Thread by @FoldableHuman

One of the more interesting cultural discussions out there that I spend a lot of time thinking about in other contexts is the difference between deaf and Deaf.

For those not in the know, deaf, lower-case d, is used to discuss the physiological condition of hearing loss, while Deaf refers to the unique cultural existence and expression of people who are deaf, in short physically deaf vs. culturally Deaf.

So sign language is something that you learn, a cultural expression, it's not something you merely acquire by losing your hearing. Many elderly folk are deaf, but losing their hearing late in life have no foot in the cultural world of Deafness.

Emergent from this is a robust body of literature discussing the cultural aspect of Deafness both in relation to itself and in relation to mainstream society, and in turn the very concept of "disability."

Within that is the argument that the primary vector of "disability" from deafness comes not from the condition itself but the structure of society itself, that the disability if overwhelmingly contextual, but the context is "society is structured orthogonal to deafness"

It's then typically demonstrated by illustration of Deaf culture that it's entirely possible to design a society, from infrastructure to services to communications, that doesn't make use of audio at all, and functions just fine.

This is then the radical question that can be extended to other forms of disability: what portion of the actual, life-impacting elements of the condition are endemic, and which are merely the byproduct of a society that is at odds with the condition?

Now, the common counterpoint is usually something like "well what if tiger attack?" or some other specific, crafted scenario where we might as well say "well what if gamma ray burst and your weak human eyes can't see it and step out of the way?"

No one is arguing that there aren't observable limitations that come from being deaf, but a society that was entirely Deaf would simply work around it, much the same as we somehow manage to exist at present despite not being able to see gamma rays.

This is where you get into the Deaf community's opposition to the concept of "cure", but, in turn, the existence of devices like cochlear implants put the Deaf community at the actual cutting edge of transhumanism.

Indeed the existential philosophic questions of cybernetics are a present reality that the Deaf community is living, and, shocking no one, it's a discussion with no easy answers because it turns out humans and societies are messy things and we have weird relationships to them.

We would not, after all, frame a cybernetic that allowed one to see gamma rays as "curing gamma blindness", so why not then engage with hearing augmentation as a similar extension of the senses rather than "cure"

But, to bring this back a couple steps, this represents something of an existential question to Deaf culture, and literally every "but what if cyborg?" question posed by cyberpunk is a real, present question facing Deaf communities.

What happens to Deaf art, language, and networks in a world where the defining characteristic of Deafness can be erased by technology? Who gets access to that technology? How do we ensure justice for those technology leaves behind by will or access or happenstance?

I feel I need to be more explicit about "ensuring justice": a society that's already orthogonal to Deafness and often outright hostile, like our society is, is likely to use the existence of augmentative technology as a cudgel against those who can't or won't make use of it.

This typically takes the form "why do you need [accommodation]? [Technology] exists."

This forms the argument for limiting new accommodations, if not outright dismantling existing ones.

This is not just a philosophical question, it happens all the time.