8 ms·

They still are if you talk to small business owners. Vast majority of people want to completely ignore accommodation and absolutely hate being told to do the ba

by ikiris 5y ago

They still are if you talk to small business owners. Vast majority of people want to completely ignore accommodation and absolutely hate being told to do the bare minimum for other people, especially when it costs them money or time. Many of them rail against how the "government" or some other boogeyman lawyer is after them and how they're the victim when they ignore the needs, and are then cajoled into meeting legal minimum requirements. This site especially has a vocal block of libertarian leaning self centered priviliged tech workers who see an affront in doing anything for anyone other than themselves, even if it is in their own best interest.

Jiro 5y ago
Generally, if you're asking person X to spend money they don't want to spend, claiming that it's in their own best interest, it probably isn't.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
  You could say that about all of taxes.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  What is best interest is debatable, but we know for a fact that some people show no interested in survival of people around them - like drunk drivers. Or like management of Grenfell tower in UK was asked to address fire safety problems, they didn't want to spend the money and about 100 people burned alive. Also the building is gone. Or like that apartment block in US that collapsed recently. Or like management of Bhopals fertiliser plant, that failed due to lack of maintenance and produced positions gasses that killed thousands of people, ofcourse starting woth employees of the plant. The CEO ofcourse escaped to US and US is refusing to extradite him. In fact I don't know how to apply your advise to anything safety related, there are literally millions of examples of people saving a bit of money on safety and dying as a result and killing people around them.
  - ikiris 5y ago
    Hackernews: "Externalities happen to other people, now why are my gas prices so high?!"
sterlind 5y ago
I have progressive mobility loss. one time I went down the stairs to a bar, assuming there'd be an elevator back up - it was a big building. Bartender just told me to fuck off. I had to crawl up the stairs on my hands and knees with a friend behind me, holding my walker and ready to catch me if I fell. if the bartender had been apologetic I wouldn't have felt so furious, but his utter disdain had my blood boiling.
- Zircom 5y ago
  Is there a reason he should be apologizing? He's a bartender, the only thing he's responsible for is serving you drinks, he has absolutely no say in the accessibility accommodations the building chooses to put in. I don't really blame him for telling you to fuck off if you kept pestering/berating him after he told you there's no an elevator. What exactly did you expect him to do?
  - exolymph 5y ago
    > Is there a reason he should be apologizing? Good manners? The business he represents is unable to accommodate a customer's needs. He should be nice about that. We have no indication that the bartender got berated.
    - Zircom 5y ago
      An apology from someone who has absolutely no ability to influence those decisions or policies isn't a sincere one, and is basically coerced under threat of getting in trouble when someone complains to their boss that they weren't "understanding enough". Are you American by chance? I find that lots of Americans seem to want and even feel they're owed that kind of false sincerity/kindness from "low skill" workers they interact with. Also I doubt it got to the point of someone telling OP to fuck off just for asking if there's an elevator, there has to be more to that story. Also also there's no indication that the same business that owns the bar is the same business that owns the building, maybe they just rent a space on the bottom floor. So again, not the bartenders responsibility to apologize for something they have no control over, and possibly they're not even a representative of the same business that owns the building that chose not to include the accommodations. In regards to accessibility accommodations, the only responsibility I can see to the bartender is telling people that there's not an elevator when they ask and he seems to have fulfilled that.
syshum 5y ago
>> some other boogeyman lawyer is after them or you know there really could be... There is entire sub-group of lawyers that are ADA Trolls, just like there are Patent Trolls, and Copyright Trolls. They exist not to make business more accessible, but to line their pockets and make business hard for everyone, these lawyers give the ADA regulations a bad name and it a real and actual problem. >>Vast majority of people want to completely ignore accommodation and absolutely hate being told to do the bare minimum for other people Ummm no. That is not actually true. the problem is often times the regulations are inflexible, and unaccommodating themselves businesses are often put in position where they simply can not comply for some reason or another to every letter of very regulation (of which are vast, vague, and complex) Business owners also do not like to be continually threatened with heavy fines, and government violence in order to operate their business. >This site especially has a vocal block of libertarian leaning self centered privileged tech workers it is very sad that we have come to the point where only authoritarian control via threat of violence are to be seen as the "acceptable" solution to a social problem. At one point the liberal solution was anti-violence now it seems the only acceptable solution for vocal block of ill-liberal self centered privileged tech workers is to use the power of government violence to force their will upon others believing in their own moral certitude that their world view is the "correct" one, and anyone that disagrees has to be selfish immoral bigot or uncaring capitalist scum, or other such thing...... Liberal solutions instead would be using other incentives to persuade people to voluntary solutions
- greenie_beans 5y ago
  I just want to point out the juxapostion of this comment and the sibling comment where the commenter described their mobility issue and crawling up the stairs, in the context of the parent comment.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    And what is your point? The practical effect of these ADA trolls is the complete shuttering of useful things that could not be made accessible in a reasonable fashion. E.g. universities have removed websites because they don't have the funding available to make the resources accessible. It's not trivial amounts of money, the case I was remembering was a court ordering the subtitling of years of video courses, ... or their removal. I really feel for people with disabilities, but there's a heavy profit motive to abuse the ADA, and that's what causes people to hate it. There's other issues as well like rising costs of construction and doing anything productive due to red tape that are no doubt related, but what people see are the ADA trolls.
derekp7 5y ago
A guy my Dad knew had a business, and the parking lot could hold about 4 cars (his, and 3 customers), all right in front of the door. He couldn't blacktop the lot, because if he did he'd have to paint a designated accessible-only parking spot, which actually would take up two spots. So he had to leave it as a gravel lot, which made it harder for wheelchair access. It isn't that he was against accommodations, it just didn't make sense for that location where each spot was right by the door.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  The space being wider and the spaces being close to the door are two separate accommodations. Leaving it gravel leaves one solved (distance) and simply avoids the other (width) completely while ignoring that caused a 3rd (gravel if you do manage to get out). The guaranteed width is so there is a standard amount of space to exit the vehicle, see the drawing at https://www.ada.gov/restriping_parking/restriping2015.html https://www.ada.gov/restriping_parking/restriping2015.html But yes it gets increasingly hard to have a good solution for everyone when there are so few spaces.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I read years ago that there was a minor industry of lawyers looking at satellite photos to find motels with a swimming pool, and then suing them for the pool not being ADA compliant. The usual result was the pool got filled in, as it was too expensive to upgrade it. Who came out ahead? Nobody but the lawyers.
  - pmontra 5y ago
    Who did pay those lawyers?
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      The lawyers settled with the motels for $$$.
      - 5y ago
WalterBright 5y ago
> it costs them money The value calculus of something always seems to be heavily dependent on who gets the bill. > even if it is in their own best interest. I'm one of those people blessed with knowing what's best for other people, but I restrict my efforts to giving them unwanted advice. I don't care to force it on them.
- hobs 5y ago
  Your comments are usually much more substantive. Using the sliding slope argument for wheelchair access makes you look like a right dick.
  - ikiris 5y ago
    When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.

by ikiris 5y ago

Jiro 5y ago

Generally, if you're asking person X to spend money they don't want to spend, claiming that it's in their own best interest, it probably isn't.

ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
You could say that about all of taxes.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
What is best interest is debatable, but we know for a fact that some people show no interested in survival of people around them - like drunk drivers. Or like management of Grenfell tower in UK was asked to address fire safety problems, they didn't want to spend the money and about 100 people burned alive. Also the building is gone. Or like that apartment block in US that collapsed recently. Or like management of Bhopals fertiliser plant, that failed due to lack of maintenance and produced positions gasses that killed thousands of people, ofcourse starting woth employees of the plant. The CEO ofcourse escaped to US and US is refusing to extradite him. In fact I don't know how to apply your advise to anything safety related, there are literally millions of examples of people saving a bit of money on safety and dying as a result and killing people around them.
- ikiris 5y ago
  Hackernews: "Externalities happen to other people, now why are my gas prices so high?!"

sterlind 5y ago

I have progressive mobility loss. one time I went down the stairs to a bar, assuming there'd be an elevator back up - it was a big building. Bartender just told me to fuck off. I had to crawl up the stairs on my hands and knees with a friend behind me, holding my walker and ready to catch me if I fell. if the bartender had been apologetic I wouldn't have felt so furious, but his utter disdain had my blood boiling.

Zircom 5y ago
Is there a reason he should be apologizing? He's a bartender, the only thing he's responsible for is serving you drinks, he has absolutely no say in the accessibility accommodations the building chooses to put in. I don't really blame him for telling you to fuck off if you kept pestering/berating him after he told you there's no an elevator. What exactly did you expect him to do?
- exolymph 5y ago
  > Is there a reason he should be apologizing? Good manners? The business he represents is unable to accommodate a customer's needs. He should be nice about that. We have no indication that the bartender got berated.
  - Zircom 5y ago
    An apology from someone who has absolutely no ability to influence those decisions or policies isn't a sincere one, and is basically coerced under threat of getting in trouble when someone complains to their boss that they weren't "understanding enough". Are you American by chance? I find that lots of Americans seem to want and even feel they're owed that kind of false sincerity/kindness from "low skill" workers they interact with. Also I doubt it got to the point of someone telling OP to fuck off just for asking if there's an elevator, there has to be more to that story. Also also there's no indication that the same business that owns the bar is the same business that owns the building, maybe they just rent a space on the bottom floor. So again, not the bartenders responsibility to apologize for something they have no control over, and possibly they're not even a representative of the same business that owns the building that chose not to include the accommodations. In regards to accessibility accommodations, the only responsibility I can see to the bartender is telling people that there's not an elevator when they ask and he seems to have fulfilled that.

syshum 5y ago

>> some other boogeyman lawyer is after them or you know there really could be... There is entire sub-group of lawyers that are ADA Trolls, just like there are Patent Trolls, and Copyright Trolls. They exist not to make business more accessible, but to line their pockets and make business hard for everyone, these lawyers give the ADA regulations a bad name and it a real and actual problem. >>Vast majority of people want to completely ignore accommodation and absolutely hate being told to do the bare minimum for other people Ummm no. That is not actually true. the problem is often times the regulations are inflexible, and unaccommodating themselves businesses are often put in position where they simply can not comply for some reason or another to every letter of very regulation (of which are vast, vague, and complex) Business owners also do not like to be continually threatened with heavy fines, and government violence in order to operate their business. >This site especially has a vocal block of libertarian leaning self centered privileged tech workers it is very sad that we have come to the point where only authoritarian control via threat of violence are to be seen as the "acceptable" solution to a social problem. At one point the liberal solution was anti-violence now it seems the only acceptable solution for vocal block of ill-liberal self centered privileged tech workers is to use the power of government violence to force their will upon others believing in their own moral certitude that their world view is the "correct" one, and anyone that disagrees has to be selfish immoral bigot or uncaring capitalist scum, or other such thing...... Liberal solutions instead would be using other incentives to persuade people to voluntary solutions

greenie_beans 5y ago
I just want to point out the juxapostion of this comment and the sibling comment where the commenter described their mobility issue and crawling up the stairs, in the context of the parent comment.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  And what is your point? The practical effect of these ADA trolls is the complete shuttering of useful things that could not be made accessible in a reasonable fashion. E.g. universities have removed websites because they don't have the funding available to make the resources accessible. It's not trivial amounts of money, the case I was remembering was a court ordering the subtitling of years of video courses, ... or their removal. I really feel for people with disabilities, but there's a heavy profit motive to abuse the ADA, and that's what causes people to hate it. There's other issues as well like rising costs of construction and doing anything productive due to red tape that are no doubt related, but what people see are the ADA trolls.

derekp7 5y ago

A guy my Dad knew had a business, and the parking lot could hold about 4 cars (his, and 3 customers), all right in front of the door. He couldn't blacktop the lot, because if he did he'd have to paint a designated accessible-only parking spot, which actually would take up two spots. So he had to leave it as a gravel lot, which made it harder for wheelchair access. It isn't that he was against accommodations, it just didn't make sense for that location where each spot was right by the door.

zamadatix 5y ago
The space being wider and the spaces being close to the door are two separate accommodations. Leaving it gravel leaves one solved (distance) and simply avoids the other (width) completely while ignoring that caused a 3rd (gravel if you do manage to get out). The guaranteed width is so there is a standard amount of space to exit the vehicle, see the drawing at https://www.ada.gov/restriping_parking/restriping2015.html https://www.ada.gov/restriping_parking/restriping2015.html But yes it gets increasingly hard to have a good solution for everyone when there are so few spaces.
WalterBright 5y ago
I read years ago that there was a minor industry of lawyers looking at satellite photos to find motels with a swimming pool, and then suing them for the pool not being ADA compliant. The usual result was the pool got filled in, as it was too expensive to upgrade it. Who came out ahead? Nobody but the lawyers.
- pmontra 5y ago
  Who did pay those lawyers?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    The lawyers settled with the motels for $$$.
    - 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

> it costs them money The value calculus of something always seems to be heavily dependent on who gets the bill. > even if it is in their own best interest. I'm one of those people blessed with knowing what's best for other people, but I restrict my efforts to giving them unwanted advice. I don't care to force it on them.

hobs 5y ago
Your comments are usually much more substantive. Using the sliding slope argument for wheelchair access makes you look like a right dick.
- ikiris 5y ago
  When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.