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> My first experience with someone in your position was Geordi LaForge. I found it so inspiring [...] To be clear, that's a fictional character in a fictional
by mwcampbell 5y ago
> My first experience with someone in your position was Geordi LaForge. I found it so inspiring [...]
To be clear, that's a fictional character in a fictional future that may or may not ever come. Sure, we can use assistive technology, e.g. screen readers, to enable us to work. But with our current technology, that requires cooperation from developers of platforms, applications, websites, etc., and as I said in another comment, advocating for that sometimes seems futile. We do sometimes make progress though.
> I absolutely believe that the 9999 other traits that you have to share should not be lost just because of a single non-optimal trait.
Of course you're right; thanks for that reminder.
- dotancohen 5y agoYes, Roddenberry used his fictional future to show us what our future could be. That was the point that I was trying to make without being too explicit - that could in fact be our future. If we choose it.
- mwcampbell 5y agoMaybe I'm succumbing to the cynical zeitgeist, but I figure the future will be primarily whatever the wealthy minority wants. If that's so, then maybe the best hope for people like me is a future like the one portrayed in the opening of Ready Player Two (generally not a very good book), where a VR-obsessed multi-billionaire funds work on neural interfaces, starting with implants for disabled people and culminating in the OASIS Neural Interface headset. Yes, it would feel wrong to be used as a means to an end, but it would answer the question of how a world-dominating VR as depicted in those books could be made accessible.
- dotancohen 5y ago> I figure the future will be primarily whatever the wealthy minority wants. Unfortunately, you're probably right. Roddenberry didn't ignore this possibility, the Terran Empire was a warning of what the alternative could be.