[R0b0t1]

And what is your point? The practical effect of these ADA trolls is the complete shuttering of useful things that could not be made accessible in a reasonable fashion. E.g. universities have removed websites because they don't have the funding available to make the resources accessible. It's not trivial amounts of money, the case I was remembering was a court ordering the subtitling of years of video courses, ... or their removal.

I really feel for people with disabilities, but there's a heavy profit motive to abuse the ADA, and that's what causes people to hate it. There's other issues as well like rising costs of construction and doing anything productive due to red tape that are no doubt related, but what people see are the ADA trolls.

[ad404b8a372f2b9]

If all that people see are the ADA trolls they need to spend more time looking at their disabled brothers and sisters.

At the end of the day the question is, are we content to let them crawl? Are we content for the public space to be segregated? Would we allow this for our family or ourselves?

If we consider these things unacceptable then we need regulations. Regulations come with drawbacks and avenues for abuse, all of them, but it shouldn't be the primary and prevalent focus when they're put into place to protect marginalized sections of society. In a healthy society, I would expect of a tech forum to mainly be discussing tech tips and methods to comply with these norms. The truth is people don't want to do the minimum work to help these people, western societies are incredibly individualist and every effort or capital spent on helping others is seen as personal injury. It's this mindset that makes it so even in new products and constructions, the simplest norms aren't applied. I think there needs to be a change of mindset, because the first thing that should come to people's minds when reading this article is the social good that will come of it, not the reactionary examples of abuse.

[seanmcdirmid]

The trolls are very visible and could eventually erode support for the ADA in the general public. This is true for any vulnerable population, actually. Asking people to ignore them never works well, there needs to be legislation work that specifically targets them so that the ADA doesn’t lose popularity.

[ad404b8a372f2b9]

I'm not asking people to ignore them, I'm asking for a hierarchy of concerns with regards to the ADA. The first concern being the acknowledgement of the good it does and its necessity.

It's arguable, but in my opinion you've got the chain of causality backwards. People here focus on the trolls because the ADAs popularity is low, they don't like the effort it entails, and they don't like government regulations in general, and they'd just as much not have to apply norms at all.

I can tell you the vast majority of businesses are not ADA compliant and do just fine.

[seanmcdirmid]

The trolls are what make the ADA less popular, I’ve seen it happen in LA (a place where compliance and awareness is high)…some grifter was actively trying to figure out how to lodge an ADA complaint against the bagel shop I was in. It was utterly obvious, and this place, being in LA, had done everything right in terms of accessibility (the doors don’t have to be mechanical, just easy to open and wide enough to get a wheelchair through). You get a few bad actors in an otherwise good thing and they give the entire program a bad reputation.

Now…I don’t quite remember much when the ADA has done good, but I do remember that one troll shopping for a settlement check. This is the popularity problem the ADA faces.

[syshum]

>>because the first thing that should come to people's minds when reading this article is the social good that will come of it

Wishing does not make it so, and human psychology does not work that way and never will. if you continue to base your responses of this flawed view of reality you will continue to be disappointed.

One must plan for how humans actually are, you know reality, not how we wish things were. This is often the problem with regulations, economic policies, etc. People crafting them are crafting them for a population of people that does not actual exist, so they always fail

Humans are tribal, that tribe is generally viewed to max out at about 100 people or so, any group that is larger than that is going to be an abstract concept not something that can be held deeply personal. For a pure altruist motive that is the target, that is why local community groups are far more effective at charity than national programs, the people are more personally connected.

>>western societies are incredibly individualist

Through out history collectivist societies always fail because they are incompatible with human psychology. A collectivist society must stay small, it could never be the size of a city let alone a nation state. Individualist pursuits are the best way to organized large groups.

Collectivism works at a small, family or tribe level, not for a mass population

[ad404b8a372f2b9]

I don't know if you intend it that way, but it comes off very patronizing. You cannot ascribe the status quo to human nature, and paint people who seek to change it as naive idealists.

Society is changed by writing laws and changing minds. Cultures evolve, people acquire new perspectives on issues based on their peers and the discussions they partake in. Regulations are being written and discussions are being held as to their moral importance. No one is content with wishing on a star for a better world.

As for collectivism, you only need to look across the Atlantic for examples of functional western societies which strike a different balance than America between individualism and collectivism.

You can also look at the past, back when black people weren't allowed in white businesses and black schoolgirls had to be escorted by the state to be allowed to attend school. People didn't ascribe to a fatalist view back then, they believed things could change and they fought for it.

[syshum]

>You can also look at the past, back when black people weren't allowed in white businesses and black schoolgirls had to be escorted by the state to be allowed to attend school.

I always find this argument ironic given the Jim Crow laws you are referring to were government regulations that required said discrimination, they were collectivist policies being imposed upon individuals. Would discrimination still have occurred absolutely, but it would not have been as wide spread nor as abusive. Only government action can cause the kind of oppression seen, only government has that monopoly of violence to allow such perversion of morality, that is the hazard of putting your faith in government.

Just like the EU nations you admire so much you only seem to want to ever talk about the positives of this "balance" of regulation and never talk about the enumerable negatives that come from those policies

Do you believe the EU is rainbows and unicorns and none of the their policies have any downsides, that the American model is 100% evil, and the EU model is 100% good? are you that much of a "naive idealist".

I do not claim the American model is perfect, though I am pretty sure we will differ on where the root cause of most of the problems are (hint I blame federal overreach for most of America's problems)

>>Society is changed by writing laws and changing minds. Cultures evolve, people acquire new perspectives on issues based on their peers and the discussions they partake in

Culture evolves yes, and laws always follow culture, not the other way around. you can not regulate ethics or morality, and attempts and trying always fail.

That is my point. The regulations that work, that do not have massive corruption, or massive amounts of unintended consequences or regulations that only need to control a small portion of outliers in society. to prevent actions that are viewed by the vast vast majority (not just a plurality, or even a simply majority) as abuse.

When "democracy" passes laws and regulations based on plurality, or simple majority you run into all kinds of problems, these are compounded even further if the regulation are acted via fiat authority by an unelected administrative state.

[ad404b8a372f2b9]

The fact that discriminatory laws exist does not invalidate the usefulness of the rule of law. Jim Crow was very much in line with the cultural beliefs of the population. Culture does not absolutely precede law, law and culture feed each other. A recent example are the rates of acceptance of gay marriage before and after the laws passed.

>> Do you believe the EU is rainbows and unicorns and none of the their policies have any downsides, that the American model is 100% evil, and the EU model is 100% good? are you that much of a "naive idealist".

I see now you were not being patronizing by accident, but are willfully insulting. Painting a caricature of my argument does not strengthen yours.

[R0b0t1]

I'm just telling you what a fair number of people think. Separate what I am telling you from what I may believe.

[ClumsyPilot]

'It's not trivial amounts of money, the case I was remembering was a court ordering the subtitling of years of video courses'

Why can't a university afford subtitles, this is not a tall order, its a job a part-time first year student could do.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

Then go after ADA trolls, instead of advocating effectively that disabled people (26% of the population) should just accept dehumanization and utter humiliation through no fault of their own and that they cannot change simply because society considers it too expensive for them to have basic dignity.