutal. I feel a similar way to your closing sentence when Tom Magliozzi from Car Talk got Alzheimer's and had to stop making new episodes back 2012.