moriartythecrowned:
michaeldirnt:
littlemissmutant:
I love this because this is the argument every bioethicist makes about why people with disabilities shouldn’t exist.
“They won’t be Beethoven or Monet! They won’t write beautiful poetry! They won’t excel in a sport! Those things are not options for them!”
A) you’re wrong but also B) your argument is easily demolished with a two-word rebuttal delivered by a fictional robot
the funny thing is that Beethoven was disabled
So was Monet, he was near-sighted and his eyesight continued to get worse, and he was basically blind by his death. He painted his Water Lilies paintings after he lost his eyesight almost completely.
In my own field - two of the most prolific mathematicians were both disabled.
The mathematician who wrote the most pages of math, Leonhard Euler, did most of his work after he went blind. He laid the foundations for so many whole new areas of math.
The mathematician who wrote the most math papers (not pages), Paul Erdős, was never able to live independently, manage his own finances, drive, prepare his own food, or do wash. It took him a very long time to learn to tie his shoes. But he was a brilliant mathematician - he just went from place to place doing math with people and living with them while they worked on papers together and they helped him with his daily activities. I suspect that he was autistic - if not autistic, something along those lines.
Not that disabled people have to do things like this to be worth it. Sometimes I feel not much more capable than Erdős, but my math ability is nowhere near his, and that is okay too.
But yeah, let’s not assume we can’t do stuff either!
(Also, note that these two mathematicians both succeeded because of societal support. Euler had enough money and fame by the time he went completely blind, that he could hire a lot of people to read to him, and transcribe what he was saying, etc. Erdős’ math skills were valued enough that people were willing to help him with life skills in order to have the privilege of doing math with him. But everyone deserves that kind of support, regardless of whether they are rich and famous or whether they have a skill that society deems valuable.)