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

Mon May 2 19:55:22 UTC 2011

Being Devil's advocate, what negativity does diversity have? 
Diversity, by definition, isn't good nor bad, but just different.  
So, what is the negative impact of diversity on...  who, society?

Chris Nusbaum

"A loss of sight, never a loss of vision!" (Camp Abilities motto)

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com
To: "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sun, 1 May 2011 21:25:10 -0700
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..

That presumes that diversity always equals benefit.  You and I 
are going to
have to differ on this one.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org 
[mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Jedi
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2011 6:45 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] If the World Went Sighted..

I say that disability is a form of diversity, so I wouldn't want 
to erase
it.

Respectfully,
Jedi

Original message:
 Hello all,

 This is an interesting discussion, so I thought I'd pop in for a 
minute.

 This question goes, at the root of it, to how you view 
disability.  If
 you view it as an aspect that creates diversity, then erasing it 
would
 be like erasing races or different languages.  If you view 
disability
 as a disease, then logically the first response would be to want 
to cure
it.

 What do you guys think?

 Briley
 On Apr 27, 2011, at 7:55 AM, Jorge Paez wrote:

 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 eradicated 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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