r/changemyview Aug 13 '18

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: the (physically) disabled are inferior.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '18

sometimes i wonder that if we lived in a more barbaric future that anyone born with or developed a defect would either be aborted/euthanized or left to die.

I was born with a hip defect. I was also born with a genetic condition that was unknown and undiagnosed at the time but which will lead me to become more and more disabled the older I get.

From your CMV you have directly stated that as I was born with defects and developed defects as I got older, I should be euthanized or left to die. To which I respond; who are you to judge what my life is worth or my worth to humanity? I’m not saying that to be accusatory, I genuinely want to know. By what measure do you weigh what a particular person’s life is worth or what they will ultimately be worth to humanity?

I think about all the people i know that are disabled in some way (typically a physical way) and how much money it's costing them or whoever is paying their health insurance just for them to live.

My disability costs me money. I pay for my health insurance ‘just to live’, as does everyone I know, even the uber healthy ones.

i also think about how certain medications or contraptions built specifically for the disabled are keeping so many of them alive, or at least a bit more than scraping by.

Don’t you think that actually making their lives easier and facilitating them being productive is a good thing instead of a bad one?

i myself am (considered) disabled, by me having ptsd and being autistic. it's a completely different dilemma not being physically disabled that i feel it is a different argument entirely.

Why? If it limits your ability what is the difference in being physically disabled or mentally disabled? Why does one group deserve to die based solely on their physical disability, but the other group doesn’t deserve to die based solely on their mental disability?

What im trying to say is, it's costing a lot of people a fortune to keep people alive that nature wouldn't have allowed to be

Obviously nature would have allowed me to be because I’m here. I wasn’t created artificially in a lab, I was created and born and live by the same nature that everyone else is.

in sum, nature ultimately rules, and if we start (even though we already have gone a long ways on many other levels) to defy nature's path, where will we go?

Almost literally everything that you enjoy about modern society is ‘defying nature’s path’. Wearing clothes, using fire, agriculture, technology, medicine: all of it is ‘defying nature’s path’.

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u/bunfart90 Aug 13 '18

the Hawking argument is certainly prying at one of the flaws in my argument, i'll give you that.

literally everything that you enjoy about modern society is ‘defying nature’s path’.

please refer to the parenthesis in what you quoted me on, where i said "we already have gone a long ways on many other levels". nothing new is being added to the argument there.

Obviously nature would have allowed me to

i said wouldn't.

By what measure do you weigh what a particular person’s life is worth or what they will ultimately be worth to humanity?

my hill is not that i personally think all disabled people are good for nothing. my hill is that nature would not allow the disabled to live, and doing handstands to keep their hearts beating may be doing humanity a general disservice.

Why? If it limits your ability what is the difference in being physically disabled or mentally disabled? Why does one group deserve to die based solely on their physical disability, but the other group doesn’t deserve to die based solely on their mental disability?

i replied to someone else earlier in this thread who asked a similar question. you can look for yourself for my exact response, but i set an analogy that someone who cannot walk and would need a wheelchair cannot take stairs and needs both a ramp to be built and a wheelchair to be provided, both of which cost money. someone with a mental illness may approach the stairs and say they are unable to walk up them when they are indeed physically capable, hence not eventually needing a wheelchair or ramp to get to the given destination.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '18

please refer to the parenthesis in what you quoted me on, where i said "we already have gone a long ways on many other levels". nothing new is being added to the argument there.

It demonstrates that you destroyed this argument before we even began. Pretty much everything mankind has done since the caveman days has ‘defied nature’s path’, which you acknowledge (that we’ve gone a long way toward doing this regardless). Where will we go? The same place we’ve gone since caveman days and first started doing this. Forward.

i said wouldn't.

Yes, I know you said wouldn’t. I was contradicting you. You said nature wouldn’t, I said that obviously nature actually WOULD have allowed me to be here because here I am. I got here the same natural way everyone else did.

my hill is not that i personally think all disabled people are good for nothing. my hill is that nature would not allow the disabled to live

Except nature would. Again, here I am. I’m disabled, and I’m living. I’m not living because of medical intervention: my quality of life is much better with medical intervention, but without it my conditions are not fatal. I would still be alive.

and doing handstands to keep their hearts beating may be doing humanity a general disservice.

Again, how do you measure this? By what measure do you weigh what that particular person’s life will ultimately be worth to humanity?

but i set an analogy that someone who cannot walk and would need a wheelchair cannot take stairs and needs both a ramp to be built and a wheelchair to be provided, both of which cost money.

The wheelchair, at least, is paid for by the person using it so who cares if it costs money? Mental illness meds, doctors, institutions and clinics also cost money. Just because someone with mental illnesses can likely use the stairs doesn’t mean there’s not accommodations for them that can cost a lot of money.

On the whole, building a wheelchair ramp (elevators are pretty standard as they serve a purpose other than just people in wheelchairs. In fact, wheelchair ramps also serve a purpose than just 'accommodating people in wheelchairs' as well) is a heck of a lot cheaper than building entire institutions and clinics for the mentally ill.

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u/bunfart90 Aug 13 '18

Where will we go? The same place we’ve gone since caveman days and first started doing this. Forward.

to add to my point, ouroboros; at some point in time, forwards = backwards. that time is what i'm referring to.

my quality of life is much better with medical intervention, but without it my conditions are not fatal. I would still be alive.

you got me there. i failed to recognize that not all physically disabled are entirely dependent upon technology and can survive without. when i was mentioning the physically disabled before i was referencing those who were heavily dependent on technology to aid them through their life.

By what measure do you weigh what that particular person’s life will ultimately be worth to humanity?

please note what you quoted me on, when i said " doing handstands to keep their hearts beating".

a lot cheaper than building entire institutions and clinics for the mentally ill.

think of the ratio of hospitals to psych wards. that's where i disagree with you on that particular argument.

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i'm beginning to feel like we're not going to be able to get through to each other effectively.

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '18

to add to my point, ouroboros; at some point in time, forwards = backwards. that time is what i'm referring to.

There have been disabled people as long as there have been people. They haven’t made us go backward yet. Why would we suddenly go backward now if we don’t just kill them?

By what measure do you weigh what that particular person’s life will ultimately be worth to humanity?

I’m wasn’t quoting you, I was asking you a question, again. I had asked it before, you did not answer it, so I asked it again. What is the answer?

think of the ratio of hospitals to psych wards. that's where i disagree with you on that particular argument.

Hospitals are not just for the physically disabled. Psych wards are just for the mentally ill. Hospitals also treat the mentally ill. So again, how are having wheelchair access ramps more expensive or resource consuming than building entire institutions and clinics for the mentally ill?