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Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

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Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#21

Post by crooked-v »

BeetleB wrote: post #20
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few things that make me angrier than trying to hold back cures for deafness because of "cultural erasure" or whatever the phrasing is. It is utterly reprehensible. To try to keep someone disabled (yes - disabled, not "differently abled", they are objectively lacking a capability that a healthy human has) just so that there are more people in your community is objectively evil in my book. It is directly doin…

Sorry, but they are differently abled. Their brains and perceptions are different from people who can hear. You are assuming that those differences are all negatives. They do not believe that to be the case. Many people here self-diagnose as Asperger's. Can you not see why they would not want a "cure"? Being an extrovert objectively gives you great advantages in (most) societies. As an introverted parent, I would def…

As someone who's on the autism spectrum, I think there's an immense qualitative and quantitative difference between someone's brain working differently and the straightforward presence or lack of a specific physical capability.

I'd still be cautious because there's the long-running tendency for any kind of 'cure' for anything inheritable to be used as a eugenics bludgeon, but that's about society rather than the direct effects.

Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#22

Post by MintPaw »

retrac wrote: post #19
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few things that make me angrier than trying to hold back cures for deafness because of "cultural erasure" or whatever the phrasing is. It is utterly reprehensible. To try to keep someone disabled (yes - disabled, not "differently abled", they are objectively lacking a capability that a healthy human has) just so that there are more people in your community is objectively evil in my book. It is directly doin…

I said "not disabling", not that deafness is not a disability. Those two things mean different things to me. Obviously deaf people cannot hear. Not able. Dis-able. Deafness is a disability. But not all disabilities are generally disabling of individuals. The only disability that deafness causes is a lack of perception of sound. Hearing people have a panoply of inferences about what that means -- about how it disables…

I'm empathetic to this argument, but there needs to be some kind of differentiation between preserving culture and abuse for the sake of community. I can imagine the same argument applying to a cult with cruel traditions, or hazing in general.

Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#24

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #18
retrac wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controversial in the same way cochlear implants are. Many deaf/Deaf parents want children who hear. And I think absent the cultural consideration, almost all would want children who hear. But you can't ignore the cultural consideration. If you are deaf, and have a deaf child, curing that child's deafness means they will move away from you later in life. It's a kind of alienation even when the child remains bicultural…

There are few things that make me angrier than trying to hold back cures for deafness because of "cultural erasure" or whatever the phrasing is. It is utterly reprehensible. To try to keep someone disabled (yes - disabled, not "differently abled", they are objectively lacking a capability that a healthy human has) just so that there are more people in your community is objectively evil in my book. It is directly doin…

There are few things that make me angrier than people who have very strong opinions on subjects they have only just become aware of.

Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#25

Post by rfrey »

retrac wrote: post #16
d0100 wrote: post #4

Anyone from the deaf community that can tell us how these kind of news are received? I wonder how this compares to animosity towards coclear implants by a subsection of the community

Controversial in the same way cochlear implants are. Many deaf/Deaf parents want children who hear. And I think absent the cultural consideration, almost all would want children who hear. But you can't ignore the cultural consideration. If you are deaf, and have a deaf child, curing that child's deafness means they will move away from you later in life. It's a kind of alienation even when the child remains bicultural…

This is a super interesting comment, thank you. I am certainly guilty of believing the deaf experience is inferior to the hearing experience - but not because I think ASL is lesser than spoken languages or deficient as a communication channel. It's because deaf people don't hear music. I know people can dance to the beat and often distinguish songs by vibration patterns, but that is surely not equivalent to the emotional and intellectual experience most people can have listening to music.

Less important but similar: birdsong, the sound of crashing waves, children laughing in a playground. Hearing brings us much besides transfer of information.

On the other hand, from my brief number of ASL lessons (about a years worth taken as an adult in my mid 20s) the facial expressiveness inherent to ASL gives it something hearing people don't get in normal conversation. But to me that's a pretty small benefit compared to the things a deaf person is missing.

I'd respect anybody who chose not to get treated for themselves, but I think I'd be pretty judgy pretty quickly for anybody who tried to deny or dissuade anybody else from becoming hearing, including their children.

Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#26

Post by squigz »

retrac wrote: post #19
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few things that make me angrier than trying to hold back cures for deafness because of "cultural erasure" or whatever the phrasing is. It is utterly reprehensible. To try to keep someone disabled (yes - disabled, not "differently abled", they are objectively lacking a capability that a healthy human has) just so that there are more people in your community is objectively evil in my book. It is directly doin…

I said "not disabling", not that deafness is not a disability. Those two things mean different things to me. Obviously deaf people cannot hear. Not able. Dis-able. Deafness is a disability. But not all disabilities are generally disabling of individuals. The only disability that deafness causes is a lack of perception of sound. Hearing people have a panoply of inferences about what that means -- about how it disables…

I'm not deaf, so I don't know about the lived experiences of people who are. But I am extremely visually impaired, and if someone said something along these lines about being blind, I'd be... annoyed. Thankfully, people don't often say things they would about being deaf, about being blind, which I've always found a bit odd.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but are you basically saying that there's no real negative aspects inherent to being deaf, outside of those imposed by society?

Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#27

Post by vasusen »

d0100 wrote: post #4

Anyone from the deaf community that can tell us how these kind of news are received? I wonder how this compares to animosity towards coclear implants by a subsection of the community

I am not from the deaf community, but my son has severe hearing loss. I really look forward to a world where condition like his simply becomes fixable like bad teeth and he doesn't have to miss out on so many things.

Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#28

Post by squigz »

You know, whenever treatment for autism comes up, we get a lot of comments heavily suggesting curing autism is basically eugenics.

Why is it that some things are seen as a disability we should try to fix in our children, and others - which are in many ways just as debilitating - seen as some kind of beautiful part of humanity?

Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#29

Post by ezfe »

d0100 wrote: post #4

Anyone from the deaf community that can tell us how these kind of news are received? I wonder how this compares to animosity towards coclear implants by a subsection of the community

I have severe hearing loss and that animosity is so stupid.

My handicap is handled very well by my hearing aids and everyone should have that opportunity.

Re: Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

#30

Post by BeetleB »

crooked-v wrote: post #21
BeetleB wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but they are differently abled. Their brains and perceptions are different from people who can hear. You are assuming that those differences are all negatives. They do not believe that to be the case. Many people here self-diagnose as Asperger's. Can you not see why they would not want a "cure"? Being an extrovert objectively gives you great advantages in (most) societies. As an introverted parent, I would def…

As someone who's on the autism spectrum, I think there's an immense qualitative and quantitative difference between someone's brain working differently and the straightforward presence or lack of a specific physical capability. I'd still be cautious because there's the long-running tendency for any kind of 'cure' for anything inheritable to be used as a eugenics bludgeon, but that's about society rather than the dire…

> I think there's an immense qualitative and quantitative difference between someone's brain working differently and the straightforward presence or lack of a specific physical capability.

In this case, the lack of a specific physical ability results in that person's brain working differently.

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