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a life-threatening physical or social malfunction. Care to elaborate on this?
Gladly.
An example of a life-threatening social malfunction would be what you are watching as a throng of angry people who have been lighting up buildings, pulling random folks from their vehicles, beating them senseless then torching their vehicles on a May 1980 Miami night because a jury found some policemen not guilty of homicide during an arrest in their neighborhood now surround
your truck to stare at you through its windows because you unknowingly drove into this mayhem while you were trying to return home from a night of two-stepping to the twang of a pedal steel guitar, and forces you to consider taking one of the following options:
a) These are folks open to reason and are probably fans of country-western music, so you'll just get out and talk to them.
b) The truck has enough ground clearance, power and traction to knock aside or drive over everyone between you and the open road, so you'll do that.
An example of a life-threatening physical malfunction is acute myeloid leukemia.
Confrontation by a stubborn output shaft is small potatoes by comparison.