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The cochlear implant question

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Re: The cochlear implant question

#101

Post by snakeyjake »

Three years ago I paid $47k for my deaf nephew to get implants because his fully-insured deaf parents wouldn't pay for them. Not $47k just the out of pocket ($2k-3k-ish). I paid $47k and I got a deal because it was cash.

They wanted him to live in and embrace the "deaf world".

He wanted to live in the actual real world.

They ended up nearly irreparably fucking up his life and denying him the only thing that he wanted so when he turned 18 instead of buying a new car I bought a surgery because crying children piss me off.

There is no deaf world.

There is only the world.

This entire debate is insane.

Nobody is going around telling pediatric biliary atresia patients to not get a liver transplant because of "not having a functioning liver" culture. There are an infinite multitude of analogous situations where an "x" culture or "x" world would be considered direct evidence of mental illness or cult behavior but due to the inertia of history here we are.

edit: Maybe I should have not gotten a spinal fusion because of the rich tapestry and long history of "living in constant excruciating pain due to degenerative disc disease" culture?

Re: The cochlear implant question

#102

Post by sethjgore »

zie wrote: post #53
throw894389 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My deaf coworker does not even know sign language, she uses phone for everything. She lives perfectly normal life. Entire office is not going to learn new language, just to speak with an odd deaf person. And communicating specialized stuff like technical programming is not possible, gestures only cover basic words.

When I sign with other deaf programmers, we don't have trouble communicating with signs, even about technical programming. When I go to the doctor's office and someone interprets for me, I don't have trouble understanding the doctor. Please don't speak so assuredly about things you clearly don't understand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language I agree with the 1st sentence however. You don't have to know sign…

Been looking to connect with other signing engineers deaf or not! Seems you are one and you know others as well! Would love to connect. Dm me at contact at signsnap.me

Re: The cochlear implant question

#103

Post by throwawayk7h »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #90
James_K wrote: post #47

I feel like the narrative around disabled people has advanced to the point where some now insist that they aren't disabled. In reality, it's a pretty objective fact that being disabled means being unable to do something. It is a net negative on someone's quality of life. I'd be jolly pissed off if my parent decided not to get me an implant that enabled me to hear just because someone had told them that being deaf was…

> being deaf was actually the same as being able to hear. That's not even close to the argument being presented. The fundamental crisis within the deaf community is around the fact that deaf people share a common language . This is very different than most other disabled communities. Language is fundamental to shared culture. To be clear, I'm not saying that deaf children should not be given cochlear implants, but th…

If I understand correctly, what you're saying is that the tradeoff is whether or not for the child to have the disability but along with it the opportunity to gain a close-knit and supportive community with a shared language.

(Although, given the child will continue to need a cochlear implant or similar device, they'll still be disabled either way, and nothing is stopping them from learning sign language too.)

Re: The cochlear implant question

#104

Post by throwawayk7h »

jonathanlb wrote: post #99
jl6 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultures come and go, arising from circumstances that can change. Does preservation of a living culture take priority over the wellbeing of its members? Perhaps a culture is something that can be decommissioned humanely.

> Does preservation of a living culture take priority over the wellbeing of its members? Perhaps a culture is something that can be decommissioned humanely. This is problematic. Who, but the members of a living culture, can determine any of these questions? My understanding is that most cultures are self-preserving, until they aren't, usually through conquest or other external forms of eradication.

When can the child be considered part of that culture though? They may be deaf, but when do they become capital-D Deaf as defined in the article? Is it while in the womb, when they're born, when they gain the capacity for signing and potentially speech, or when they are first introduced to members of the Deaf community?

I don't see the problematic aspect of "curing" the child's deafness before they become a member of the Deaf community. It's not removing someone from the Deaf community. Deontologically, it ought to be fine, surely? (I'm looking at this deontologically, because from a utilitarian perspective, we should be asking what is the correct percentage of otherwise non-deaf children we should surgically make Deaf.)

Re: The cochlear implant question

#105

Post by giraffe_lady »

jl6 wrote: post #97
crystal_revenge wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being deaf was actually the same as being able to hear. That's not even close to the argument being presented. The fundamental crisis within the deaf community is around the fact that deaf people share a common language . This is very different than most other disabled communities. Language is fundamental to shared culture. To be clear, I'm not saying that deaf children should not be given cochlear implants, but th…

Cultures come and go, arising from circumstances that can change. Does preservation of a living culture take priority over the wellbeing of its members? Perhaps a culture is something that can be decommissioned humanely.

We need to decommission the culture of this website that makes straightforward eugenics a popular position here.

Re: The cochlear implant question

#106

Post by giraffe_lady »

James_K wrote: post #83
lsy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In reality, it's a pretty objective fact that being disabled means being unable to do something. This isn't an argument for or against the comment or the OP, but this is not universally seen as objective, and there are more ways to think about this than the medical model where there are "normal" people and that disabilities are deviations from what is "normal". Many disabled people and experts on disability see it…

> we shy away from encouraging conversion therapy or height extension surgery by default Because these things are dangerous and ineffective. You can point to clear negative consequences that come from doing them at a mass scale. Again, I go back to the idea of "different, not worse". Being gay is not the absence of straightness, and being short is not the absence of tallness. But being deaf is the absence of hearing.…

Are people who wear glasses disabled? They have an impairment that can prevent them from full participation in work, family, social life. But they also have an accessible accommodation that mitigates most of the practical consequences of their impairment.

The impairment doesn't go away, but the extent to which is it disabling is a function of the individual's relationship to society. Two people with the same impairment can have different degrees of disability based on accommodation. We can both have bad vision but if I can afford glasses and you can't, only one of us is disabled by it.

This is the social model of disability, it's a well established framework that has had immense practical value in the medical treatment of a huge range of disability, including adhd and hearing loss. It's so so shitty to dismiss it as "they are wrong" when you clearly don't even know the absolute basics of the history and practice of this field.

Re: The cochlear implant question

#107

Post by h0l0cube »

jl6 wrote: post #97
crystal_revenge wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being deaf was actually the same as being able to hear. That's not even close to the argument being presented. The fundamental crisis within the deaf community is around the fact that deaf people share a common language . This is very different than most other disabled communities. Language is fundamental to shared culture. To be clear, I'm not saying that deaf children should not be given cochlear implants, but th…

Cultures come and go, arising from circumstances that can change. Does preservation of a living culture take priority over the wellbeing of its members? Perhaps a culture is something that can be decommissioned humanely.

Species come and go. Should we be concerned about the existential threat to species such as homo sapiens? Why should we limit ourselves in the present day to protect our biosphere? Everything is inescapably transient after all?

Nihilism is perfectly fine as a philosophical argument, but few would support it in practice

Re: The cochlear implant question

#108

Post by cassepipe »

James_K wrote: post #47

I feel like the narrative around disabled people has advanced to the point where some now insist that they aren't disabled. In reality, it's a pretty objective fact that being disabled means being unable to do something. It is a net negative on someone's quality of life. I'd be jolly pissed off if my parent decided not to get me an implant that enabled me to hear just because someone had told them that being deaf was…

I would like to recommend this book on the issue :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigma:_Notes_on_the_Managemen...

It shows quite well the tension between normality and the need for a community IIRC

Re: The cochlear implant question

#109

Post by h0l0cube »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #105
jl6 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultures come and go, arising from circumstances that can change. Does preservation of a living culture take priority over the wellbeing of its members? Perhaps a culture is something that can be decommissioned humanely.

We need to decommission the culture of this website that makes straightforward eugenics a popular position here.

Utility monsters are definitely overrepresented here. But it’s just a consequence of intellectual discussion that all ideas are entertained, no matter how perverse. But that shouldn’t be absent any reflection of how these ideas would affect real peoples’ lives. Especially in tech circles where there can be a large potential to affect many lives

Re: The cochlear implant question

#110

Post by mannykannot »

evilduck wrote: post #86
mannykannot wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A non-trivial part of our artificial world is designed on the tacit assumption that listening to spoken language is what we do.

The world was dark half the day for much of human history. Communicating in the dark is clearly easier with noise than signing or passing tactile writing around. It's not like we just invented noise for the fun of it, it's just a better medium in most situations.

Well, most of human activity, then and now, is conducted in a lighted environment. Regardless, it is not clear to me how the reasons for vocal/aural communication arising as the dominant mode is at all relevant here.
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