Why Are Spaces in Science Fiction Not Wheelchair-Accessible? | Hacker News Reader

Why Are Spaces in Science Fiction Not Wheelchair-Accessible?

io9.gizmodo.com

10 pointsdevy16 comments

I spent about 15-16 years designing, building, and installing accessibility devices from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s and while I get the point of the article I think it almost completely ignores how much progress has been made over the past 40 years.

I've seen mandatory curb cuts and wheelchair ramps, elevators for homes and offices, the huge advancements in electric wheelchairs with joystick controller that progressed from 8 directions and two speeds to variable controllers that provide fine grained progressive speed and directional controls and up to 30 miles of range, vehicles retrofitted with power wheelchair lifts and automatic door openers, hand controls for throttle and brakes, and advanced driving systems that C4-C5 quadriplegics can safely drive by themselves, all of it during just those years.

And, of course, the passing of the "ADA" (Americans with Disabilities Act) was enacted during that timeframe and had, and still has, a huge impact everyday on the real life mobility and inclusion for all those in wheelchairs.

I can certainly understand how someone who's recently been required to use a wheelchair to get around suddenly realizes how many obstacles there are for those in wheelchairs, but I'd have to point out to them how far we've come in the past few decades and how many have good people I've worked with who dedicated years of their lives to increasing both mobility and accessibility to get where we are today.

Those I worked with back then are still my heroes.

I had a driving instructor once who used one of those hand controls for driving. It was set beneath the steering wheel and when I operated the vehicle I didn't notice it at a all. Looking back, it feels kind of incredible and wonderful that we have the means to design devices to be operated in many different ways.

Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included.)

This is something that's worthy a debate. My ableist bias is likely showing here, as I don't think I can just outright agree with this statement.

At the same time, our inability "to fix" (for better or worse) many of the existing conditions means this societal position might actually be a preferred one, in order to make everyone feel welcome and inclusive (included?). This sentence truly captures a personal dilemma for me.

"not just welcomed but fully included"

I have seen this on a small scale. As I said above, I worked with those in wheelchairs for around 15 years. The small group of people I worked with that were able bodied all became so familiar with so many handicapped people that when they were with us they were "fully included".

It became a natural reflex for us to open a door or lend assistance when eating a meal, etc. And for those who came to us fresh out of "rehab" we learned how to help them realize their abilities. Driving a vehicle was often far beyond what they imagined they could do when they came out of rehab and for good reason. Many of them couldn't pick up a cup to take a sip of coffee, for example, and we were teaching them how to drive a big Ford Van all by themselves.

But, in the larger population that kind of close interaction is rare and there will always be apprehension in some because they just don't know what adjustments they need to make to accommodate disabilities. The easiest thing to do is offer "If you need anything let me know".

Let's talk about ankyloglossia, the condition of being tongue-tied. If left untreated, the child may have moderate speech impediment. Standard procedure is minor surgery to correct the deformity.

Is a society unethical when it decides to fix such problems? Or should the child, as the author suggests, "embrace disabled life"?

I'm honestly not sure.

> Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved

Both wheelchairs and wheelchair accessible features are technological solutions to particular disabilities, so using this line to demand that SciFi should be frozen in a late 20th to early 21st century state of technological state of approach to disability—retaining both wheelchairs and accommodations for them—but a more perfect compliance with current aspirational norms with regard to deployment of that technology seems fantastically clueless.

Despite the denial, the piece is explicitly looking for a utopia where disability like his is solved, and solved in the exact way that current laws aim to solve it for the near term.

Any utopia where you are constrained by the limits of the physical world suddenly looks a lot less peachy. That includes the vast majority of them because any physical construct is fundamentally constrained.

There's two main suggestions in science-fiction. Utility Fog and Uploading. The one with the hardest limits to reach is the second one. It has them all the same. Nevertheless, both allow for a degree of ability to disregard your world's limitations.

The awareness of incapacity due to physical or other limitations is part of normal disillusionment and disappointment with reality.

More variation will not lead to some magical environment that works for all. If one gets oneself modified to survive unaided on say... Mars or Europa, there's significant chances one is not easily compatible with other environments.

tl;dr physical reality sucks, virtualize all the things

Medical science in Science-Fiction has progressed so much that requiring a wheelchair is as likely as rubbing two sticks together for producing energy. And stairs are always much more pleasant than ramps, so will be around long after ramps have been relegated to the realm of buggy-whips.

"stairs are always much more pleasant than ramps"

They are? I acknowledge they take up less space.

Perhaps it is just an oversight? Science fiction writers aren't perfect.

That's a fair assumption.

I asked a friend of mine who's a Sci-fi enthusiast. He said ' I think SF creators have the unspoken idea that there will be no such thing "in the future"...'

The author of the linked article addresses that: "Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included."

I showed that to my friend and he didn't really respond to it. I was kind of hoping to get more from him on the subject but he seems reluctant to explore it.

The truth is, most people don't have close contact with people who have disabilities. It's not something we deal with or think about on a daily basis so I suspect that an author who's not close to anyone disabled isn't likely to ponder how a disabled character might fit into a story.

I think if one did ponder it they might find some very interesting avenues to follow, and if this opinion piece sparks some thought along those lines that's a good thing. But my attempt to discuss it with my buddy didn't reveal much curiosity for exploring it.

Hardcode sci-fi fans tend to view opinions by casual consumers of the genre (like me) as an annoyance so I don't push too hard to discuss it with them.

"I asked a friend of mine who's a Sci-fi enthusiast. He said ' I think SF creators have the unspoken idea that there will be no such thing "in the future"...'"

I don't see what justifies a generalization that SF authors generally ignore disabilities. Without doing a large survey, or a statistical analysis, there's an influential story by one of the most famous SF authors that comes instantly to mind, and it was written 3/4 of a century ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_(short_story)

Heinlein also wrote multiple stories with blind main characters.

Granted, I haven't read much SF in the last 20 years, so maybe they stopped writing about disabilities.

> The author of the linked article addresses that: "Contrary to ableist opinion, a utopia is not a world where disability is a problem that’s been solved; rather, it’s an inevitable expression of genetic variance, and disabled humans are not just welcomed but fully included."

How ridiculous. As someone with a disability and having spent much time around others with various physical disabilities, I would jolly well hope that the the problem's been solved in the SF future and we'd sure as hell be the first in line to get fixed if treatments were available.

Yes, most of us disabled are 100% "ableist" because having a disability is, unsurprisingly, rather difficult and unpleasant.

I don’t see how it would add anything interesting to the narrative unless that was the focus of the story. At best it would come off as white noise, like most world building details.

Wasn't the main character in Avatar a wheelchair user?

If your science fiction universe has widespread magical healing devices like bacta tanks that can completely regrow body parts, or advanced robotics for prostheses, or genetic engineering and cloning, then disability is likely to be pushed to the poverty-stricken fringes of society. And that's fairly common in sci-fi, increasing the more dystopian it is.

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