5 ms·

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 f

by 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.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
'It's not trivial amounts of money, the case I was remembering was a court ordering the subtitling of years of video courses' Why can't a university afford subtitles, this is not a tall order, its a job a part-time first year student could do.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
Then go after ADA trolls, instead of advocating effectively that disabled people (26% of the population) should just accept dehumanization and utter humiliation through no fault of their own and that they cannot change simply because society considers it too expensive for them to have basic dignity.
ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
If all that people see are the ADA trolls they need to spend more time looking at their disabled brothers and sisters. At the end of the day the question is, are we content to let them crawl? Are we content for the public space to be segregated? Would we allow this for our family or ourselves? If we consider these things unacceptable then we need regulations. Regulations come with drawbacks and avenues for abuse, all of them, but it shouldn't be the primary and prevalent focus when they're put into place to protect marginalized sections of society. In a healthy society, I would expect of a tech forum to mainly be discussing tech tips and methods to comply with these norms. The truth is people don't want to do the minimum work to help these people, western societies are incredibly individualist and every effort or capital spent on helping others is seen as personal injury. It's this mindset that makes it so even in new products and constructions, the simplest norms aren't applied. I think there needs to be a change of mindset, because the first thing that should come to people's minds when reading this article is the social good that will come of it, not the reactionary examples of abuse.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  I'm just telling you what a fair number of people think. Separate what I am telling you from what I may believe.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  The trolls are very visible and could eventually erode support for the ADA in the general public. This is true for any vulnerable population, actually. Asking people to ignore them never works well, there needs to be legislation work that specifically targets them so that the ADA doesn’t lose popularity.
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
    I'm not asking people to ignore them, I'm asking for a hierarchy of concerns with regards to the ADA. The first concern being the acknowledgement of the good it does and its necessity. It's arguable, but in my opinion you've got the chain of causality backwards. People here focus on the trolls because the ADAs popularity is low, they don't like the effort it entails, and they don't like government regulations in general, and they'd just as much not have to apply norms at all. I can tell you the vast majority of businesses are not ADA compliant and do just fine.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      The trolls are what make the ADA less popular, I’ve seen it happen in LA (a place where compliance and awareness is high)…some grifter was actively trying to figure out how to lodge an ADA complaint against the bagel shop I was in. It was utterly obvious, and this place, being in LA, had done everything right in terms of accessibility (the doors don’t have to be mechanical, just easy to open and wide enough to get a wheelchair through). You get a few bad actors in an otherwise good thing and they give the entire program a bad reputation. Now…I don’t quite remember much when the ADA has done good, but I do remember that one troll shopping for a settlement check. This is the popularity problem the ADA faces.
- syshum 5y ago
  >>because the first thing that should come to people's minds when reading this article is the social good that will come of it Wishing does not make it so, and human psychology does not work that way and never will. if you continue to base your responses of this flawed view of reality you will continue to be disappointed. One must plan for how humans actually are, you know reality, not how we wish things were. This is often the problem with regulations, economic policies, etc. People crafting them are crafting them for a population of people that does not actual exist, so they always fail Humans are tribal, that tribe is generally viewed to max out at about 100 people or so, any group that is larger than that is going to be an abstract concept not something that can be held deeply personal. For a pure altruist motive that is the target, that is why local community groups are far more effective at charity than national programs, the people are more personally connected. >>western societies are incredibly individualist Through out history collectivist societies always fail because they are incompatible with human psychology. A collectivist society must stay small, it could never be the size of a city let alone a nation state. Individualist pursuits are the best way to organized large groups. Collectivism works at a small, family or tribe level, not for a mass population

by R0b0t1 5y ago

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

'It's not trivial amounts of money, the case I was remembering was a court ordering the subtitling of years of video courses' Why can't a university afford subtitles, this is not a tall order, its a job a part-time first year student could do.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

Then go after ADA trolls, instead of advocating effectively that disabled people (26% of the population) should just accept dehumanization and utter humiliation through no fault of their own and that they cannot change simply because society considers it too expensive for them to have basic dignity.

ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago

If all that people see are the ADA trolls they need to spend more time looking at their disabled brothers and sisters. At the end of the day the question is, are we content to let them crawl? Are we content for the public space to be segregated? Would we allow this for our family or ourselves? If we consider these things unacceptable then we need regulations. Regulations come with drawbacks and avenues for abuse, all of them, but it shouldn't be the primary and prevalent focus when they're put into place to protect marginalized sections of society. In a healthy society, I would expect of a tech forum to mainly be discussing tech tips and methods to comply with these norms. The truth is people don't want to do the minimum work to help these people, western societies are incredibly individualist and every effort or capital spent on helping others is seen as personal injury. It's this mindset that makes it so even in new products and constructions, the simplest norms aren't applied. I think there needs to be a change of mindset, because the first thing that should come to people's minds when reading this article is the social good that will come of it, not the reactionary examples of abuse.

R0b0t1 5y ago
I'm just telling you what a fair number of people think. Separate what I am telling you from what I may believe.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
The trolls are very visible and could eventually erode support for the ADA in the general public. This is true for any vulnerable population, actually. Asking people to ignore them never works well, there needs to be legislation work that specifically targets them so that the ADA doesn’t lose popularity.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
  I'm not asking people to ignore them, I'm asking for a hierarchy of concerns with regards to the ADA. The first concern being the acknowledgement of the good it does and its necessity. It's arguable, but in my opinion you've got the chain of causality backwards. People here focus on the trolls because the ADAs popularity is low, they don't like the effort it entails, and they don't like government regulations in general, and they'd just as much not have to apply norms at all. I can tell you the vast majority of businesses are not ADA compliant and do just fine.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    The trolls are what make the ADA less popular, I’ve seen it happen in LA (a place where compliance and awareness is high)…some grifter was actively trying to figure out how to lodge an ADA complaint against the bagel shop I was in. It was utterly obvious, and this place, being in LA, had done everything right in terms of accessibility (the doors don’t have to be mechanical, just easy to open and wide enough to get a wheelchair through). You get a few bad actors in an otherwise good thing and they give the entire program a bad reputation. Now…I don’t quite remember much when the ADA has done good, but I do remember that one troll shopping for a settlement check. This is the popularity problem the ADA faces.
syshum 5y ago
>>because the first thing that should come to people's minds when reading this article is the social good that will come of it Wishing does not make it so, and human psychology does not work that way and never will. if you continue to base your responses of this flawed view of reality you will continue to be disappointed. One must plan for how humans actually are, you know reality, not how we wish things were. This is often the problem with regulations, economic policies, etc. People crafting them are crafting them for a population of people that does not actual exist, so they always fail Humans are tribal, that tribe is generally viewed to max out at about 100 people or so, any group that is larger than that is going to be an abstract concept not something that can be held deeply personal. For a pure altruist motive that is the target, that is why local community groups are far more effective at charity than national programs, the people are more personally connected. >>western societies are incredibly individualist Through out history collectivist societies always fail because they are incompatible with human psychology. A collectivist society must stay small, it could never be the size of a city let alone a nation state. Individualist pursuits are the best way to organized large groups. Collectivism works at a small, family or tribe level, not for a mass population