[nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..

[Jorge Paez]

Arielle:
I think blindness does play a roll--in that it is just one of many things that make up an individual,
and in a world where genetics would be preprogramed,
it just be too perfect.
It'd just bee too flawless--too artificial.
I'm sure some people would want it--but a world in which blindness and other disabilities are completely eraticated would just be too artificial,
almost like we literally managed to create our own world in a way.

Worse, it would make it a whole lot worse for any blind who were born cause then everyone would consider them a scientific failure so to speak.
Of course,
I'm hypothetically talking about a very cold  world in which science would create people which I hope would never happen but its a good talking  point anyway.

Jorge


On Apr 27, 2011, at 12:08 AM, Arielle Silverman wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> We recently had a discussion about how we would react if some of our
> blind friends could become sighted, and we asked whether it would be
> reasonable for a sighted person to want to go blind. This made me
> think of an interesting, although a bit painful, question:
> Would the world be better off, worse off, or about the same if
> blindness were completely eradicated, through genetic engineering
> and/or mandatory treatment of all causes of blindness?
> The question may sound silly, but for many vision researchers,
> eradication of blindness is a real goal. But does the presence of
> blind people in our society have any benefit to the society or the
> world as a whole?
> 
> Certainly there are costs of having a small group of people in society
> who read and travel using different techniques than the rest. These
> specialized techniques have to be taught, technology has to be adapted
> to their use and negative public attitudes prevent this minority of
> people who do things differently from having full access to societal
> goods and opportunities. So would it be cheaper and less
> resource-demanding if everybody could use the same visual techniques
> to accomplish life tasks?
> On the other hand, you could perhaps argue that having people who use
> different senses to do things in society is advantageous. Technology
> is forced to innovate to become usable by those who don't have vision
> as well as those who do. And conceivably, if a darkness plague struck
> the planet, it would be better for the species if some of its members
> could fully function without light.
> 
> What do you think? Should we as a society make an effort to get rid of
> blindness? Or does blindness serve any kind of social function?
> There obviously isn't a right answer here, but it's something that,
> for better or for worse, could become relevant to us someday.
> 
> Arielle
> 
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