11 ms·
like someone mentioned in a separate comment, you are conflating disease with disability here. when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn
by anthony__j 2y ago
like someone mentioned in a separate comment, you are conflating disease with disability here. when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease.
- Aurornis 2y ago> like someone mentioned in a separate comment, you are conflating disease with disability here. when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease. This girl's disease was a genetic auditory neuropathy. They cured her genetic auditory neuropathy. Pedantic arguments about what it's called are missing the point. The person had a specific disease. It was cured.
- anthony__j 2y agoto you, this is a pedantic argument. but to millions of Deaf people in the US alone, this is a very important political point. for example, lots of Deaf people who prefer to live without cochlear implants face lots of pressure from people who consider deafness to be a "disease" to be "cured", when in fact, they feel their most authentic way of living to be something different. in this way, language is significant
- macksd 2y agoAnd people who do prefer to live with cochlear implants face pressure from the deaf community itself. You can't win. This was an achievement. A girl who probably saw this as a cure, saw success. Why can't we just be happy for her instead of detracting because others wouldn't make the same choice?
- wizzwizz4 2y ago18-month-olds don't usually have opinions on what does or doesn't count as a 'cure': that's a bit too abstract for most of them. Their parents can.
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- TeMPOraL 2y ago> when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease. Why not? We have some peculiar cultural memes related to accepting the inevitable end of life, which we perhaps should revisit. I see no reason to not consider aging itself as a slow-burn disease, one we'll hopefully cure at some point too.
- xhevahir 2y ago"Peculiar cultural memes" is an odd way of describing a piece of advice that one encounters so frequently in cultures the world over.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoWell, peculiar now, given the understanding of biology we gained over the last 70-ish years. Individually, it still makes sense, but at social level, it stops us from working on fixing the problem.
- s_dev 2y agoYes but the arthritis or whatnot that causes the impairment is a disease.