Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

sightlessscribbles.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 217 posts

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#11

Post by TulliusCicero »

calcifer wrote: post #2

> I don’t need a stair-climbing wheelchair that costs $30,000 and requires a maintenance crew. I need better doorknobs and/or a ramp. But a ramp is boring. You can't make investors have a hard on for a ramp that doesn't connect to the cloud. You can’t give a TED Talk about a ramp. You can’t get venture capital funding for a slightly wider doorframe.

It's a really cynical way to attack people who are at least sort of trying to help.

And obviously the inventions of "a ramp" and "slightly wider door" already exist; those aren't a matter of invention, they're a matter of regulations and enforcement.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#12

Post by chowells »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #9
scottlamb wrote: post #7

The author is seeing that it's easier for one team to get backing (VC money, course credit, design awards, TED talk applause, etc.) for "solving" an accessibility problem than for us to enforce that entire industries follow good accessibility practices in new work and retrofit existing work. In theory industry-wide enforcement is the sort of thing legislation like the ADA solves, but obviously that hasn't been comple…

Yeah, it kinda feels like a banal thing to hate on. "They're only doing this because it's easier to create a prototype invention than to redo all design standards and enforcement in the country!" I mean, yeah? What exactly is the implied alternative for the sort of individuals targeted by the blog post?

The expressed (not implied) alternative in the post is for those people to stop pretending they care, and start actually caring. Stop trying to save the world. The world doesn't need an invention to save it. Just put that energy into caring about others.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#13

Post by ggreer »

I thought the idea behind exoskeletons and fancy wheelchairs was that they allow handicapped people to go more places, not to substitute for better infrastructure. I haven't seen any of the companies behind these devices claim that they make such improvements obsolete. And as the post mentions, such infrastructure is useful for anyone with luggage, a stroller, or a hand truck.

And yes, the cost of such devices is high today, but that's true of any new technology. The first print reading devices were huge machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Now the technology is free on your phone. Early hearing aids were bulky, expensive, and not much better than an ear horn. Now they're affordable, compact, and have handy features like bluetooth connectivity. My guess is that most of these prototypes will fizzle and go nowhere, but some will succeed, and the lives of disabled people will be improved by them.

Edit: Pangram says the entire post is written by AI. I've flagged it for misrepresenting the author. https://www.pangram.com/history/06093378-dcca-42d8-b683-5ed7...

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#14

Post by collinmcnulty »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #9
scottlamb wrote: post #7

The author is seeing that it's easier for one team to get backing (VC money, course credit, design awards, TED talk applause, etc.) for "solving" an accessibility problem than for us to enforce that entire industries follow good accessibility practices in new work and retrofit existing work. In theory industry-wide enforcement is the sort of thing legislation like the ADA solves, but obviously that hasn't been comple…

Yeah, it kinda feels like a banal thing to hate on. "They're only doing this because it's easier to create a prototype invention than to redo all design standards and enforcement in the country!" I mean, yeah? What exactly is the implied alternative for the sort of individuals targeted by the blog post?

The video of the prototype invention has the effect of making people think they don't need to be concerned about ramps and doorknobs and ADA enforcement because some teen in a garage has just solved this problem forever. People who need accommodations also require the political support of able-bodied people in order to actually make change happen, and his argument is that these videos dissipate that support.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#15

Post by TulliusCicero »

chowells wrote: post #12
TulliusCicero wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it kinda feels like a banal thing to hate on. "They're only doing this because it's easier to create a prototype invention than to redo all design standards and enforcement in the country!" I mean, yeah? What exactly is the implied alternative for the sort of individuals targeted by the blog post?

The expressed (not implied) alternative in the post is for those people to stop pretending they care, and start actually caring. Stop trying to save the world. The world doesn't need an invention to save it. Just put that energy into caring about others.

People do care, but there are so many problems in the world, and only so much caring to go around.

It's extremely cynical to view it as "people pretend to care", rather than looking around and realizing there's a ton of important problems out there that the caring is distributed over. People care about disabilities, but they also care about war, about public schooling, about the environment, about feminism, about animal rights, about transparency in government, about road safety, about child well-being, about unemployment, and so on. All of these are important things, and of course there are dozens more that I haven't listed.

And inventions are sometimes actually useful. Sure, most of those prototypes will go nowhere, but every once in a while something that really helps is invented. And you can't predict in advance only the ones that will actually go on to help.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#16

Post by TulliusCicero »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #14
TulliusCicero wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it kinda feels like a banal thing to hate on. "They're only doing this because it's easier to create a prototype invention than to redo all design standards and enforcement in the country!" I mean, yeah? What exactly is the implied alternative for the sort of individuals targeted by the blog post?

The video of the prototype invention has the effect of making people think they don't need to be concerned about ramps and doorknobs and ADA enforcement because some teen in a garage has just solved this problem forever. People who need accommodations also require the political support of able-bodied people in order to actually make change happen, and his argument is that these videos dissipate that support.

> his argument is that these videos dissipate that support.

That seems like a major stretch. Really feels like letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here, like saying that a video about improved airbags means that nobody will care about safer road design anymore.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#17

Post by Hugsbox »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #5

I have a buddy who did his Human Factors PHd at wright state/wright patt nearly 15 years ago. "Tech people" have a lot of lies they believe, about disabilities, about valid addresses, everything. When he told me that schools for the blind train their student to fact check things like directions and not simply rely on a single source while navigating new terrain it clicked for me that the sighted have no clue and symp…

Look no further than some of the comments on this very post.

Instead of trying to refute the OP, maybe people should listen to what he's saying.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#18

Post by scottlamb »

chowells wrote: post #12
TulliusCicero wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it kinda feels like a banal thing to hate on. "They're only doing this because it's easier to create a prototype invention than to redo all design standards and enforcement in the country!" I mean, yeah? What exactly is the implied alternative for the sort of individuals targeted by the blog post?

The expressed (not implied) alternative in the post is for those people to stop pretending they care, and start actually caring. Stop trying to save the world. The world doesn't need an invention to save it. Just put that energy into caring about others.

Some people actually care, but they can't always win the battle at their own companies when there are other priorities, much less go fix all the other websites, pour concrete at other businesses, etc. Is the solution for everyone to care? If, so how do you accomplish that? ("Americans with Disability Act" v2?)

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#19

Post by thereisnospork »

watwut wrote: post #10
TulliusCicero wrote: post #6

While I can understand the frustration and the author makes some good points, a lot of the anger feels oddly misplaced. Yes, engineer types want to solve problems with inventions rather than overhauling the entire nation's infrastructure. Maybe, just maybe, that's because inventing something is actually within their grasp, whereas wholesale replacing every civil engineer and architect in the country isn't? Or replaci…

Many "engineer types" will gladly care about doorknobs and infrastructure details. There is ideological opposition against from business types and some other tech types. > it's not the tech companies' fault that it's perennially underfunded, it's politicians and the voters who put them there. Tech companies pushed for exactly that outcome and spent a lot on lobbying and convincing. We totally can blame them for it.

How are Tech companies fighting public transit? At least in these parts a relatively high fraction of their employees commute by (private) bus.

I can only presume that Tech companies would prefer the government provide safe, clean, and timely bussing for the public to save the company the cost and effort.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#20

Post by nancyminusone »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #6

While I can understand the frustration and the author makes some good points, a lot of the anger feels oddly misplaced. Yes, engineer types want to solve problems with inventions rather than overhauling the entire nation's infrastructure. Maybe, just maybe, that's because inventing something is actually within their grasp, whereas wholesale replacing every civil engineer and architect in the country isn't? Or replaci…

I quite enjoy playing with robots, but I'd rather coordinate the design and installation of 1000 ramps than be involved with one walking liability sedan chair. If you care about results and reliability, no shit a competent engineer will be picking the one that has no moving parts and a 10,000 year track record.
Post reply on HN