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Comment by jlebar | Hacker News Reader

> But.. disability is abnormal and negative? How tortured of a definition of 'normal' must one use to make blindness normal? And I suspect if the author of that sentence were offered, say, $100,000 to undergo a painless but irreversible blinding surgery, they would very quickly admit blindness is a negative

As you can verify with some Googling, there are many Deaf people who choose not to undergo surgery to gain the ability to hear. (This isn't a universal preference by any means, but it's also not fringe.)

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Being deaf is an inherently negative aspect. You either have the ability to hear, or you do not. If you do not, it is a dis-ability. No one wants to lose an ability to do something.

Someone who lives an extensive period of time without an ability may have learned how to live without this ability. They learn to cope and affirm their life with its faults in their current state. Offering the ability they lost and have learned to live without may be declined because of the affirmation of their life as it is. It could be declined because the transition is uncomfortable as well. Either way, being deaf is still negative, they've just psychologically coped well.

If you had the choice, would you choose that your child be deaf or not? That you be deaf or not? If one isn't deaf, would they choose to become deaf or not? This entire argument results from academic nonsense that anyone outside that context can see through.

You might enjoy the book True Biz.

> No one wants to lose an ability to do something.

This is true, though strictly speaking there are people obsessed with the idea that they eg. have too many limbs and suffer body dysmorphia related to that. They often amputate their own limbs in an attempt to feel right.

I'll point out that if you can't hear by ~11 years old, you won't be able to understand language - even if you can hear later in life. So it is possible that you are reading stories of people who decide not to get the surgery because they know they won't get full function.

But music though

Deaf people dance to music all the time.

I’m aware.

You are simply wrong about this, that is not the cultural attitude that generates this response in something like 95%+ of cases.

Capital-D Deaf culture does not as a rule view their lack of hearing as a horrible wrong that needs to be corrected for them to live a “normal” life. They believe that they are living a normal life, and screw you for suggesting otherwise, and many would tell you that they do not want to speak your inferior language anyways, because it is broadly technically inferior due to its inherent one-dimensionality: you describe things with a scalar pressure varying with time only, their language describes things with motions in three dimensions of space as well as in time.

This means that in the 95% case, the dominant attitude is not “I’m afraid,” it's “those folks are assholes half the time, why would I want to join them if I don't have to?”. It's a cultural objection rather than a physiological one.

>those folks are assholes half the time, why would I want to join them if I don't have to?

"The grapes are sour anyway." I'd bet the rate of assholes among the deaf is probably about equal to the non-deaf.

> I'll point out that if you can't hear by ~11 years old, you won't be able to understand language

I don't know the specifics of this claim, so I won't talk about the argument that I assume you're trying to make. However, the argument you're actually making here is completely untrue. Almost all deaf people understand and can communicate through language. In fact, if you put a group of deaf people together for long enough, they may well spontaneously generate a language. Sign languages are real languages with almost all of the features of spoken languages (and with additional features of their own). The idea that someone can only understand "language" if they are and to hear is completely wrong.

I assume what you're trying to say is that if you can't hear by this age, you will not be able to decipher sounds into language - I have no idea if this is the case. But this is an important semantic distinction (understanding language versus understanding language from sounds alone), and the fact that you seem to have inadvertently confused them seems relevant to the issue at hand: it is very easy for us to accept spoken language as a universal standard, when in practice, spoken language is just one (more common) variant of many different forms of language.

Being on HN, I think it's fair(er?) to assume that the GP was aware that "language" can mean a standard of expression and communication that is not a spoken human language (maybe a programming language?), but also that it's fair(er?) to assume that they meant "spoken human language" too.

I'd be more interested in the source for their claim, than being pedantic about them missing "spoken" in where they clearly meant that.

What's the ratio of deaf people who choose to get cochlear implants or similar vs hearing people who choose to intentionally deafen themselves?

The entire point of this linguistic exercise is that your opinion that you would not give up your ability to hear is no more or less valid than someone's opinion to the contrary.

I think his question is asking for objective evidence that would suggest either.

Right. And I am saying, Deaf people, and other people who don't think they have a disability, are asking for us not to say that they do when they don't think they do. And the answer from some quarters seems to be, I think "objectivity" is on my side, screw your conception of your identity.

It's not that different from refusing to use someone's pronouns. I think that both are a mean way to respond to a fellow human.

Fully embracing the reality of ones own personal life experience is important. This seems to be where you want the conversation to stop. I think I can see the positivity and benefit in stopping there, choosing not to see any possible ugliness beyond.

Maybe that's the bigger question here. Should language be precise, or nice? Or, to the extremes we're seeing here, should language be formed to make certain types of subjects difficult or impossible to present themselves? Maybe freedom of thought, and the ugliness beyond, is something that should only be allowed in ones own head?

> Should language be precise, or nice? [...] Maybe freedom of thought, and the ugliness beyond, is something that should only be allowed in ones own head?

I don't think that asking people to say "died by suicide" rather than "committed suicide" is a question of precision vs niceness. Both are plenty precise, we agree they describe exactly the same IRL event.

I also don't think that asking people to say "died by suicide" rather than "committed suicide" is an affront to freedom of thought, for the same reason.

That said, sure, yes, my parents always told me to "think before you speak" and sometimes "you can think it but don't say it". We all think things that we shouldn't say, usually because saying those things will hurt someone. If you insist on saying something after being informed that it hurts someone (e.g., not using their pronouns, or referring to a painful moment in their life [e.g. the suicide of a loved one] in a way that hurts them) then, yeah, that's kind of the thing my parents tried to teach me not to do.

It's also complicated by cultural factors. The culturally deaf (often written "Deaf") have their own culture -- sign language is a complete and distinct language, there are norms and practices unique to the culture. Acquiring the ability to hear is also the ability to, in effect, leave that culture and acquire the mainstream culture. Many Deaf people do not, in fact, view themselves as disabled or impaired. Particularly those who grew up mostly around Deaf people and who have an entirely Deaf experience in life. Everyone around them seems fine, they have their own distinct culture, etc.

As a consequence, getting an implant as an adult, or allowing your deaf newborn to be implanted, touches issues of social status and identity and politics within the Deaf community.

It doesn't take long for a culturally Deaf person to do a little thought experiment. What if the hearing can one day "solve" deafness in say 98% of children at birth? The cultural Deaf community may well face extinction under those circumstances. There would be no more children learning sign language as their native language, the chain of cultural transmission from deaf parent to deaf child would be broken. It is quite literally the end of their distinct culture and way of life, which they do not view as impaired or lesser.

You can even take this argument a step further. If mainstream society starts pushing and not simply offering cochlear implants to deaf children -- such as by creating a narrative that the Deaf are lesser or impaired in some way -- then that may well constitute a form of cultural genocide, taking the children of a particular culture judged as less or inferior, mutilating them, and forcing them to be raised in a different culture.

I'm not particularly convinced by the more extreme form of the argument, but it has been made, and the argument as a whole in all its various forms, I don't think can be fully dismissed easily. There is a point there.

>Pushing cochlear implants is like genocide on deaf people.

If this is serious, I've now read the dumbest thing I may ever read in my life. People who've been traumatized by rape affirm their lives as rape survivors. Yet, we don't consider preventing rape an attempt at cultural genocide of the rape survivor culture and community. Likewise, combat veterans have their own culture and community. We don't consider preventing war as cultural genocide of veterans.

Call it culture if you'd like, it arises from being injured in some way, or not having an ability. Restoring this ability and preventing the injury is an absolutely good thing. Reframing the community of the disenfranchised as a 'culture' so you can call this benefit 'cultural genocide' is nonsense semantics. Deaf 'culture' dying is as good as people being born with functional hearing.

Article from 2020: https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/why-deaf-people-oppo...

Article from 2017: https://bioedge.org/enhancement/will-curing-the-deaf-lead-to...

It is serious. I think it's an argument that has enough internal sense and structure that it can't just be called a stupid argument and tossed out.

I'm here to explore the ideas around this, not trash nor proselytize any particular idea for the sake of it. You won't get very far by starting with comparing deafness to having been raped or having your leg blown off. Rape survivors are not a distinct cultural group.

Take deafness and ability entirely out of the equation for now.

People who speak sign language as a native language are a distinct cultural group with a long and separate heritage from the hearing world. For example, American Sign Language is related to French Sign Language and the speakers of each can understand each other somewhat. While British Sign Language is totally different and American and British deaf people can't even easily speak to each other in sign, only in writing. There's a whole cultural world there, as vibrant and functional as hearing ones.

They get along fairly well. People born deaf and raised in a deaf community generally have better outcomes socially and economically compared to deaf people raised in isolation in hearing culture. Yes, they cannot hear, but they don't feel they're missing anything and, functionally speaking, they'd survive on their own just fine without hearing.

I was born quite hard of hearing, and I am going deaf as I get older. I was raised hearing. Bitterly ironically, I'm musically talented and it is one of my great pleasures. I am also linguistically talented, particularly with phonetics. (Taught myself in my teens to improve my speech and it became a fascination.) And yet I am losing the capacity to sense those things.

Trust me. I get it. I get it very well. The deaf have no idea what they're missing.

And yet Deaf culture is a precious thing that also deserves to exist.

It is an impasse and a seeming paradox and I don't have an answer. Raise every child hearing and allowing sign and the culture to die out is undesirable just as people who could hear music and speech being unable to hear them is.

Regarding the reasons for this, I'll repost:

Being deaf is an inherently negative aspect. You either have the ability to hear, or you do not. If you do not, it is a dis-ability. No one wants to lose an ability to do something.

Regarding culture, culture is defined as "the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.". A social group of veterans (injured or not) absolutely can be considered equivalent as your usage. Preventing war is a cultural genocide if you consider it that way. You're saying that a culture which arises from suffering, injury, evil and so on deserves preservation by refusing to prevent the evil that causes them. Alcoholics Anonymous has a culture, Gamblers Anonymous, etc.

Yes, it is academic nonsense based on semantics. It doesn't matter if they don't feel they're missing anything - what you've never had you cannot miss. What you've had, lost and coped with you've learned not to miss. No one buys into this pedantry but academics with too much time on their hands.

EDIT: I apologize for "proselytizing" and "trashing" that view. My sister is an ASL teacher and she's made the same points you have to me, so I'm aware of the debate, and so have strong views on the matter. I have heard and considered everything you've said beforehand. I believe this sentiment comes from empathy and affirmation of deaf people as taught by those who are close with that community. Yet, I also believe this view is nonsense that someone outside that context can clearly see.

> What if the hearing can one day "solve" deafness in say 98% of children at birth? The cultural Deaf community may well face extinction under those circumstances.

By this logic, would a cure for cancer be a bad thing too, since then cancer patients would be extinct?

Unlike deafness, cancer tends to be fatal. More appropriate comparisons (though not entirely comparable) would be gender dysphoria, autism, or, if the "gay gene" hypothesis is to be believed, homosexuality.

Quadriplegia also isn't fatal. Should we reject a miracle cure for it too?

I don't think we should reject the creation of a medical cure at all. I'm completely of the view that if an procedure exists to treat/cure a problem (however that's defined to exist) the procedure should be available to the extent the creator is interested in providing it.

However, GP expanded upon a sociological dimension to disabilities and chronic illnesses that isn't usually discussed and considered. When asking "How do they cure it", an important question to consider is "Do they/ Would they ever want a cure and under what corcumstances?"

It's quite the coincidence that deafness was the example used, because the scenario GP describes actually happened once before:

https://www.icphs2019.org/the-marthas-vineyard-deaf-communit...

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