6 ms·

> Would you support a 1% tax on every able-bodied person, with the proceeds used to help disabled people better live their lives? Yes. That was an easy questio

by edent 11y ago

> Would you support a 1% tax on every able-bodied person, with the proceeds used to help disabled people better live their lives? Yes. That was an easy question. Do you know what The Disabled community call the rest of us? The Not Yet Disabled. At some point, you're going to get old. You'll need glasses and all of a sudden that ultra-thin grey font on a stylish grey background will be a pain to read. Or you'll be in an accident and have to spend a week living with your arm in a sling, unable to use a mouse and keyboard simultaneously. Or you'll get drunk, or try to operate your TV while half asleep. Your cognitive impairment will be an impediment to interacting with the world. Even if you're the most selfish person in the world, and don't care about accessibility for people who live with an impairment now - you ought to care about how you'll cope once you become disabled. > And if yes, what do you think is a reasonable limit on X? That's like saying "what's a reasonable limit to spend on security?" You spend what's necessary.

0xcde4c3db 11y ago
> At some point, you're going to get old. A lot of people seem to believe (roughly speaking) that getting old is a lifestyle disease and will be mostly cosmetic as long as they "stay active" and "don't let age slow them down". They point to the anomaly of the guy running a marathon at 90 and don't think to ask why that's so rare when running is so popular...
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> That's like saying "what's a reasonable limit to spend on security?" You spend what's necessary. That doesn't actually tell you anything. Things would be "more secure" if houses were armored like tanks and everyone was prohibited from leaving their homes without a police escort. The question is not necessity, it's cost/benefit. The whole problem with accessibility is that there are contexts when the required effort is disproportional. When it takes as much or more effort to do the accessibility as to create the product in the first place, or requires a skill set the maker doesn't normally possess. And that's pretty much always when people want to impose it. Because if you can buy a machine for $50 that will peel your oranges, that's what people who need one will do and then nobody else has to do anything. It's when such a machine is too expensive or doesn't work well enough that people want to impose the cost on someone else. That's what we're talking about here. Because there is nothing wrong with a disabled person needing to buy a peeled orange, but there is something wrong with everyone else doing the same thing. The vast majority of customers don't need it, and in that case it's wasteful and environmentally unsound and should be discouraged. The argument seems to be that disabled people shouldn't have to do something different, like asking the produce clerk to peel their oranges. But that argument burns itself to the ground. Then everyone needs to use the more expensive accessible version to avoid special-casing the people who specifically need it. Which moves the cost/benefit analysis away from accessibility, because you have to justify the added cost across the whole population rather than only where it is needed. The result would be fewer accessible products that are more expensive for everyone.
- mcguire 11y ago
  "Because there is nothing wrong with a disabled person needing to buy a peeled orange, but there is something wrong with everyone else doing the same thing." Are you really arguing that I should not be able to buy a bagged salad because I can chop my own damn veggies? And I thought I was a moralist. You do realize most of the people reading this work in an industry that spends billions on giant space heaters to provide snapchat and online poker and bitcoin and HFT and... How about this: put the the convenience products next to their traditional brethren, charge not-outrageously more for them (to pay the extra costs and because they are more convenient) and stop trying to feel morally superior to random other people because you aren't interested in the product?
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > Are you really arguing that I should not be able to buy a bagged salad because I can chop my own damn veggies? Not "shouldn't be able to," just "shouldn't." The underlying problem is that we're not pricing externalities correctly. If the environmental and energy impact of plastic containers was required to be paid up front then the price would increase significantly and companies would stop using them in many cases. But until that happens, if you want to be environmentally conscious, you avoid such products where practical. And if you're an environmentally conscious company, you avoid selling them. > You do realize most of the people reading this work in an industry that spends billions on giant space heaters to provide snapchat and online poker and bitcoin and HFT and... ...and people are spending billions of dollars to make those space heaters as energy efficient as possible going forward. And some of those practices (like HFT) are criticized for being incredibly wasteful and people have suggested curbing them. And hypocrisy is not, in any event, a logical fallacy. Two wrongs don't make a right.
- jallmann 11y ago
  >> You spend what's necessary > The question is not necessity, it's cost/benefit. Necessity is everything. Cost-benefit might factor in when comparing different options, but the cost is often very high, especially to retrofit accommodations onto existing systems, when compared to the benefit that the general population receives from those accommodations. But we do it anyway, because we live in a civilized society that recognizes not everybody is the same. Comparing it to armored houses is stupid, because while armored houses might be sufficient for security, they are certainly not necessary. The threat model imposes a ceiling on any benefits: anything beyond that is not necessary, it's wasteful. > When it takes as much or more effort to do the accessibility as to create the product in the first place, or requires a skill set the maker doesn't normally possess. So there are two problems here. * Accessibility is like (software) security. Both should be treated as part of the process, where they are incorporated into the design from the outset. Just like security, if you try to tack on accessibility after everything is designed and built, then it takes longer to implement, costs more, and integrates poorly due to working around the existing design rather than within it, and generally less convenient/usable. * The biggest "skill" that people need is simply awareness and perspective -- not everybody is like you! Especially in software, good practices for accessibility are often reflective of generally good practices anyway. If you're slinging HTML, use semantically correct elements, put alt tags with images, label your forms and make sure they are keyboard-navigable. Are you a web developer that's never heard of ARIA? Shame on you -- you're not much of a web developer if you only cherry-pick the parts you like to use. This stuff is not hard. Again, it's less of a skill and more of a broadening of your world view to recognize that not everybody is like you, and trying to take those people into consideration. Would you build a web site and ignore IE users completely, just because you don't use IE? > The argument seems to be that disabled people shouldn't have to do something different That's not the argument at all. They do things differently all the time -- and usually it's fine, as long as the accommodation is reasonable. The gist of the article, by my reading, is that accessibility, convenience, and being environmentally friendly are often at odds with each other. The argument is not that Whole Foods has a moral imperative to offer pre-peeled oranges, just that there are certain classes of people that actually do benefit from pre-peeled oranges, while acknowledging there is an environmental impact. Disabled people are acutely aware of the externalities that their handicap imposes on society, so it is a relief when mainstream goods and practices shift towards being more accessible by default, such as supermarkets offering pre-chopped vegetables or, yes, pre-peeled oranges.
wyager 11y ago
>That's like saying "what's a reasonable limit to spend on security?" You spend what's necessary. And of course that's a universally established and uncontentious amount!
Grishnakh 11y ago
>Or you'll be in an accident and have to spend a week living with your arm in a sling, unable to use a mouse and keyboard simultaneously. Yep, that happened to me when I was in college; I spent several weeks with my arm in a sling. I was able to use a computer with no trouble. You've obviously never had your arm in a sling; try sitting at a desk in front of a keyboard, and notice the position your arms are in. That's almost the exact same position your arm is in when it's in a sling. The problem (as I found out) with having your arm in a sling is that you can't easily carry things requiring two arms. All in all, I really didn't have many problems with having an arm in a sling. It of course did help that I already used a backpack to carry things. Now walking around with a crutch, on the other hand, was a real impediment to my normal mobility and activities... >At some point, you're going to get old. You'll need glasses and all of a sudden that ultra-thin grey font on a stylish grey background will be a pain to read. This is totally wrong reasoning. That ultra-thin grey font on a "stylish" grey background is a pain to read no matter what your age. It's an effect of stupid hipsters taking over web design in the last 5 years. Graphic design on web pages has totally gone down the toilet in the last few years, and it's hurting everyone who has a brain and any sense of decency. Another factor as far as vision goes: the entire population is now becoming near-sighted: http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120 http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120 >Or you'll get drunk, or try to operate your TV while half asleep. Your cognitive impairment will be an impediment to interacting with the world. Then don't get drunk. And operating your TV is not "interacting with the world", it's mindlessly watching drivel and advertising. Honestly, you sound like you could have made a reasonable argument, but your examples are all completely lousy and just reinforce the other guy's position.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  > You've obviously never had your arm in a sling; try sitting at a desk in front of a keyboard, and notice the position your arms are in. That's almost the exact same position your arm is in when it's in a sling. That was not at all my experience when I had my arm in a sling; I was basically one step above being one-handed.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
> Do you know what The Disabled community call the rest of us? The Not Yet Disabled A few years ago I was on crutches for about six months and there's nothing like first-hand experience to realize just how important those accommodations are.

by edent 11y ago

0xcde4c3db 11y ago

> At some point, you're going to get old. A lot of people seem to believe (roughly speaking) that getting old is a lifestyle disease and will be mostly cosmetic as long as they "stay active" and "don't let age slow them down". They point to the anomaly of the guy running a marathon at 90 and don't think to ask why that's so rare when running is so popular...

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> That's like saying "what's a reasonable limit to spend on security?" You spend what's necessary. That doesn't actually tell you anything. Things would be "more secure" if houses were armored like tanks and everyone was prohibited from leaving their homes without a police escort. The question is not necessity, it's cost/benefit. The whole problem with accessibility is that there are contexts when the required effort is disproportional. When it takes as much or more effort to do the accessibility as to create the product in the first place, or requires a skill set the maker doesn't normally possess. And that's pretty much always when people want to impose it. Because if you can buy a machine for $50 that will peel your oranges, that's what people who need one will do and then nobody else has to do anything. It's when such a machine is too expensive or doesn't work well enough that people want to impose the cost on someone else. That's what we're talking about here. Because there is nothing wrong with a disabled person needing to buy a peeled orange, but there is something wrong with everyone else doing the same thing. The vast majority of customers don't need it, and in that case it's wasteful and environmentally unsound and should be discouraged. The argument seems to be that disabled people shouldn't have to do something different, like asking the produce clerk to peel their oranges. But that argument burns itself to the ground. Then everyone needs to use the more expensive accessible version to avoid special-casing the people who specifically need it. Which moves the cost/benefit analysis away from accessibility, because you have to justify the added cost across the whole population rather than only where it is needed. The result would be fewer accessible products that are more expensive for everyone.

mcguire 11y ago
"Because there is nothing wrong with a disabled person needing to buy a peeled orange, but there is something wrong with everyone else doing the same thing." Are you really arguing that I should not be able to buy a bagged salad because I can chop my own damn veggies? And I thought I was a moralist. You do realize most of the people reading this work in an industry that spends billions on giant space heaters to provide snapchat and online poker and bitcoin and HFT and... How about this: put the the convenience products next to their traditional brethren, charge not-outrageously more for them (to pay the extra costs and because they are more convenient) and stop trying to feel morally superior to random other people because you aren't interested in the product?
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > Are you really arguing that I should not be able to buy a bagged salad because I can chop my own damn veggies? Not "shouldn't be able to," just "shouldn't." The underlying problem is that we're not pricing externalities correctly. If the environmental and energy impact of plastic containers was required to be paid up front then the price would increase significantly and companies would stop using them in many cases. But until that happens, if you want to be environmentally conscious, you avoid such products where practical. And if you're an environmentally conscious company, you avoid selling them. > You do realize most of the people reading this work in an industry that spends billions on giant space heaters to provide snapchat and online poker and bitcoin and HFT and... ...and people are spending billions of dollars to make those space heaters as energy efficient as possible going forward. And some of those practices (like HFT) are criticized for being incredibly wasteful and people have suggested curbing them. And hypocrisy is not, in any event, a logical fallacy. Two wrongs don't make a right.
jallmann 11y ago
>> You spend what's necessary > The question is not necessity, it's cost/benefit. Necessity is everything. Cost-benefit might factor in when comparing different options, but the cost is often very high, especially to retrofit accommodations onto existing systems, when compared to the benefit that the general population receives from those accommodations. But we do it anyway, because we live in a civilized society that recognizes not everybody is the same. Comparing it to armored houses is stupid, because while armored houses might be sufficient for security, they are certainly not necessary. The threat model imposes a ceiling on any benefits: anything beyond that is not necessary, it's wasteful. > When it takes as much or more effort to do the accessibility as to create the product in the first place, or requires a skill set the maker doesn't normally possess. So there are two problems here. * Accessibility is like (software) security. Both should be treated as part of the process, where they are incorporated into the design from the outset. Just like security, if you try to tack on accessibility after everything is designed and built, then it takes longer to implement, costs more, and integrates poorly due to working around the existing design rather than within it, and generally less convenient/usable. * The biggest "skill" that people need is simply awareness and perspective -- not everybody is like you! Especially in software, good practices for accessibility are often reflective of generally good practices anyway. If you're slinging HTML, use semantically correct elements, put alt tags with images, label your forms and make sure they are keyboard-navigable. Are you a web developer that's never heard of ARIA? Shame on you -- you're not much of a web developer if you only cherry-pick the parts you like to use. This stuff is not hard. Again, it's less of a skill and more of a broadening of your world view to recognize that not everybody is like you, and trying to take those people into consideration. Would you build a web site and ignore IE users completely, just because you don't use IE? > The argument seems to be that disabled people shouldn't have to do something different That's not the argument at all. They do things differently all the time -- and usually it's fine, as long as the accommodation is reasonable. The gist of the article, by my reading, is that accessibility, convenience, and being environmentally friendly are often at odds with each other. The argument is not that Whole Foods has a moral imperative to offer pre-peeled oranges, just that there are certain classes of people that actually do benefit from pre-peeled oranges, while acknowledging there is an environmental impact. Disabled people are acutely aware of the externalities that their handicap imposes on society, so it is a relief when mainstream goods and practices shift towards being more accessible by default, such as supermarkets offering pre-chopped vegetables or, yes, pre-peeled oranges.

wyager 11y ago

>That's like saying "what's a reasonable limit to spend on security?" You spend what's necessary. And of course that's a universally established and uncontentious amount!

Grishnakh 11y ago

>Or you'll be in an accident and have to spend a week living with your arm in a sling, unable to use a mouse and keyboard simultaneously. Yep, that happened to me when I was in college; I spent several weeks with my arm in a sling. I was able to use a computer with no trouble. You've obviously never had your arm in a sling; try sitting at a desk in front of a keyboard, and notice the position your arms are in. That's almost the exact same position your arm is in when it's in a sling. The problem (as I found out) with having your arm in a sling is that you can't easily carry things requiring two arms. All in all, I really didn't have many problems with having an arm in a sling. It of course did help that I already used a backpack to carry things. Now walking around with a crutch, on the other hand, was a real impediment to my normal mobility and activities... >At some point, you're going to get old. You'll need glasses and all of a sudden that ultra-thin grey font on a stylish grey background will be a pain to read. This is totally wrong reasoning. That ultra-thin grey font on a "stylish" grey background is a pain to read no matter what your age. It's an effect of stupid hipsters taking over web design in the last 5 years. Graphic design on web pages has totally gone down the toilet in the last few years, and it's hurting everyone who has a brain and any sense of decency. Another factor as far as vision goes: the entire population is now becoming near-sighted: http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120 http://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120 >Or you'll get drunk, or try to operate your TV while half asleep. Your cognitive impairment will be an impediment to interacting with the world. Then don't get drunk. And operating your TV is not "interacting with the world", it's mindlessly watching drivel and advertising. Honestly, you sound like you could have made a reasonable argument, but your examples are all completely lousy and just reinforce the other guy's position.

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
> You've obviously never had your arm in a sling; try sitting at a desk in front of a keyboard, and notice the position your arms are in. That's almost the exact same position your arm is in when it's in a sling. That was not at all my experience when I had my arm in a sling; I was basically one step above being one-handed.
- Grishnakh 11y ago

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago

> Do you know what The Disabled community call the rest of us? The Not Yet Disabled A few years ago I was on crutches for about six months and there's nothing like first-hand experience to realize just how important those accommodations are.