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What it's like to go blind (2015)

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Re: What it's like to go blind (2015)

#3
Definitely not as bad as the author, but slowly losing quality of vision is a nightmare for me. I'm very sensitive to any kind of changes and ~4 years ago my eyesight began to rapidly decline. It's still in very low numbers, but it already affected the comfort of how I live. Without glasses everything is blurry and gives me nausea, with glasses I can see, but it's not the same as having perfect vision. Myopia + Presbyopia, 30yo. It's been ~8 months since last prescription and I already need it updated. Every morning putting on glasses make my eyes hurt for first half hour or so, getting used to "focusing distance" readjustment still. Some days eyes simply feel tired and refuse to focus, yet after doing all the tests, nothing extraordinary was found about my eye issues...

Sigh.

Re: What it's like to go blind (2015)

#4
I recently had a thought about LLMs and vision models.

Unlike ever before, the blind can now listen to a description of the world around them, with no other person required. The computer can just tell them what is around them.

I don't know if that's worth anything or would have too much hallucinated information, but it does seem worth exploring.

Re: What it's like to go blind (2015)

#6

Definitely not as bad as the author, but slowly losing quality of vision is a nightmare for me. I'm very sensitive to any kind of changes and ~4 years ago my eyesight began to rapidly decline. It's still in very low numbers, but it already affected the comfort of how I live. Without glasses everything is blurry and gives me nausea, with glasses I can see, but it's not the same as having perfect vision. Myopia + Presb…

Nothing to add except to say, sorry for your troubles - that must really suck :-/

Re: What it's like to go blind (2015)

#7

> Answer by Cristina Hartmann on Quora. This piece is an adaptation of Quora questions First time I’ve seen this

New monetization strategy, I presume ... I'm expecting a great deal of chatbot-style generated content to start flooding in and the timeframe for cashing in on it is pretty low.

Re: What it's like to go blind (2015)

#8
Milton was blind when he wrote Paradise Lost and left us a beautiful description at the start of Book 3:

Hail holy light, offspring of Heaven first-born,

Or of the Eternal Coeternal beam

May I express thee unblamed?

...but thou

Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;

So thick a drop serene hath quenched their Orbs,

Or dim suffusion veiled.

...as the wakeful Bird

Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid

Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year

Seasons return, but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of Even or Morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summer's Rose,

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

But cloud instead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and for the Book of knowledge fair

Presented with a Universal blank

Of Nature's works to me expunged and razed,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

So much the rather thou Celestial light

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers

Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Re: What it's like to go blind (2015)

#9
post #7

> Answer by Cristina Hartmann on Quora. This piece is an adaptation of Quora questions First time I’ve seen this

New monetization strategy, I presume ... I'm expecting a great deal of chatbot-style generated content to start flooding in and the timeframe for cashing in on it is pretty low.

The article is from 2015, so, not this article.

Perhaps I have been lucky, but I have seen far more accusations of using AI to generate writing than I have seen of obviously generated writing.

Re: What it's like to go blind (2015)

#10
> Knowing my vision would recede into near-nothingness helped me make certain life decisions, mostly for the positive. Having your choices winnowed down makes it easier to make a decision and be happy with it.

There is a great Ted talk and an okay book that was promoted by said talk - The Paradox of Choice, that heavily leaned into this idea. The more opportunities you have, the more you have opportunity loss. No choice is bad, but too many choices can also be bad.

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