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Take your stand to other disabilities. Should we in fact thell them "is it illegal to build a sidewalk to benefit much of humanity, without also expending addi

Take your stand to other disabilities. Should we in fact thell them "is it illegal to build a sidewalk to benefit much of humanity, without also expending additional effort to benefit the part of humanity that requires of wheelchairs"? I think we should, because I think people with disability have the same right to move or to learn than I do. And accommodating to them is important.

markdown 12y ago
Do you know a disabled parent who says their non-disabled child shouldn't be provided an education unless they themselves also have access? All those countless millions living in near poverty in Africa and Asia and in that dingy corner of your city you never drive through... do you deprive them of a leg up in life just because you don't get closed captions?
stolio 12y ago
Sidewalks are infrastructure. Free online courses from MIT are not. They're a luxury.
- chucksmart 12y ago
  Some of these courses have "certificates" awarded for fees; and said certificates are the entry point to some businesses; just like the steep steps in front of the building.
  - hga 12y ago
    And if you read the PR release carefully, no where does it specifically say one of those courses isn't properly captioned. The examples it gives of non- or poorly captioned items aren't even courses at all (http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimination-public-online-content http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... which is a really nasty piece of work). Without looking at the lawsuit (waiting for lawyers like the Instapundit to tear into it, he's big on non-traditional learning like this), I suspect the mention of MOOCs is bullshit, confounding perhaps a MIT Open CourseWare (OCW) offering with the edX ones you're talking about, which others in this discussion have ensured us are properly treated.
    - aldordeah 12y ago
      I am deaf and I specifically remember about MIT OCW from a couple years ago that, whenever I found something that seemed interesting and had video lectures available, the lectures didn't even have a transcript, much less captions. I went to their website again and literally the first course I picked lacked captions,[1] unless you count the YouTube-generated "love with a system age to have an with a system" as captions. It wasn't very hard to find another seemingly interesting course that doesn't have captions either.[2] Admittedly, after further inspection, more courses seem to have captions than before. [1]: http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-008-digital-signal-processing-spring-2011/video-lectures/lecture-2-discrete-time-signals-and-systems-part-1/ http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-008-digital-signal-proces... [2]: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-851-effective-field-theory-spring-2013/video-lectures/lecture-3-field-redefinitions/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-851-effective-field-the...
      - hga 12y ago
        For better or worse, OCW's remit was to publish materials about MIT's courses that would be useful to other teachers. Anything beyond that, like what you tried to do, is gravy. Now if edX, contrary to everything we've heard in this discussion, doesn't do the right thing, they have a much stronger case. But that's not the case they're making in the PR thuggery, and I thank you for confirming one part of what I suspected. And just to be crystal clear, OCW is pretty much out of money and mandate, it's mostly in maintenance mode (already past its budgeted life, now begging for cash). The best outcome of this is that such lectures will be picked up by edX and properly captioned. The more likely one is that they'll be pulled altogether, although we hope copies will be captured before that happens. Is a dog in the manger outcome one you favor?
    - fpgeek 12y ago
      I took a look at the press release. At the top it I found: "Sorry, you need to install flash to see this content." I understand how that happens, but, given the subject of the lawsuit, it's still very ironic.
- justcommenting 12y ago
  so access to knowledge--most of which, it's worth noting, is massively subsidized by taxpayers in the form of grants and related overhead--is a luxury good? that's not a world i want to live in; access to knowledge is foundational infrastructure.
  - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
    Considering that the course materials in question used to only be accessible to a very small subset of very smart people who happen to have a very large money to afford tuition at MIT/Harvard, yes, that particular material is a luxury good.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - threatofrain 12y ago
      The legal implications go to many schools, so I don't think we're talking about luxury in the context of two elite schools. I think we're talking about the inclusion of minority populations in publicly funded institutions of education, and just how much we want them in our society. Perhaps we do, perhaps we don't, perhaps it's somewhere midway.
      - growupkids 12y ago
        Neither MIT nor Harvard are public schools, they are both private.
        wnoise 12y ago
        They both takes tons of government money (admittedly, for research, rather than teaching.)
        pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        Doesn't that parenthetical comment destroy the rest of the [small sub-]argument: because you paid someone for doing research doesn't mean that if they decide to make something else free to access that you have a right to make further demands of them. If central government just gave them a stipend and didn't specify the projects it was to be used on then the argument you're supporting would perhaps have some mileage; but it's payment for a specific service. If the schools aren't making their research centres accessible or are unnecessarily excluding disabled people [from research related tasks/benefits/etc.] then, yes, this argument would be valid.
coldtea 12y ago
>Should we in fact thell them "is it illegal to build a sidewalk to benefit much of humanity, without also expending additional effort to benefit the part of humanity that requires of wheelchairs"? If it makes it easier to have a sidewalk that would still benefit the vast majority built, sure.

markdown 12y ago

Do you know a disabled parent who says their non-disabled child shouldn't be provided an education unless they themselves also have access? All those countless millions living in near poverty in Africa and Asia and in that dingy corner of your city you never drive through... do you deprive them of a leg up in life just because you don't get closed captions?

stolio 12y ago

Sidewalks are infrastructure. Free online courses from MIT are not. They're a luxury.

chucksmart 12y ago
Some of these courses have "certificates" awarded for fees; and said certificates are the entry point to some businesses; just like the steep steps in front of the building.
- hga 12y ago
  And if you read the PR release carefully, no where does it specifically say one of those courses isn't properly captioned. The examples it gives of non- or poorly captioned items aren't even courses at all (http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimination-public-online-content http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... which is a really nasty piece of work). Without looking at the lawsuit (waiting for lawyers like the Instapundit to tear into it, he's big on non-traditional learning like this), I suspect the mention of MOOCs is bullshit, confounding perhaps a MIT Open CourseWare (OCW) offering with the edX ones you're talking about, which others in this discussion have ensured us are properly treated.
  - aldordeah 12y ago
    I am deaf and I specifically remember about MIT OCW from a couple years ago that, whenever I found something that seemed interesting and had video lectures available, the lectures didn't even have a transcript, much less captions. I went to their website again and literally the first course I picked lacked captions,[1] unless you count the YouTube-generated "love with a system age to have an with a system" as captions. It wasn't very hard to find another seemingly interesting course that doesn't have captions either.[2] Admittedly, after further inspection, more courses seem to have captions than before. [1]: http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-008-digital-signal-processing-spring-2011/video-lectures/lecture-2-discrete-time-signals-and-systems-part-1/ http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-008-digital-signal-proces... [2]: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-851-effective-field-theory-spring-2013/video-lectures/lecture-3-field-redefinitions/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-851-effective-field-the...
    - hga 12y ago
      For better or worse, OCW's remit was to publish materials about MIT's courses that would be useful to other teachers. Anything beyond that, like what you tried to do, is gravy. Now if edX, contrary to everything we've heard in this discussion, doesn't do the right thing, they have a much stronger case. But that's not the case they're making in the PR thuggery, and I thank you for confirming one part of what I suspected. And just to be crystal clear, OCW is pretty much out of money and mandate, it's mostly in maintenance mode (already past its budgeted life, now begging for cash). The best outcome of this is that such lectures will be picked up by edX and properly captioned. The more likely one is that they'll be pulled altogether, although we hope copies will be captured before that happens. Is a dog in the manger outcome one you favor?
  - fpgeek 12y ago
    I took a look at the press release. At the top it I found: "Sorry, you need to install flash to see this content." I understand how that happens, but, given the subject of the lawsuit, it's still very ironic.
justcommenting 12y ago
so access to knowledge--most of which, it's worth noting, is massively subsidized by taxpayers in the form of grants and related overhead--is a luxury good? that's not a world i want to live in; access to knowledge is foundational infrastructure.
- A_COMPUTER 12y ago
  Considering that the course materials in question used to only be accessible to a very small subset of very smart people who happen to have a very large money to afford tuition at MIT/Harvard, yes, that particular material is a luxury good.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - threatofrain 12y ago
    The legal implications go to many schools, so I don't think we're talking about luxury in the context of two elite schools. I think we're talking about the inclusion of minority populations in publicly funded institutions of education, and just how much we want them in our society. Perhaps we do, perhaps we don't, perhaps it's somewhere midway.
    - growupkids 12y ago
      Neither MIT nor Harvard are public schools, they are both private.
      - wnoise 12y ago
        They both takes tons of government money (admittedly, for research, rather than teaching.)
        pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        Doesn't that parenthetical comment destroy the rest of the [small sub-]argument: because you paid someone for doing research doesn't mean that if they decide to make something else free to access that you have a right to make further demands of them. If central government just gave them a stipend and didn't specify the projects it was to be used on then the argument you're supporting would perhaps have some mileage; but it's payment for a specific service. If the schools aren't making their research centres accessible or are unnecessarily excluding disabled people [from research related tasks/benefits/etc.] then, yes, this argument would be valid.

coldtea 12y ago

>Should we in fact thell them "is it illegal to build a sidewalk to benefit much of humanity, without also expending additional effort to benefit the part of humanity that requires of wheelchairs"? If it makes it easier to have a sidewalk that would still benefit the vast majority built, sure.