Re: If there would be a way for getting your sight back, would you do it?
so you want to get somewhere. like another state, or something. or you just want to have a quiet weekend alone. train and bus aren't available. so you have 2 choices. 1) you fly, which you can't afford. 2) you simply don't go to have a weekend alone. 3) if you're sighted, you grab your keys, go to the nearest gas station, fill up the tank, and off you go. in fact, if we're speaking of fishing/camping, you literally can't get there without help. and it's not that some of us can't, it's that we don't want to ask for help. there's nothing wrong with not wanting sight back, or not noticing the limitations of blindness, but claiming that they are not there is just simply wrong. I mean, I do admit that almost the only things I miss about not having sight are driving, and the ability to miss nature. I can do more or less everything else that a sighted can. but independence, and freedom, I miss it, there is no day that passes by, when I don't wish it. I think not having any blind person near by, none that I ever hung out with, only having purely sighted is partly why I feel this way. and this is me, apologies if I just want what many people have.
Yeah, this is the real one, but I think it's a lot more context-dependent than we're making it out to be.
I bring up again that cars and computers are young enough that people who predate the spread of both are still alive. And yet, in spite of that, it seems extraordinarily likely that being blind 100 years ago was more limiting than it is today, and 200 years ago even more so.
Let's consider the world where cars are not an issue: either autonomous vehicles caught on and are 100% accessible, or you live on some really nice island with all the environments you'd normally want to take aacar to in easy walking distance from train stations.
Assume that this island somehow has Amazon, and so you don't have to go ask a stranger to help you find embarrassing health products at a store.
Now what?
Because something tells me this scenario would change no one's mind, as described.
Oh, I agree that the fact that Joe Shmoe can drive for a couple hours and reach some place I wouldn't mind going, and I can't, is rather unpleasant. But Joe Shmoe couldn't do that in 1900, and blind people were still overwhelmingly downtrodden in 1900. The NFB didn't exist back then (IDK about the RNIB).
There were still things missing, like art and eye contact. I don't remember either of those coming up in this discussion, though. It always comes back to either independence, or awful people being awful in a way they wouldn't be toward a sighted person.
In a world where driving was a non-issue, and sighted people treated you like a human being with actual value, what would be your motivation? How strong do you think that motivation would be in this scenario?
Would it make a difference if you were the only blind person around, vs if you could easily find a dozen on short notice?
I'm not saying that blindness isn't, by definition, the lack of a sense, or that lacking that sense isn't limiting or disadvantageous in any way.
I'm asking what limitations and disadvantages, specifically, make it so horrible for so many?
And why were blind people worse off when hardly any ubiquitous technology was inherently visual?
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