To be fair, you tried to find out "how society treats disabled people", then chose cancelling an internet subscription as the bellwether; This is painful and anger inducing when you aren't disabled.
The idea that because someone is inconvenienced they are somehow not "participating in society" is absurd. It was an unfortunate situation, it is bad the person felt embarrassed for a disability, but the solution is not to force regulation and maintenance costs on everyone - that is a road to bankruptcy.
I'm making up for fact that, but for a twist of fate, it could have been me sitting in that wheelchair. It could be me blind, browsing the web with a screen reader and a hope that the websites I visit aren't an incomprehensible mess of divs. Which only happens because somebody was too lazy to spend 5 minutes googling how to style a button with CSS.
I believe its worth burning some of society's resources inefficiently in exchange for evening out the scales of chance a little. Its the same reason I think everyone has a right to free healthcare. (Which is completely non-controversial here in australia.)
Call me names all day if you need to. I stand by my politics.
Trying to navigate the world with a disability is an often frustrating and frightening experience. Social norms are also often frightening and frustrating and inconsistently enforced.
As the world population has grown and the internet has facilitated more ability to interact with diverse populations, the opportunity for such friction has grown as well.
I appreciated reading your introspective comment where you shared that you have more questions than answers.
"To keep reading this story, get the free app or log in."
Stuff like this should be banned from HN.
Reading this as a person with disability leave a bad taste in my mouth. I wonder what people like this would do if faced with a real lifelong challenge?
I have to wonder if I am just having a disability exploited. I think I really have trouble avoiding these ragebate stories. It's just too tempting to get in, get a rage fix and move on.
Coming from somebody who is disabled: this is what life is like for a disabled person.
There are many, many indignities that we encounter, even nearly constantly due to the way society ignores our needs.
If you go and check out some disabled activists' Twitter accounts, you may be shocked at the anger and the lack of "decency". But, put yourself in their shoes, and realize that they have been forced to deal with systematic and near-constant indignities, and many of them have been forced to fight for their mere existence as human beings.
I'm handicapped (different issue). I spend a LOT of time online and do a lot via internet. For someone who has physical limitations, being able to do things online is a godsend. My life would basically not be manageable without it. So I think if you have a physical limitation of a sort where the web is basically saying "fuck you and the horse you road in on", I imagine that's a real serious problem. I imagine it's about like being invisibly restricted to the Dark Ages while everyone around you enjoys modern life. I would probably be postal rather quickly.
Making the choice to deliberately exclude people with disabilities, even though there's a nearly thirty year old law mandating accessibility is treating people with contempt.
This is the exact stupid response I mentioned earlier: “be glad you’re not disabled!” How about you get a real argument instead of just shaming people?
> I've seen so many interesting/disappointing behaviors from people when it comes to people with disabilities.
The city I live in had a systematic problem with loud speakers announcements on trains. Blind people rely on these announcements to know which station they are at. And trains speaker systems were mostly broken or heavily distorted on nearly every carriage.
The remarkable thing about this was that the only blind person making complaints was an Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner, who made a written complaint (to himself) each time he found it hard to get off at the right station while going to his job [1].
I share a house with my physically disabled sister who deals with similar problems nearly everyday. My sister was lucky enough to find employment with a government agency that takes it's responsibilities towards disabled people seriously, but many disabled people still disengage from society because of the extreme hassle involved in something so simple for the rest of us, like getting to work.
You are interpreting ability as a social gesture, taking disability as an insult. Thusyou not participating in the part of society that is learning is a good thing.
I am also disabled and it's a farce to pretend that it isn't abnormal and negative. We're in the era of pretending we don't know things we know and its asinine. I really hope modernity survives this era of enforced stupidity.
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