5 ms·

I'd like to go out on a limb and say that I don't agree with the ADA. I don't think any private person or organization should be compelled to provide facilities

I'd like to go out on a limb and say that I don't agree with the ADA. I don't think any private person or organization should be compelled to provide facilities or services for anyone else, regardless of what their need is. I have no animus toward people with disabilities - I'm just saying that no one should be forced to help anyone else. If you want to do something for someone else's benefit, you should be free to do so, at your own expense. When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act. No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen. When you help a friend, you are involved in his life. Because you're there, you get the reward of achieving a personal value of your own. You get feedback about how your acts are impacting his life, which helps you be a better friend. When you try to coerce a group, you have no knowledge of the actual impact your rule actually has on anyone. And because you're not in the loop, it takes a great deal longer to change your rules. This ends up hurting more people than you help. EDIT: downvoting me won't change my mind, but it will make me try even harder to spread the above message

Karunamon 6y ago
On pure principle I kind of agree, but the reason that the ADA exists is because people with disabilities that require things like ramps and big bathroom stalls with grab bars are not a significant enough market segment to pressure businesses to offer them; the end result of which is that accommodations would not exist otherwise. This is the necessary kind of regulation that shores up a hole that free markets wouldn't solve on their own. Accommodating disabilities isn't profitable.
neom 6y ago
How would you think about the best way to provide services to members of our society that are less able than others?
orf 6y ago
> When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act > No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen. > You get feedback about how your acts are impacting his life, which helps you be a better friend. > This ends up hurting more people than you help. What an absolutely mind numblingly self centered and brain-dead take. It's got nothing to do with the "noble act" or other such nonsense. They are there so that people with disabilities don't end up living a second class existence, locked out of large parts of modern life, because it is not economically sensible to add disabled access to your building or service for the very small percentage of potential customers who need it.
- valuearb 6y ago
  I have no problem with the government paying for ADA accommodations, and all of us sharing in the tax burden for them. Why should their costs be forced on a narrow group of businesses in unequal ways?
  - teraflop 6y ago
    If some business models have a harder time providing equal accommodations to disabled people than others, why is it "unequal" for those business models to pay a correspondingly larger cost? Seems like a pretty reasonable negative incentive to me.
  - shagie 6y ago
    This is how it works for other companies... though not the government paying for ADA. Taxi companies have vehicles equipped for wheelchairs and other disabilities. They tend to be unprofitable to operate - but they have them. The reduction or loss of a profit on those fares is made up for by the taxi company, as a whole, subsidizing it from the increased prices for the rest of the fares. It isn't necessary for this to be a government thing. It is simply "the company needs to increase the cost of its service so that what it offers is accessible to everyone." As this applies to everyone in the sector the same (taxis, uber, Lyft, etc...) it isn't impacting a narrow group of businesses in unequal ways. This applies to restaurants, retail businesses, etc...
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      It does benefits bigger organizations that have more of an ability to absorb higher costs than small businesses and startups, just like any other regulatory burden.
- maxharris 6y ago
  Why do you assume that the problem of a second-class existence for some is avoidable given the current state of the art in science, technology and medicine? You can put wheelchair ramps on every building and have zero impact on the number of people that can walk that will date someone in a wheelchair, or the number of non-hearing-impaired people that will even be friends with a deaf person. This is because people often meet and relate to one another through their experiences and shared interests. Frankly, the only way those situations can change is through technology. As we come up with ways of repairing spinal cord injuries, restoring hearing and sight, etc., many people will have ways of breaking through the very real barriers I'm speaking of here. Wouldn't it be better to spend more of the money that goes into ramps and the like on research instead? If people are left free to decide what to do with their own resources, I argue that ultimately more resources will go into advancing science and technology, with the ultimate effect of creating a society where fewer people suffer a second-class existence. Take the existence of Neuralink as a practical example of this: it's a private company whose first users will be paraplegic people, and people suffering from strokes and Parkinson's disease.
flowerlad 6y ago
This is not about "helping". This is about illegal discrimination. When you open a service to the public then you can't refuse it to someone on the basis of their disability. (Or race, or gender, or sexual orientation.)
- joombaga 6y ago
  Right, but those laws are in place to help those who would be refused service on those bases. It's reasonable to question if those laws (e.g. in the context of Uber and people with disabilities) are truly a societal benefit, and if that benefit is worth the moral cost of legal coercion.
  - orthecreedence 6y ago
    The fact that the laws exist in the first place seems to answer that line of questioning already.
    - joombaga 6y ago
      Are you implying that the existence of any given law is indication of its societal benefits? It doesn't seem difficult to find a counterexample.
  - CJefferson 6y ago
    So, you want to argue it is important people have the right to lie to blind people and dump them in the middle of nowhere?
    - joombaga 6y ago
      No. I don't believe it is important that people have the right to lie to blind people and dump them in the middle of nowhere.
teraflop 6y ago
> When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act. No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen. I couldn't care less about whether the ADA increases or decreases the number of "noble acts" that happen every day. I care about its actual effects on people's lives. And it has demonstrably done a lot of good for a lot of people, despite your assertion that such a thing is unthinkable.
kube-system 6y ago
If you don’t like the solution to the problem, do you have a better solution? Or do you not think the problem is worth solving? So far, however, places with these types of regulations are still prosperous and have significantly better lives for those who are disabled. The real-world results speak for themselves.
ARandumGuy 6y ago
If disability access is not legally required, many businesses just won't bother. Economically, it often doesn't make sense to spend money to accommodate a small percentage of your potential customer base. Even if it does make sense, many people just don't bother, often through simple ignorance. This means that, without legally required obligations, disabled people become second class citizens. The places they can go and the businesses they can patronize are determined entirely on the whims of other people. This means that they require more help from caregivers for basic day to day functioning, and can prevent them from making their own contributions to society. Your argument is saying that the desires of businesses are more important then the ability of disabled people to participate in society. It is a zero sum game. And you're free to have your own opinion on the matter, but don't be surprised when people consider your stance to be heartless.
joombaga 6y ago
> When you try to coerce a group, you have no knowledge of the actual impact your rule actually has on anyone. And because you're not in the loop, it takes a great deal longer to change your rules. > This ends up hurting more people than you help. These 2 assertions seem to be at odds. If you can't see the impact of coercing a group to help, how did you make the determination that it hurts more people than it helps? If your objection is moral, then the coercion is the issue and it doesn't matter if society benefits (by whatever metric one uses, e.g. "wellbeing"). If it _can_ be demonstrated that compelling Uber drivers to pick up passengers with disabilities benefits those passengers more than it hurts the drivers, would that change your mind? Or do you believe there's no possible way for compelling those drivers to be more beneficial than detrimental at a societal level?
CJefferson 6y ago
No-one is being "forced to help". They are providing a paid service, and all times you pay someone to do something in the U.S., there are legal requirements on the seller and the buyer.

Karunamon 6y ago

On pure principle I kind of agree, but the reason that the ADA exists is because people with disabilities that require things like ramps and big bathroom stalls with grab bars are not a significant enough market segment to pressure businesses to offer them; the end result of which is that accommodations would not exist otherwise. This is the necessary kind of regulation that shores up a hole that free markets wouldn't solve on their own. Accommodating disabilities isn't profitable.

neom 6y ago

How would you think about the best way to provide services to members of our society that are less able than others?

orf 6y ago

> When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act > No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen. > You get feedback about how your acts are impacting his life, which helps you be a better friend. > This ends up hurting more people than you help. What an absolutely mind numblingly self centered and brain-dead take. It's got nothing to do with the "noble act" or other such nonsense. They are there so that people with disabilities don't end up living a second class existence, locked out of large parts of modern life, because it is not economically sensible to add disabled access to your building or service for the very small percentage of potential customers who need it.

valuearb 6y ago
I have no problem with the government paying for ADA accommodations, and all of us sharing in the tax burden for them. Why should their costs be forced on a narrow group of businesses in unequal ways?
- teraflop 6y ago
  If some business models have a harder time providing equal accommodations to disabled people than others, why is it "unequal" for those business models to pay a correspondingly larger cost? Seems like a pretty reasonable negative incentive to me.
- shagie 6y ago
  This is how it works for other companies... though not the government paying for ADA. Taxi companies have vehicles equipped for wheelchairs and other disabilities. They tend to be unprofitable to operate - but they have them. The reduction or loss of a profit on those fares is made up for by the taxi company, as a whole, subsidizing it from the increased prices for the rest of the fares. It isn't necessary for this to be a government thing. It is simply "the company needs to increase the cost of its service so that what it offers is accessible to everyone." As this applies to everyone in the sector the same (taxis, uber, Lyft, etc...) it isn't impacting a narrow group of businesses in unequal ways. This applies to restaurants, retail businesses, etc...
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    It does benefits bigger organizations that have more of an ability to absorb higher costs than small businesses and startups, just like any other regulatory burden.
maxharris 6y ago
Why do you assume that the problem of a second-class existence for some is avoidable given the current state of the art in science, technology and medicine? You can put wheelchair ramps on every building and have zero impact on the number of people that can walk that will date someone in a wheelchair, or the number of non-hearing-impaired people that will even be friends with a deaf person. This is because people often meet and relate to one another through their experiences and shared interests. Frankly, the only way those situations can change is through technology. As we come up with ways of repairing spinal cord injuries, restoring hearing and sight, etc., many people will have ways of breaking through the very real barriers I'm speaking of here. Wouldn't it be better to spend more of the money that goes into ramps and the like on research instead? If people are left free to decide what to do with their own resources, I argue that ultimately more resources will go into advancing science and technology, with the ultimate effect of creating a society where fewer people suffer a second-class existence. Take the existence of Neuralink as a practical example of this: it's a private company whose first users will be paraplegic people, and people suffering from strokes and Parkinson's disease.

flowerlad 6y ago

This is not about "helping". This is about illegal discrimination. When you open a service to the public then you can't refuse it to someone on the basis of their disability. (Or race, or gender, or sexual orientation.)

joombaga 6y ago
Right, but those laws are in place to help those who would be refused service on those bases. It's reasonable to question if those laws (e.g. in the context of Uber and people with disabilities) are truly a societal benefit, and if that benefit is worth the moral cost of legal coercion.
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  The fact that the laws exist in the first place seems to answer that line of questioning already.
  - joombaga 6y ago
    Are you implying that the existence of any given law is indication of its societal benefits? It doesn't seem difficult to find a counterexample.
- CJefferson 6y ago
  So, you want to argue it is important people have the right to lie to blind people and dump them in the middle of nowhere?
  - joombaga 6y ago
    No. I don't believe it is important that people have the right to lie to blind people and dump them in the middle of nowhere.

teraflop 6y ago

> When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act. No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen. I couldn't care less about whether the ADA increases or decreases the number of "noble acts" that happen every day. I care about its actual effects on people's lives. And it has demonstrably done a lot of good for a lot of people, despite your assertion that such a thing is unthinkable.

kube-system 6y ago

If you don’t like the solution to the problem, do you have a better solution? Or do you not think the problem is worth solving? So far, however, places with these types of regulations are still prosperous and have significantly better lives for those who are disabled. The real-world results speak for themselves.

ARandumGuy 6y ago

If disability access is not legally required, many businesses just won't bother. Economically, it often doesn't make sense to spend money to accommodate a small percentage of your potential customer base. Even if it does make sense, many people just don't bother, often through simple ignorance. This means that, without legally required obligations, disabled people become second class citizens. The places they can go and the businesses they can patronize are determined entirely on the whims of other people. This means that they require more help from caregivers for basic day to day functioning, and can prevent them from making their own contributions to society. Your argument is saying that the desires of businesses are more important then the ability of disabled people to participate in society. It is a zero sum game. And you're free to have your own opinion on the matter, but don't be surprised when people consider your stance to be heartless.

joombaga 6y ago

> When you try to coerce a group, you have no knowledge of the actual impact your rule actually has on anyone. And because you're not in the loop, it takes a great deal longer to change your rules. > This ends up hurting more people than you help. These 2 assertions seem to be at odds. If you can't see the impact of coercing a group to help, how did you make the determination that it hurts more people than it helps? If your objection is moral, then the coercion is the issue and it doesn't matter if society benefits (by whatever metric one uses, e.g. "wellbeing"). If it _can_ be demonstrated that compelling Uber drivers to pick up passengers with disabilities benefits those passengers more than it hurts the drivers, would that change your mind? Or do you believe there's no possible way for compelling those drivers to be more beneficial than detrimental at a societal level?

CJefferson 6y ago

No-one is being "forced to help". They are providing a paid service, and all times you pay someone to do something in the U.S., there are legal requirements on the seller and the buyer.